Answers: Lye Heavy, Alkanet/ Ratanjot for colouring.
Here's what happened.... I wanted to
- use up some of my soap shavings that I have been collecting.
- throw together a new scent, maybe using up some of the Essential Oils that I need to use up before their due by date!
- try out some new mould lining paper.
- work with Alkanet/ Ratanjot in something new to see how it would come out this time... I love how it surprises me...
Soap Shavings - As for the soap shaving part, that was the easiest and most successful. No problems, except when I was pouring into 3 moulds I had lined and it only filed 2? What the ((!!))? Could I have mis-measured........?
New Scent - Awesome. Pink Grapefruit, Ho Wood and Vetiver..... nicer than I could have imagined and oh-so-intense becuase of mis-measuring....
Mould lining paper - found a fabulous new paper for lining the moulds! Recently the supplier of my previous mould lining paper changed their sizes and it made it twice as hard to work with. So I have been looking for another option for some time. I have even been looking for silicone liners (my dream) but am not prepared to buy ready made wooden moulds with fitted silicone liners as I don't want to change the size of my soaps. If anyone knows of who I can get custom silicone liners from, please pass on details!! Then i found this awesome post: http://innerearthsoaps.blogspot.com/2013/06/lining-your-mould-with-contact-paper.html and my husband hunted down similar looking paper. Didn't really know what contact paper was in Spanish, so he brought back 3 different types. I lined 3 moulds, each one with a different new mould lining paper. One of them came out perfect!!! And the beauty of it is that the paper is so sturdy, I don't even have to use tape. It just stands up itself!! So thank you Inner Earth for the tip!!
(Here - my old paper in the background and new paper in the foreground)
Alkanet/ Ratanjot - As the pink grapefruit oil is so orange, it must have reacted with the alkanet to produc green-blue.... now turned army green. It is also the olive oil I work with.... I just can't get a pretty purple any more because of the deep colour of the organic extra-virgin olive oil I soap with. Oh well...I kind of already new that.
So I picked up a great new scent, a wonderful new lining paper and reinforced what I already knew about Alkanet/ Ratanjot.
The only real disappointing thing about this batch was that I won't be able to use it as soap as I mismeasured... I looked at the 1-mould column when I was measuring some of the oils instead of the 3-mould column... so VERY LYE HEAVY.
What will I do now with it? Grate it into laundry soap.
Happy soaping, Happy experimenting everyone!!
xo Jen
