Junk Soap and a New Direction

This will be my last post on Subplot Soap. I'm wrapping up this blog and this stage of my soap making adventures and focusing on Deathbed of Roses, the first book of The Haley Maxwell Soap Making Mysteries.

I'll still be making soap, but I'll be working on recipes that will be included in the book(s) and on my new blog. 

Since I'll be making less soap, I decided to clean out my soap cabinet and make a batch just for myself using all the odds and ends, scraps and leftovers from other projects. The olive oil I used was a combo of tiny amounts I'd infused with woad, rhubarb, lady's bedstraw and charcoal. There are also small amounts of sesame seed oil, cocoa butter and lard.

Instead of water I used 100% reduced booze—sweet vermouth and sangria. Lots of sugar in this baby. The lather should be insane.

Of course, I ran the whole thing through SoapCal and tweaked my amounts of coconut oil, castor etc…

For the fragrance I used the last of my champagne from Bramble Berry, some pink grapefruit and a little patchouli. Love it. It's like a hippie pop star.

I poured the mixture over a bunch of leftovers and scraps.

It was very liberating cleaning out my cabinet—and I think it'll be great soap. It was also very liberating not to care what the soap looked like or how straight I cut the bars since it was just for me.

My goal is to have the first draft of Deathbed of Roses finished by the time my junk soap has cured.

Thank you all for reading Subplot Soap for the past two years and I hope you start following The Haley Maxwell Soap Making Mysteries. They'll be some fun soap recipes, tutorials, tips and hints. And maybe a dead body or two.

Marketing Strategy Part 2: Lavender Rave

One of the many great things about making soap is you can easily change what you call it and how you market it.

This started out as Lavender Mosh Pit, but when I realized mosh pits are as much a part of the past as answering machines and record stores, I updated it.

I'm not sure this actually reflects what a rave is like. I've never been to one. I'm much too old.

Made with olive oil pomace infused with lavender/alkanet/charcoal, coconut oil, palm kernel oil, cocoa butter, shea butter, lard and castor oil.

Fragrance: lavender, lemongrass, ho wood, may chang, sage and rosemary.

Marketing Strategy Part 1: Lavender Mosh Pit

I had this whole punk rock thing in mind when I made this batch.

It's a collage—like the posters we made back in the 80's with letters cut out of magazines and and photos of Ronald Reagan. I used all the bits and pieces of every lavender-based soap I had hanging around my kitchen (including an entire batch of lavender castile soap that was going to become this year's Be My Guest Soap, but I just never got around to doing it).

The fragrance blend (which includes rosemary, may chang, sage, lemongrass and ho wood) is more energizing than relaxing, almost aggressive. It definitely ain't Yardley's.

I cut it, cured it, labeled it using an adorable punk rock font (no more cutting letters out of magazines!), wrapped it in a ripped up black t-shirt fastened with safety pins, spent an entire afternoon trying to get the right photo (it's not a very photogenic soap)—then realized the people buying this soap will most likely not be old punk rockers such as myself. Kids today don't know a mosh pit from a Ramones picture disc. They weren't even born yet when Sid killed Nancy.

I learned a valuable lesson from my Mommie Dearest soap: sometimes you can be too clever and snarky. It results in dismal failure.

So the punk rock theme got trashed. Eighty-sixed. The soap was renamed for this generation, relabeled using a hip and trendy font and rewrapped in black vinyl (a tablecloth from the 99 cent store) and fastened with lavender rubber bands.

And so I present to you and everyone under forty: Lavender Rave

Milk and Honey

This might be my new favorite soap. Rich, creamy—unscented—but the gorgeous scent of honey, oatmeal and cocoa butter comes through. My skin actually seems to crave washing with it. I don't know if that's actually possible.

I chilled the lye and let the oils cool to room temperature to avoid scorching and volcano effects. Both the honey (3 ounces for 70 ounces of oils) and powdered milk (3 teaspoons) were added at trace and both dissolved in warm water. Powdered oatmeal sprinkled on top. After pouring it into the mold, I set it near an open window—again to avoid overheating.

