I while ago I made an easy "lime in the coconut" soap with coconut oil, shredded coconut, and lime EO.  Unfortunately, it didn't smell like coconut at all.  So take two, I got the Coconut Cybilla from Brambleberry and made this!  







Recipe:

70 oz Olive oil
30 oz coconut oil
30 oz palm oil
10 oz shea butter
13 oz coconut milk
4 oz homebrewed beer (boiled into a syrup and cooled) - my friend made it from hops she grew!
33 oz water
19.31 oz lye
tablespoon of paprika
Coconut scent
Lime EO
Grapefruit EO

This is my first attempt at a coat hanger swirl..  if I did it again, I'd swirl a little harder haha

Actually, to be truthful, this was my first attempt at the coconut scented soap..  whoops!



I made a Brazilian yellow clay embed the week before, but the batch itself thickened CRAZY fast..  like zero to cheesecake in 15 seconds!  I ended up shoving the base into the molds with my gloved hands and it came out looking like a foot :-/   I actually nicknamed it "Ugly Coconut."

thanks for looking!

This is less a recipe than an idea, but I couldn't wait to try it   I got my bf an electric smoker for Christmas, and I was thinking all along that I could smoke things like salt and onions on the side while he's cooking bigger items like brisket.  So I found 3 lbs of (probably cheap a$$) sea salt at Big Lots for $1.99.  Yesterday I put a thick layer of it in a cast iron skillet and put it on direct smoke (apple and hickory) for about 4 hours, and then left it in the smoker to get even more smoke flavor overnight with the smoker off.  All I did was stir it a few times and this is the result:





Big Red:




Some of the wood chips caught a little bit of fire in the first hour, so my bf is concerned that it'll taste a little too "camp fire-y" but it smells just like anything else we've smoked so far.  Anyway, if you have a smoker, this is literally the easiest thing to make ever, I can't wait to use it (I think it would make a great gift too!).

When I got my last order from Brambleberry, the sample was Vetyver (based on the essential oil, but it's a FO)...  I fell completely in love with it and knew I wanted to use it for my next batch!  I sell my soap at a local beer store, so this scent is the perfect manly scent that still has female appeal.

Lumberjacked (aka "I'm a Lumberjack and I'm ok"):

80 oz pomace Olive oil
40 oz Coconut oil
40 oz Palm oil
22.44 oz lye
33 oz water
14 oz coconut milk
3 oz beer syrup (I used a beer made out of pine needles, and boiled it until it was a thick syrup)

9 oz Vetyver FO
1 oz Pine EO
Green Mica
Dried Rosemary






I'm going to do some upcycled packaging and get a used plaid shirt from Goodwill to wrap the bars in, and then I'll do a paper tag and attach it with twine.  My whole house smells so manly, I think this one should do really well (and my bf can't wait to try it!).

My sister is really into bug taxidermy right now for some reason..  I got her a painted beetle (a real taxidermied one) for xmas, but I also wanted to make her a cross stitch bug as an accent for her display wall.









The pattern was from an old Japanese cross stitch book..  I wanted to put the latin for this bug under it, but i ran out of canvas   My bf was lovely enough to frame it, i think it looks really good now actually!

happy holidays to everybody

Hey all

So my lovely boyfriend is thinking about making me some new soap molds and ordering me a bar cutter for christmas (I know, it's awesome haha).  Quick question..  what are the average dimensions of one of your bars of soap?  I'm making huge 8-10 oz bars right now that are 3.5" tall by 4.5" wide by over an inch thick, but it's kind of cutting into my profit margin to make them that big.  I'm thinking 3x3 square right now, but the boyfriend is disagreeing (he thinks that's still too big, and it may be).

thanks!

The beer store where I sell my soap was asking if I wanted to do a special Christmas gift thingy and I said maybe haha   This is the soap I ended up making..  it's the usual Olive/Coconut/Palm oil mix and it's scented with peppermint EO and Vanilla (non-discoloring) FO.  The color is a mix of mostly madder root added right to the batch and a little brick oxide (which hopefully won't act up like it did in the last batch).




