Soapy Friday: I'm Gelling (Sort of), Are You?

Happy Friday everyone. Posts for Ye' Olde Blog will most likely be a once-a-week thing for the next couple of months due to all the chaos of moving. We start packing this weekend.

Miss Thang is being chill, though. I know they know something is going on.

Chillin' Thang

It's Cherry Blossom time here up in D.C.! The trees are at their "peak" over today and the next day or two. It's fun to go see this amazing display of beauty....once. In order to make the most of it and the crowds, you really need to get there before sunrise. We did this the first year we moved up here.

Cherry Blossoms in D.C.

Getting excited about prospects for our new "home". It's a rental, but has very high potential for us to buy if we decide we like it and the neighborhood down the road. I mean, look at this basement! It's finished and it's ALL MINE! No carpets = a perfect soaping studio.

So many possibilities!

Speaking of soap...

I remade some of my 100% olive oil soap (aka Castille soap) and used tumeric to color it. I try to keep my olive oil soaps all natural using only essential oils (EOs) and natural colorants.

The EO blend I mixed as called "Sunset" and was a beautiful blend of grapefruit, tangerine, ylang ylang, litsea cubeba, and rose geranium. I wanted to color the soap a sort of orange/rust to compliment the citrus notes in the EO blend and look what happened:

I'm gelling...sort of

This is called a gel ring. When a soap "gels" after it is made, it heats-up either naturally or is forced to heat-up using a heating pad, insulation, or even an oven. "Gelling" a soap contributes to more saturated colors and less chance for soda ash. Soap crafters either prefer to gel all the way or not at all, as a partial gel (like in my soap) can be distracting and take away from a beautiful soap design.

Neither a good mother, nor from Marseille

In my case, I think it contributes and makes it more interesting. I tried to gel this soap by putting it on a pre-heated heating pad and then turned it off, as I was afraid it would overheat. I guess I should have left it on.

BTW, "Savon de la Bonne Mere Marseille" means "Soap from the Good Mother of Marseille" which I am neither. I need to make my own stamp.

Soapy Friday - Fall Leaves and Citrus Energy

Happy Friday everyone!

There wasn't much going on this week due to me waiting to see how my last couple of batches of soap perform after they cure...

But first, fall leaves in July! Can you believe this?

October in July?

It's been so dang hot and dry that our tulip poplar trees have already shed 10-15% of their leaves due to heat stress and lack of water. Usually, they start to drop a few leaves here-and-there in July, but I've never seen this much!

The veggie garden is starting to pick up, so I guess it's a good thing that I'm taking a small break from soap (sort of).

Maters are coming it

On to soap, shall we?

Like I said, not much happened this week, but I did manage to make a double batch of what I am calling "Citrus Energy" olive oil soap. I usually make my olive oil soaps 100% natural and only use essential oils, but I didn't have enough orange and grapefruit essential oils to make this batch, so I subbed in some "Energy" fragrance oil from Bramblerberry.com. It smells just like orange essential oil.

Waiting for release

I usually can unmold in a day, maybe two, but when I tried to unmold this morning, the bottoms were still a little soft, so I am going to let it sit for another day or two. I might have used too much fragrance oil, which upped my total liquid amount and is making the soap a little softer.

I did try another lotion recipe that contained only 7 ingredients: water, olive oil, emulsifying wax, vegetable glycerin, vitamin-e oil, a preservative, and fragrance oil. I liked how it turned out and made 5 sample bottles, which were given away to friends. I've been using the one bottle and I really like it. I made it with an "Anjou Pear and Lime" fragrance oil blend, which makes me think of summer and fall at the same time.

Of all the soapy things I make, lotion is the easiest and gives me the fastest gratification...basically it's ready to use right after you mix it and put it in the bottle (after cooling).

That's all for this week, friends!