Cheap Laundry Soap and Melt and Pour Update

Wowee my posts have been few and far between, eh? This post is just a quick update on the things I talked about in my previous post. I was very very happy with my laundry soap, I used a mixture of sunflower and castor oils. There are much fewer bubbles than with coconut oil, but I feel that's a good thing because I always get worried about too many bubbles in my washing machine. It also turned out very cheap, I got 1.6L for 83p of materials. Which for me turns out to be 32 normal washes for less than a pound. My clothes come out very clean, even ones that are stained which I was very surprised at, as my soap is not high cleansing like a coconut oil soap.


I'm still experimenting with my Melt and Pour and it's not perfect yet, though I think I have a great oil formula going on, the lather I'm getting is gorgeous and the feel is much better than my first batch. I think I need to be a little more adventurous with my sugar to get better clarity. The melting and pouring and setting is fine though, just working on clarity and feel. If/when those kinks are worked out or I'm happy with the look and feel I'll be posting more about it hehe.


At the moment I'm getting ready for Christmas time and preparing for my safety assessment. Trying to decide what to cook for Christmas dinner always fun ^_^ I've also been enjoying picking out presents for everyone and everyone that's helped me on my soapy journey is going to get an extra gift box of Christmas-y soaps and I'm so excited about those.


Anywho this short post turned into a long post. Take care all, xxx :)

Long time, no see

Time has just seemed to have flown by this last month and I haven't had any time to soap. I'm hoping to get some soaping done today. I'm thinking of some liquid laundry soap because I don't have a lot left and I'd really like to carry on experimenting with melt and pour. I know that coconut oil is the most popular for laundry soap because of it's high cleansing properties but today I've been thinking of sunflower oil instead. It costs less than coconut and doesn't seem to make a lot of bubbles which is useful in the washing machine. Sunflower oil is used less because it turns rancid quickly but with doing at least one wash a day lately I have a feeling it won't sit on the shelf long enough to get rancid. Not sure if I'm right I haven't researched this I only thought of it this morning but I think I'll give it a go and see how it washes.


Another thing I've been wanting to post about it my framed soap, now that it's fully cured I've been using it at the kitchen sink and it truly is a beautiful bar of soap to wash with, the high cocoa butter percentage really makes a difference on my skin. During washing it feels so luxurious and soft and afterwards my hands feel really pampered. But that's not my point hehe, I have noticed that the swirl becomes much more pronounced and pretty the more I use the soap. When I first cut the batch I was disappointed with the inner swirl, thinking that it wasn't defined enough and looked more like a solid green. Now that I have used it I don't know why but the swirl gets bolder and bolder and more like what I wanted when I made it. I'll try and get a picture of it so you know what I'm talking about hehe. 


Lastly the reason I've been away for so long is that I can't tear myself away from this guy ^_^

He's growing so quickly he'll be twelve weeks on Wednesday. When I got him he wasn't in great shape but he's doing so much better now with good vet care some pampering and a good dollop of tlc ^_^

Take care all, xxx :)

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

Finished Tropicana Liquid Soap

Here is the finished liquid soap. I used a green colourant and added Tropicana fragrance oil, it smells really fresh and fruity hehe. It smells a lot like lemon, which is why I chose green. Very summery but sadly summer's almost over. Not too sad though because I love autumn ^_^

I'm so proud and happy with the clarity, I poured some into this lotion bottle to use in the shower because I just can't wait to try it. It's in a lotion bottle because it's too thick for the foamer bottle hehe. Getting it that thick without a thickener took a lot of patience but it was worth it. The rest is sequestering and should hopefully get even clearer.

I've already tried some on my hands and they feel so soft now, I'm quite surprised it seems a lot milder than my bar soaps. Which makes me ponder on the thought that it really matters which oils you use and not so much how much you superfat. I will be remembering that when I formulate a new bar soap recipe. More shea and olive maybe? I really wish sunflower oil soaps weren't so prone to rancidity because I'm starting to really love that little oil.

