Essential vs. Fragrance Oils

I think the dilemma every conscious soaper faces at least once in his/her soap-making endeavors is whether or not to use a fragrance oil to scent the soaps. The obvious best choice for scenting the soap is through essential oils that are packed with the beneficial properties of a plant or a flower. They not only smell earthy and beautiful (my favorite is the warm scent of lavender … I can be around the scent forever!), they have so many other benefits only natural products can produce. Meanwhile, there are fragrance oils, which are, well, poor man’s essential oils, which don’t have the same benefits as their botanical cousins but can achieve the powerful and playful scents that drive all my senses crazy!

Until I make up my mind, I’ve decided to test out as many batches of both all-natural and almost-natural soaps and see how I feel about it at the end. I guess there’s no real harm in keep making both … afterall, it’s not like fragrance oils are the potion of death or anything! Soaps made in the kitchen still have so much more benefits for the body and the environment compared to other mass-produced counterfeits, and the usage of fragrance oils won’t compromise the quality and integrity of handmade soaps!

So, here are the two batches of soap I made the other day. The first one is Baby Grand from the book, “The Soapmaker’s Companion,” with avocado, sweet almond, jojoba, coconut, and palm oil, and a little bit of shea butter. This is the first soap I’ve made without olive oil and I’m feeling a little weary about the end result. I used multiple tablespoons of Sugar Plum fragrance oil and my entire apartment is smelling lovely now!

Here is the all-natural soap I made – another gentle soap with olive, sweet almond, avocado, palm, and coconut oils. I used great quality lavender and bergamot essential oils. I used the wooden box as a mold, and used the cookie cutter for these heart-shaped soaps.

I took the leftover soaps and made small balls, which I’ll later wrap like candies!

New Soap Batches in the Pipeline

I made a couple batches of soap during the holiday break. I gave a new recipe from my favorite soap book a try to see if it can rival the foamy and heavenly luscious lather of the Marseilles Soap that I’ve gotten to love so much after making and using several batches.

The new recipe is for a soap that’s gentle enough for babies (called “Hanna’s Birthday Soap” in the book), with generous amount of sweet almond and avocado oils for moisture. I was feeling a bit adventurous and decided to make a dark, rich green marble design using green tea powder, but I guess I didn’t mix well enough because the swirl didn’t even come out on the soap (it only shows on the top)! I was so bummed when I cut the soap and didn’t see a trace of the beautiful intertwine of rich green and pearly white-colored soap I was so hoping for. Bummer!

I also made a shampoo bar using rosemary water and honey to provide protection and shine for the hair. My favorite shampoo ever is one of those little bars from a store called Basin (very similar to a very popular Lush) and my hope here is to replicate its wonderful Egg Noggin’ shampoo bar. Because of rosemary, the soap came out very rich in color and slightly softer in texture. I am not sure why but the soap didn’t dry quickly enough (even though I left it out for two days before slicing) and made it pretty difficult for me to cut clean slices!

The third batch is Zesty Lemon Soap with olive, avocado, jojoba, palm, coconut, and olive oils, with a touch of shea butter, and a generous amount of lovely Lemon Verbena and Lemon essential and fragrance oils. I am really excited to use this one because it smells incredible!

Last but not least, I made my favorite, Signature Marseilles Soap with White Tea and Ginger fragrance oil. All the soaps are drying on the shoe rack in my bedroom (courtesy of mom — thanks, mom for the great idea!) until they’re ready for use in about four weeks. I cannot wait to test them out to see how I like them!

My goal is to open my own Esty shop selling these handmade soaps sometime this year so I’m utilizing every opportunity I have to practice, to create the best possible soaps in the marketplace! Stay tuned! I will be giving away free soaps in the near future!

How to Make Handmade Soaps (CP): Tutorial

I’ve wanted to make handmade soaps for many months before I actually attempted my first batch. The problem wasn’t that I was too lazy to start, but rather, because the process seemed so complicated and tiring. I just wished someone had told me how simple the process is before I procrastinated for so long!

