Seasons Greetings to all!

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas!

ValerieAnn

Cake & Pie soap

I tried my hand at two cake soaps and one pie soap. I worked with room temperature lye water, and about 20 degrees warmer for the oils. I had plenty of time to 'play' with these beauties!

Orange Cream Cake Soap

The ingredients of this cake:

Sweet Almond Oil, Cocoa Butter, Coconut Oil, Grape-seed Oil, Olive Oil, ad Sunflower Oil. I chose water instead of goats milk for this one. 

Fragrance oil: Creamsicle, and Orange Essence Oil.

I made the orange ice cream cones, inserted on the outside edges, thanks to Bonnie (at Edentia farms) for her youtube tutorial I was able to make my own melt and pout base soap. 

This is Chocolate Swirl Cake Soap

I couldn't download a picture of the whole cake. Not sure why it wouldn't let me.

This cakes ingredients are: Coconut Oil, Cocoa Butter, Lard, and Beeswax.

The color and fragrance is all natural baking cocoa powder.

I have one more, Goats milk pie soap, but again, the system will not let me download it correctly. You can see in on my Pinterest account.

Ingredients: Fresh Goats milk, Coconut Oil, Castor Oil, Grape-seed Oil, ad Sunflower Oil.

green, purple, and yellow mica, and Titanium dioxide for coloring.

ValerieAnn

All Natural Shea Butter Lotion Recipe

Homemade lotions are pretty easy to make. 

Here is a recipe that I started out with and have since modified to my own liking.  

TIP: Because we often have a bit of anxiety making a recipe for the first time I suggest to have all the ingredients pre-weighed in advance. This tip helps me even today!

Shea Butter Lotion

3/4 tsp. citric acid 
2 ¼ tsp glycerin
2-3/4 tsp. Stearic acid
5.5 oz. Shea butter
1.5 oz. emulsifying wax
36.25 oz. distilled water (do not use tap or regular bottled water) 
2  teaspoon essential oil (or whatever amount to your own liking)
.40 oz. Cosmocil CQ (optional preservative) 

STEP 1: Weigh out the water and place in a stainless steel pot over medium high heat. Heat until very hot, but not boiling. While this is heating, do step 2.

(pan looks dirty, but it is steam rising!)

STEP 2: In a second pan or double boiler, add the weighed out Shea Butter and glycerin and melt them together over very low heat until just warm to the touch and fully melted. Stir to blend and remove from heat source.

STEP 3: Once the water from step 1 has come to very hot (but not boiling), add the citric acid, emulsifying wax and Stearic Acid.

Stir until ALL the Stearic Acid, Citric Acid and Emulsifying Wax bits have dissolved. This stage is very important... the water will have a milk-y appearance with absolutely NO wax bits.

STEP 4: When all of the Emulsifying Wax & Stearic Acid have melted remove the pan from the heat, get your stick blender ready (or whisk, or free standing blender), and add the warm oils/butters from step 2 into this pan. Stir with your stick blender ON HIGH for several minutes or until you get a good emulsion between the oils and water - if they separate, continue to stir. 

Allow your lotion to rest for a few minutes to check for separation, and stick blend as needed. Continue doing this in cycles (resting and mixing at high speed), until it barely begins to set-up and has come down in temp to just under 100 degrees, then do step #5.

STEP 5: Add your essential/fragrance oils & preservative(s) and blend well.

Your lotion will be thin & runny but as it continues to cools it will begin to set up. While still warm, pour into  your desired jars before it becomes too thick to pour. 

Makes approximately 45 ounces.

Note: However you decide to blend your lotion, it is VERY important that you blend very well. Stick blenders work the best, hand blending takes a very long time and generally doesn't have as good of results.  

Remember the water is near boiling so use CAUTION! You simply cannot over blend a lotion batch, but you can certainly under blend. Under blended batches are gritty, or may never set correctly.

*Use less water for a thicker lotion, add more for a thinner consistency. 

Enjoy! Let me know your results!