I'm a little shocked at how white the bars turned out. I was thinking the honey would turn more amber. I'm wondering if the honey has a low sugar content. I don't know if that's actually possible either.

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

Vintage Champagne




You can buy Vintage Champagne

at Fine and Dandy on 49th Street

(between 9th and 10th Avenues) in Hell's Kitchen.



Making soap with Champagne might become an end of the year tradition for me.

Last year's was made with Moët & Chandon White Star. This year's is André's Pink—although I beg to differ if it really can be called Champagne since it's from California, not Champagne. I think it should actually be labeled 'sparkling wine.' But I'm no authority.

Last year's batch was scented with almond fragrance oil that wasn't formulated to use in soap and seized the batch. This year I blended almond and Champagne fragrance oils (and some may chang essential oil) I got from Bramble Berry. The Champagne doesn't really smell like Champagne to me, more like 7UP—but it actually smells effervescent.  The blend ended up very lively and fun. A little celebration in a bar of soap. And no seizing.

I did have a happy accident with this batch though. Note the crackling effect. That's from using titanium. It overheated. But I think it's quite pretty. It gives it that real vintage look. Ironically, the titanium didn't make the bar super white. Go figure.

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

Citrus Bang Beach Bars

I really like the concept of using embeds with a fragrance that compliments the fragrance in the overpour. I think it ends up smelling different than if you simply blended the fragrances together—the scents seem…crisper, more pronounced.

I also like the idea of using leftovers.

Citrus Bang Beach Bars have embeds leftover from my Verbena Beach Bars (lemon verbena, holy basil, may chang, bergamot, grapefruit and ginger essential oils). The annatto-orange is an overpour fragranced with orange, may chang, peppermint, eucalyptus, rosemary essential oils and a little spearmint fragrance oil.

Quite fab.

Update on my Yet-Untitled-Cozy-Mystery: I've come up with a bunch of titles—not ready to share with you, gentle readers, but have submitted them to my writing workshop. Looking forward to getting feedback.

Winter's Kiss

The green embeds started out as a batch onto themselves, but when I cut it, I wasn't thrilled with the fragrance. I used eucalyptus, rosemary and basil essential oil and some spearmint fragrance oil and it was too spearmint-y. I kept thinking of Wrigley's Doublemint Gum. And the plain—although pretty—green (from basil) bars just didn't do anything for me.

I chopped the batch up and embedded them in new titanium-dioxide-whitened batch scented with a good dose of rosemary and a touch of basil.

Perfect. It's refreshing and great for clearing up a stuffy nose or foggy head first thing in the AM.

The name Winter's Kiss came to me on the tour bus as we drove underneath the UNIECF Snowflake on 5th Avenue and 57th Street.

Still no luck on naming my Yet-Untitled-Mystery-Novel—even after an evening of Mai Tais and brainstorming.

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

Verbena Beach Bars






Graffiti makes such a nice backdrop

 

I made a batch of salt bars—or Beach Bars as I call them and they came out super crumbly. Salt bars have the tendency to be crumbly anyway—but these were outrageous. Pick one up and chunks of salt and soap avalanche onto the floor. And if there's one thing I hate, it's messy soap. Which is odd because I'm not an anal person.

So I chopped and crumpled the bars up and used them as embeds. The second batch of soap kind of seals in the salt goodness.

The first batch was made 75% coconut oil, so the bar would still lather up with the salt. I did a superfat of 20% so all that coconut oil wouldn't be drying.

The rest of the batch was olive oil pomace that I infused with flowers from Queen Anne's lace. It made a pretty pale yellow—and Queen Anne's lace (or wild carrot) is supposed to be good for dry, chapped skin. There's a ton of it growing in the garden. I was under the impression it was a native plant, but after doing some research found out it's from Europe and considered invasive. In other words, a weed.

