Son of Cardamom

   

I have a confession to make. Even though I now own a miter box, I still have issues cutting soap. I blame my silicone loaf mold. The soap is just too wide to fit into the box, so I have to cut the sides off first.

When I was doing this with the Cardamom, Coffee and Oatmeal, the knife hit that fun googie embed and went crazy. I ended up with quite a few bad-looking bars. And with the price of cardamom essential oil, I wasn't going to let those bars go to waste. (You'll find most soap makers hate waste. Not sure if it's a genetic thing or something that happens to you when you start making soap.)

I cut the wonky bars up and used them for this batch. Which I like even better than the first. I love the rich, chocolaty brown of the over-pour. That comes from using a stronger brew of coffee (Café Bustelo). I also used more coffee butter, but other than that the recipe is the same.

I ended up a little short when I poured the new batch over the embeds, so added that light brown strip with a good amount of coffee grounds for extra scrubbiness.  I think it looks like foam on a latte.

Last week, I found cardamom coffee in a dollar store up in Harlem. It smells great, but doesn't taste so good. Kinda weak and just off. No matter—it'll make great soap. Can't let anything go to waste. Even dollar coffee.

And the Winner Is…

The results are in from my poll of which photo of Guinness and Ginger my devote readers (and the general public) liked most. Thank you all for voting. It was a lot of fun and I do enjoy keeping my finger on the pulse of soap lovers and people who bathe.

So the moment you've been waiting for: Photo A won with a whopping 92% of the vote. Kind of like a democrat running for office in NYC.  A couple of emails I received said 'the vibrant background makes the soap very enticing' and 'it makes the soap seem more sophisticated.

Interesting to note, Photo B got 6% and Photos C and D managed to get 1% each.

Thanks again for voting. And reading.

Guinness and Ginger




Photo A

 It's kind of funny, my making soap with booze. I started out with White Star made with Champagne, but didn't get around to making soap with beer until months later. Usually, it's beer you start with since it's so much cheaper than Champagne.

Anyhow, I used Guinness after reading it makes a nice dark brown soap and olive oil pomace infused with the small amount of hops that grew in my garden last year.

A note about hops: It's an herb, a very useful one—and not just for making beer. It's also a sedative—just harvesting hops can make you feel extremely relaxed. Hops is also used to help painful swelling, bruises, rough skin and rashes.

And I love the way it smells. Nothing better than a good hoppy beer.

Unfortunately, hops essential oil is extremely expensive ($100 an ounce). Supposedly, the hops scent in beer does come through the soap making process, but since Guinness isn't a hoppy beer, I used ginger essential oil in this batch.

Next batch—and there will be another batch by the end of the summer—I'll use a super hoppy beer and leave it unscented.

Photo B

Now on to the photographs. The top one (Photo A) was done as part of a photo challenge on Soaper's Retreat run by Joanna Schmidt—who I consider to be the Queen of Soap Porn—not only does she take great soap photos, she blogs about them and inspires other soapmakers to photograph outside the soap box.

The challenge was to photograph a plain bar of soap with one of your favorite things in the background. I used an oil painting done by Gertrude Hock, a friend of my parents. I really like the way it turned out. And it kind of gives the feeling of the ginger scent. Which was unintentional. A happy accident.




Photo C

 

But, of course I wanted to photograph the soap with some Guinness. Makes sense, right? So I took a few bars to Perdition last evening, got myself a pint and took a bunch of shots on a table near the front of the bar that was open to the sidewalk.

And I'm not really happy with the results. I don't mind that they're a bit dark. That kind of captures the feel of a quiet pint in a bar, but I think they look clichéd. And as a writer, I hate clichés.

But I could be wrong about this.

And so, I'm asking you gentle reader, what you think. Please vote for your favorite photo with the cute little poll gadget located on the right of this post. I'm keeping the poll open until midnight on April 20th. I'll post the results on the 21st and use the winning photo as a product shot on the here.



Photo D

 Feel free to share this post with millions. And thanks in advance for your input.





Cardamom, Coffee and Oatmeal



This came as a suggestion from Brian Vinero. And it's fabulous! After it was cut and hanging out in the kitchen I had to stick my nose in its scent every time I walked by.

Cardamom is known as the Queen of Spices. It's been grown Asia for ages, but when the Vikings raided Constantinople, it made its way to Scandinavia and became quite popular for baking.

It's a stimulant and an aphrodisiac (gotta love that). Its scent is warm, spicy and very, very sexy. And the essential oil is very, very expensive.

To make this soap, I infused some olive oil pomace with cardamom and then created the googie-looking embed by tilting the mold. There's some oatmeal in it. And a half-assed swirl using coffee infused olive oil pomace.

The overpour was done with coffee infused olive oil pomace and twice-brewed coffee added to the lye with some trimmings from the embed, more oatmeal and coffee grounds.

Showering with this bar is like showering with a big, sexy Swede. It feels great in my hand, running it over my body, producing this creamy, fluffy long-lasting lather.

