So, I made lotion for the first time.  I used a super simple recipe from thedishforum.com, which is a fabulous place to get information regarding soap making and other bath and body products. 

It was really cool and easy to do!  This particular recipe called for among other things olive oil and honey, so it's OOH Lotion!    The recipe also called for cider vinegar.  Well,  the finished product still smells of vinegar (which I was warned about) with a little honey.  The recipe had an alternative, using citric acid instead of the vinegar.  The vinegar smell doesn't last on the skin, but I think next time I'll use the citric acid instead.  That way I'm hoping I'll just smell honey.   The lotion came out really creamy and thick.  So cool that with the right ingredients, oil and water emulsify to make lotion!  I did put a preservative into the lotion to keep the germies away.  Neato!

I also tried coconut oil in my hair.  Interesting…
So I melted coconut oil and fingered into my hair.  I left it on for a few hours while I did other things.  I took a shower to wash the coconut oil out.  I wasn't sure how strenuously I should try to shampoo the oil out.  The oil also made the shower floor a bit slick.  I blow dried my hair.  Well, it seems a bit softer.  I think I'll have to try this again to really see how this works.  I also have heard avocado oil is good for the hair.  I may have to try that one as well. 

Eh, it's all about experimentation and having some fun.  I have all of this oil and butters that I use for soap making why not try out other uses for them. 

I tried water marbling nail art.  I've seen some videos on YouTube.  It was a little messy and it didn't quite turn out the way I wanted, but I think it was OK for the first time.  Kind of a neat look.

It's been 6 days since making the Key Lime Soap Pie.  I used Vanilla White-Color Stabilizer from Natures Garden Wholesale Candle and Soap Supplies. 

Interesting…  So the soap has discolored in areas that were exposed to air right after I poured the soap.  The areas that were up against the mold have not discolored.  The cut surfaces have not discolored as well.  The discoloration is pretty light, a light tan color.  So, overall the vanilla color stabilizer seems to be working, sort of.  I'll have to keep an eye on it and see if it discolors any more.  I suppose if this is the most it's going to discolor I'll only use the color stabilizer when I use a log mold.  That would limit the surfaces that touch air when I pour. 

I've made more salt bars.  I made the same recipe 100% coconut oil at 20% superfat.   Last time I used table salt at 75% of the weight of oils.   This time I used fine grain sea salt at 100% weight as the oil or 1:1.  Coconut oil is one of the few oils, once saponified, that can withstand
high salt concentration and still create nice lather. 

So here's how my 1:1 salt weight to oil weight soap.  It's definitely less bubbly than my prior soap bar with less salt.  I think next time I'll go back to 75%

Here's how it lathered.  This is my first soap video!

Couldn't wait!  I just cut the Key Lime Soap Pie!  That was only about 4 hours after making it.  The soap heated up, but I just left it out uncovered.  I waited until it cooled down before I popped it out of the mold.  Never thought I'd be able to cut it that quickly, but it came out great!

Here's a slice.

Super cute!  Right now they are about 3.75 oz per slice.  Which will probably cure out to 3.5 oz in the end.  I think next time though I will add more piping around the edge and less in the center.  I like the piping to look more built up along the outside.  Yay!  OK, now we'll see how well the vanilla white color stabilizer will work as the slices cure.

I made a Key Lime Soap Pie! 

This Key Lime Pie fragrance has vanilla in it so would turn brown, but I used a Vanilla White-Color Stabilizer.  I'm hoping that it will keep the soap from turning brown. We'll see.  It smells really good.  Lime with a creamy vanilla sugar.  I think I would have preferred a more tart lime smell, but it's still good.  I used green and little blue mica for color and I swirled it with the uncolored batter for the main pie; then the uncolored batter piped on top.  I used one of my silicone round cake molds.  This is just under 3 lbs of soap (a tad over 2 lbs of oils).  I'll pop this out of the mold tomorrow.

I was on one of the soap forums and discovered a member was selling some of her items.  SCORE!

What is all of this?  Well, the two molds on the left are Woodfields molds.  They are silicone lined wood molds.  The top one is a two one pound double mold and the bottom is a 4 lb log mold.  I have been looking at these Woodfield molds as well as similar Uplands molds (out of business) for a long time!  This seller was getting rid of her gently used Woodfields!  Yay!

The white divided tray mold is an HDPE mold from Soap Hutch.  This one holds 4.5-8 pounds depending how deep I pour the slab.  I was looking at these as well, but these are really expensive, so never thought I'd ever get one.  Yay!

The black item on the right is a Commercial Quick Cutter soap slicer from For Crafts Sake affectionately known as a “Tank”.  I have drooled over this one, but never thought I'd ever get one.  For one thing I'd be locked into only one width of soap cutting.  This one is set at one inch increments.  But this opportunity wasn't to be missed.  The seller hadn't even used it yet, so it IS new!  Yay!!

If I had purchased all of these items new it would have been ludicrously expensive!!  But second hand these were a sweet deal!  

Love them, love them, love them!!  I can't wait to use them!

No soaping this weekend.  I'm out of lye.  No lye, no soap.