Homemade Laundry Soap facts

I started making my own laundry soap a few years ago. I just love that it is not only inexpensive to make, and it cleans great!

After awhile of  using the recommended amount of 1/2 to 1 cup per load, I thought: if one cup is good....1 1/2 cups would be better! or even 2 cups! Sometimes I would just guess and pour some in!

Ya.....well....there is a reason why there is a recommended amount. 
And noooo.......
as I found out first hand, more is not necessarily better. 

In an article I read recently, Marilyn from parade.com, explained why. Although it is talking about laundry detergents you buy in stores I believe it also applies for homemade laundry soaps as well, seeing I experienced what she explains:

Ask Marilyn: The Right Amount of Laundry Detergent
parade.com Nov 25th 2012

Marilyn: My wife doubles or triples the recommended laundry detergent amounts to get more suds. How can I rationally argue that she should use the indicated amount per load?

Marilyn responds:
Ask her this question: Why would any manufacturer ­direct consumers to use less than the optimal amount? Their laundry might not get clean, and the company would sell less product. That doesn’t make sense!

Consider a bubble bath. Do you get any cleaner? No. And your dishes get clean in the dishwasher with few suds, don’t they? Yes. But Americans love suds so much that manufacturers use high-­foaming formulas whenever they can. Shampoo is a good example. The froth does nothing but make a mess in the sink that takes time and effort to wash down the drain. These cleansing agents all work differently, of course, but they do have something in common: The suds they ­produce do not reflect their cleaning action.

In fact, using too much ­detergent can make laundry a bit dingy and stiff. Also, the suds can cause problems with the machine long-term. Some washing machines even have software designed to overcome our tendency to use too much detergent. They sense the ­excess suds and add extra rinses!


Now homemade laundry soap does not suds like store bought laundry soap, which makes it very good for low suds-sing washers.  But if you use more than the recommended amount you will have the same problem, over a long period of time,  with your clothes becoming dingy and stiff.

I actually had to go to store and buy laundry detergent just to get my clothes clean and whiter again. I am slowly going back to my homemade laundry soap again, but this time I am using the  recommended amount and no more!

Here is a link to homemade liquid and powdered recipes.

Homemade Laundry Soap

I know that this recipe is out there on the web. It is a great recipe, but I add one more ingredient to it that enables you to forgo using dryer sheets! The ingredient? Homemade bars of soap! Yes, homemade bars of soap. 

I use a 19 Century recipe which has Tallow, Olive Oil, and Lard in it. I add 1/2 cup finely grated soap per each recipe batch I make.

Here is the recipe


Homemade Liquid Laundry Soap Recipe

This simple laundry soap recipe will leave your clothes clean and fresh and only comes to about 3 cents per load!

Ingredients:

1/3 bar Fels Naptha Soap $.97 per bar at Walmart, so $.33/recipe( Ivory and Zote will also work)
½ cup washing soda -  $2.77/55oz box at Walmart (13.75 ½ c. per box), so $.20/recipe
½ cup borax powder -  $2.99/76oz box at Walmart (19 ½ c. per box) (20 Mule Team), so $16/recipe
½ c grated homemade bar soap (scented or unscented) 


2 gallons water

Grate the soap and put it in a sauce pan. Add 1/2 gallon of water and heat it until the soap melts. Make sure all the pieces melt! Only stir occasionally. Too much stirring will cause too many bubbles. Let soap melt slowly on it's own.

Add the washing soda (NOT baking soda) and the borax. Stir until all is 
dissolved. Remove from heat. Pour into a 2 gallon bucket. Use warm tap water and add the remaining 1 1/2 gallons of water to the melted soap. You can add about 10 drops of fragrance of your choice or leave it the scent it is.

Cover and let sit for 24 hours.

It will look like and have a consistency of a big bowl of jello once it has totally cooled. This is normal. Break up the mass with a big wooden or plastic spoon. You can store in the bucket it was in, or use empty milk jugs, or Hawaiian Punch containers, or Walmart's 1 gallon fruit punch. They have a nice handle on them and are easy to use and carry.

