Autonomy during Coronageddon
Such a lovely day. I paced myself s l o w l y
Not too bad, but woke up to the noise of a news helicopter over the 91 fwy for coverage of the full fwy closure so that Cal-trans can demolish the Maple St. bridge (a mile away). Breakfast and coffee... I pulled a shot and frothed up some milk - nice to use one of the mini-frothers for other than soap. Ahhhh, sweet quiet bliss while my DH is out of town for a couple days... except for the helicopter and the usual neighborhood noises on a Saturday morning. But really - not so bad.
Onto my adventures in soaping...
I started by 8am and warm infused Calendula into Ricebran Oil; made very strong Calendula hips tea for the lye water. And while those were steeping I peeked out the front window and watched the little birdies come and eat the wild seed mix I put out. Two little birdies even enjoyed the shade of my tomato plant. I am not sure if they have found the little ceramic bird bath next to the potted plum tree. But they sure found the bird seed on my gardening cart for them. So now armed with happy thoughts, cutness, and all that, I began formulating my recipe, gathering ingredients and creating a lovely log of Calendula soap. I used the 2.5 lb mold from Michael's crafts and I expect to get 8 nice bars and two 1.2 oz slivers to check on 6 months from now. I plan on using a crinkle cutter. I did not top with any Calendula flowers. I know it's a very pretty look, but just for me and a couple gifts - not needed.
Odd, when I added my lye water to the melted blended oils it seemed to want to hit trace in 2 seconds. I kicked my act into high gear - blended, stirred, added the shea butter and rosehip oil after all other oils were combined. It loosened up a little. I separated out a portion and blended in TD (ok not loosened up any longer with the TD).
Quickly then... 3 layers in the mold - plain, white, and plain again. Stirred it up with skewer like you would with a spoon - can't wait to see if I get subtle swirls inside (I hope so - but I still want to bend up a wire coat hanger to make better swirls next time). I did some lovely swirls on the top for texture, spritzed and cling wrapped it, and placed in the refrigerator. This is the first time I've put soap into the fridge. I filled little silicone hearts with some of the plain batter to have some embeds stashed.
So far the soap smells pretty good and is a beautiful pale yellow.
Interesting... two times that I've used dried flowers in teas for the lye water, trace seemed to be accelerated. Today my lye and oils were 14 degrees apart. Last time (with Hibiscus) they were 7 degrees apart. I don't see any notations when I did mint water, so that may not have been an issue. but it also wasn't strongly steeped mint tea either.
I'm going to go lurking, and tubing to see if others have experienced trace issues with botanicals in the lye water.
Such a lovely day.
Suz