I guess I could do some MP soap or make some balms…  Or just veg out…

My fingers are doing some internet shopping though.  Ordered some more Coconut oil.  Purchased more fragrance oils.  The path to soaping supply explosion is made up of 1 oz fragrance bottles!

I keep wanting to try treating my hair with coconut oil.  I hear coconut oil is great for hair.  Like a hot oil treatment.  Melt some in a bowl in the microwave, then finger through hair and let sit for some time. Wash out.  I'm curious.  Maybe I'll try that this weekend.

I was thinking of maybe trying out a soap “pie”.  I would use only one of my round cake silicone pans, then pipe the top.  It would look more like a pie, cut it into wedges like pie slices.  Hmmm, maybe.

Oh I just saw this photo of a Dragonscale weave chainmail collar necklace at Urbanmaille.com (click on this link).  God, look how it just drapes on the neck!  Sleek and bold.  For a 16 inch collar it takes over 3000 rings and a little less than a POUND of silver!  Weighty!!  I've made Dragonscale bracelets in the past and I love them!

These are my Dragonscale bracelets. This one is all sterling

This one has colored anodized niobium rings and sterling rings. 

The bracelets are weighty and bold.  Wow to have a whole collar!  It's gorgeous!  Hmmm….  maybe I need to get back to making jewelry. 

OK I cut up my Mimosa cake.  Looks great!!  I forgot to leave aside some natural color soap to pipe the top, so I just piped using the same orange color.  I cut them into rectangular slices, but I did do a couple as a wedge just to see; they are right angle wedges instead of the equilateral wedges that a round cake would give.  The layers stuck this time.  I did gel…

which brings me to the not so good news.  I totally forgot that Champagne FO has a flash point of 140s and the Orange Peel FO is probably even lower than that!  Citrous fragrances are notorious as faders.  I have been trialing using less fragrance for my soaps.  I have used Champagne in the past and used 1 oz per pound of oil (ppo) and it is really strong in the soap. I even gelled that one.  So I have been trying out 0.75oz ppo.  In this Mimosa soap I used 1/3 Champagne and 2/3 Orange Peel. 

Well, the cakes look fab, but the really juicy fizzy orange smell has faded.  It's still there, but when I compare it to the cupcakes and purse soap from yesterday that I did not force gel upon the fragrance is not as strong.  The Champange FO might have been strong enough to withstand gel, but there was less of it than the Orange Peel FO.   And I think much of the Orange Peel burned off during gel.  We'll see how the fragrance holds up as it cures.  Maybe this will be good for people who like light fragrance. 

And the experimental process continues.  Next time I do a cake I definitely will stick to this rectangular cake style rather than the round.  I like it.  This cake probably weighs 3.5 lbs.  My round cake weighed 7 lbs.  If I try this combo of Champagne and Orange Peel again I won't CPOP, so no gel.  I'm hoping that the layers will continue to stick together because the layers were matte and not smooth as glass like the round layers that came out of the round silicone mold.  I think also I will need to add a deeper orange color to the soap.  It's a peachy orange color and I think I want it a bit darker and more orange.

*****

I also made a soap fragranced with Jasmine-Honey, which is similar to Lush's Flying Fox (so I've read).  I love how this turned out! Natural with a purple pencil line, green, then natural dolloped on top.

I love how sharp the line turned out.  I gelled this one too because of the pencil line. I have heard that if you do this (which is lightly sprinkle powder color on top of one color than pour the next color) you should gel  so that the layers stick.  Otherwise the layers could fall apart.  The layers could also fall apart if you sprinkle too much powder color.  But I think I did a good job.  The fragrance withstood the gel is strong at 0.75 oz ppo.  I also made a couple more flower soaps with bears (you can see in the background) with the extra soap.   I love those bear soap embeds.  They are so cute.  I love how they look on top of the flower molds.  Wouldn't those be great as a baby shower gift for the parents or as a favor from a baby shower or a baby's first birthday!  I'll have to make some more.

I just unmolded and cut the Love Spell soaps.

I love how all the colors came out.  The embeds came out good as well.  Each slice has a heart and star in it, in whole or partial.  Depending on where it was cut in along the mold you can see a star, a heart a little bit of both, or nothing.  even the ones with nothing will reveal a heart or star as it gets used.  The extra bits of soap that I plopped into the flower mold came out cute as well.  The ducky is glow in the dark plastic.  Looks like it's floating on colored marshmallow fluff!  Same with the bear.  The bear is actually CP soap as well so all of that soap can be used.   The fragrance is sweet and fruity.  It's supposed to be a dupe of a Victoria's Secret fragrance I think.

I also unmolded the soap out of the purse silicone mold.  I wasn't sure if it was going to turn out.  There's a different flower design on each side.  It's got a lot of detail.  There are stitching lines in the design. 

And for perspective on the size of this cute soap:

I made my this particular recipe a really hard bar so maybe that's why it came out so well.  This is a really great mold, but it's pricey so I only have one.  That doesn't lend itself for production work in CP.  It's better suited for making MP soap, as MP can be unmolded much quicker than CP soap making. 

I'm just about ready to 'frost' the soap cake I made yesterday.  Here are the layers I'll be frosting.  Not very exciting right now.