I also threw in a bunch of melt and pour scraps to jazz it up.

The second batch is just a standard recipe with some shea butter.  The olive oil pomace is infused with the last of the lemon verbena I grew last year. Again, very pale, but pretty.

The whole shebang is scented with lemon verbena, holy basil, may chang, bergamot, grapefruit and ginger essential oils. It's a real WOW! fragrance. Very uplifting and energizing.

One of my New Year's Soap-Making Resolutions was to create the Ultimate Lemon Verbena bar. This might be it, but it's not how I imagined it at all.

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

The Gravedigger's Soap. And a Short Film.

In honor of Halloween, I made a batch of soap and an accompanying film that will (hopefully) creep you out.

Scary, huh? Makes you afraid to go into the shower, right? Worse than Psycho.

A bit about the soap: I started out with the skull and bone. I used a Wilton candy mold which clearly stated that it should not be used for soap. I ignored it since a) I was using melt and pour and b) I'd already bought the mold, was home and ready to start this project before I saw the warning. Nothing bad happened, although I wouldn't use the candy mold for cold process soap.

The 'grave' is over 60% olive oil pomace. I was hoping it would make a more translucent bar. To be honest, I was actually trying to replicate this fab soap from Batty's Bath. I really love how you can see the skeleton inside.  It's truly beautiful soap.

 

Buy this soap!

 

I think my batch ended up opaque because of the cocoa powder I used to get a freshly-dug-soil brown.

I might have been OK without it since I used patchouli and vanilla (and some black pepper) for fragrance and they have the tendency to turn soap brown. The scent, by the way, is absolutely perfect. I will definitely use this blend again. It's haunting and mysterious and sexy in an undead sort of way.

The 'dirt' on the top is smoked sea salt and ground walnut shells that I had kicking around in the soap cupboard. And there's lemon verbena 'grass' in there somewhere—but you can't really see it.

It's still fun soap. And maybe the fact that you can't see the skull and bone makes it a little creepier. It's more of a surprise.

I'll try blatantly ripping off Batty's Bath again next Halloween. They say good artists borrow and great artists steal. Maybe by next year, I'll become a great artist.

Have a happy Halloween, dear readers. And be sure to lock the bathroom door before getting in the tub.

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

Four Thieves

Photo taken on top of our bathtub of goldfish in the Oasis Community Garden

I stumbled on the legend of the four thieves in a book about growing herbs and decided to create a soap based on their recipe.

The Four Thieves lived in Europe during the Bubonic Plague. Everybody was dying. Bodies were everywhere.  But the Four Thieves—who were daring enough to even rob graves—didn't become ill. When they were finally caught, they escaped punishment by reveling the secret to how they avoided the Black Death.

It was a simple herbal vinegar. Being a legend, the recipe varies from one source to another, but the list of ingredients almost always includes mint, rosemary, sage and thyme. Lavender, clove and wormwood come up a lot as well.

All of those herbs do have antibacterial properties, so it makes sense. Of course, they had never heard of bacteria in the 1300's, otherwise everyone would've been walking around with one of those little dangly things of anti-bacterial lotion.

My soap version of the Four Thieves recipe includes olive oil infused with thyme, rosemary, lavender and mint—and also activated charcoal and alkanet. The pencil line is powdered mint. And there's some cocoa butter, shea butter and oatmeal involved as well.

The fragrance is a blend of lavender, thyme, rosemary, sage and mint essential oils. It smelled a little too herbal to me so I added neroli to lighten it up.

I don't know if using this soap will prevent the Black Death (which is still around), but I'm sure it will help ward off the flu and colds. And I love showering with it after working in the garden.

I'm not by the way, the only person who's saponified the Four Thieves legend, there're dozens of bars out there. And Cathy from Soaping 101 (which I'm totally addicted to watching) has even created a video on how to make it.

