Goat Milk Soap Colours

I keep hearing that goat milk soaps all turn tan coloured.

Mine don’t. Some turn tan... others turn yellowy... others are creamy white. I can’t quite figure out why some turn out a nicer white than others!


These three are all no-palm soaps. In all three soaps, 100% of the liquid in the white/tan part is goat milk. I froze it first and added the lye to the frozen goat milk.

After all my experimenting for a great palm-free soap, my favourite recipe so far is the one with the heart in the middle. It's smooth, creamy, bubbly, sudsy, long-lasting, hard, the smell stays & it cleans well. I am so pleased!! I am now using this recipe as my base recipe, with variations. So for these three soaps, you can notice that the heart one is the whitest. The only difference is that for the liquid oils, it has Olive, Castor and SWEET ALMOND oil. The other two only Olive and Castor oil. The bottom one looks more yellowy, the one on the left looks more tan. The only difference between these two is that the one on the left has more Castor Oil.

So, it appears that sweet almond oil makes for whiter goat milk soap, and the more castor oil, the more tan coloured?


The middle one is the heart one


I have added another soap here. The top one is one of my older soaps and has palm oil, but again you can see that it appears whiter, and it has Sweet Almond Oil.

I have been told that Titanium Dioxide produces a nice white, and is natural. I actually have purchased some but have not found I have needed to use it yet.

Any comments on goat milk soap colour or Titanium Dioxide or anything at all welcome!

xoxo

Zen Soaping

Zen Soaping & Not-So-Zen Soaping

This soap all began on a wonderfully relaxing no-plan Sunday morning. My darlings were sleeping. I was inspired... An adaptation to my Aloe Green Clay soap... with Tea Tree & Eucalyptus EO blend this time as a friend of mine wanted a one of my facial soaps but with Tea Tree and Becky at http://thesoapsister.blogspot.com/ was making something similar… we may do a swap! It was all going so smoothly until...

The Not-So-Zen Part
• The phone rang as I was pouring the Castor oil into the liquid oil mixture and I poured too much!!! Scooped out some oils to compensate, but it wouldn’t have just been the castor oil!!
• Got on my computer when waiting for the lye to cool, completely forgot about it and the oils were heating and got left cooking on the stove for ½ hour!!!
• The scale cut out on me (batteries went!) when I was measuring the Aloe Vera, so the first bit was measured correctly, the last bit was a guestimate??!!
• Mixed all the at trace ingredients together (Aloe Vera squeeze out from my plant, Green Clay & Avocado Oil) and tried to blend but it all just got stuck in one big glop in the hand mixer… so I added the Eos and they were too watery and wouldn’t blend well... Big gloppy mess.

The Zen Part
Then the evening, as I was catching up on some of the blogs I follow, I came across a brilliant tutorial by Sergio from http://enjaboname.blogspot.com/. He stressed the importance of putting on music through the process and being relaxed, even right through to the cutting. So... for the next part of this soap, the cutting, I though I would try it. For some reason, I guess it is our busy lives, I am usually rushed through the process. My darlings were out.. my honey at the driving range.. my daughter at Ballet... So instead of doing a quick cut so that I could have the finished product right away... I put on some of my favourite music. Sergio suggested classical music. I actually put on Dave Matthews “One Sweet World” and “Crash Into Me” and just settled in, sat down in a comfy chair, and took ages to cut the soap. I got so into it that it was the most pleasurable experience cutting a soap I have ever had. They came out very nicely cut and I love this soap specially now. Each soap is a memory, isn’t it?

I would like to continue this new part of my process... the music… the being in the moment and thoroughly loving each second... Here’s to Zen soaping!

Lemon Poppyseed

I know...I know... not the most original soap... everyone seems to have a Coffee Kitchen Hand soap (I do and I really like it!), a Honey Oatmeal soap (I do and I am still experimenting with getting the perfect one) and a Lemon Poppyseed soap. I tried Orange poppyseed, but I didn't like it as much. I have been frustrated in my experiments with citrus soaps because I couldn't get the Essential Oils to stay. But this one... FINALLY! I seemed to have found a natural colour I am really pleased with, and the Essential Oil combination smells very lemony and seems pretty strong right now. The colourant is Carrot Tissue Oil that I bought from Gracefruit. I added just a few grams at trace and got this yellow I really like. The Essential Oil combo is Litsea Cubeba (May Chang) from Fresholi, Lemon & Lemongrass. I used my favourite no-palm recipe, adapted slightly. Now I just have to wait till it fully cures to see if the Essential Oils stick!

Cinnamon Oats Scrub

Cinnamon for colour...Oats for exfoliation... loaded with Olive Oil, and also Almond Oil, Coconut Oil, Castor Oil & Shea Butter. Sweet & spicy Essential Oil combo. After lots of experimenting, I have finally come up with a Palm Oil-Free soap that I really love. This soap has been one of my most popular but the base recipe had palm oil & this is the first time I have made it without. Even better!

Soap Moulds – IKEA

One of the first and very important factors to consider when creating soap is Shape & Size, in other words – MOULDS.

