I am all soaped out for the moment, I have plenty of stock now for the upcoming fairs, but I think I need to restock on some of the bath products as well. I love making bath melts, the fragrances don't change like they sometimes do in soap, you don't have to wait 4-6 weeks for them to cure and of course the best bit is trying them out myself for, well, errmm, quality control reasons, of course. Sigh, bathroom bliss.
Also, I will have to bribe my son again to help design and print the labels for the new soaps and of course for the new tall cylinder packaging for the facial scrub. Yikes, I hope Cosmo will do the trick again.
At the moment, I also spend quite a bit of time crocheting, it is such a therapeutic thing to do early in the mornings when the dogs decide to get me up at 6am or in the evenings, whilst watching telly or chatting with the girls online. Also blogging seems to have me by the scruff of my neck, lol, I can't seem to stop posting silly things on my other blog - http://lululizinlalaland.blogspot.com/, come and visit and have a giggle, you may even see a picture of Her Majesty the Croapqueen!
Thats it for now, I am getting my bath melt ingredients ready, I'll probably spend half hour or so sniffing my way through all the beautiful fragrance oils in my cupboard, or maybe I'll come up with a new essential oil blend....
Showing posts with label fragrance oils. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fragrance oils. Show all posts
Thursday, 14 May 2009
Wednesday, 29 April 2009
Update on the soap experiment
I was being a very good, patient girl this morning, I didn't jump out of bed when Andy got up at 5am this morning, I didn't even get up to check the soap when I got my cup of tea, mostly really because the two doggies were lying across my legs and I wouldn't have been able to move even if I had wanted to, lol. But 7am is a respectable getting up time ( I know, JJ would dispute that and argue very hotly ), but it just had to be done.
Both soaps had ashed, was the FO responsible for that perhaps? I don't often get ash, hmmm. Actually mine had ashed more than hers did. I took the soaps out of the mould, and peeled off the liner. Big difference there, mine came off cleanly, hers was sticky and left residue on the liner, more on the bottom than on the sides. It wasn't really bad though, and the difference was probably due to her using full water at 38 and me dropping mine to 35. Her soap felt stickier and was therefore more awkward to cut, i got the heavy drag on the knife, but despite that, it was a fairly clean cut. Because my soap didn't have that stickiness, it was easier and cleaner to cut.
Colourwise there isn't much in it anymore, mine is still a wee bit lighter and yellower than hers, which is slightly darker and more beige. We'll see how that will change over the course of the day.
So, quite frankly, I am a bit stumped now, making allowances for the full water, her recipe itself didn't turn out too badly after all, although it requires more patience, lol. I NEED PATIENCE now to see how the soaps develop over the next days and weeks, arrgghh, this is the really hard part of the experiment, lol. In the meantime, I think perhaps her mould and lining has something to do with her problems of getting the soaps out in the first place. Perhaps a little tweak of the recipe, together with a decent wooden mould and a liner would solve her problems.
Another thought just occurred to me. I believe that usually she doesn't take temps of the oils and the lye water, this time she did, and soaped at around 90F, that might have something to do with it as well. I am totally anal about taking temps, I have to admit, I always check the temps of both the oils and the lye water, and usually soap at around 85 or 90F.
Both soaps had ashed, was the FO responsible for that perhaps? I don't often get ash, hmmm. Actually mine had ashed more than hers did. I took the soaps out of the mould, and peeled off the liner. Big difference there, mine came off cleanly, hers was sticky and left residue on the liner, more on the bottom than on the sides. It wasn't really bad though, and the difference was probably due to her using full water at 38 and me dropping mine to 35. Her soap felt stickier and was therefore more awkward to cut, i got the heavy drag on the knife, but despite that, it was a fairly clean cut. Because my soap didn't have that stickiness, it was easier and cleaner to cut.
Colourwise there isn't much in it anymore, mine is still a wee bit lighter and yellower than hers, which is slightly darker and more beige. We'll see how that will change over the course of the day.
So, quite frankly, I am a bit stumped now, making allowances for the full water, her recipe itself didn't turn out too badly after all, although it requires more patience, lol. I NEED PATIENCE now to see how the soaps develop over the next days and weeks, arrgghh, this is the really hard part of the experiment, lol. In the meantime, I think perhaps her mould and lining has something to do with her problems of getting the soaps out in the first place. Perhaps a little tweak of the recipe, together with a decent wooden mould and a liner would solve her problems.