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

Shaken and Stirred




Martini glass courtesy of American Retro Bar and Grill—a lovely place to have martinis

 

I had this soap in my imagination a long time before it finally came to be—and it's not quite the way I pictured it, but I've gotten over that.

It's a soap version of a martini in the shape of an olive. I'm a purist when it comes to martinis, by the way. They should only come in two flavors: gin or vodka. If it tastes like chocolate or peaches, it's not a martini. It is acceptable (and wonderful) however to infuse you vodka with rosemary or mint or any other herb.

Anyway, back to the soap. The 'olive' part made with a lye infusion of reduced dry vermouth (recently found in my cupboard and leftover from an old, old boyfriend who made the best dirty martinis I ever had) and juniper berries (from my garden). The concoction smelled pretty…powerful when I mixed it, but I'm beginning to actually like the smell of lye and booze. I hope that's not an indication of some strange neuroses.





My lye mixture


 

I knew the vermouth was going to darken the soap and my olive oil infused with lemongrass and lime basil might end up muddy, so I added some French green clay. Essential oils of juniper, lime and may chang. This was all poured into a mold I made from a mailing tube with a paper towel roll inside to create a cavity for the 'pimento' part.

My mold

It's sort of a reverse embed. The pimento was made of melt and pour soap with Moroccan red clay (that's what my (Not Seeing) Red experiment was all about). I figured an embed of melt and pour would probably lose its shape when cold process soap was poured over it.

And the olive part came out fine—a perfect shade of green. I took it out of the mold after a day and then turned it into a mold (or so I thought) by rubber banding a Ziploc bag on the bottom.

But alas! When I poured the melt and pour into the cavity it began leaking out the bottom. Which is odd since the cold process didn't leak out...

I panicked. This was not a cheap recipe. The red clay, melt and pour base and essential oils cost the same as a night drinking real martinis in the Meat Packing District. I was not going to let this go to waste.

So I started scooping the leaked-out soap back into the cavity while adding shredded soap scraps I had hanging around. Eventually, the melt and pour started to cool at the bottom and created a seal so it stopped leaking out. I ended up with a not-so-solid reddish, pinkish center.

But months later, it's cured and fabulous. Really lush, stiff lather. I love it for shaving my legs and the fragrance is intoxicating, of course.

I might give a bar to that old, old boyfriend who made the great dirty martinis. I haven't spoken to him ages. Maybe he's been deported.

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

Natural Colorants: (Not) Seeing Red

I wanted red for an upcoming soap project. Red is not an easy color to deal with. Ever. And I've now learned it's especially difficult in soap. Particularly if you're using natural colorants.

My first attempt was using tomato paste in hot process soap. I figured using hot process would be kinder on the color. I knew I wouldn't get red/red from tomato paste, but the red I was looking for was supposed to represent a pimento so a tomato-y red would be OK. But, as you can see, it produced something peachy/pink.

I then scoured the internet hoping to find something. There are micas and liquid colors available, but I really wanted to stick with something natural and/or something I didn't have to order. I live in New York City, damn it. The center of the universe. I should be able to find something to turn my soap red.

At one point, I wondered about buying a few bars of red soap and melting them down. Red soap though is also hard to find. Wonder why.

Finally, while in Westerly—after (unsuccessfully) looking at their vast collection of soap for something red, I spied some insanely expensive Moroccan red clay. I had seen red clays on the internet, but the finished soap looked more orange than what I wanted.

Still, I kinda wanted to get on with my life and perhaps find something new to obsess with. So I bought it.

This is red clay in cold process. I dissolved the clay in some olive oil before adding it.

I wasn't too happy with the results. (You'll see scraps from this experiment in Mommie Dearest aka Bed of Roses. When it finally cured it was definitly pink.)

So tried using the same clay-in-olive-oil in some clear melt and pour.

Not bad. Definitely useable. And now I have nearly 6 ounces of expensive Moroccan red clay for other projects.

Downstairs Seating Only


 

 
The name of this soap—Downstairs Seating Only—does not refer to the area of your body it's supposed to be used on. In fact, I don't recommend using this soap on your downstairs area at all.

