Olive Oil Soap Gone Right!

After my shampoo mess, I was hesitant to get back on the horse! As I am almost out of olive oil soap, my absolute favorite, I decided to make a 6 lbs batch. For this batch I kept my 90% olive oil and made the rest shea butter and coconut. The first 3 lbs I poured into my wood loaf mold just plain. Then to what was left in the pot, I added rosehips and Celestial Waters fragrance oil.

It smells heavenly and seems to be setting up beautifully. Olive oil soap is a great one to make if you are worried about trace because it takes a while. I had plenty of time to pour the first batch and then add stuff to what was left and pour the second batch. For me it's a a great time saver because I only have to mix one batch of oils and one batch of lye/water to get 2 different soaps.

I can't wait to try these 2 out!

Beer Shampoo Gone Wrong

Sometimes you do everything right. Measure exactly, melt to the right temperature, cool the lye, and still things can go wrong. I'm down to my last single bar of Beer Shampoo and I really needed another batch.

Two days ago I started working on re-stocking the store. Beer shampoo was the top of my priority list. I melted the oils, followed the same recipe and then tried to decide on the scent. Vanilla seemed like a good choice to compliment the residual beer smell. For some reason the vanilla had gone missing. I had a bottle of Arabian Spice that smells wonderful and settled on that as a back up. Not thinking, I mixed it with the oils before I added it to the lye/water. I mixed with a spoon a couple turns. Whirred my stick blender once and by then it had begun hardening. Panicked, I stirred with the spoon a few more times and it had started to go lumpy. Not sure what else to do and hoping for the best, I plopped and scooped it into the mold and popped it in the oven.

The next day I pulled it out and looked at it. Something was just not right. It didn't look right and there were these funny spots in it. I didn't have the nerve to tongue test it so I let it set thinking it might improve in appearance and I wouldn't be so apprehensive about this batch. On top of that, the Arabian spice, which was the cause of all the chaos, had pretty much vanished.

So now 2 days later and the appearance has gotten somewhat worse. In the end I decided to chunk it all up and toss it in the crock pot to rebatch. I guess it happens to the best of us. I had never experienced the dreaded "seize" until now. I'd heard about it on message boards and read the tales of trying to chisel the hardened soap out of the pot. Now I can say I've seen it in person and have my own tale to tell.

On the positive side, it smells wonderful. On the negative, it's just not as pretty as regular cold process. But having had so much success with hot process before, hopefully the end result will be great.

New Products, New Year

I'm slowly adding some new products to my store! At left is my newest creation...Body Butter. It's a wonderful blend of shea butter, mango butter, and coconut oil that leaves skin feeling soft and smooth. It also helps with my case of the winter itchies. A little goes a long way so these small looking tubs should last a while. It will be going out to my testers for review very soon.

I will also be adding some room spray. I love essential oils and non-synthetic fragrances. I'm currently working on a signature scent for Rena Soap. It should be up after the new year. A hint...think citrus and spice.

And finally, my other new product is bath fizzies. These are great fun and have been a big hit with my girls. They add some almond oil and goat milk powder to your bath to create a luxurious spa type experience. They will be showing up on the website any day now in glorious new colors and scents.

I have also decided to use this blog just for my soaps and not my religious ramblings! God has put it on my heart to "pray out loud" this year. I will be jotting down my daily prayer times. I am hoping it will inspire someone. We are all fallen and I'm sure my weaknesses will show themselves in all their glory. You can follow me at http://renaprays.blogspot.com/ starting January 1st.

Happy New Year!

My God is so Big...

Do you remember being a child and singing those songs in Vacation Bible School? My God is so BIG, so strong and so mighty. There's nothing my God cannot do. Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so. Or maybe you never went to church as a child and did not know the songs. If you didn't get to sing those songs as a child, children believe them. They sing those songs with the faith of an innocent child. They must be true because my Sunday School teacher says they're true. Children are unencumbered by the evils of the world. They have no doubts, only faith.

As we grow to adults, those songs become a distant memory like Santa Claus and the Easter bunny. Maybe those songs fall into the same category. Maybe joy, peace, love and truth are just for the innocent children to believe. We become so tainted as adults with everyday life and our trials and tribulations we forget that innocence and that faith. We cannot return to that innocence but we can reclaim that faith.