Another thought just occurred to me. I believe that usually she doesn't take temps of the oils and the lye water, this time she did, and soaped at around 90F, that might have something to do with it as well. I am totally anal about taking temps, I have to admit, I always check the temps of both the oils and the lye water, and usually soap at around 85 or 90F.
Wednesday, 22 April 2009
Had to happen sooner or later
Sigh, I had a bit of a soaping disaster yesterday. All my own fault, I should have known better. You see, I have this love/hate relationship with FOs, and in particular this one, I adore the scent but its a bitch to soap. I had used it once before and it was instant soap on a stick. It did hold its fragrance through the rebatching, so all was not lost. But, it went to the back of the cupboard as a soaping no-no.
Yesterday I thought I would try and reduce my stash of FOs, and picked this one, the fragrance was just too irresistible. I remembered that it didn't discolour too badly, only to a sort of cream/light tan. I thought that perhaps by soaping at room temperature and with full water, it might behave itself a bit better. No such luck, sigh, even though I only stirred the fragrance in by hand, not with a stick blender. As I poured, it started to rice, and by the time the last bit of soap was in the mould, it had set rock hard. So much for doing a pretty swirl on top along the middle. It was heating up as I was still trying to get some sort of pattern onto the top, and just a few mins after putting it to bed, it was gelling like crazy. And thats when the trouble really started. It started splitting and cracking all over the place, and oozing the fragrance oil. I just left it in disgust and resigned myself to the fact that a rebatch was pretty imminent.
My soaping room smelled so good this morning, and I was so hoping that overnight the FO might have been reabsorbed into the soap................. NOPE, it was still sitting on top in little puddles. Well, I decided to cut it anyway, it would have to be chopped up for rebatching or for shredding/cubing, anyway, so it didn't really matter what I did to it. Surprisingly, the soap is actually quite smooth inside, the two halves are holding together very nicely, and the cracks seem to have mostly closed up. What a real bummer about the puddles though, eh? I have decided to wait another day before I take drastic action, I am forever hopeful, the FO might still get absorbed back in the soap, lol.
This is it, just after pouring it, you can see the ricing, cracking and splitting quite well -
And this is it just cut, you can see the FO still puddling on top, in what was supposed to be a graceful, delicate little white swirl, hahahaha -
The offending FO has been put back into the cupboard with a firm note attached to it, only to use it for scrubs and bath melts and such like. No more soap, ever, humph.
Yesterday I thought I would try and reduce my stash of FOs, and picked this one, the fragrance was just too irresistible. I remembered that it didn't discolour too badly, only to a sort of cream/light tan. I thought that perhaps by soaping at room temperature and with full water, it might behave itself a bit better. No such luck, sigh, even though I only stirred the fragrance in by hand, not with a stick blender. As I poured, it started to rice, and by the time the last bit of soap was in the mould, it had set rock hard. So much for doing a pretty swirl on top along the middle. It was heating up as I was still trying to get some sort of pattern onto the top, and just a few mins after putting it to bed, it was gelling like crazy. And thats when the trouble really started. It started splitting and cracking all over the place, and oozing the fragrance oil. I just left it in disgust and resigned myself to the fact that a rebatch was pretty imminent.
My soaping room smelled so good this morning, and I was so hoping that overnight the FO might have been reabsorbed into the soap................. NOPE, it was still sitting on top in little puddles. Well, I decided to cut it anyway, it would have to be chopped up for rebatching or for shredding/cubing, anyway, so it didn't really matter what I did to it. Surprisingly, the soap is actually quite smooth inside, the two halves are holding together very nicely, and the cracks seem to have mostly closed up. What a real bummer about the puddles though, eh? I have decided to wait another day before I take drastic action, I am forever hopeful, the FO might still get absorbed back in the soap, lol.
This is it, just after pouring it, you can see the ricing, cracking and splitting quite well -
And this is it just cut, you can see the FO still puddling on top, in what was supposed to be a graceful, delicate little white swirl, hahahaha -
The offending FO has been put back into the cupboard with a firm note attached to it, only to use it for scrubs and bath melts and such like. No more soap, ever, humph.
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