Downstairs Seating Only is a phrase Gray Line Tour Guides will say thousands of times between now and Labor Day. Summer is our busiest season. It's the cheapest (and worst) time of year to come to NYC—and everybody wants to ride on the top of the double decker bus (the best way to see the city). It fills up quickly.

When new passengers board, we have to tell them, "Downstairs seating only." Sometimes they're understanding and patient and are fine with waiting until somebody gets off from the top. Sometimes they don't believe us and go up anyway (with their three kids, grandmother and bulky stroller) only to come down disappointed. Sometimes they get very angry. One year, I had a guy kick the glass out of the bus's door.

Meanwhile, when we're actually giving the tour— upstairs —it's 95 degrees and insanely muggy and their doing construction all over the city and it's like riding through a dust storm. And the sunscreen that doesn't really work is dripping in your eyes. And there's a little kid screaming, "I have to poop." And nobody is listening to us say that the last boat cruise went out at 3:30. And we know half of them won't tip and we're lucky if we get $8.26 by the end of the tour that we have to split with the driver who's been on the phone the whole time fighting with his girlfriend.

And we're thinking about going home to our apartments that we just spent the day trying to pay for, turning on the A/C and taking a shower with a bar of soap that will truly wash away the disgustingness of the day.

And Downstairs Seating Only will do just that. Lots of scrubbing action from my favorite exfoliate, cornmeal. French green clay to help draw out the construction dust that mixes with the sunscreen. A generous dose of moisturizing shea. And the fragrance! A refreshing combo of mints, rosemary, basil, eucalyptus and orange.

Makes the job seem worthwhile.

Whiskey, Tobacco and Sandalwood





I love this soap! The fragrance is unbelievably sexy. Warm, rich—just a little sweet. What a man should smell like. And we're talking real man. Not the kind of man that calls other men 'bro' and 'dude.' Or wears flip-flops on a dinner date. Or drinks Red Bull and vodka.

And in the shower (back to the soap, not the man), incredible lather from reduced whiskey and a little sugar. There's a pencil line (hard to see in the photo) of poppy seeds to gently exfoliate. Rhassoul clay (that's how I got that gorgeous brown—reminds me of expensive leather) helps remove impurities, but loads of cocoa and shea butter moisturize and condition.

I will be saving one bar from this batch to give to give to the next real man I meet. There're not a lot of them in NYC these days. They're a dying breed.

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

Rain



The wait is over



It took a while for me to get all ducks lined up on this batch, but it's worth it. I guess. It feels like a culmination of recent failures. And I'm too frazzled at this point to think about 'lessons learned.'

First the soap itself. The polka dots (which I hope look like big raindrops) are a rebatch of an olive oil Christmas soap (fragranced with frankincense and myrrh) that didn't look so festive. Paper mache gray just doesn't get anyone in the holiday mood.

My goal was black—and I know some of you won't think that's a Christmas-y color either. It is if you live in NYC and have a lot of rock-n-roll friends. Anyway, the charcoal infusion I made just wasn't strong enough, hence the gray. The first failure.

When I rebatched, I added a little lavender essential oil to lessen the Christmas-ness of the frankincense and myrrh.

The overpour was a bit more successful on the black front. It's made with charcoal and alkanet. Still not the black of Joey Ramone's jacket, but at least not gray. And I added more lavender essential oil to the batch.

But when I got the batch into the mold, it was shy of being normal sized bars. Size really matters with me. At least with soap. Failure #2. I whipped up another small batch using olive oil infused with mallow to top it off. Really nice green. And I've got more mallow growing in my garden this year—it re-seeds like crazy—so it'll become part of my 'permanent palette.'

Mallow

When I cut the finished bars (and they came out wonky), I was all set to call them Stormy Monday—from the old blues song—but after I thought about it more, I decided to call the batch Rain and include a story booklet with each bar.