I was such an outsider at church. My family didn't go with me as a young teen. My parents mocked my warnings of hell and their need to be saved. Everyone had learned those VBS songs and I didn't know them. Everyone had been through Sunday School classes and learned the books of the Bible. Everyone understood God's grace and mercy, and I was still in the dark. I wanted what everyone else had already gotten. I wanted to be on the inside like them. Yet, I wondered why God would want me. I didn't know all the right words to pray. I wasn't raised in the church. It's taken me 36 years to realize, He does want me. He wants all of us. We just have to be willing to hold out our hand and accept the call. We have to be willing to step forward in faith and believe that our God IS so big and SO mighty, there is nothing He cannot do. He made us all with a purpose. God is still the same God we sang about as a child and believed in with the faith of a child. We can and should have that same faith today.

Our dear Molly dog died in June. I have always wanted a pug and this seemed like the right time. What we didn't know is that God had been working on it for a year before we knew we wanted one. We are being blessed with not one, but two pugs in a way that only God could have orchestrated. We are going today to pick them up.

Hurray!

The website is now up and functional! Please check it out and let me know what you think.

http://www.renasoap.com/

Mad Monkey Soaping

Having heard lots of good feedback from friends and family, I am getting ready for the holiday season. That means making up enough soap to get me through December. The problem with soapmaking is the cure time. If I run out, it will be another month before I can have more. The prospect of running out is both exciting and frightening. I would truly be blessed if I sold it all but probably stressed about making new bars.

For all my super sensitive friends and youngest daughter, I have whipped up a batch of good old olive oil soap. It is unscented and un-colored. I added a very small percentage of coconut oil for lather and hardness but the remaining is pure extra virgin olive oil. It turned out such a pretty lime green color.

Also shown is a felted bar of salt soap. I saw it in a magazine and remembered that I wanted to try it with one of my soaps. My first sample didn't go quite as planned but I think this one looks great. I may eventually put some up for sale on my website. They feel so neat. It's like soap and wash cloth all in one. The wool provides a gentle exfoliant. The trick is to make the soap strongly scented to overpower the "wet sheep" smell.

Back to my mad monkey soaping...

Pretty New Batches

I'm taking a new look at an old process...hot process. I originally attempted crock pot soap and was disappointed with the results. They looked clunky and homemade and I hid them in the corner. While not pretty, they turned out to be wonderful bars after they had aged a bit. They had a nice lather and felt so nice on my skin. Feeling inspired by a soap blog, I decided to try it again and use the teacup mold I had hidden away.

Sometimes as new soapers we get blinded by all the oils available and try to put every one of them in every recipe. I am definitely guilty. I have calmed down a bit and call this recipe Simplicity because it contains only 3 oils: coconut, olive, and avocado. I made a 2 lb. batch and soon realized that I had a lot more than I needed to fill these 4 teacup molds so I began searching the kitchen. I found some silicon ice cube trays shaped like hearts so I filled those. Still more so I pulled out a silicon mini muffin tray and filled that. Still more and getting desperate for a place to put this, I pulled out some plastic cookie cutters from my closet. I laid them on a sheet of parchment on a cookie sheet and filled them up. I was so excited when they turned out just fine. I had to shave off the one side because it was a bit gloppy. I am hatching some new Christmas soaps that I cannot wait to try out.

Yesterday was also the day to make yet another batch of spa salt bars. Everyone loves them and I am having a hard time keeping up my supply. I decided to use up some leftover bits of oil so I hope they are as good as the last batch. They sure are pretty and smell fabulous. I was using up bits of fragrance oil too. I half hazzardly dumped Sweet Grass and Cucumber green grass into the oils.

My Aunt has asked me to make a "manly" gift basket. I have some new scents on the way and cannot wait to get started making some new masculine soaps. My website is just about done and I cannot wait to let everyone see it. My goal is to cover the cost of my oils and fragrances and maybe a new mold here and there. Hopefully that's attainable.

Have a peaceful Sunday.