The colours were from Conservatorie – Peacock Blue and Shimmering Red Clay micas blended together to give (hopefully) a dark plum shade.  Guess I’ll find out soon enough if blended , though allegedly CP friendly micas morph. It’s a hanger swirl beneath the surface.  I used a bit of New Moon Black Mica for a mica-in- oil swirl on the top, dotted with sugar pearls in black.  I also added some White Pearl Mica to the contrasting colour beneath the surface.  I’m keeping my fingers crossed that this time, the hanger was wide enough to make a visibly obvious swirl in the two coloured soap.  The last one was a bit of a disappointment due to the hanger being a bit too narrow.

It has silk, and a bit of superfatting with cocoa butter as well, so with luck, this one will be not only pretty but also feel wonderful on the skin when used.  I love this fragrance!  It’s lush without being overpowering or sickly sweet.  It isn’t going to ever take the place of the Peach Jubilee from WSP in CP soap, but it’s a good one to keep as a mainstay.  That peach, omg, is such a full bodied scent.  In cp soap it smells like peaches & cream, I kid you not.  Mmmm, makes my mouth water and my eyes roll whenever I smell it in the room when the air stirs from the fans. So, here’s the pic of the BRV in the mold while it was still wet, newly poured and swirled with a wooden skewer.

Black Raspberry Vanilla Silky Milk Soap. A coconut milk soap – ready May 6th, just in time for Mother’s Day!

There were a few minor changes to the basic recipe such as adding in cocoa & shea butters to the original olive, almond and coconut oils, along with the coconut milk, colloidal oatmeal, goats milk, buttermilk, Tussah silk, Vitamin E, and using aloe juice with the lye instead of plain old water.  There was a black ribbon embedded within the soap, along with portions of the soap being coloured with the green, the blue, and a bit of violet, too.  With the clear contrast between the white portions alongside those vivid colours, it really swirl exactly the way it should.  It didn’t hurt that the FO didn’t cause any acceleration or ricing.  What a relief!  The swirls turned out beautifully and it really pops on the tops colour-wise due to the mica ribbon that was swirled into the top during the texturizing.  That was about the only ‘first’ here.

With that said, this is Abalone  -

Abalone – in the mold

Abalone Silky Milk Soap – cut

Next is the Awapuhi Seaberrry, both tropical plants with Asian roots and medicinal uses.  The fragrance is a high end,  slightly aquatic, not overwhelmingly floral, and behaved beautifully in the cp process.  No acceleration  no discoloration  no ricing, just easy, fragrant and kind of relaxing. Spa- like.    I used Peacock Blue from Conservatorie, but it turned a bit more like an aquamarine, which actually suits the fragrance better.  Spoon swirl was done here, though it doesn’t look like I did anything in some places!

- and last but by NO means least, Black Pearl, the REAL Black Pearl.  This batch this time around had only half of the liquid as tea.  The other half was aloe juice, plus the usual colloidal oatmeal, the 3 usual oils,  3 milks, Tussah silk, Vitamin E, a bit of New Moon mica mixed with the activated charcoal, Peacock blue mica, and Pearl White Mica all from Conservatorie, and the fragrance Queen of the Nile from Nature’s Garden.  I love the name The Black Pearl for this one, though it seems to make one think pirates, gold, and ancient maps with large red X’s on them.  I went more towards the colour of the ocean, a bit of swag and the black to tie it together with the name.  Very little swirling was done with it, though.  Most of it was from the pour alone, so I cannot take the credit for the swirly look within.  I doubt that bright yellow at the bottom will fade.  The first batch had bright yellow but it didn’t fade along the edges very much at all.  The TD gave me a lot of grief though.  Spots here and there, but nothing too major.

I think the yellow near the bottom can be trimmed off prior to wrapping in their packaging sleeves, so the yellow isn’t going to be a huge problem like it was the first time.  The rest of the white areas stayed nice and white!  I’m very pleased with this one .  These will all be ready April 5th and I truly hope they all sell out because I love making these.  The challenge Queen of the Nile FO presents gives me a chance to try something new to make it work without the discoloration being an obvious issue.  I love a challenge!  That’s the nice thing about soaping.  When you do another batch you can change the look a bit and with the scent the same its still the same soap, just different look.

