I got my back-ordered lemongrass oil yesterday, and so decided to test-soap all three essential oils today. Left to right is Tea Tree, Patchouli, and Lemongrass. The little star sitting on top is a new ice cube tray mold I’m testing. I got 8 of them at Walmart for about a dollar each. I’m hoping the little soap will pop right out. I’m sure I’ll have to put it in the freezer for about 10 minutes first. I’d like to use these stars as embeds for Christmas and Holiday soaps, and also to decorate the tops of some of the specialty bars I do during the Christmas season.
I decided to go with some herbs scattered on top of these soaps, just for decoration. I’m not sure what color they’ll turn out. I’m betting the patchouli will be a deeper brown, but the tea tree and lemongrass will probably be a light tan color.
In the winter time I make up to four trays of soaps at a time and stack them on top of one another and then wrap the whole thing with blankets to insulate the soaps and force a gel. In this summer heat, I might actually have to put the tray into the freezer to keep it from getting too hot and bubbling, creating cracks in the surface of the soap.
The soap will change quite a bit by the time it cools and is ready to cut, which is normally in about 24 hours. I used the maximum amount of goats milk so I could separate the batch and put different essential oils into each one. Using less goats milk helps it cure faster, but it also sets up much quicker and you don’t have as much time to do a lot of fancy stuff or make separate logs of different varieties.
This mold is really neat because the middle dividers come out. Normally I pour the whole thing with one type of soap and then level it and then put the dividers in, separating into 3 logs. Each log makes 8 bars of cut soap about 6 to 7 oz each. The botton also comes off, which makes it a lot easier to get the soap out of the mold.
This mold comes from Kelsies Molds and is a custom design they call the “Vickie” mold. They have several different mold designs and sizes. Some even have dividers that divide each bar of soap into the exact same shape and size. You don’t even have to cut them at all. They are rather pricey, but are made very sturdy and will probably last as long as I want to make soap.
I still need to make a lot more soap, but I had to order more coconut oil. I go through that stuff pretty fast and buying it at Walmart is way to expensive! As soon as the coconut oil comes in I’m going to be doing a lavender/orange soap. I’ve mixed the essential oils up and use them in a spray bottle with water to wash with when I’m out trimming horses and it smells lovely.
Happy Friday!
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