Let's Soap

Hello, dear readers. I know it’s been a while since my last post. I’ve been working on essential oil candles like crazy. I hope to have more updates to you soon.

In the meantime, I’m going to do something I’ve never done on this blog. I’m going to promote my business. Currently my company, Music City Suds, is doing well and we’re expanding! To launch a new luxury line of soaps and body products, I’ve created a fundraising campaign. And I need your help to reach my goal!

It’s not a donation, it’s a contribution. You’ll get lots of fun rewards from Music City Suds for any contribution level you choose.

Please take a moment and check out the site for more information. Thank you so much for continuing to follow my soapmaking journey. OK, back to the kitchen with me.

www.iolabody.com

Now that I’m diving into candlemaking, it’s getting me thinking about expensive essential oils. I have resigned myself to the fact that most florals are now and forever will be out of my financial reach. But I still like having those properties in my soaps. So what’s a soapmaker to do? Well, over my career I’ve done a lot of substituting when it came to expensive essential oils, and I don’t see any reason not to share what I’ve learned.

Now, as I’m sure you know, anytime you use essential oils, be sure to read the warnings. Some oils are skin irritants. Some oils shouldn’t be used when pregnant. Some oils shouldn’t be used on your body at all. Sometimes the cheaper oils are cheaper because there are cautions that go along with them. Just do your research. Ok. Now let’s save some money!

Sandalwood

Ah, sandalwood. You elusive, expensive oil. While I was in India a few years back, I bought locally made sandalwood soap and slathered myself in the stuff for my entire month-long trip. This was before I had done any real soapmaking, so I put it on my mental list of things to make when I got home. It quickly fell off the list, though, when I realized the environmental impact of harvesting the oil was pushing that poor tree to extinction. That and the fact that it costs a gazillion dollars. So I set out searching for alternatives.

As with every substitution on this list, if you don’t use the real thing you’re not going to get the real thing. These are substitutions, alternatives, good-enoughs. With sandalwood, I wanted to find something that had sweet, woodsy, slightly peppery tones.  The closest thing in my price range is probably amyris or West Indian sandalwood. It’s made from wood chips and shavings. It does have a more cedar-like smell than true sandalwood, but when blending you can get a lot of the sandalwood properties and no one ever has to know the difference. I won’t tell. Also in blending, I’ve found that patchouli and cedarwood can sometimes be used as substitutions…albeit with varying results.

Rose and Jasmine

A rose by any other oil is not as sweet. And nothing, I say nothing, smells like jasmine; that evocative, sensual, tropical beauty. The best I hope for is to find less expensive florals, which is a task in and of itself. Rose geranium is a beautiful substitution for rose but it’s often as expensive as rose itself. Ylang ylang is going to set you back a pretty penny, but it is a strong and lovely substitute for jasmine. It’s hard to get a floral note that doesn’t come from a flower, but I think palmarosa does a pretty good job.

Instead of trying to find an essential oil as a substitute, I’ve been itching to try floral waxes. They are inexpensive (compared to the oils) and you need relatively little in a soap recipe to get the scent. My preliminary research suggests adding about 1/3 oz per pound of oil of jasmine or rose wax to your regular recipe.

Neroli

Neroli is one of my “black rain cloud” oils. I have tiny sample vials of a few choice essential oils in my stash that I pop open whenever I’m having a rough day. One whiff of that floral citrusy beauty lifts my spirits every time. And as I’ve been saying this whole post, nothing is a substitute for the heavenly smell of this oil. But you know what I’m going to say, don’t you? I’m going to suggest any citrus oil, right? Well, kind of. While you’re not going to get anything close to neroli from lime or lemon or plain ol’ orange, you can get a richer smell from others. Try clementine, tangerine, or blood orange. They add a lot more depth than most. Also, you can get bitter orange oil inexpensively. It’s the fruit part while neroli is the foliage part.

Others

Since we’re using essential oils in soapmaking, the delicate nuance of a lot of oils gets lost. (Thanks a lot, lye.) The good news is we often have the opportunity to use different parts of the plant to achieve similar results. For example, cinnamon bark is expensive. Cinnamon leaf is not. And when you’re mixing up  your Christmas scents, it all smells pretty similar. A few others:

Sweet basil = expensive. Basil methyl = cheap

Cedar leaf = expensive. Cedarwood = cheap

French lavender = expensive. French lavender spike (or lavender 40/42) = cheap

Clove stem = expensive. Clove bud or leaf = cheap

Also, remember that citrus and mint oils are plentiful, cheap, and full of personality. Til next time!

As promised, here is my first deviation from soapmaking. I’ve been dabbling in candles, trying to stick to my all-natural guns. One of the biggest setbacks to this is scent.

There aren’t a whole lot of essential oils that can be used in candles, and even fewer that are affordable. The trick to using EOs in candles is finding ones whose flash point is higher than the melting point of wax you’re using. Fortunately soy wax has a pretty low melt point, comparatively speaking. That’s the wax I’ve been using, so we’re just going to talk about that and I don’t want any lip.