Use 1/2 to 1 cup of liquid laundry soap per load. No more or your clothes will have a grayish tinge to it because of the build up of the soap!


Homemade powdered laundry soap recipe

If you prefer powdered laundry soap, then follow this recipe.

Ingredients:

2/3 bar Fels Naptha - grated
1/2 cup Borax 
1/2 cup Washing Soda 
½ cup homemade bar of soap (scented or unscented) - grated

Put all the ingredients in a food processor and whirl until well blended.
Store in air tight container. Use 1-2 tablespoons per load.

Both recipes are low-sudsing  so they work especially well in high efficiency washing machines.

Cupcake Soaps

These cupcake soaps were a lot of fun to make.

For oils I used:
Sweet Almond Oil, Cocoa Butter, Coconut Oil, Grapeseed Oil, Olive Oil, and Sunflower Oil.

For color I added natural  Titanium Dioxide (for whitening), and  'Ultramarine Violet' pigment from Brambleberry.com.

The fragrance I choose,  Tropical Vacation, was also from Bramble Berry

I made my own melt & pour base soap thanks to Bonnie at Good Earth Spa (EdentialFarms, on YouTube) and her recipe on EssentialDepot  web page, and made small purple flowers to go on top of some of the cupcakes.

I also bought some little plastic star confetti at Walmart in the holiday ornament section. The sugar sprinkles, and little white ball sprinkles came from Walmart also. I added a touch of pretty glitter over all.

I heated the oils in the microwave enough  to melt all the oils and left them to cool.

I used half & half, goats milk, and rain water as the liquids to put the lye into.
I froze the half & half,  milk, and the rain water ahead of time so the lye would not scorch the milks.

When all the lye was dissolved  in the milks & water I took the temp. It was about 70 degrees. The oils were about 89 degrees. I wanted the temps a bit higher than this, but decided to work with it.

I brought the batter to  medium trace, and then separated it into two buckets. One bucket for the Titanium Dioxide to keep the batter white, and one to have a purple color for the bottom of the cupcake, and some of both for piping.

The fragrance oil was supposed to  speed up trace, so I added some to the purple batter, for the bottoms of the cupcake first. I was very much surprised to discover that thick trace never happened!

While the bottoms were setting up in the silicone liners I added he rest of the fragrance to the second bucket with the Titanium Dioxide. I used the stick blender to bring it up thick enough to pipe. When it did not thicken I just left it for awhile and kept checking it for the right thickness.  Almost two hours later, and still at medium trace, I decided to pipe anyway. I had my day care kids coming and I couldn't wait for thick enough trace!

I had to work the piping pretty fast because the batter was still a bit too soft.  The idea of freezing the milks is so the lye would not heat up too fast and scorch the milk, but the rain water did not need to be frozen. That would have helped the lye get a bit warmer so thick trace would have happened a lot faster.

I had some batter left over so I made 6 little guest size star bars. They are really nice.

Tea anyone?

 Thanks for stopping by! 

Vegan Soap

This is a vegan soap.

I took a recipe I had with lard in it and switch it out for soybean oil.

I call this soap Sun Rise because I wanted to make this soap to resemble a sun rise. 

  I chose three colors to use: Tangerine Wow, Fizzy Lemonade, and Titanium Dioxide (all from Brambleberry.com). These were the only colors I had on hand, so I gave it a go.

Out of the mold just before the cut

I did a light hanger swirl, left the sun alone, and topped it off with white clouds.

It is something to see that every bar of soap comes out different.

 

I also have been using rain water in most of my recipes. I really can feel the difference in the soaps! 

Soaping with Lard

Lard, like Tallow, is a rendered animal fat. Where as Tallow's from beef,   Lard is from pigs. Although it sounds gross, God gave us these, and other fats & oils, for us to benefit from. Each one has their own individual qualities, and Lard is no different.

Lard, when used in soap making, has very good moisturizing abilities for our skin. It is also a good cleanser, and it lathers well, producing large, creamy bubbles. The finished bar is very white, and is a good soap to add color, or leave it natural.

