Nom de Plume

I was probably a little hasty in creating an entire category dedicated to soapmaking. A better category probably would have been “passing fancies.” Or better yet, “passing fancies on which I spend tons of money and then get bored.”

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not totally bored with it yet. It’s just that I’m up to my ears in soap, friends don’t answer their doorbells anymore when they see me wielding more bars, and Steve has actually told me I need a new hobby. (This from the man who 2 months ago got obsessed with windsurfing and now has 3 boards and 5 sails). Also, I’ve gotten sidetracked trying to recreate Lush body butter recipes. Not that I’ve actually recreated any of them. I’ve just been thinking about how I would go about doing it.

But recreating any cosmetic is kind of hard when one’s stock of essentail oils has been severely depleted by obsessive soapmaking. And while the supplier I’ve been using for years is great, boy, is their shipping slow. Here I am thinking to myself, “You know, rosemary and lavender are so abundant here in Seattle. And oranges — those are cheap! Now if I were to … ”

You see where I’m going with this, don’t you?

You can buy a home distillation kit specifically for essential oils for about $400. It includes everything you need, but it still seems like a lot. I mean let’s face it, the oils I would distill are the cheapest oils to buy. And this of course, has led to two full hours of online research on how to build my own still. I’m still not totally clear on how to do it–or whether it’s even legal (there seem to be differences of opinion)–but now, by golly, it’s a challenge.

Not to mention a new obsession.

This is a very very strange soap, but also very very appealing in a strange sort of way.

Basic one pound wonder x 2 with an ounce of unsweetened baking chocolate melted with the oils. Lye was mixed with very strong (even for me) coffee. At trace, added 1/4 cup freshly roasted and ground coffee along with the following EOs:

2 TB lime
2 TB coriander
1 tsp lavender
1 tsp clove
1 TB palmarosa

It feels very luxurious, but for the life of me don’t know how to describe it.

**Update: I LOVED, LOVED, LOVED this soap. Alas, it’s all gone now.

The basic one-pound wonder batch x 2.

I added a heaping tablespoon of ground annato powder to the oils before they were melted. At trace, added 4 TB orange EO and 1 TB sandalwood FO. Then I couldn’t resist sprinkling vanillin on the top. Did you know that vanillin is a byproduct of the paper industry? Neither did I, but it does discolor soap a deep brown. Which looks very cool. And it smells wonderful — even for someone who doesn’t like vanilla-scented stuff that much.

**Update: Too much annato makes it super scrubby and gives it orange foam. Neither of which is a BAD thing, just not what I expected.

**Update 2: Citrus EOs tend to fade, but even after three months, this has kept its orange scent really well. This is a keeper.

My very first one pound wonder batch lost its scent during the saponification process, so I grated it up, made another pound using the same recipe with 2 TB spirulina and 1 TB each of basil and coriander. It looks very cool.

More bookcase sculpture!

**Update: Not wild about this.

No name yet, but this works for now. It’s a modification of the basic larger batch.

126 sweet almond
126 g oo
52 g jojoba
216 PKO
200 palm

95 g lye
9 oz water

1 cup finely ground oatmeal
1 TB each of lavender, lime, litsea cubeba

**Update: This is really boring scent-wise, and the oatmeal is downright annoying.

Designed with essential oils that are calming to those of us who are plagued with hatred for the world (and especially our partners) once a month.

My basic larger batch recipe, which I’ve found to be a nicely moisturizing and luxuriously lathering soap:

252 g oo
252 palm
216 coil

102 g lye
9 oz water

Then for the additives:
2 tsp clary sage
1.5 tsp frankincense
3 tsp geranium
1.5 tsp rosewood
2.5 ylang ylang
1 tsp cedarwood

1 tablespoon ground marsh mallow root.

**Update: This is a lovely, lovely soap. I only have one bar left, and am jealously guarding it.

I can’t wait to use this one. It smells so fresh and clean.

1 oz castor
12 oz oo
12 oz coil
18 oz crisco

6 oz lye
16 oz water

1.5 tsp spirulina for color
2 TB each tea tree, rosemary, peppermint

As you can see, I’ve been reduced to covering every available surface.

**Update: This was a winner; people love it and so do I.

Salt soap is supposed to create a hard bar with really creamy lather. Sadly, this is so hard that it is difficult to get much lather at all. It smells divine though, and I think I might add it in chunks to a regular soap (blue?) with the same EOs.

Still, for those who want the recipe I used:

5.5 oz PKO
5.5 oz coil
5.5 oz safflower

2.5 oz lye
6 oz water

1 TB litsea cubeba
T TB rosemary

Make sure to cut it as soon as it’s cooled down — about two hours. I think adding some castor oil might make it lather better.

**Update: This was a failure. It’s too hard and scratchy, and its bubbles are stingy. I did, however, make a regular batch and added salt at trace. That’s a nice one.

I’ve had two colossal soap failures thus far. The first was Real Indian Chai, which used–you guessed it–real Indian chai that I made along with cinnamon, ginger, and clove oils. The milk curdled. The honey I added at trace didn’t mix in well enough, so it’s seeping out the sides. All in all, not good. Next time, I think I’ll use 1/2 chai, which I’ll add when I mix the lye water to the oils.

The other failure was more costly. It was a shea butter face soap with marsh mallow and licorice roots. I added the lye, and it seized. Immediately and irrevocably. I think it was the combo of the rather viscous decoction and the too-low temperature (90). Sigh.