Whipped Soap and Organic Gardens

I found the most inspiring website Nizzy's . He makes some of the most beautiful whipped, piped soaps you've ever seen. I had to be very careful with this soap "batter" because it looked like pink frosting. Even in my rubber gloves and safety goggles, I was tempted to lick my fingers. The resulting soap looks like dessert and is so light and pretty. I have read that it disappears quickly in the shower because of the trapped air. Much to my children's delight, it will float. Ivory soap floats too because of the air rather than the natural ingredients. The downside to whipped soap, it takes 6 weeks to cure because it is mixed at room temperature. The upside is that the colors are brighter and the scent doesn't flash off so less fragrance is needed.

I haven't made much soap lately but I have been cooking up some fun in the kitchen. My girls and I made a larger batch of lip balm. They want to sell it and give the proceeds to our church. It's fabulous and the people that have sampled for me say they absolutely love it. The castor oil leaves your lips a little glossy too. Perfect for that less made up summer look and for young girls that want to wear "makeup".

I also mixed up some Bug Be Gone Balm. It smells a little strange but not bad. It is better them chemicals and I don't feel like I need to scrub myself down to get it all off. It is neem oil, soy oil, beeswax, and a whole host of essential oils with bug repellent properties. It works like a charm. I spent some time out in my veggie garden yesterday picking green beans and spraying for aphids (recipe below) and had no interest from the mosquitoes. Normally they swarm around my ankles and I come back in with 20 bites so this is a definite improvement.

Aphids attack my garden every year no matter how many ladybugs I release. I am an avid organic gardener and don't like to use pesticides. My kids love eating things out of the garden so I am very particular about chemicals. I bought a bottle of insecticidal soap a couple weeks ago. When I looked at the ingredients, I realized I had been taken. There was nothing in that bottle but true soap and water. I have a lot of extra lavendar soap I made for laundry detergent but needed the right proportions. After all, lavendar is a natural pest deterrent. Google saves the day and I found this blog http://tennzen.blogspot.com/ that details homemade insecticidal soap and the results. Mix 1/4 C of grated soap with 4 C of hot water. Stir till dissolved. This makes the concentrate. Mix 1 tsp concentrate with 4 cups of water to make the spray. The best part of this spray is that I don't fear getting it on my hands. It's safe enough for my kids to spray (and probably eat) and the aphids were GONE. This spray should take care of all soft bodied insects and plant bugs. The cost cannot be beat either. This concentrate makes an insane amount of spray...192 gallons!

Salty Disappointment

I made a salty disappointment yesterday, but the hydrangeas are beautiful. They were my inspiration for the color of the salt soap. They are so fresh and beautiful even on a rainy day. The gradations of color from yellow to lime to blue are definitely my favorite colors. Now that I think about it, my house has quite a bit of blue and green. I suppose it is rubbing off on my oldest daughter because she chose a lime green for her "tween" remodeled room. Gone is the pink and pretty and hello big girl brown and green.

I set out to make my hubby some new soap yesterday. He really likes the salt soap and has been taking it to the gym after realizing the soap at the gym was really awful by comparison. I wanted it to be a pale lime green and scented with cucumber & green grass. It would smell fresh and clean to go with the fresh color. All was going well and the color looked good. The soap traced quickly and smelled delicious. I added the salt and stirred, which lightened the color but sometimes the color morphs during saponification. I left it to sit in the oven while I took the girls to the pool. When we returned the house smelled great. I pulled the mold out of the oven and set it in the dining room to cool a bit while we ate dinner.

I should have cut it before dinner. I waited until we had watched Wipe Out and had sundaes before I tackled the now very hard salt soap. As I cut it crumbled into chunks. I think 3 or 4 slices were whole but the rest were oddly fragmented and looked like big hunks of rock found in a cave somewhere. The color is just about white with a tinge of green. Not exactly the color I was going for either. Now they look like slightly moldy rocks. Oh well, at least he will still be able to use it at the gym. I don't know that I will give it to any friends though.

On a positive note, moisture bar #3 is fabulous. It is a really hard bar that produces a wonderful fluffy, creamy lather. My next bar will be a rose hip powder bar. I'm looking forward to a new experiment. I also have some shredded loofah to make my brother, the mechanic, some hand soap. I saw a great tutorial for making round soap with a whole loofah. The summer is so full of soapy promises.

I do feel that I am improving. I look back at my first bars that were molded in a shoe box and giggle. I even threw away some really sad bars from my first attempts. I had no idea what I was doing and the bars were perfect illustrations of that fact. I was so proud of them at first and now so disappointed. I think if you decide to make soap, don't give up before you try a half dozen batches. Definitely start with a reliable recipe before making up your own. When you do decide to make up your own recipes, seriously look at a soap calculator and be familiar with the characteristics of the different oils. Most importantly, practice, practice and more practice.

Happy Soaping!