I truly think that soap making is simple. Not easy, but simple. It can be potentially dangerous, yes, because you use a chemical called Sodium Hydroxide, also known as “lye,” which can get extremely hot and can burn your skin when mishandled, but if you pay careful attention just as you would when deep frying food, the entire process can be very safe and hassle free.

Inspirations:

There are lots of wonderful tutorials on the Web, as well as videos on Youtube if you search, “soap making,” to show how enjoyable the entire soap making process can be! The catalysts for my soap-making adventure were this Japanese blog by Ayumi (who is also the creator of one of my favorite craft blogs, Pink Penguin) and a Pasadena-based soap shop, Soap Kitchen. I got inspires by so many of their adorable creations and thought I HAD to do this! I also fell in love with Basin's shampoo bars but they are super expensive (about $8 a pop) that I needed to find out a way to make them on my own. I guess necessity is the mother of invention (or creation, in my case)!

I hope this tutorial will help inspire you to become a soaper too someday … or at least get you to start thinking about it … (or just start buying the soaps I make if I ever open my own shop).

Soap Making Basics:

Basic ingredients of soap are fat (oil), lye,and water, and you can decide on what kind of fats you need to use and how much, depending on what kind of soap you’re trying to make. For example, for a soap that’s gentle and truly wonderful for you skin, you can use olive oil. If you want a soap that lathers well, coconut oil will do the job. If you like a soap that can hold its shape well, palm oil is your answer. Just like cooking, you can be as creative as you wish when deciding your special “recipe.” I am still learning how to make my own personalized formula (it takes a little planning and a dash of mathematical calculations) so for now, I simply follow several recipes that I find in my favorite soapmaking books.

Where to Buy:

You can purchase most of soap-related (fats and oils, essential and fragrance oils, molds, lye, etc) at Bramble Berry. Basic tools you need to get started are: fats/oils of your choice (based on your recipe), lye, two glass bowls, two candy thermometers, spoon for mixing, electric scale, pot for double boiling, mold, parchment paper for mold lining, knife to slice the soap, and a whisk (I hope I didn’t miss anything!). By the way, the process shown here is called, “Cold Process.”

Instruction:

So, let’s get started!

① First, measure the oil(s) based on your recipe. This particular soap I made called for olive, palm, and coconut oils, so I weighed them separately.

② Melt the oils together in a double boiler. As you can see, some oils are liquid (olive oil) and some are solid (coconut oil). Once the oils melt, bring the temperature down, per your instruction.

③ While the oil mixture is adjusting its temperature, measure the lye according to your instruction. Make sure to wear a pair of gloves when handling these little flakes, as it can irritate, at best, and burn, at worst, your skin upon contact. Make sure to keep anything that contains lye out of reach of children and/or pets!

④ Add distilled water to the measured lye. A strange-smelling gas will fume the second you add the water. Make sure that nearby windows are open for proper ventilation (I do the mixing outside). Stir until all the flakes dissolve, and bring the temperature down to the recipe’s instruction. Drizzle the lye mixture into the oil mixture slowly, and mix with a whisk. The idea here is to combine the oil and lye mixtures when they are at the same temperature. Mix for 30 minutes, or per your instruction.

⑤ After mixing for about 30 minutes, let the mixture rest for 12-24 hours, depending on your instruction. The mixture is pretty runny at this point but it will become creamy like custard with time as it starts to develop a “trace.”

⑥ When the mixture becomes firm enough that the whisk can “pick up” the custard-like mixture, pour it into a parchment paper-lined mold. Mix essential oils and other additives well, if any, right before pouring. I use wooden molds but you can use anything (some people put two milk cartons together to make a mold and others use Pringle’s tubes). Put the mold in a warm place, like in a box, and put a blanket over it. Keep it stored in the box for about 1-2 days, or per your instruction. After 1-2 days, remove the block from the mold (the block is still relatively soft). Make sure to wear a pair of gloves when handing the soap block, as it can still irritate your skin on contact. Let the block rest for about a day in a dry place, until it’s ready to cut.

