Showing posts with label Mediterranean Lavender. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mediterranean Lavender. Show all posts

Sunday, 16 May 2010

Mediterranean Lavender

I have been working on a series of soaps that will be Mediterranean soaps, with mostly ingredients from the area where I live. The first soap in the series is Mediterranean Orange and I have created a soap I am really pleased with. The second soap in the series is Mediterranean Lavender (including wild lavender hand-picked by me) and I am still creating it. I am certain I want Lavender & Goat milk in this soap. I have done seven different experimental batches, trying to achieve the perfect one... I think I got the scent. I think I got the recipe. But the look? I have struggled batch after batch. I have been experimenting with Alkanet powder (as I only use natural colour) and found that Alkanet doesn't seem to work well with goat milk. Every time I add alkanet with goat milk to a soap, I get a muddy greeny soupy grey. So I came up with a layer idea, part with goat milk and the other part without. But with the recipe I most like for this soap, I can only get BLUE instead of PURPLE. As my favourite of the seven batches has a blue layer, I may give up the hunt for purple, and just accept my blue lavender soap...I would be very grateful for some input, so I ask 3 questions:
1) Do you like the idea of a blue Lavender soap or should it be purple?
2) Which of the following soaps do you most like the look of?
3) Do you have any suggestions?

Batch 5

I put this batch first here(although it is the fifth I made in the series) as it is my favourite look of the seven batches so far, but I am still open to suggestions. The bottom layer has no goat milk, the top does. Notice a little "wave-like" shape in the blue... I think it is because I made the top layer right after the first and poured in onto the first layer within an hour... so that when I poured, the bottom layer was still liquidy and the cool wavey indent happened!

Batch 1

This was my first attempt... please note the soupy grey-green... and the white spots? I do not think they are lye bits but not really sure. I think they may be the Aloe Vera (from my garden... picked... squeezed and blended by me...) which I didn't blend well enough? This is the only batch of the seven which has aloe vera.

Batch 2

I didn't add colour to this one... just lavender. I kind of like its simplicity. It is an option as well....

Batch 3

More grey than green but still not pretty. Also... note the little white specs? Not the same specs as batch 1 - I have had these before - I believe they are bubbles?

Batch 4

Note muddy greeny grey again. Uggg. This is a 2-oil soap. I like the texture, not the colour.

Batch 6

I like this one too, but I think I prefer the colour on the bottom... and there are the little white specs in the blue layer again - bubbles?

Batch 7

This one could have turned out awesome! It looks similar to my favourite, but, I had a disaster happen... bottom layer went fine. But I started getting into a rush with the top layer and I had 2 disasters - Just when I was about to begin mixing, I realized it wasn't plugged in. I bent down to plug it in and the mixer tipped over along with the pot with the mix in it! I decided to just keep going with what was left and I finished it, poured it on and accepted that it was just going to be a smaller experimental batch. Then I realized that I had a pot of the solid oils left over! I had forgotton to put the solid (melted) oils into the olive oil!! So basically the top part is very lye concentrated pure castille soap. Notice the crumbling in the photo.

Look forward to your feedback!!