Melt and pour from scratch ^_^

Making melt and pour from scratch went really well. Going to be tweaking the recipe for better lather, less sticky, more transparent etc. I'm very pleased with it so far and would happily use it as it is for myself, in fact I have been hehe. The stickiness has reduced overnight so it most definitely needs curing, which was expected, just surprised at the difference. When I cure my lye soaps the only difference I notice in the feel is hardness really and that's over a long time. So today when I picked up my block of melt and pour and felt that it was so different to yesterday I was intrigued. Did a short video on the results and that is here:

This batch was made with propylene glycol but is palm and surfactant free, a big chunk of the recipe being shea butter. I want to see if I can make a batch without the propylene glycol. While I'm not overly fussed about being 'all-natural' for my own personal reasons, I know many of my friends and family are so getting a soap base that uses mostly natural ingredients would be great. I don't have high hopes for removing the propylene glycol but we'll see. I also didn't use alcohol to make this soap, denatured alcohol is a hassle to get in the UK just for a hobby, and I think bypassing the alcohol detracts from the clarity but I'm guessing helps keep the soap from being too drying on the skin, but is just an honest guess I haven't researched it.

Anywho it's late, thanks for stopping by, take care all :) xxx

Hot Process

I reckon there's a lot of other soapers out there like me, that were/are a little wary of trying hot process soap making because of the texture. Having seen some not-so-great photos of HP when I began soaping in December I'd decided this was not a branch of soaping I wish to go down. Since then I have learnt so much and have an ever-growing unquenchable thirst for soaping. I frequently find myself on youtube clicking through the recommendations and the other night I found some videos on HP. Watching in awe at the beautiful, rustic, simple bars I couldn't believe that I had dismissed it so readily before. I wish I had researched more on HP back then but now I take it as an opportunity to submerge myself in soapy, hot processing fun ^_^

And here it is. Today I was having fun in the kitchen creating this batch that I'm calling 'Nippy'. I will be giving bars of this in a gift set for christmas to all the people that have supported me during this journey. I can't wait to cut into this and see how my swirl came out. I love the smell of this batch too, it's a crisp, mint and menthol with a background of vanilla and then you have the cool spice of the star anise embeds. I keep sniffing it as it cools in the mold, I really hope it comes out well because I love it so much already hehe.I had a little too much soap batter for my crock pot so I decided to practice my piping on a scrap of greaseproof. As well as many soapy videos there are many cake decorating videos and I've been excited to try out some piping too. I think the little gem star piping is so cute, I would love to try a soap cake with those one day. Ahhh dreaming, dreaming. This feeling is great and I'm sure a lot of soapers feel this too, where you suddenly get a million ideas at once and are just itching to try them all right now, this very second, hehe.

Anyway hopefully my HP loaf will be ready to cut tomorrow morning, take care all :) xxx

First attempt: Framed soap

Yesterday I was busy trying my hand at framed soap, and today I got to cut it. Above are the photos I took. I did do a cutting video but didn't like it because I had my arm in the way most of the time - silly billy. I named this soap Autumn Grace. The photos of it in the mold are just after pouring, so the colours are a little more vibrant. I tried to do a copper and green autumnal feel but my copper was more orangey than I'd have liked it to be. I'm still proud of my top swirl and it's scented with a Chanel no. 5 type which is heavenly. I'm pretty pleased with the frame, even though it's uneven I still think it's good for a first try ^_^

This soap is completely cold process, vegan and palm free. This palm-free recipe is what I'm keeping now, I am ridiculously pleased with it hehe. I smile every time I think about my lather. I did do a lather test video today which I'll try to edit and post tonight if I'm not too tired.

Take care all :) xx

I made a web browser?!

I decided to play around with Visual Basics Express 2010 last night and it was so much fun. I stayed up way too late making my own web browser. Of course it's not fantastically full of features, this is my first attempt at software development but it works! Hehe I was so amazed that I managed to get it working, I found it took a lot of concentration but overall it wasn't so hard. Anyway enough boasting from me but if you want to try my browser you can it's available here. Maybe you can give me some tips on making it better decent :-D

Right now I have a new formula of liquid soap paste cooking in the crock pot. I was very pleased that I had a 9 minute 53 second trace (yup I timed it with a stopwatch :-P) and that I wasn't standing around with the blender going for 40 minutes which, I guess, is the least fun part of liquid soap making for many.

I felt the need to do a liquid soap this afternoon because my attempt at a bar soap earlier seems to have failed. Well not failed. I'm pretty sure it will be good soap, I'm just equally sure that it will be a very ugly soap hehe. I won't know for sure until I cut it tomorrow. I'll get a video of the cutting but whether I post it or not is another matter. The monitor might explode in disgust, naw I'm kidding. Anyway the liquid soap should be a lot more bubbly than my last batch, I'm looking forward to trying it ^_^

I need to go check on it now, so take care all :) xxx

Bubble Bar Experiments

Here's my first attempt at bubble bars and I'm pleased, they turned out better than I expected. I will be tweaking my recipe for some bigger bubbles, more foam and hopefully some moisturising qualities. I really enjoyed playing with the clear up after hehe, smelled so pretty and the foam was so soft and gentle. I'll keep you updated on my progress with the bubble bars and hopefully you'll see them getting better.

Like I said in the video some body butters should be coming soon, that will be a first attempt also. I hope to do them tomorrow but I might be too busy with decorating; I hope to get the living room finished soon. In the meantime take care all :) xxx