⑦ When ready, cut the block into smaller pieces and let them dry and cure for 4-6 weeks, depending on your recipe. I know it takes all the discipline not to use these cute little soaps but be patient. Until the lye completely cures, they can be very harmful. When the soaps completely cure, you’re ready to indulge in your handmade soap! Note that the longer you dry, the harder the soaps become (and they will last longer).

Here are the pictures of my latest two batches — Marseilles soaps with Sugar Plum fragrance oil (left), and with Yuzu fragrance oil (right) for the holidays!

Resources:

Here are some online resources with lots of great information and inspiration

• Bramble Berry
• Smelly Chick’s Online Soapmaking Resources
• Teach Soap
• Birch Bark Handmade Soap
• Yummy Suds
  

These are the soap shops that I adore!

• Soap Kitchen
• Dress Green
• Countryrose Soap Company
  

Great Japanese sites:

• Ayumi’s Soap (the reason why I’m making handmade soaps today!)
• Kyoko Maeda (everything I know so far about soap making came from her books)
  

Happy soaping!

Perfect Imperfection: Rosemary-Lavender and Zesty Lemon Soaps

When I first started making soaps, I strove for perfection. I wanted soap blocks to be in a perfect rectangle shape, and sliced with perfectly angled corners and edges. I wanted the color to be consistent, with no weird discoloration whatsoever. Anything less than that went down as a big fat failure in my little obsessive mind.

After making several disappointing batches, however, I realized that it was virtually impossible to achieve the kind of results I was looking for (especially since I’m still very new at this). And my attitude was taking away the fun and the true reward of making anything handmade. I learned that it is those little imperfections that add lovely character and charm to those soaps that are irresistible to make and use.

Two batches of soap I made a few months ago finally cured and I started using them recently. Instead of slicing them right away, I kept them uncut in a log so it took a little longer for the inside to dry. When I touch the middle, it still feels a bit soft and bouncy, but I used them both in the shower the other day and they lathered just fine!

The soaps you see on left are Lavender and Rosemary Shampoo Soaps from the Japanese book, Soaps for the Four Seasons, by Kyoko Maeda. (I use them to wash my hair and body.) I boiled several twigs of rosemary that I picked from my herbal garden and used that in place of water. I added several drops of lavender essential oils to give it a calming feel. I used the same recipe as the Signature Marseilles Soap I made the other day (my absolute favorite recipe using olive oil, coconut oil, and palm oil), with extra rosemary essence.

The soaps on the right are called Zesty Lemon Soaps (also from the book), using olive oil, avocado oil, jojoba oil, shea butter, palm oil, coconut oil, and lemon, bergamot and other citrus essential oils. Talk about making your shower smell heavenly!

I think I’m going to be spending a couple of hours this weekend to prepare some holiday soaps for friends and family. I can’t wait!

Making Homemade Soap in the Kitchen

I’ve been in love with bar soap ever since I purchased my first Clinique facial cleanser as a teenager. Nothing made me happier than lathering up the yellow bar in a pretty green container and washing my face with it. It was heavenly. I think that was also the beginning of my fascination (and borderline crazy obsession) with cosmetics and skincare products.

But after years of wasting money on mass produced skincare products, I got interested in making my own. I really liked the idea of having control over what ingredients go into it, and I loved that I get to do it all in my own kitchen. I’ve been making my own lip balms, body scrubs and facial toners for many months now and I thought now is the perfect time for me to venture into soap making, thanks to the inspiration by books by Kyoko Maeda, who is synonymous with cold process soap making in Japan. My goal is to master, or at least be decent at this, in time for the holidays.