On another note I spent some time today making some vegan chickpea curry, I used this recipe from the Vegetarian Society. There are lots of other recipes around though with a few variations , I decided to leave out the almonds because I'm not a fan of nuts. Had some for dinner today and it was beautiful! If you like spice but not too hot and fresh flavours I suggest you try this. I made the whole 12 portions and am freezing the other 11. I think I will make this a regular because it was just so tasty ^_^

More coming next week, hope you had a good weekend! Take care all :) xxx

Et Voila! *happy success dance*

Just a small update today, thought I would share my immense happiness at finally getting my liquid soap clear. As I write this it's happily diluting in the crockpot, a beautiful deep amber. The picture above is my clarity test. For the oils I used castor, coconut and sunflower, can't wait to try it tomorrow, I might even do a lather test vid ^_^ Take care all :) xxx

Shopping, Sims and Oblivion

My order has been shipped, was nothing fancy just some coconut and castor oils for my liquid soap but I did also order some surfactants. Thinking of giving bubble bars a go, might be fun ^_^ I didn't order any fragrance oils because I've got a few that I still need to use up. Tropicana being one of them, it's not my favourite because it's overpowered by a melon scent and I was hoping for more of a tropical fruit medley but it's not unpleasant.

On another note, Sims Social has just been released and it's quite addictive. I'm usually not a facebook games fan, preferring mmos over any other type of game, but this has been quite fun. The thing that I think is appealing about it would be that you just play for about 10 minutes every now and then throughout the day. Meaning it's very easy to keep the game going with little effort. The reason I didn't enjoy any previous Sims games is because they got tired very quickly, I felt that my little sims were just too high maintenance.

Another game I've been playing attempting to play is Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. I wanted to play this after seeing the trailer for Skyrim, then saw Oblivion and was really excited to try it. I need something to play to fill in the gap before Star Wars comes out hehe. So I played for about half an hour and just felt so terrible, I think this is the motion sickness I've heard other people talk about. It felt like my head was filled with cotton wool..ewww. I think this is because I'm used to mainly moving in games with my WASD keys, in this game you move forward with your W key and swing yourself around with the mouse. It was just so uncomfortable for me. So I don't know if I'll be able to play Oblivion or not, if anyone reading this knows of a mod where I can use the WASD keys for total movement (long shot) do let me know :)

Anyway I'll be updating soon, take care :) xxx

Long time no see, eh?

It's been over a month since I updated, it has been a very long, busy, warm month but now the flat is starting to shape up into my sweet little home. The kitchen is almost finished and I'll be uploading a video of it soon to my youtube channel. The living room is coming along slowly but surely, this week it's had a break so I could finally clean out the closets. My clothes have been in bags for this entire time hehe.

I think my soap withdrawal is reaching a frenzied peak so tomorrow I think I'll order some nice supplies, yay! I'm thinking of continuing my work on liquid soap for the meantime, to perfect it and work out the kinks with the clarity.

Check back soon for soap and decorating updates, take care in the meanwhile :) xxx

Custom Moulds!

Here they are, my new custom made moulds! Wow I am so happy hehe :D They took a long time to make, almost a whole day, the daylight was almost gone by the time they were finished. Although I think most of the time it was just us planning, calculating and perfecting them ^_^ A family friend made them for me and made them to my exact requirements, I feel so lucky to have someone so talented to do this for me. The large one holds a little over 6lbs and the small one holds a little over 2lbs. I asked for them to be a little over so that I'd have the exact amount of bars I wanted with the two end bars as extras. I'm planning on painting these moulds to really make them my own and have been working on some designs this evening. These are sort of prototypes if these work well I'll get 2 more made exactly the same, if not we'll tweak the design a little bit and have 2 different ones. I'm planning on making my first large batch of CP soap in the big mould tomorrow if I get the time. It will also be my first try at a beer soap ^_^


I know I promised liquid soap but I made my 3rd batch of it today and it has still turned out cloudy. I'm at the end of my tether with perfecting this liquid soap hehe. It soaps beautifully I just wish I could get the aesthetics right. I also promised body butters but I had some very unexpected news (good news) on Wednesday so things are quite far behind as priorities have all jumped places.

So hopefully beer soap and body butters tomorrow, liquid soap if I am uber efficient with my time hehe :-P