Kitchen Coffee Scrub Soap

Hi everyone! I have been taking a mini break from my blog since I have been overwhelmed with work and trying to get my garden/yard ready for the warmer weather. I finally had time this weekend to make some soap! I just ran out of my kitchen coffee scrub soap and decided to make a new batch. This soap is so great for when you are chopping onions and garlic and want to get their lingering scent off your hands. It is also useful for cleaning your hands after working outside or on your cars. One of my uncles keeps a bar to use to get all that car grease off his hands after a day of tinkering with his toys. This soap not only provides a scrub, it is also very moisturizing and has been made with some luxurious coffee butter.

Here is some eye candy for you! This first one is of me mixing the soap. It is at a nice thick trace and was poured into the mold just moments after this picture was taken.

Look at that nice thick trace!

 Here I am putting some texture onto the tops of the soap. I just love the ripples you get with a whisk.

Adding the finishing touches to the soap. Who doesn't love a textured top!

You can pick up a bar of this soap here.

Sweet berries...surprisingly good.

Lately, I have been browsing lots of soap blogs and Pinterest and all the creativity has inspired me to play more with colors. So I decided to make a Sweet Berries scented soap and color portions of it pink, blue, and black and leave some uncolored to be a cream color. The pink and blue/green are oxides and the black is from activated charcoal powder. My intent was to swirl the colors together, but in my excitement I forgot that I normal work with a 30% water discount so that I get to trace really quickly. Well when one swirls soap you do not want to trace quickly. So my soap got too thick too fast and in the end I just decided to plop the soap in the mold in a random fashion and hope for the best. I have to say that I was not too hopeful since the top look muted and just plain blah.

Before the cutting...seemed like a muted blah...

So when I finally cut the soap I was really surprised that I liked the final product. It almost looks like the Leopard soap that Cee Gee made over on Oil & Butter.

Nice color variations in every slice!

The silcone soap mold shown above is really a great tool for soapmaking and it is really reasonably priced. You can pick the mold up at Amazon. *Please note that this is an affiliate link and I get paid a small amount from Amazon if you purchase through the link. No worries though, it costs you nothing extra!

Soaps, Drugs, & Rock and Roll

I have to admit that this is really old news, but I am sure that most people have not heard this story and I wanted to share this great video. The video below explains how real soap tests positive (false-positive that is!) for the date rape drug. This is simply a problem with the drug testing kit, but it turns out to be a great way to find out if what you are using is indeed real soap and not a mixture of synthetic detergents. Their are many cases of products being mislabeled and claiming to be soap when they are in fact detergent. While this test is a pretty cool trick for us soapmakers, I am sure most people will not want to check their soap with a drug kit to determine if it is really soap. An easier way to determine what is in your product is to look at the labels. Be on the look out for "soaps" that have Sodium Laureth Sulfate, Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, Ammonium Lauryl Sulfate, Ammonium Laureth Sulfate, or Cocomidopropyl Betaine as these are all common detergents used in soap-like products. On the other hand, if the label lists oils and sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide as the ingredients, then you have real soap. I should note that real soap and detergent products can be found in both solid (bar) and liquid forms.

Check out the video below and at the very end you will see a list of companies that are falsely advertizing their product as soap. As a consumer, you should be able to make an educated choice about what products you are putting on your body.

Black Raspberry Vanilla Cupcake Soap

Third times the charm?  Well maybe, the soap was certainly easy to pipe this time, but I can't say that they look as nice as I would have liked. The color was meant to be darker purple and not a light pink. The "frosting" also looks a little soft to me, but I made sure to keep the points lower so that they do not look like pink Christmas trees! Once again I used a circle hole piping tip instead of the flower-like tip. I am not sure yet which look I prefer?  What is your opinion?

Black Raspberry Vanilla Soap Cupcakes

How to care for your natural handmade soap

Handmade soap is made without synthetic preservatives or artificial hardeners. One of the great things about handmade soap is that it does not need these things added to them. If made and stored properly your handmade soap will be very hard and long lasting.  

The number one rule for prolonging the life of your soap is to make sure it does not sit in a pool of water between uses. Get a good soap dish that allows the water to completely drain away from the soap. The best type of soap dish will also allow air to circulate around the bar. It is even better if you can let your soap completely dry between uses. For soap that is unused store it in a dark cool place like a lingerie drawer or linen closet.

In our shower we use one of those metal racks that hang off of the shower head. These racks allow the water to easily drain and the soap to have good air circulation. They are a good bet for a long lasting handmade soap.