While it would make a soft soap by itself it is cost effective as a base oil when combined with other oils. You will need to add fragrance to a lard based soap.

Here are three bars of soap I made with Lard as the bulk of the recipe. Along with the Lard I added: cocoa butter, coconut oil, Shea butter, and Sunflower oil, and a fragrance oil.

Fresh Water Linen

Fresh Water Linen Cut

Sample of bubbles....

Winter Woodland or Tiramisu or Tuscan Rain?

Haven't decided on the right name for this soap. Any suggestions?

The scent in it is 'Feliz Navidad' fragrance oil from Brambleberrry.com, but the formula has been changed and it smells a bit different from the original scent. It is still a nice luscious smell, but it just doesn't match what I wanted.

 Cut

Bubbles galore!

Autumn Comfort

Forgot to take a picture of it in the mold. 

And more bubbles!

Everyone of these soaps have the same base oils with Lard. By using different natural colorants and  fragrance oils you can make them into any beautiful bar that you want!

Have a great weekend!

Natural Soap Colorants

There are several different kinds of Herbs you can buy to color your soaps. 

You can add the Herbs to your soap batter or you can infuse them into an oil. 

Here are some of the Herbs you can buy in powder form.

Orange Peel powder, Rose Hip powder, Alkanet Root powder, Kelp powder, and  Turmeric Root powder.

You can infuse these herbs into oils such as; Olive Oil, Jojoba Oil, or Sunflower Oil.

I choose to infuse these Herb powders into Sunflower Oil.

For a strong infusion you want to use about 1oz of herb powder to 16oz of the oil of your choice.

You can set each jar in the sun for about 3 weeks to get a good infusion, or you can put the jars in a hot water bath. 

If you choose a hot water bath:

You want to heat your water bath on low and keep it at a steady 140 - 150 degrees. You  do not  cover  your jars with water! Just add enough water, about one inch below covers, and don't screw the covers on tightly.You don't want the jars to seal, you only want the bath to be hot enough to infuse the color from the herbs into the oils. Let your jars sit in this hot water bath (with heat on low) for about 2-3 hours, then shut off the heat and let the bath cool down.

 The colors would be ready to use right away.

KK at Badanbody uses .33 ounces of colored oil to a 1lb of oil formula in her soaps. 

Here are four herbs that I infused into Sunflower Oil in a hot water bath:

This is the color of Sunflower Oil. I put the jar next to each color infused oil so you could see the different shades after the infusion. 

This is Alkanet Root Powder.

Alkanet Root will color your soap to a nice mauve, shades of lavender, and blue.

This one is Orange Peel Powder.

This herb will produce a pale orange yellow.

Rose Hip Powder.

This powder will produce a rosey tan. Rose Hip powder has skin healing properties.

Kelp Powder.

Kelp powder will produce shades of green.

If you leave some Kelp powder in your soap it can be a very mild exfoliant.

You can strain the oils so won't have any herb powder specks in your soap. But the herb powder will settle to the bottom of the jar, so if you are careful you can pour out the colored oil without the  herb powder coming with it.

*If you do not want to infuse herb powders into oil you can also, at trace,  put 1/2 tsp of herb powder into 1lb of soap, and mix well. Doing it this way you will get a speckled look.

Rainy Day Melon Soap

I used an old antique sewing machine drawer for a soap mold over the weekend. 

The soap recipe I used was for a 3lb batch.

It can easily hold a 4lb batch in this homemade mold with no problem. 

Out of the mold just before I cut it.

I added natural coloring from Parsley, that I hot processed into some oil I used, in this batch of soap.

I divided the recipe into two containers and colored one container with titanium dioxide to make it white, and I left the other container the natural color of what I had hoped to be a light green. 

I was not sure how the natural coloring of the parsley would hold up in cold process soap, but....

I was very pleased with the results! 

The bottom layer of the soap is a light green!

I call this soap 'Rainy Day Melon'. 

because....

I used rain water that I collected from my own back yard.