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

Chocolate, Almond and Raspberry




The little pink embeds are rejects from my (Not) Seeing Red experiment.



 

This batch is completely out of character for me as I'm not a big fan of candy-smelling soap, but I'm not just making soap for my own selfish self anymore. And I've had a few people tell me they love sweet scents.

I received a free sample of Holiday Candy fragrance oil with my order from Brambleberry, so I figured I'd use it to make soap for those with a sweet tooth in the shower.

I blended the sample (which smells like those hard candies shaped like raspberries with the gooey centers that your grandmother had at Christmas time) with some almond fragrance oil. The almond mellowed out the sweetness factor and made it a bit more sophisticated.

The soap itself is made with a big dose of cocoa butter and colored with cocoa powder. That added to the overall scent as well, made it more complex and smoother. It's still not my cup of tea for a bar of soap, but it is heavenly.

They all got packaged in pink fabric. Cute, huh?





The bathing beauty in the background is from a signed paint-by-numbers painting

I found on the street. Who could throw out art like this?





Coffee with Milk and Sugar

I made these guys using two separate tandem batches.

The first with twice-brewed coffee added to the lye (or to be more accurate, the lye added to twice-brewed coffee because you should NEVER ADD LIQUID TO LYE!). I also used coffee-infused olive oil pomace and the last of my precious coffee butter. And coconut oil, palm kernel oil, castor oil, cocoa butter and my old buddy—lard. At trace, I added two tablespoons of sugar (for a little extra lather) and a bit of vanilla fragrance oil. I didn't want to overpower the scent of the coffee.

The second batch was 100% coconut oil (with 20% superfat). At trace, I added powdered milk that I'd dissolved in warm water and my brand new pal—titanium dioxide.



Titanium dioxide from Brambleberry



Is titanium dioxide a natural colorant? No. But it is chemically identical to the mineral pigments that are mined from the earth—but doesn't contain harmful heavy metals. And it's used in as a whitening ingredient in both soap and cosmetics.

Here's a tip on using it: Rather than mixing the powder with oil before putting it in your soap batter, stir it into a little distilled water. It dissolves easily and no lumps.

Anyway, once my two tandem batches were at light trace—dark coffee and white milk—I attempted an in-the-pot swirl, but I'd made too much soap for one pot, so I did a little in-the-pot and a little in-the-mold swirling. I got a little overzealous and some of the swirls blended into a light brown—which actually made me very happy.

More swirls using titanium dioxide will be attempted soon. So stay tuned.

Like coffee soap? Then check out Black, No Sugar, Cardamom, Coffee and Oatmeal and Son of Cardamom.

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