Sonntag, 30. August 2009

My block soap mould


I had found an online tutorial on how to build a block soap mould (it's in German, courtesy of a German soapaholic called Hanna), so I emailed it to my father and asked: Can you help me make one of these? He said we coulud build the mould together next Saturday.

However, when I went over to my parents' house on Saturday, there was a finished block mould waiting for me and my father said: "Well, I thought I'd trim the boards so we wouldn't have to do this when you come over. And then I thought I might also drill the holes in. I had already bought the screws and bolts, so I though I might as well assemble the mould...".

Awww, thanks dad! :)

Sweetie Pie

My third soap was supposed to smell like and have the colour of strawberry milkshake. I used basic oils as well as some cocoa butter and walnut oil. I had planned to dye part of the soap base white and add the strawberry fragrance oil to this part. The other half I dyed red and added vanilla fragrance oil (This combination of colour/fragrance might seem a bit odd, but then I had heard that most vanilla fragrances make beige or even brown soap, so I thought red might be the better choice for the vanilla-smelling part).

I had lots of trouble with this soap: first, the strawberry fragrance made the soap warm up so much that it started to clot - it looked like semolina pudding. It probably is a fragrance better suited for hot processed soap. I had already poured the red part into the block mould, but I didn't want to put the clotted mess on top of it, so I put the white part back into the pot, let it gel in the oven and then added it to the red soap in the mould. When I tested the soap later on, I noticed that I had taken a little too much of the Acid Red pigment which now makes nice pink lather and "bleeds" little pink rivulets when you put it back onto the sink. However, it
looks nice when it's dry, especially after I stamped it with gold mica.

Freitag, 28. August 2009

Fleur des Temples

Finally, the perfume oils, moulds and everything had arrived and I made my first scented soap: Fleur des Temples. Again, it is a cold processed soap with basic oils. To superfat the soap, I chose almond oil (I know that the process of saponification goes on even when the soap is in the mould, but I still superstitiously hope that superfatting oil added after the soap base has reached trace will somehow survive).

The fragrance oil I chose is called Frangipani, or: Plumeria, but I liked the French name Fleur des Temples (Temple flower) be
tter. The fragrance made the soap heat up quite a bit, but it didn't gel all the way through. The titanium dioxide became a little flaky, as you can see in the second picture. The soap looked very nice though, and it smelled fantastic and made a good lather. I gave most of the them away to family and friends, but I used some and I have of course kept one.

Looking through my folder of soap fotos, I have noticed that I didn't take any pictures of this soap once they were out of the moulds, neither is there a foto of the wrapped and labelled soaps (I used to create elaborate labels for my first couple of soaps, haven't done this in a while. Perhaps I should take that up again).

Edit: This is the label. Again, the artwork is courtesy of J
ulia Galster. Love the floral pattern.

Samstag, 22. August 2009

Anfängerglück















This is my first soap. I called it Anfängerglück (beginner's luck) because I was so thrilled that all the greasy mess had actually turned into soap without any lye being spilled.

Buying sodium hydroxide was really hard. The first chemist looked at me as if I had asked for bomb-making instructions to go with the sodium hydroxide. Aren't there people who clean their drains or strip paint off garden furniture with this stuff? Well, I finally found a chemist who sold me some, but I have since preferred to buy the stuff online, it's much less of a hassle.


I had bought basic ingredients like coconut oil, olive oil, palm oil and rapeseed oil at the supermarket because I wanted to try the beginner's recipe recommended at Naturseife.com. Also, I had ordered lots of (perfume) oils, pigments and moulds online, but I couldn't wait for it all to arrive, so I used a Pringles box and an ice-cream tub as moulds and used food colouring instead of pigments. When the ordered soap making ingredients finally arrived, the soap was already removed from the moulds so I could try the new fleur-de-lis stamp right away, as you can see in the photo above. Unfortunately, I forgot to use distilled water and I am not sure whether our local tap water is 100% free of any sapophagic germs. Hopefully, Anfängerglück will not spoil too soon. I'll keep at least one bar and see how long it will keep fresh.

Above you can see my label for Anfängerglück.
The artwork is courtesy of Julia Galster, who
kindly put some of her designs online for non-commercial use.

Mittwoch, 19. August 2009

First things first.

A couple of years ago I stumbled upon a wikibook about the venerable art of soap-making and I was instantly fascinated by the idea of making soap from scratch (don't know whether Lush even existed at that point, but Body Shop sure did - for those who can afford it). However, the wikibook was a very sober affair, and all this talk of dangerous chemicals effectively put me off soapmaking for a while. It was only when, coincidentally again, I stumbled upon another website about soapmaking - a website with lots of pictures this time - that I felt brushing up my knowledge of chemistry would be worth the trouble.

So I read a lot, looked at countless pictures to whet my appetite and started looking for a big pot and safety goggles. Took me quite some time to get all the equipment necessary for my first foray into rocket sc..., er, soapmaking. But finally I had everything I needed...