I hadn't made any soap in quite a while, and I had a few issues since apparently I'm out of a few ingredients. I had to run out and get more olive and castor, then after I got home realized I was low on coconut too! I re-formulated a couple recipes and made do though!
I'm now tired but content that I got a lot done! Here are some kind of ugly in-the-mold pics,
will post more when I cut. 2 of the batches were naughty and I had to put them outside for a couple hours on the front porch, they just now were allowed back in the house. They started superheating and were doing a kinda cracking in the middle thing that I wasn't happy with, but outside cooled them off nicely. Sorry for the reflection off the saran wrap!
Clockwise from top right:
1.) Oats n Honey. Scented lightly with Oats and Honey FO, ground oats and honey. Uncolored, but is already a rich amber color from the honey.
2.) Almond Joy. Scented with coconut and almond FO's, colored with a swirl of cocoa powder, and contains 15% cocoa butter.
3.) Black Raspberry Vanilla. BRV FO (dead-on B&BW dupe), cranberry seeds for visual interest and slight exfoliation, swirled with ultramarine pink pigment.
4.) Pink Grapefruit Confetti Soap (in the vertical mold). Pink grapefruit fragrance, neon red pigment (used sparingly to get pink), and a lb of dried shreds beveled from other soaps in various colors and fragrances (fruit and floral fragranced). BTW, I do not recommend doing a confetti soap in a vertical mold. What was I thinking? It was so hard to get in there, I made a massive mess(that's why it's sitting in a container, I didn't really want raw soap dripping down the sides onto the counter or carpet)!
5.) Dragon's Blood. Dragon's blood FO with a little dark patchouli EO thrown in. Uncolored, but since the FO discolors to a super dark brown/sometimes black (depending on how strongly you fragrance it) I do a reverse swirl, and hold back 1/3 of the batch and add the fragrance to the rest, then swirl in the portion that is plain. That way I get a bit of a white swirl instead of a totally dark soap.
6.) Spring Rain confetti soap. Spring rain fragrance, jojoba beads in pink, blue and green, and lots of soap shreds in various colors (various fruit and floral fragrances)
7.) My Shea Luxury soap (30% shea butter!), this time I added some liquid silk (Ladybug Soapworks' post kinda reminded me I'd never used the silk I bought a while ago!) It's scented with Lavender Provence EO, Bulgarian Lavender EO, and Lavender Fleur FO (smells like sweet tarts!) uncolored
The "overflow" bars
Cut bars~
Almond Joy and Shea Luxury
Dragon's Blood--the outside has already discolored, but the newly cut part is still white...will take more pics as it darkens
Dragon's Blood and Spring Rain
Spring Rain Confetti--I LOVE how this turned out, my new favorite bar! And it smells sooooo good!
Black Raspberry Vanilla
Pink Grapefruit Confetti~this one turned out cool too, I love the shreds of blue!
Oats n Honey~somehow I think I got a partial gel on this one...it's a puzzler, in a honey soap???
Putting the babies to bed in their curing rack!
The bottom row is the dragon's blood...that's how much it's already discolored in 2 days (since cutting)