It smells pretty awesome so far   The gift basket is going to be a big bar of soap (all my bars are around 8-10 oz), a peppermint candle made in a vintage tea cup, in a gift bag with a candy cane, ribbon, and a gift tag. 

thanks for looking!

So this batch almost killed me, but it looks pretty good with the packaging on it

Cranberry Lime Soap

70 oz pomace olive oil
30 oz coconut oil
30 oz palm oil

18.10 oz lye
22 oz water
13 oz coconut milk, cold
4 oz beer boiled down to a syrup and allowed to cool

8 oz cranberry sweet FO (brambleberry)
2 oz lime EO (distilled)
.5 oz rose clay



This batch thickened up like a mother, I almost couldn't get it in the molds!  I found out later that:

A.  My oils weren't melted enough
B.  You never ever evvvver water discount soap with clay in it!  Turns out the clay absorbs water (duh and/or hello, Mandy...)

It smells really nice, I have to admit I like the sweet cranberry from Brambleberry more than the tart.  The lime is a nice addition too.

The actual soap (lots of air bubbles, BF thinks it's "barbie skin color", but it smells good)




I'm going with a nice easy peppermint next time, damn!


Thanks for looking

I've had a lot of requests for a pumpkin soap, so I made a big batch last week!  It's the basic olive/palm/coconut oil mix, and I added 8 ounces of pumpkin puree, pumpkin beer, cinnamon leaf EO, and BB's pumpkin spice FO





Closeup of the top (I sprinkled it with Pumpkin Pie spice):





Right now the Cinnamon leaf is a little overpowering, and it's more spicy that buttery for sure, but I like it.  The great thing is it makes your hands smell like cinnamon for like 2 hours after you use it!  Happy Fall everybody

Ok, I wanted this soap to look like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AuhRjqedPU

Ummmmm instead it looks like this :-/





Sigh...

James Bond Soap:

70 oz olive oil
40 oz Coconut oil
40 oz Palm Oil

1 can coconut milk
32 oz water
22.17 oz lye

4 oz BB Drakkar Noir FO
4 oz Lemon EO
2 oz BB Juniper Breeze FO

1 shot of Vodka, boiled
Activated Charcoal
Red Brick Oxide


So everything's good until I add the drakkar noir..  it instantly rices, but I blend the sh$t out of it, and it goes smooth again..  the dividers in the loaf molds weren't flat enough, and wouldn't keep the light trace white on its side...  meanwhile, we tried to do a column swirl in my square mold, and that failed too..  because in the meantime, the colors with the drakkar noir and juniper scents had MASSIVELY THICKENED.. we're talking peanut butter 5 minutes after mixing in the scent...  so I panicked and just threw the colors together.. 

Also, the red pigment didn't mix in very well, and there are some spots of pigment that didn't integrate...  this is going to dye my skin right?  Like I can't sell this now?  I made 11 lbs, I hope it's salvageable :-/

At least it smells good, sigh..

Thanks Harry Nilsson, I'm now "Lime in the Coconut" obsessed   I decided to make a quick little Lime and Coconut batch of soap this weekend using leftover oils I had in my pantry:





Lime in the Coconut Soap:

35 oz Olive Oil
15 oz Coconut Oil
9 oz Palm Oil
6 oz Shortening (the cheap Veggie/Cottonseed Oil one)

8.9 oz Lye
10 oz Chilled Coconut Milk
10 oz Water
4 oz distilled Lime EO
Shredded Coconut and Lime zest

It was so warm out, I didn't even premelt my oils.  I added the coconut milk, EO, and half the shredded coconut and lime zest at trace.  I topped the bars with the other half when they were in the mold.  It has a great texture, I like the little flecks of lime zest, and it smells really nice!

After that, I was still obsessed, so I made a pie



yeah yeah, we ate half, whatever   Basically, a stick of butter (yeah yeah a stick of butter, whatever!), enough flour to make a roux.  Then a can of coconut milk, juice and zest of 4 limes, a little milk, pinch of salt, sugar to taste, and an egg.  The crust is just like a graham cracker crust, but I used sugar cones all ground up instead!  Oooo, naughty