Today’s batches were begun with a replacement for the Black Pearl.  I split the liquid half & half, using black tea and half aloe juice, included coconut milk, Tussah silk, colloidal oats, 3 oils, 3 milk, and a little splash of cocoa butter. I coloured a portion with activated charcoal and New Moon Black (Conservatorie), a larger portion with Peacock Blue (also Conservatorie), which turned green thanks to the discoloration of the FO in the soap, and a bit of white, which of course will turn bright yellow.  Since there’s just a tiny bit of the ‘white’, it might or might not lighten up over time like the first batch did.  That batch was split cleanly 1/2 & 1/2 white to black and had plenty of time to lighten up.  The edges never did lighten up completely though.  :(   The web site doesn’t mention that this FO discolours that strongly, but they really should.  I mentioned it on the Facebook pages I post on, so hopefully no one else will be caught off guard.   The wrongly labeled soaps are now changed on my web site to match last year’s soap with the same fragrance – Amethyst & Pearls.  It just has the wrong colours in the swirls.

Here’s the loaf of Black Pearl, so far uncut:

The REAL Black Pearl

Batch #2 was a heavenly one – Awapuhi Seaberry.  This one had, in addition to the 3 oils, a dollop of monoi butter(Wholesalesuppliesplus.com), which smelled sinfully delicious!  The fragrance was exotic, heady, like night blooming flowers from an exotic island getaway.  It has the essence of tiare flowers blended into the oils that make up this butter and it’s out-of-this-world heavenly to the senses!  I used a bit of Magic Blue Mica from Conservatorie, some titanium dioxide, and a dusting of White Pearl Mica from Conservatorie over the top after the texturization was done.   A spoon swirl was done on the inside.

Here’s Awapuhi Seaberry so far uncut -

Awapuhi Seaberry Silky Milk Soap

Batch #3 was one that had to wait until after supper since the first batch of lye was measured incorrectly.  But on the upside, my drains are really clean!

This batch used a free sample I’d received a while back from Peak Candles called Mandarin Plum.  It smelled very nice in the bottle and soaped like a dream.  No acceleration, no discoloration, no ricing  just smooth sailing the whole way through.  I used a blend of Magic Violet and a light pinch of Red Shimmering Clay both from Conservatorie, doing a hanger swirl with the two colours.  It took quite a while for it to reach a stage where the layers could be put down without break through and then swirled with the skewer & straw hanger gizmo, but eventually it did.  It’s now in the fridge to prevent gel, but I doubt it would do that since it was such a slow mover.  I don’t know if the two colours will stay true and turn out to look like a plum shade, but we’ll find out tomorrow hopefully.  I don’t know.  As slow as it moved today, it could be a week before I can cut it!  lol!  But the fragrance is nothing but fruits and plum.  Period.  They don’t mention any florals at all in the description (an extremely brief one at that) on their web site.  Just 2 colours in this one, the ‘plum’ shade and white.

Here’s Mandarin Plum, still in the mold and in the fridge (sorry about the poor photography!)

Mandarin Plum Silky Milk Soap

I turned to Soaper’s Retreat, as I so often do, when this happened because there are hundreds of soapers in there who’ve been through nearly every possible good or bad result from soap making and would be able to suggest what could be done.  I was hazy on whether it should be gelled after it had been in the fridge for a few hours, so that was the reason for my hesitation   So, when going into the Facebook group last night, I posted the question and was immediately answered.  Two ladies answered me right away stating the soap could be put into the oven despite being cool for so long and the wooden mold would be fine at such a low temperature.