Afterwards, my entire apartment is filled with the cardamom scent and my skin feels soft, dewy and pampered. I feel energized and oh, so happy.

It's my favorite soap so far. As the Scandinavians say, "Uff-Dah!" 

From the lips of  Brian: "Ah, the scent of Scandinavia! The Scandinavians love their coffee, their oat bread and the scent of cardamom...and it is all here in Heather's latest lathering masterpiece. The coffee exfoliates, the oatmeal softens the skin and cardamom is an exotic tonic for all that ails thee..."

 

On Curing. And Writing.

I've posted about most of the soap I've made over the winter. There're still a few curing, but I don't like blogging about my soap until it's finished curing and I've actually used it.

Curing is an interesting thing. Technically after doing a hot process or cold process/oven process batch of soap, it's safe to use within 48 hours. But it's not going to be great soap. It needs to cure. To sit in a well-ventilated area where the water can evaporate. After 4-6 weeks, you'll have a harder, milder more finished bar.

And now I shall segue into writing.

I started a mystery novel this past January—a cozy mystery. It's my first attempt at genre fiction. I won't divulge too many details—that will jinx it, but I will say that the heroine makes soap and it's set in Hell's Kitchen. I've just started Chapter 9.

As I'm writing, I'm submitting my chapters to my fellow writers in a workshop led by Elaine Edelman (a phenomenal editor, writing guru and motivator) for feedback. It's a very good group—an interesting mix of writers and none of those freaks that sometimes lurk in workshops (the ones with these opus novels that are generally unreadable). I'm getting some excellent feedback and taking lots of notes.

But I'm not going back and re-writing any chapters. Not yet. Instead I'm writing forward with the suggestions in mind. Reshaping the plot, fleshing out the characters and adding twists.

Neroli and Black Pepper





Miguelina! was insanely popular—I think it was mostly because of the fragrance. Who can resist neroli?

Neroli (Citrus Vulgaris) comes from the bitter orange tree. It's said to have gotten its name from the princess of Nerola, Italy, Anne Marie Orsini who used the essential oil in her bath and to fragrance her gloves. Neroli is thought to be an antidepressant, a sedative and an aphrodisiac. It's also said to help regenerate skin cells and promote smoother skin.

And of course it smells heavenly—spicy, honey-ish and very floral. In perfumery, it's used as a both a base note and a top note.

When I created (that word sounds a little pompous here, doesn't it?) Miguelina's fragrance I blended the neroli with some vetiver, clove and tea tree essential oils. Since I was out of those when I made this batch, I used ylang ylang, may chang, orange and black pepper.

Black pepper (Piper Nigru) added a dry, warm pungency that I think makes the blend more sophisticated.  

Soap-wise, I played with melt and pour embeds again, but this time I let the embed go through the whole loaf of soap. I like the effect and how the light comes through. And it made it easier to cut. No whacky splintering.



Plan Bee






Using embeds from my failed experiment with beeswax and honey; I have produced the most amazing patchouli soap ever. Well, it's the most amazing patchouli soap I've ever used.

The lather is fluffy and intensely fragrant thanks to a generous dose of patchouli essential oil (versus the fragrance oil I usually use) blended with orange and may chang essential oils.

But I think the real amazingness comes from the embeds being rolled in powdered patchouli, star anise, jasmine, sandalwood, frankincense and Boswellian resin. It takes the fragrance to a completely different level.

 

The embeds

I plunked the embeds into a basic soap batch containing olive oil that I'd infused with calendula petals.

Calendula (calendula officinalis, also known as pot marigold) has anti-inflammatory and antifungal properties. It's used to treat chapped skin, burns and acne and yeast infections. It also repels eelworms and asparagus beetles if you happen to have a problem with them.

I grew a bunch of it in my garden last season, but unfortunately, I grew a type of calendula with very tiny flowers, so I ended up with only a small amount of oil and the soap didn't have the sunny yellow color I'd hoped for.

Such a pitiful amount

I am going to grow more calendula this year—the kind with huge flowers. I'm also going to try my hand at growing some patchouli.

And speaking of patchouli, I think it deserves a little attention. It has the reputation of being used to cover up the smell of unwashed hippies, but it's more than that.

Patchouli (Pogostemon cablin) has been used for centuries in Asian medicine to treat dandruff, dermatitis, eczema, chapped skin and acne. It's also thought to be a cell rejuvenator and may help to heal wounds and reduce the appearance of scars.

It's also a great insect repellant. In the 1700 and 1800's, silk traders would pack their cloth with dried patchouli leaves to prevent moths from laying their eggs. Its scent became an indicator of 'real' Asian fabric, therefore associated with luxury.

Aromatherapy-wise, patchouli is relaxing yet stimulating. It's believed to be helpful treating impotence and sexual anxiety. And it's an antidepressant.

So there, stick that in your bong and smoke it.

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