Making soap is very much like baking. You pick your ingredients (oils), mix them up, add extracts and other flavoring agents (essential oils), pour the mixture into a mold, bake (in this case, letting lye and oils get chummy in a bowl), let it rest, slice, and enjoy! Both require that you have the precise measurements, which can be tricky at times, but as long as you pay extra attention to that as well as when handling lye that can get as hot as a piping oven, the process can be pretty easy and enormously enjoyable! Even the oils-lye mixture looks like a luscious and decadent cake batter (but don’t let the pretty exterior deceive you — these mixtures are still very dangerous to handle and it is certainly not for consumption)!

I’ve seen many ways home chemists make soap, such as cooking the soap batch in a crock pot (this is called hot process), but mine is the traditional cold process method, just like what you see here (Countryrose Soap Company) and here (Birch Bark Handmade Soap tutorial). Soaps made this way take a little longer to cure but they retain more of the lovely glycerin that is wonderful for skin.

What you see here (above and right) is a batch of Premium Bar I made over the weekend using olive, sweet almond, jojoba, palm, and coconut oils. I used cinnamon to make the delicious swirl and the room is now filled with the wonderfully warm aroma, reminding me that autumn is just around the corner. I took the block out of the mold and sliced it today.

In addition, I’ve made a batch of Olive Oil Soap and Signature Marseilles Soap that are almost ready to use.

Olive Oil Soap
Ingredients: Pure olive oil, lye, distilled water, essential oils

Signature Marseilles Soap
Ingredients: Pure olive oil (not extra virgin), palm oil, coconut oil, lye, distilled water, essential oils

The only downside to making handmade soap is that you have to let them sit for four to six weeks, which will certainly test your patience. I have one more week for the Marseilles Soap and two more for Olive Oil Soap until these two batches of soaps become ready to use and I can’t wait.

Reversible Grocery Bag

I have been really busy with my new job and haven’t really had the chance to get myself into the creative mode … so it was nice to get back in the saddle, so to speak, and make a handmade birthday gift for my friend C, just in time for her birthday BBQ party.

To suite her busy lifestyle – of being a fabulous mother and a kick butt professional woman – I made a reversible, multi-purpose tote bag that she can throw anything in. She can take it to a grocery store, or take it to the beach. Beause it’s made out of 100% cotton home décor fabric (as opposed to those fine quilting fabric), she can step on it, feed it to the dog, or toss it in the washer and dryer and it would still hold its shape.

I used Traditions Kelso Brown / Maggie Pink on one side and used Oxygen Dots Kelso Brown / Maggie Pink on the reverse side. When I first got these fabrics, I wasn’t sure what to do with them, but I can’t be happier with the way this tote bag came out. I have the same two fabrics in brown and French blue combo so I think I’m going to make the matching bag … maybe for myself this time. I can’t wait to walk into Trader Joe’s with this fabulous grocery bag!

Fabrics used: Traditions Kelso Brown / Maggie Pink and Oxygen Dots Kelso Brown / Maggie Pink
Pattern: My Own
Recipient: Lovely friend C for her birthday

Kid's Raglan Sweater

I have so many unfinished, armless sweaters tucked away in the corner of my room. What typically happens is by the time I complete the front and the back, I lose interest in the project and move on to a new one. And the cycle starts all over again … and again .. .and again (talk about craft ADD). The irony of it all is that my latest deserted project is a raglan – a sleeve pattern first designed to fit the armless.

I started this kid’s stripe raglan pullover sweater when my friend K’s baby bun was still in her oven. It’s been several weeks since the bundle of joy became the member of this world. I’m happy that I started knitting a sweater for a boy instead of an infant because by the time I finish it, he will already be walking, talking, or going off to college!

The pattern is very easy to follow and I like the playfulness of the color and design. My biggest nightmare, however, is all the weaving I have to do at the end. I love the stripe pattern but my goodness, weaving in all these yarns is going to be a pain!

Well, my friend K, your baby sweater will be coming to you shortly.