I set the oven to warm, turned it off when it reached that temp, then removed it 3-4 hours later.  It’s a bit hazy as to exactly how long since I fell asleep!  I slept until 10 pm on the sofa while watching Paranormal State – Ryan’s voice is very hypnotic – then woke up to a fully gelled soap that still had its fragrance!  Yay!  I removed it from the wooden mold and pulled the paper away from the sides but no the bottom.  It stayed undisturbed all night, firming up very nicely.  It had muted colours to begin with so I wasn’t expecting an amazing delineation between colours, but I was expecting it to be filled with large holes from air pockets.  The soap batter was firming very quickly due to all the butters used and it was barely pourable, but there were surprisingly few bubbles.  One nice surprise!

It had Aloe Butter, Chamomile Butter, Green Tea Butter from WSP, olive oil, castor oil, aloe juice in place of the water, Tussah silk, coconut milk, goat’s milk powder, buttermilk powder, lemon peel powder for exfoliating and smoothing away calluses and rough spots from hard working use in the garden or kitchen, French Green Clay and Red Moroccan Clay, both for a nice slip and for colour, too, colloidal oatmeal and Vitamin E. The fragrance notes were chosen with odor-elimination in mind.  We all know how lingering the smell of onions or garlic or even celery can be on the hands, so the rosemary, lemon and mint used in these bars will cut that out.  It still held the fragrance despite being placed into a warm oven and left for hours as the oven cooled, so over all it was both successful and a learning experience.  I guess this one qualifies as a CPOP soap since it was placed in the oven to complete the process.  Ha!  Another soaping lesson learned.

I send out heart-felt thanks to Jill Wesinger Wood and Linda Wisniewski Morris for their prmpt and encouraging help to save this soap that is destined to be used for a Goodie Basket for our Adult Summer Reading program.  There will be other soaps included in that basket as well, but I wanted a hard-working soap for hard-working hands first and foremost.

All that being said, here’s a pic of the sliced soap, freshly cut this morning.  It smells nice and lemony now, though earlier it smelled more minty.

Gardeners & Cooks Silky Milk Soap

Gardeners & Cooks Silky Milk Soap

Last night, I laid out a lot of the supplies so the soaping could go smoothly today with few if any snafus.  That came later as it turned out, but not in the soaping part.  As I’ve mentioned earlier, the library’s Adult Summer Reading program is gardening themed, so this is the soap I worked up to include in the Goodie Basket as one of the prizes.  There’s the fragrance of lemon, rosemary, and mint in it to help cut the odors hands can get on them during the coars of working hard in the garden or kitchen, whilst still imparting a silky rich lathering soap to cleanse away the obvious dirt of the day.  It also includes coconut milk and Tussah silk for a silky feeling lather.  I have a huge bag of it so there’s likely a lifetime supply here of the silk, which will certainly be put to good use over time.  The water was completely replaced with aloe juice for a little extra help after a rough day’s work.

I used Red Moroccon Clay in 1/3 of it, French Green Clay in another 1/3 of it and Lemon Peel Powder in the last 1/3 of the soap batter, mixed it all in with the stick blender, but stirred the fragrance into each portion by hand, trying to avoid over-blending and risking Soap on a Stick [blender].  The colours are a lovely soft shade of dusky reddish pink, lightly tinted soft green and a subtle washed out yellow.  I love the subtlety of these colours.  They were put down in layers, not swirled, then when the top was ready to be texturized there was no skewer anywhere to be found, so I grabbed a paint brush and used the handle.  When you find yourself in a bind, you make do, right?  The batter was firming up pretty quickly since I used several butters and fewer liquid oils, so this may be a very hard bar of soap by Saturday morning!  But that’s fine since I have no patience when it comes to waiting for a soap to be unmolded!  I’ve pushed my luck many times and paid for it, so while it’s still hard to wait I just have to walk away.

