chibilightangel said:
That's a lovely curing rack! I'd love to see pictures of it with your soap in it.
I've been doing LOTS of experimenting lately: bar size, textured tops, colorants (micas, oxides, ultramarines, and natural) and have also been tinkering with several of my recipes. That's why there's such a hodge podge. The half-size bars were 1-lb experimental batches. Here's the soaps on the rack:
Top row: the purple and off-white layered soaps have a wonderful lavender and patchouli eo blend, and are topped with organic lavender buds; the wide bars on the right have frankincense and bergamot eo with organic calendula petals.
2nd row: on the left there's a delicious soap made with rose floral wax and an eo blend of geranium, palmarosa, and rosewood (the color didn't come out pink like I wanted); in the middle is a recipe and color experiment and believe it or not the color doesn't bleed!; and on the right is a 95% coconut/5% castor soap with 20% superfat, Himalayan pink salt, and peppermint eo - one of my faves! Feels wonderful on the feet and rough elbows, and smells good enough to eat.
3rd row: the first two columns are 100% castile unscented which I get a lot of requests for; and on the right is a rebatched soap that I don't think is ever going to cure (but it smells wonderful with clove bud, sweet orange, and cinnamon leaf eo).
Bottom row: two more recipe and color experiments! Both are unscented. As you can see, the blue has a little soda ash (toothbrush will take care of that) but I love the color and it doesn't bleed. On the right is a mega-shea recipe that's incredible IMHO but the natural color (turmeric powder added at trace) doesn't float my boat. Well, not the color so much as the fact that it's blotchy - must not have blended it in well enough.
In the last couple of days I've made color infusions in olive oil with alkanet, annatto seed, madder root, paprika, black walnut hull, turmeric, red sandalwood powder, and woad. I'm a little doubtful of the woad, but we'll see what happens!
