Growing Herbs for Soaping

There's nothing like waking up on a Sunday morning, grabbing a pot of coffee and sitting down to blog about something you really like.  So here goes...

I have this botanist friend, Lori, who lives in Redondo Beach.  She's been tremendous in helping me select herbs for planting this spring, all with the mindset of harvesting and drying them later for the purposes of soap making.  I love the smell of lemon and other fruity things, however, actual citrus oil does not make it through the soap making process well.  In other words, it discolors, smell funky or loses 90% of its scent while swimming in the lye solution.

What to do?  Smart Lori suggested I try using herbs that smell like lemon and other fantastic options that I didn't even know existed in the herb world:

Lavender and lemongrass are other staple items and will be added to the garden once the tulips finish blooming...

The trick here is that herbs don't mind lye... at least that's the theory.  How much actual scent they will carry through is still a mystery.  It will be an interesting experiment.  In the meantime I will enjoy watching my herb garden grow and might even take to drinking tea, as I will have an abundant selection to herbs to choose from.

Sandy

Aromatherapy and Perfumery - A Natural Progression

Making soap has opened me up to the world of fragrance and aromatherapy.  Soon I will be combining the benefits of natural essence oils into my soaps.  Not only will it smell heavenly, it will have a distinct purpose as it relates to nurturing your skin.

Combining these essence oils with carrier oils such as avocado butter and sweet almond oil, more mature skin will stand a fighting chance.  (And it really works!)  How exciting is that?  

All of these wonderful combinations of oils will be offered as serums and perfumes as well.

As with soap, we are once again at the mercy of time.  It takes an awfully long time for these products to mature and be ready for prime time. Waiting is a torturous process for me, but will attempt to pacify myself by working on the more mundane business end of all of this.  Off to find customers...  

~Sandy 

A Failed Batch!

I have started using a new type of oil in my soaps called Palm Kernel Oil.  It is solid at room temperature, therefore, needs to be heated up before I can mix it with other ingredients.  No biggie.  So I'm beginning to add all my pre-measured ingredients: liquid oil, solid oil and sodium hydroxide (lye), all together in a giant stainless pot. I start whizzing it around with my mixer and suddenly it seizes up... goes all curdled, like burnt milk, and thickens to the point of nearly stopping the mixer.  I'm freaking out because it's only moments before I'm going to have a solid 5 pound bar of soap stuck in a pot.

I quickly grab a spatula and pack it into the mold like putty... only to find that it completely liquifies back to normal within a minute or so.  I'm sure there's a good scientific reason for this, but at the moment I'm completely puzzled.

So now I have a mess of goo which is not properly mixed already in the mold.  What to do?  I can't pour it back, so I bring the stick blender to the mold and have another go at it.  Just as I start feeling like Smarty Pants,  my mixer sucks in the mold's paper liner and completely purees it into the soap mixture.

My paper soap loaf is now curing for a couple days before I can try extracting it.  Anybody want to try a bar?