marigold

I wonder if there is a soapmaker who has not added Marigold petals to their soaps. As soapmakers we all know the fragrance it gives to a soap, the natural color it imparts, as well as it's beneficial properties.

These hardy, robust, non-fussy plants bring sunshine and color to any garden. Marigolds are used in many cultures for festivals, rituals and daily worshipping.

Also called Calendula, it is the October birth flower, meaning the first day of the month. This refers to the fact that the Marigold blooms at the beginning of a month throughout most months of the year.

marigold

During the conservative Victorian era, it was considered totally inappropriate to express feelings of love or affection, and it is said that the 'language of flowers' originated in this period, enabling a lover to convey a hidden romantic meaning.

marigold

The meaning of the Marigold flower symbolises sorrow or sympathy.

Go figure that the hidden message would be "My thoughts are with you"!

For you, a bunch of marigolds!

Greetings from Cape Town.

Cynthia





adzuki bean powder

Some more Asian inspired ingredients used in this batch, and used some finely ground Adzuki Bean powder for a mild scrub, gently exfoliating the skin. The powder is reported to have been used in Japanese skin regimes for centuries to enhance the complexion, drawing out impurities and promoting circulation.




The alluring earthy spicy fragrance comes from a blend of patchouli, amyris and sandalwood essential oils.

I love the lingering, sensual and inspiring to the senses fragrance it leaves on my skin. Then again, I am being biased, as I know it comes from my dwindling bottle of precious (read expensive) Sandalwood.


Warm greetings from Cape Town, South Africa.

Cynthia
xx

rice milk in handmade soap

Rice has traditionally been considered a source of beauty in Asian countries. Many of their beauty products have rice based ingredients added, from rice powder/flour to rice milk. As the folklore story goes, the female workers who spent many hours in the sun working the rice paddies, would use the water that was left over from washing the rice to bathe in and wash their faces.

(http://kids.britanica.com/comptons/art-90734>)


Today, starch and oil from rice are extensively being used in cosmetics and hygiene products. Rice bran oil has gained a strong and loyal following with many soap makers, having a good source of Vitamin E and antioxidants and imparts a silky smoothness to soaps.

Liking the soaps that I have made where I have used rice bran oil up to 5% of oil weight, I was curious to see what rice water or milk would do in soap.  Steeping my brown rice in mineral water, stirring every now and again, I left it overnight to find a very thin textured, off white diluted liquid the next morning. Referred to as rice milk by some, and rice water by others, I decided to treat it as a milk and freeze it in ice trays, reckoning the starch from the rice would produce sugar which might make a 'very hot' undesirable lye mixture. It stank, it HEATED up, it caused me moments of frantic panic and scrambling for a second lot of ice cubes for the ice bath, all the while leaving me very sceptical that I would have a successful batch of soap, let alone that it would add anything to the soap.

Rice milk soap unmolded and cut.

Nice and white, lemon, bergamot and peppermint essential oils.

Rice milk soap after 8 week cure.

It's smooth and silky, creamy and lathers like crazy. The rice milk is an ingredient I really loved working with and will try it again (hopefully more prepared for the lye reaction) with an essential oil blend that will keep the 'milky white' look!

Greetings from Cape Town!

what's not to love!

Tea Tree essential oil is one of those EO's that you either love or hate! And I have to say it's an EO that I love using in my soaps. I have to admit though, when I used it for the first time way back when my eldest son's skin broke out in his teenage years, the tea tree oil soap was branded as 'Brendon's pimple soap' and no one in the family liked the smell! Then it became 'Quinton's soap', and by that time it was being used not only by Brendon and Quinton on their faces, but also in the shower as well by all the males in the household. I was still not sold on this medicinal scent, especially as I had all the other gorgeous EO combinations to try!

When my youngest son Rowan glided (his transition was a walk in the park!) into his teenager years, aside from the legs that just seemed to never intend to stop growing and an appetite of jaw dropping proportions, his battle with acne was the most traumatic. As his face, neck and back went from 'to be expected' to 'bad' and 'worse', we progressed from doctor's appointments to 'acne' and visits to a skin specialist. Over the ensuing years, so the soap ingredients started to change. This soap recipe originally started out with olive, coconut and palm oils and was a plain white soap. In conjunction with the medication that Rowan was taking, on advice from the skin specialist, the recipe was loaded with moisturising oils and even butters (who would of thought!) at various stages of the medical treatment.

Today, the three boys are all grown men, and although their skins are past the 'tea tree oil for problem skin' stage, the clean medicinal scent has grown on the whole family.

