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.