I've been unhappy with the look of my lavender chamomile soap, I'm just over the plain look with flowers blended in. I love the smell, but the flowers just look boring and old; so I decided to redesign it.
Instead of adding chamomile flowers to the soap, I made a tea with them and used that to mix my lye. The tea was pleasant smelling and had a lovely yellow color. When I added the sodium hydroxide it smelled like urine and looked like it too. Luckily, that disappeared and the soap turned a nice yellow shade, but the smell was lost (of course).
To give it a little something different, I infused some of my sunflower oil with alkanet root. The oil was a beautiful shade of burgundy. It is supposed to give cold-process soap a nice light purple color, but it can do all sorts of funny things.
I scented the soap with lavender essential oil and separated half out to be colored. When I added it to my soap, it turned a dark gray! I alternated pouring colored and uncolored soap right in the center of my mold and just let it run as it wanted. I gave it a quick circular swirl right in the center and covered it. Then I insulated and crossed my fingers that the color would change during gel.
This is what I pulled out of the mold! I love it! The main soap is a light yellow like chamomile tea and the rest is a light purplish-gray like lavender! I even like the pattern from pouring.
What do you think? Do you like my redesigned soap?
Instead of adding chamomile flowers to the soap, I made a tea with them and used that to mix my lye. The tea was pleasant smelling and had a lovely yellow color. When I added the sodium hydroxide it smelled like urine and looked like it too. Luckily, that disappeared and the soap turned a nice yellow shade, but the smell was lost (of course).
To give it a little something different, I infused some of my sunflower oil with alkanet root. The oil was a beautiful shade of burgundy. It is supposed to give cold-process soap a nice light purple color, but it can do all sorts of funny things.
I scented the soap with lavender essential oil and separated half out to be colored. When I added it to my soap, it turned a dark gray! I alternated pouring colored and uncolored soap right in the center of my mold and just let it run as it wanted. I gave it a quick circular swirl right in the center and covered it. Then I insulated and crossed my fingers that the color would change during gel.
This is what I pulled out of the mold! I love it! The main soap is a light yellow like chamomile tea and the rest is a light purplish-gray like lavender! I even like the pattern from pouring.