Olive, coconut, sunflower, palm, castor and sweet almond oils, tea tree essential oil, parsley powder for some colour (go green!), throw in some 'waste not bits' and we love it!

Greetings from Cape Town, South Africa!

black and white sea salt bar

(my blog posts are as erratic as my hormones)

It's a case of pre-christmas hecticness.

Made with coconut oil and some extra castor, avocado and sweet almond oil, fragranced with lemon, lavender and rosemary essential oils.

Some grated coloured soap bits and sea salt and they are good to go.

Next salt bar I make I think I will add more salt (this was 400g salt to 800g oils), or maybe just a courser grain of salt .... to add that extra bit of scrubbiness.

Greetings from Cape Town, South Africa.

Don't fix something that ain't broken!

It has been a while since I posted here, but that hasn't meant that I have not regularly read the posts of the blogs that I follow and of course been inspired.

Over the last month I have been fighting a nasty influenza virus, and just when I feel I have shaken it off it comes back to bite me on the butt! More in the ears, throat, head and (sore) body than on the butt - the butt side of things I do believe is from sitting on it too long!!

I did however muster up enough energy (been completely out of it) to make four new batches of soap....  When I say new, I mean taking a tried and tested recipes that work perfectly well and tweaking them - a little bit more of this, a little less of that and so on. You probably get the picture.

Why mess with something that is working? If only I could say my mind was fuzzy from medication; if only I had some kind of explanation that, if not for my peace of mind, then to at least convince anybody else. Silly. Silly, silly, silly is all I can say!

Sadly, two of those batches not only ended up as a disaster, they also landed in the trash can. The third batch, 100% olive oil, I unmolded when it was still too soft, and the last batch is a salt bar, which hasn't come out exactly how I envisioned it - will post pics at a later stage.

In the meantime, mostly to make me feel better about my own soap making abilities, I'll add some photo's of this season's efforts.

Petitgrain e/o, with poppy seeds and finely ground oats.

Orange, palmarosa e/o, honey and beeswax, with calendula petals.

Patchouli, orange and lemon e/o.

Sweet orange, rose geranium and lemongrass e/o, calendula petals.

Geranium, lavender, patchouli and petitgrain e/o.

Spring (I hope) is around the corner and with it comes soaps with slightly varied fragrances. I am looking forward to both!

Greetings from Cape Town, South Africa.

It's cold out there!

There is a blustering, cold wind blowing outside, so I am off to have a hot bath ......

the essential oils of sandalwood, cedar wood and lemongrass, combined with the earthy colours of the soap, are sure to warm me up ......

And then off to bed, with a warm glass of Horlicks.

Hope I don't have nightmares about the price of sandalwood EO......

just natural soap

My journey into soap making began as a response to personal skin care issues. I discovered that using a soap made with natural ingredients that I could pronounce, compared to the commercially bought product which ingredient list was completely confusing with chemical components that were mind boggling, put paid to unwanted skin reactions and personal issues that I had endured for many years.

My first batch of soap that I made, more than ten years ago, I still recall with fond memories. At the time I resided in an apartment on the 2^nd floor. With a pot, bucket, spoon, thermometer and 3 oils, recipe and instructions, a pair of swimming goggles and gloves, with mixed feelings of excitement and fear (kids were informed only to come into the garage if I hadn’t returned by nightfall); I set off to the garage on the ground floor. With shaking hands, inaccurate scale, not to mention the difficulty in seeing clearly through misted up goggles which were also interfering with my breathing, I weighed and patiently stirred with sweaty palms, and stood gob-smacked when my alkaline solution and oils saponified. An ice-cream container was used as a mold. I hardly slept that night, my mind was all over the place; did I follow all the instructions properly, did I insulate it enough, did I pour into the mold at the right time, would I have soap. And yes I did. Beautiful, unscented, pure and natural soap. Waiting for it to cure over the ensuing weeks, I lovingly touched and smelt and admired those beauties, checking the calendar every day just to make sure I had calculated correctly when I could start using them. The day arrived, and I fell in love. Twice over.  Making soap is a very addictive and deeply satisfying process. I had created something that was not only a useful everyday item; I was also rewarded with something that was beautiful and good for me and my family.

Over the years I have made many batches of soap, used different combinations of oils and butters, added botanicals, spices and essential oils, only allowing integrity and practicality of ingredients to curb my creativity and imagination.

It’s pure, it’s simple ……

It’s unscented ……

Just natural soap.

The same one the Julian gang still prefer.