I picked up some dry straw flowers from a local grower yesterday which I will be using on the tops of my soaps. They should look quite nice
I also made my pine tar soap 48 hours ago now & cut it when I got home late last night....and I gotta say, it's a thing of beauty
Turned out perfectly, no issues, other than I should just left the top alone. Every time I go & get fancy, I regret it
It's a nice, rich brown & wasn't overly soft when I cut it. I let it sit 12 hours or so before bevelling it, though. It's hardening up quickly. I'm sure the 3 TSP of salt I used in the 2.2KG batch is helping a great deal with that. I also reduced my water ratio from 2.4:1 to 2:1. When not using a large amount of clay or natural colorants which suck water up like a hoover, I will continue to do this.
I had read many posts in the forums regarding people not liking much coconut oil in their pine tar soap due to it being drying. Well, I just used my master-batched oils, which had a fair amount of coconut in it, and it's not an issue for me personally. My hands feel very soft after washing with this soap, even before curing, which is new for me. Usually, my hands do not like soap that's less than a week or more cured.
I did add a couple of TBSP of avocado oil to my essential oils & a small amount of clay, to end up with a slightly higher superfat than 5% & to help retain the scent of the cypress & ylang-ylang essential oils. Didn't want to use castor oil for this purpose this time because of the fact that I was already using 15% pine tar & wanted to minimize potential softness.
Turned out I made some good decisions with this test batch. I'm feeling pretty stoked since it was my first ever pine tar soap
Now for the 16 pound slab mold full! LOL