I tried ice-cube moulds, I tried silicon baking moulds, I had a wooden mould made by a carpenter, then I struck gold at IKEA one day with my Molger Moulds. As I found them in the bathroom section, they are probably meant for organization and storage in the bathroom but they are AWESOME soap moulds and very economical. The three moulds together in this picture cost between 7 and 8€ total.


The smallest of the moulds, an excellent experimental batch mould, makes three soaps 81mm across, between 50mm and 60mm height (depending how you want them) and the soaps in this picture are about 26mm thick, but you could make thinner or thicker soaps. None of mine are the same as I hand cut them. The soap you see in this picture is a variation of my beer, egg & honey shampoo bar. This one has goat milk, egg & honey and something weird happened in the middle, darker and speckled, as you can see in the photo. If you have any ideas on how to correct that, suggestions welcome!


The middle mould makes about 6 (and a small slice) soaps but again, it all depends on how thick you want them.


The longest mould makes between 9 and 11 soaps.


My only issue... I do love these moulds but here I go “tweaking” as my blog buddy at http://thesoapsister.blogspot.com/ calls it. In trying out other soaps, I realize I prefer smaller width soap. I am not sure I like mine 81mm across. They may just seem a bit unmanageable in the hand at first. If you look at the photo below, mine is the last one in the row.


I think my favourite width so far is the soap I got in a Soap Swap from http://cocobongsoaps.blogspot.com/ , which is 75mm across (Second one from the frount in the photo above). If mine were that width, I could cut them thicker as well, which I like. I love the look of the size of the soaps at Beguile Soaps http://beguilesoaps.blogspot.com/ and Platypus Dreams http://soapobsession.blogspot.com/. So I will most likely try to modify my Molger moulds somehow. I have been thinking of cutting a magazine down to the mould size and sticking it along the side, or I may get a carpenter to make me wooden inserts which I could just slide into any of them.

Happy soaping!!

Toxic Ingredients - Personal Care Products

Just writing to share a link, for anyone that would like more information about dangerous chemicals in personal care products. For those non-Canadians, I am not sure if you know David Suzuki. He is an environmental activist & one of our cultural heroes. Here is the link: http://www.davidsuzuki.org/issues/health/projects/whats-inside-that-counts/

Soap Geek's Birthday

My Birthday

Well, today is my 40th Birthday! We are going to Malaga and Granada this weekend to celebrate my birthday and my husband finishing his masters.

So, looking back over the past year – highlights of year 39? An un-forgettable visit from Dad & Stepmum last June... taking up soap-making obsessively in October... my daughter’s various dance shows & competitions... a trip to Canada when my grandma died & reconnecting intensely with my mum & dad, family & old friends... moving house (down the block, but still a move)... morning walks by the beach... yoga... soaping soaping soaping & fantasizing about the wonderful business I am going to create...

Soap Geek?

I just LOVE washing my hands and showering, of course, as it is always such a wonderful experience trying out new soaps. Except when I am out of the house... Here is the question to you all – Do you find that you just hate the soaps and gels that you find in public washrooms now? Since making my own soaps, I have absolutely fallen in love with natural soaps and can’t stand commercial soaps & gels... to the point where I am seriously considering carrying around a soap container in my purse with one of my soaps in it... Am I a real soap geek?

Here is what I am taking for the weekend - a fresh Mediterranean Lavender (experimental Batch 2, finally ready to try!) & my Beer, Egg & Honey Shampoo bar...


Hope everyone has a lovely weekend. Happy soaping!

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!!

Soap Exchange - Cocobong

I recently did my second soap exchange and was again AMAZED at what I received - 2 gorgeous sheep milk soaps from Cocobong. http://cocobongsoaps.blogspot.com/ The look and feel of them is amazing… milky soft white… bubble-free, perfect “matte” smoothness that makes me go back and touch them again and again… The size is brilliant, smaller in height and width than mine but thick – a perfect palm fit. I tried Milk&Almond in the shower – hands, body & face and what a treat! The smell is lovely – soft, sweet & luring…. The suds were phenomenal – big & bubbly, then settling into rich and creamy and they just go on and on and on… Much richer than a Goat Milk soap. Also very moisturising. It even worked on my tricky combination-skin face. Two words come to mind - RICH & LUXURIOUS. I LOVE this soap. Although I haven’t tried the second soap in the shower yet, the look is similarly beautiful – milky-white and beautifully smooth… but the smell is entirely different…. Earthy… Herbal… and Fresh. Can’t wait for my next shower!!! Thank you Julia for the lovely soaps!

Natural Blue & Purple - Experiments with Alkanet

Hello all! I am sharing some pix here of my experiments with Alkanet Root, in search of the perfect natural blue & purple.... I steep the Alkanet Root powder in an oil, then remove the powder and have a deep red oil (have tried both Olive and Castor) which, when added to the soap either when stirring to trace or at trace, turns the soap some FUNKY colours. I am pleased to share some of my past experiences. Each of the oil combinations in these recipes is different... each colour comes as a suprise to me. In these earlier experiments, I didnt' even write down the amounts of Alkanet or Oil that I used for the coloured oil... so I can't replicate them! Now with my latest experiments, I keep very detailed notes on how I got the colour. I will post my latest struggles/ experiments/ surprises in a separate post. Enjoy! If you have any information you would like to share abour your experiences with Alkanet, please comment!