I have always been intrigued by the art of soap making……..the forms, colors, smell and the endless creativity and artistry of the soap makers !

And if you start researching……wow, you can just loose yourself in a flood of information.

As a newbie you really can get overwhelmed by all the terms of “melt and pour”, “cold process”,  “trace”, “cure” and so on and so on…….I’m not a professional so I’ll stay out of all those information and explanations……..but I really found this page one of the most informant and inspiring pages…….

https://www.soapqueen.com/  

Having that said………I started when we were living in Sweden two years ago just for the fun of it and to see if it’s something that would make a nice addition to my wood works.

The first try doing cold processed soap wasn’t looking really nice…….but it turned out to be really good soap with a nice lather.

The two white one’s on the right side are melt’n pour .. the one with the green sprinkles…..that’s lavender I picked from my bush and just threw in…..had no clue the purple would turn green 😉

Back here in Nova Scotia last year I didn’t have a lot of time but wanted to create some special gift tags. So I got myself some simple glycerin melt’n pour soap, some silicone molds from the dollar store and gave it a try…..put on a little gold afterwards and….

And if you add it to some wood slices and a little decoration……….you certainly have a different gift tag to most other people 😉

But of course those are little pieces not really suitable for washing your hands……so I made some larger one’s too …… with and without Christmas motives

It’s a mix of glycerin and goat milk melt’n pour soap and the round one’s are made in muffin molds held on an angle until the goat milk hardened, then put on the table again and filled up with glycerin……….and a fragrance of honey/almond……soooo yummy 😉

And as Easter time came……….gave it a new spin…….

I have a couple of awesome smelling herbs in my tiny garden I decided to pick and dry a couple of weeks ago

Then found this amazingly simple cold process recipe for an olive oil soap with ingredients I happened to have on hand……

olive oil      24.4 oz (692 g)

dest. water    6.83 oz (193,6 g)

lye    3.14 oz (89 g)

fragrance and herbs as desired

so I started off (if you want to try yourself, go to you tube……there are tons of videos explaining how to make this olive oil soap and what to look out for….. incl. the safety advice how to handle lye !! )

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And after letting it sit for 24 hours……..

Then you slice up as desired

 

As it’s cold processed soap it has to cure for another 4 – 6 weeks at a dry place……only melt’n pour soap can be used immediately and also has to be wrapped immediately !

I just shaved the edges a bit before “putting them to rest” and even those still soft leftovers

you can use to just hand mold a little soap 🙂

That’s it for the moment…….hope you like what you see and if you have any ideas you’d like to share……I’d love to hear from you 🙂

 

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