Minty (not out of Eastenders)

   

"Minty" in and out of the mold

This batch was made with my usual base recipe with the addition of dried ground mint and peppermint essential oil.

The homemade slab mold worked well but the cobbled together cutter was the star of the show! I demolded it after about twelve hours and was pleased with the two colour semi-swirl, I didn't wan't a massively marbled type of effect but wanted to show two distinct layers. The dried ground mint gave a nice olivey dark green with a slight texture and the scent was just nice too!

At last with the aid of my new homemade cutter all of the bars ended up the same size and shape. the weight still varied a bit but this was due to the height of the swirls and hand finished edges. Each bar weighed approximately 115-125g

The nettle soap is still on the menu but haven't managed harvest my lovingly cultivated stingers!

Keep Soaping!

Tombar Lavender Soap Bar

 

Tombar Lavender Bar

The homemade log mould works perfectly again! The lavender bar has turned out just nice. Its just the right amount of essential oil and dried ground lavender buds creating the perfect scent, not too strong but strong enough to be nice and relaxing in the shower, topped off with lavender buds.

The bar looks nice and organic in a herbal kind of way with a slight green tinge from the ground lavender. The Tombar oil base has produced a nice firm bar that should last for ages in the shower.

Really pleased with this batch. I think this batch size is just about right, big enough not to worry too much about loosing the heat out of the mould but small enough to be a bit experimental. Yields about 20 x 120g bars. (good chunk) The bars in the photo above need finishing - I like to take the sharp edges off the bar although I do think it looks more natural if you don't.

Herbal bars are on the menu for the future I think? Next project is a nice organic nettle soap bar (should be plenty in the garden!)

Keep Soaping

Red Clay and Clove with Nutmeg Layer Soap Bar - Catchy eh!

Red Clay and Clove essential oil base with a Nutmeg topping - Yum!

The batch was made from my Tombar secret blend of oils super fatted with Shea Butter to produce a lovely creamy bar (well I think so anyway)

The last time I made a Clay and Clove bar it traced v-quickly. Note to self - get it in the mould quicker!!

I used my homemade slab mould for the first time and I didn't know how well to insulate it as I made it out of pretty thick timber! In the end I decided to just cover it over with an old newspaper and leave it alone. It worked perfectly.

The only problem with the batch was as the red clay part with clove essential oil went pretty stiff quickly and I managed to get a few little air pockets into it - happy with my first effort at layering it though!

Keep Soaping!

Thats It! The Rambling Soaper!

I've never done this sort of thing before (blogging I mean) but my wife is fed up with my soapy ramblings so here we go!

I am by trade an engineer and spend many hours driving from job to job and its inevitable that my mind soon turns to soap. Not just soap but oils, butters, essential oils, pigments and many other soapy dreams.

I love soap - making it, using it, smelling it, thinking about it, talking about it! Selling it?

Being an amateur and looking to progress into selling my masterpieces it would be nice to get some of my ideas and probably failures out there for some feed back.

Will talk soon about my next batch and hopefully get some pictures up!