Black, No Sugar



The best part of waking up

Anybody who knows me knows I love coffee. In fact my radio name during my college days at WBNY was The Coffee Orphan. I can't imagine life without it.

So coffee soap was inevitable.

And this is a triple treat. I infused olive oil with coffee for six weeks, used brewed coffee in place of water to dissolve the lye and added ground coffee at trace.

I added just a little bit of citrusy essential oils to compliment the coffee aroma—which does come through.

So what does coffee do for your skin? Well, according to stuff I've read on the internet, it's great for absorbing odors. I do know it works for cleansing your smelling pallet. You'll usually find a dish of coffee beans at fragrance stores.

The ground coffee works as a fantastic exfoliate and coffee oil is very similar to the PH in our skin, so it will leave your skin feeling soft and silky.

Other benefits I read about:  It's used to fight acne, eczema and psoriasis; reduce skin redness and under eye puffiness; repair cell and sun damage and minimize cellulite and varicose veins.

I have no idea how much of that is true, but it does smell wonderful in the shower and gives me another way to enjoy my favorite beverage.

Ingredients:

olive oil infused with coffee

coconut oil

shea butter

palm kernel oil

castor oil

coffee made with NYC tap water

coffee grounds

Fragrance:

lemon, orange and may chang essential oils



If you like this blog, check out my new one: The Haley Maxwell Soap Making Mysteries

Somalian Rose and Sandalwood





This soap wasn't supposed to look like this at all.

It's made with olive oil infused with dried rose hips—which are said to be loaded with vitamin A and C, calcium and plant flavonoids.  Great stuff for your skin. And from what I read, would make a peach to mauve-ish soap.

The plan was for that with a charcoal swirl as contrast.

However, I screwed up by making a rose petal tea for the lye water, thus turning the soap brownie brown. And the fragrance oils I used accelerated the trace so there're blobs instead of swirls.

The fragrance is amazing though. I don't like straight rose (in this case Arabian rose). It smells too old lady to me, so I added Somalian rose, black sandalwood and ylang-ylang. The result is very exotic. Picture harems, silk pillows and men with thick mustaches.

It's lovely in the shower. Incredible (although brown) lather. Makes my skin feel soft and smooth. Like a rose petal.

I took a bunch of photos of the soap, but no matter how many rose petals I added or silver trays I placed it on, it still looks like a brownie.

Then I labeled it with an under layer of paper with roses on it and it did look a better--since you can barely see the saop.

Ingredients:

olive oil pomace infused with rosehips/charcoal

coconut oil

shea butter

palm kernel oil

lard

castor oil

powdered rosehips

NYC tap water infused with rose petals

Fragrance:

Somalian rose, Arabian rose, ylang ylang and black sandalwood fragrance oils

If you like this blog, check out my new one: The Haley Maxwell Soap Making Mysteries

Rosemary for Remembrance

 

Soap as pop art.


Some soap for a very talented friend and former tour guide, Brian Vinero.

Brian's an actor, a writer (most recently a brilliant adaptation of Euripides' plays Hecuba, Electra and Medea) and an insanely good pastry chef.

During his days at Gray Line, he always kept me amused with stories about tourists on his bus—and gossip about other guides. Every Christmas, he wrote a special 'Holiday Tip Song' that he'd sing during his tour—and bring in his samples of his yummy baked goods to share with tour guides that he liked.

Sadly, Brian has moved back to the land of Mary Tyler Moore (Minnesota). I really miss him.

Anyway, I wanted to make a soap for him that had balls. Big ones.

They're hot process using lots of olive oil pomace infused with mint for the chocolaty brown. I cut them in half once they were hard and arranged them on the bottom of my new silicone square brownie pan.

The over-pour gets it's khaki hue from white sage and rosemary.

Rosemary is said to improve your memory. Ancient Greek students used to tuck sprigs of it in their hair when studying for exams. That's backed up of course, by Ophelia in Shakespeare's Hamlet: "There's rosemary, that's for remembrance. Pray you, love, remember!"

Twenty-first century research shows rosemary does indeed contain a chemical that can boost brain performance.

Rosemary smells great too.

Hopefully, this soap will trigger some fond memories of New York City for Brian when he lathers up.

Ingredients:

olive oil infused with mint, white sage and rosemary

palm kernel oil

coconut oil

castor oil

NYC tap water

cornmeal

Fragrance:

rosemary, peppermint, wintergreen, sage, tea tree, lemon, citronella, may chang essential oils.

 

Pomegranate and Mint #2

I had a request for more Pomegranate and Mint for a friend to give as Christmas gifts.

I tweaked the recipe and jazzed it up a bit. I love using balls. They're so playful and fun. These are hot process using lard which was scary to me. I was afraid the heat would make the lard piggy-smelling. Not so, I guess after the lard saponifies, heat isn't an issue.

It's actually a big, tedious job to make over a pound of balls—about half way through, I decided I was over making them and used the remaining soap to create the base (which is now the top). I think it looks good. Sometimes laziness pays off.  The little line separating the top from the greenish part and the lines around the balls are brought to you by powdered mint.

Note that I didn't trim these bars. After looking at thousands of soap photos online, I've become enamored with a nice, sharp edge.

Ingredients:

olive oil pomace infused with lemon balm and mint

palm kernel oil

coconut oil

lard

castor oil

powdered mint

NYC Tap Water

Fragrance:

peppermint, wintergreen, clove, ho wood and tea tree essential oils.
pomegranate and vanilla fragrance oil

If you like this blog, check out my new one: The Haley Maxwell Soap Making Mysteries

Lavender and Lemongrass

I tried doing a swirl using alkanet as a coloring, but the soap started getting too thick too fast and I ended up with very inelegant blobs. It was good soap though—lavender infused olive oil and a really healthy amount of lavender fragrance oil (Exotic Fragrances was out of lavender essential oil—can you imagine?). I think the fragrance oil actually accelerated the trace.

So I shredded the blob soap and sandwiched it. It's not as pronounced as I'd like, but still pretty.

That beautiful green is from olive oil infused with lavender and lemongrass—which I have a ton of. It grew very nicely in my plot this summer. I have a feeling I'll be using it a lot.

This lemongrass part was cold process/oven process—or CPOP as it's called on The Dish.  Regular cold process, but then you tuck the soap into the oven to force it to gel.

Most soapers seem to pre-heat their oven to 170 degrees and then turn the oven off when they put the soap in. I don't dare turn my oven on—I haven't since the 20th century. God knows what's in there that could catch on fire or just stink. So I just let the pilot light do the work.

Much easier than regular hot process. I think it looks better too.

Ingredients:

Olive oil pomace infused with lavender and alkanet/lemongrass

Palm kernel oil

Coconut oil

Lard

Castor oil

NYC Tap Water

Fragrance:

Lemongrass, ylang ylang and may chang essential oils
Spanish lemon verbena and lavender fragrance oils

If you like this blog, check out my new one: The Haley Maxwell Soap Making Mysteries