No glitter on this either.  I mean, really?  Would serious minded, sweaty, hard-working cooks and gardeners want glitter ?  I’m thinking maybe no on this one.  Best to leave the shinies for the prettify-me soaps.  This is for removing the dirt and grit of the work, then later you go take a bath or shower with a pretty bar of Just Peachy or Ripe Raspberry and glisten & waft that lush fragrance everywhere all evening long!   This soap will be ready for shipping March 29th and pre-orders are welcome through email, so if you would like to reserve a bar or three, email me at neecysnecessities@live.com and I’ll set aside some bars for you.  I will email you to let you know when I ‘m ready to ship and can invoice you if you have Paypal.   They will be put up on the web site once they’re out of the mold and cut.  You can also purchase through the web site.

Now for my next trick – I hope to make a batch of liquid soap.  I have all the oils for it now, and plenty of glycerin to use, since I plan to try the glycerin method, so it’s now time to take that next step.

Sweet Tea with Lemon, a cp soap made with coconut milk, brewed lemon-ginger tea, coconut oil, almond oil, olive oil, silk amino acids, Vitamin E, goat’s milk & buttermilk powders and colloidal oatmeal.  What a healthy package of goodies for your skin to enjoy!  Th fragrance, to me, was that of unsweetened tea, but once it was all put together, it was closer to sweet tea.  There are little cubes of ‘lice’ made with clear m&p soap, and lemon wedges that even smell like lemon, made with clear m&p tinted with yellow mica, poured into a mold that was meant for making novelty ice cubes.   It’s been sliced up now to cure and should be ready to fill orders by December 30.  Here’s the look of the slices -

Ripe Raspberry – top shot

and the inside…..

Ripe Raspberry – cut shot

The colour changed a bit toward the orangey-peach side instead of remaining the reddish-orange it originally was during the stick blending.  I don’t have the ideal shade of red for raspberries, so this was as close as it would get, so there it is.  But at least the colour didn’t bleed like the last batch did.  Soapers just aren’t ever happy with their product, are they!  We have certain images in our heads that may or may not match up with what our results turn out to be, and based on that, we’re either ecstatic or grumbling about should-have-dones.  The colour change won’t effect the soaps performance overall, so I’m fine with it exactly as it is.  The recipe is a good one that gives great bubbles, moisturizing, softening, and performs beautifully nearly every single time, depending on the FO used, so it’s fine as far as I’m concerned.  The soap has 3 oils, three milks, Vitamin E, and colloidal oatmeal to bring you lasting soft skin with loads of bubbly cleansing.  It will be ready for use December 8th though as always, pre-orders are welcome.  Visit my Facebook page at www.facebook.com/neecysnecessities and clock Shop Now below the cover image,  or my web site, www.neecysnecessities.com to order.  These will be added to both pages in the next day or two.

Specialty soaps

All in all, this soap wasn’t a total loss since the scent and piped tops held up so nicely.  There’s even pearly glitter on them to make them even prettier. But I definitely need a few more lessons in swirling!

The embeds were done today using two different bases – a yogurt base, also from NG and a clear base bought elsewhere.  There were chunks as well as curls in each batch.  I made about a pound of each type, then cut it this afternoon and I love how they turned out.  I’ve been trying to branch out and get some colour, excitement and uniqueness to the things made and this is a fun first step in that direction.  I added a bit of additional FO to the clear base but not to the white yogurt base.  There’s enough of the scent in each one that it’s a clear easy stroll down a very fragrant path with these.

I added the lye and this mixture turned gray,  Well, that was bad enough, but then it turned pink, then a fuchsia, then purple.  *sigh*  The mighty morphing salt bars are now cooling.  They smell fabulous, like the FO’s description says – like Beach fragrance.  But when you look at them your mind tells you think grape.  Then you get a snoot full and it’s Beachy keen.  Oh well.  Live and learn.  I should’ve downloaded the information sheet first on the FO before using it.  I didn’t have this one printed out ahead of time and the stuff was already cooking, so I took a chance that all would be well.  wrong-o.  So, I’ll get that data sheet now and have it for the next batch, but you can bet your sweet bippy it isn’t going to be used in a salt bar again unless I leave out colors altogether.

On the plus side, now I know how to achieve a killer purple.  That is, if I ever want one.