Shampoo soap experiment, part 1

Hi all! I've finally gotten around to initiating my shampoo experiment. If you remember in my Shampoo Challenge post I wanted to create a shampoo that would leave my hair feeling soft and silky without any fillers or other nasty chemicals. So I was going to do a normal shampoo and lower the pH by using vinegar. I finally got around to doing the shampoo, at least part #1. I went for the bar soap, hot process because I'm impatient and could not think of waiting 4 weeks for a test. The recipe is as follows:
I also added 12 gr each of Almond oil, avocado oil and castor oil at trace for superfatting. Like mentioned I cooked this, for about 2 hours until I didn't get zapped. It has a lovely natural clean fragrance and a greenish tint to it.
This is the first part of the experiment because now I will grate it and remelt it, adding the vinegar in to lower the pH. I will also try the same with boric acid and fresh squeezed lemon juice. The idea is to test each to see how it feels on my hair. As before, I will leave a "control" bar without any of the additives to see if there is a difference.
Each chunk will be about 4 ounces, since the whole recipe was a pound of soap. Also, since my mother in law is at my house she graciously offered to try the shampoo as well. Her hair type is completely different from mine, so it'll be good for testing purposes. maybe it works for me and not her or the other way around - who knows?
I leave you with a pic of a very sad and ugly looking shampoo - hoping it will look nicer after remelting...

xoxo
Irene

2011 Business Recap

Complexion soap

Since we're starting a new year, I wanted to do a recap of what's happened during the last year. It's been a roller coaster ride for my business...which started out to fulfill a personal need, then my mother in law invited me to my first fair and then...well...it turned into an obsession. I desperately wanted to make beautiful soap - and like many other fellow soapmakers - my dream is to have a soaping empire much like Lust or Bath and Body.

2nd fair I was invited to

I also started using only plastic molds...I had one set plain and one massage set. So I did very small batches of each kind of soap, and several batches to have enough product to show on the fairs. I also had a hard time sourcing coconut oil, so most of my recipes didn't have any. They still turned out really nice and smelled wonderful, no fragrances, just the smell from the different additives - honey and oats, bergamot oil, carrots, etc. They were very simple soaps that suited my needs. After those two first fairs I realized that although my soap were good for me, it's not what the buyers were looking for. So I set myself to investigating what the "standard" was and reaching that standard. I finally got a good contact for coconut oil, and added cocoa butter to the mix as well. Being the project manager I am, I made a standard formula that would minimize wastes (time, effort, money). I also started making lip balms and perfumes. A total face lift! I was decided to have extremely successful stands on the next fairs.

So by mid year, my soap had grown to it's beautiful 4 oz, it now included micas for coloring and fragrance oils as well as essential oils. Completely different from what I began with, but with the same objective in mind - 0 allergies.

It's certainly been amazing, learning new techniques getting inspired by all those great soap artists and just letting my imagination run wild.

I don't want it to end, I want this year to be just as amazing. I don't want to stand still I want to continually evolve. There's a saying here in Costa Rica that goes something like this: if the shrimp falls asleep it gets swept away by the current. So with that in mind I'll be sure to stay awake.

I leave you with a video on the highlights of my year.

xoxo
Irene

Toscana Refreshed

New Toscana

I've been struck with swirl fever as of late...I love how they look but I couldn't get them exactly the way I wanted them to be...that is...until yesterday!

I remade Toscana, which originally was hot process in the pot swirl with just a tiny amount of red and black. For this one I went all out with the color...yellow was actually a spin off from the fragrance. I also added a little more fragrance than what I'm used to, to suit my customers which are scent heavy. I think it just looks fabulous!

Original Toscana

Increasing the 2 oz of water has made a great difference, I still feel it's too wet after 12 hrs, but cutting it is easier and it doesn't crumble as much.

xoxo
Irene

Busy week

OK...so a lot has happened this week...I'll try my best to summarize. I made three batches of soap...wanted to do more but ran out of coconut oil - note to self: have two bins, when one runs out go an buy another...that way I'll always have some. Anyways, I made some straight up honey soap which seems to workbetter than honey oats or honey milk and oats - no fragance on this one except for the natural honey.

I also made some lavender soap. I recently switched to another brand of EOs and they seem to be stronger smelling - which I like. I also resolved to not care about cost when it comes to fragrance...meaning to go for medium to strong smelling soap. In the lavender batch I did just that and it came out smelling wonderful. Remamber the test I did with the vegetable colorant? Since it turned out such a wonderful purple I went ahead and used it for this batch. It turned out purple on the edges and blue on the inside! I have no idea why...I'm guessing either the cocoa butter, sunflower oil or lavender EO had something to do with it because that is all that changed from the test recipe. It still looks very nice though.

 While doing these two test batches I kept noticing how the bottom of each bar cracks a little when cutting it. I ran the recipe through soap calc and it gave me a full 2 oz more of water (I usually use MMS calc). So for my next batch I increased the water a little and it seemes to help...though the soap lookes too "wet" for my taste when I cut it.

I made carrot soap...and boy that carrot was used to the last bit. I first extracted the juice and added at trace along with some of the pulp. It colored the soap a nice orange color which turned out pretty nice. Since I had so much pulp left I made some carrot muffins...they were so yummy the kids didn't mind eating them even though they had nasty Mr. orange carrot - my daughter has this thing about orange food. I had also processed some aloe vera for the soap but it didn't actually work so well as it just made some green gunk at the bottom of the bin...so I didn't include it in the soap....and I couldn't bring myself to putting it in with the muffin batter either. So I offered my mother in law a hair mask! She was delighted. So while the muffins were cooking she got a nice salon treatment :-) She is currently nursing a broken ankle at my house...so any extra pampering is very much appreciated.

So that was my first week of the year...a lot busier than other weeks. How was yours?

P.D. Need to take better pics of soaps...these are horrible!

xoxo

Irene

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Hello 2012!!

Swirl soap rounds

I hope you've all had a great Holiday season and a good rest. I spent a great time at the beach with my family but now it's time to grab the new year by the horns.

I'm trying to get in the roster for Expo Yoga...a two day fair held with Yoga and environmental friendly products. So I'm trying to prep in advanced to have some nicely cured soap for it - Feb 18 & 19.

I want to include more essential oils rather than fragrance oils, but they are so expensive and limited here :-( And I refuse to go into a pyramid like business with several of the sellers. So I have to stick to the most normal ones. I still got a really great scent mixing rosemary, geranium, orange and lavender. I did some fancy swirls and cut them in nice little 3/4 oz rounds. These will be sold in muslim bags. I thought they were really cute, hope customers do too.

Cutting in process

Back side of soap

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