For those of you not familiar with my writing, "Rain" is one of the short stories from You Are Here. It's a fairly dark story, but one of the most popular in the book.  The fresh, but mysterious, almost melancholy blend of the lavender, frankincense and myrrh in the soap mirrors the mood of the story.

I got my friend Elizabeth Shim to do the booklet cover. She's a very talented graphic designer and as well as a writer—in fact, I met her through Elaine Edelman's writing workshop.  Her writing has a very unique Korean/New Yorker perspective, lots of detail and humor as well.

The booklet cover by Elizabeth Y. Shim ( 심예린 )

 

She did a great job on the cover. I love it. It subtly tells the story of the story.

Laying out the booklets was a plethora of failures. Which is strange because I've done these booklets before without much issue.  Then my printer wasn't aligning correctly, then the labels I designed using Elizabeth's artwork didn't fit every bar correctly. Etc…

Today—my only day off for the next million years—the day I swore I'd get the whole shebang packaged and ready to get out of my apartment and into the hands of readers and bathers—it rained.

And the soap absorbed the humidity. And it got sticky.

And I said, "Just do it."

And I did.

The finished product.

It doesn't look like I wanted—except for Elizabeth's fab art—but it's done. And because this batch caused so much heartache, I'm giving it away—to people in my writing workshop. They in turn, will be asked to pass the bar on to somebody that doesn't know me and isn't familiar with my writing, but would enjoy the story and the soap.

There will be another soap/story version of "Rain" in the future. That one will be much different soap-wise and I'll still use Elizabeth's art, but instead of a booklet, it'll include a link to hear the audio edition of the story read by the author and produced by my friend Nate Cimmino at Harrumph Studios.

No more booklets! I'm going digital! You heard it here first!

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

Seaweed Beach Bars—And the Mystery of Fragrance







What's in there that makes it smell so good?



I've been working on my Yet-Untitled-Cozy-Mystery lately, so I've slacked off on blogging about soap—and making it.

The mystery is going to contain a half dozen or so soap recipes. That's pretty common in cozies. Recipes or craft tips. I don't think I'll include this one—it's a little complicated and it doesn't really tie into the plot or any of the characters. Bed of Roses does. And Guinness and Ginger.

Perhaps going forward, I'll make some soap that specifically relates to the mystery. Captain Smokey, Forensics, Socrates' Shampoo Bar, Lucky Star Coffee, Woad Is Me.

Are you intrigued? Do you want to read the book when it's finished?

This soap—The Seaweed Beach Bar is a pretty standard salt bar. What makes it complicated though is I added a bunch of scraps from my Lavender Beach Bars. This made for some interesting salty embeds that become more pronounced as the bar is used.

I also didn't keep track of how much of each essential oil I used to make the blend. I never keep track. I mix by nose. In this case, I started out with a base of grapefruit, then added some may chang to anchor the citrus, a little bergamot and a little ylang ylang, then some more grapefruit—and you get the picture. There's also lavender essential oil in the embeds. But how much?

So, yea, too complicated to put in a book.

And going forward, if I'm going to create recipes to include in the book, I'll have to get some pipettes and write down my blends. And I'll solve the mystery of my fragrances.

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

Marketing Failure





Well, Mommie Dearest took off like a lead zeppelin. I sold two bars of it.

It might be a generational thing. A few younger people (even gay men!) didn't get that the wire coat hanger refers to the movie Mommie Dearest. Oh well. Even Apple has failures. It's still great soap.

And it's now had a make-over. Same bar, new name, new photo and new product description.

Presenting Bed of Roses:

A surprising mosaic of Arabian rose, lavender and fresh anise. Moroccan red clay and charcoal  to remove impurities. Cocoa butter to soften. And gorgeous, fluffy lather thanks to a generous dose of reduced red wine.

Hopefully, this will be more successful.

I'm still keeping a wrapped, coat hanger bar of Mommie Dearest in the soap box.  You never know…

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