Kayla Fioravanti, previously of Essential Wholesale, posted this wonderful wax/essential oil chart on her blog a year ago. Unfortunately the original link seems to have died, but here’s the information:

So, as you can see there aren’t a ton of EOs with flash points (the point where they burn off into the ether) higher than 125.8° (the melt point of soy wax). Of course, if you’re swimming in your big pile of gold coins, you could always use up all your rose otto and sandalwood. For the rest of us, however, focusing on the cheaper oils is probably a safer bet. Here is a list of oils I’ve been playing around with in my candles. None of them cost more than $50/lb and all of them seem to provide at least some scent:

Anise

Basil

Cedarwood

Cinnamon Leaf

Citronella

Clove

Lavender

Lemongrass

Peppermint

Spearmint

I will say that with such a limited list, I’ve gotten pretty creative with my blends, and I strongly encourage you to do the same. All I’m going to say is that I never thought basil and cedarwood would be a cute couple. But they are lovely!

Also, as per Ms. Fioravanti’s suggestion, use essential oils at 6-8% of your recipe.

Hey, friends! It’s been way too long since my last post. For that, I apologize. Don’t think that means my soapmaking adventures have flagged, though. They are going strong. So much has happened in the past few months. Lots of formulating, experimenting, and tomfoolery has been taking place. Of course I’m going to share it with you. Have no fear!

In the coming weeks I’m going to be diverging from soapmaking just a wee bit. I’ve started dabbling in soy candles, and I’d love to share what I’ve learned. In my quest to stay completely natural, I’ve found there is a severe lack of information on candlemaking, especially in regards to coloring. I’m still using only essential oils (a much more expensive endeavor in candlemaking) and food grade colorants. Also, I’m sticking to soy wax. Take that, paraffin!

For now, here is a lightning round of things I’ve unearthed since I’ve been gone:

1. Never, ever, ever soap without goggles. Forget for one second what lye is, and you’re in big trouble, mister. It was funny til someone almost lost an eye.

2. When you’re making lip balm there’s always that little bit extra that won’t make a whole tube, right? I’ve started making samples by using tattoo ink cups. They are miniscule plastic cups that hold a wee bit of lip balm. Throw it in a zipped plastic bag with a business card. Voila! Sample!

3. Luffa can be cut SO much easier with a serrated bread knife.

4. If you need to dilute thick essential oils, such as patchouli or vanilla oleoresin, use a mini slow cooker. They’re sold as potpourri warmers or dip servers, but they’re basically a tiny slow cooker. Add your carrier oil, add your essential oil, and you don’t have to mess up a large pot. Much easier to pour, too.

5. Crafts love company! Go forth and find crafty friends. I’ve found that even non-soapmaking friends provide endless amounts of support and inspiration.

Stay tuned, fair readers. I’m back and man, do I have a lot to say.

Nearly every farmers’ market I’ve ever visited has had at least one soapmaker peddling wares. It’s a great venue for handcrafted soap, and I regularly set up shop at my local farmers’ market myself. Whether your local market is a huge, street-blocking affair or a small intimate gathering of farmers, the following tips will help you have a more successful sales day.

1. Make “Local” Your Focal Point

People come to farmers’ market to buy produce and meat from local farmers. They buy local honey, local jam, local flowers. Locally made soap fits nicely into the atmosphere of the market, and you should play that to your advantage. I highly recommend using local ingredients in your soaps when you can, to help promote that aspect. Make special farmers’ market soaps using locally made produce. Tomatoes, lettuce, carrots, and greens can all be juiced and used as a water substitute in cold process soap. Luffa, honey, and milk can also be added to any recipe to put a local spin on a product. Acquiring these ingredients can also help you create relationships with local farmers, who may in turn help promote your soaps. I work with one local farmer who lets me trade soap for ingredients, which seems like a very fine deal to me.

2. Listen to Your Customers

Having a table or booth at a farmers’ market is like a tiny, interactive storefront. You can get instant feedback on what customers want, what they like, what they respond well to. It also gives you the opportunity to quickly respond to the needs and wants of your particular demographic. If a certain scent isn’t selling well, switch it up next week and try something new. This kind of instant response can help you hone your product line to specifically suit the needs of your market and up those sales. When you sell, be sure to ask customers questions about what they think or what types of products they’d like to see.

3. Exclusivity Sells

This tip is mainly for those who focus more on wholesale accounts. Offer customers products they can’t find anywhere else. Try special seasonal bars. Try non-soap products. Personally, most of my wholesale accounts carry only my soaps, with a few carrying my lip balms. So, at the farmers’ market I’ll create small batches of products such as bath salts, room sprays, or essential oil blends that can’t be found in stores. I also have a very successful sales bin for orphan bars or batches that have misfired. I can’t sell these pieces to stores, but I can offer them to customers at the market for a discounted price. It’s a win-win.

4. Take Customers to School

Interacting with customers directly gives you the opportunity to win them over to the wonderful world of handmade soap. I often get customers who balk at the $5 price for a bar of my soap. This opens the door for me to start a conversation about commercially made soaps. Many people can’t see the difference between handcrafted soap and Dial. I take the opportunity to discuss the difference in processes, in ingredients, in environmental impact. I explain what using handmade soap has done personally for my skin ailments, and I love singing the virtues of the specialty ingredients that I use. If you are a member of the Handcrafted Soapmakers’ Guild, there are even brochures you can print out in the members area of their website entitled “Why Handcrafted Soap?” that you might want to consider having on hand at your farmers’ market table.

5. Give It Away Now

“Would you like some free soap?” That little phrase has earned me more sales than I can count. I never ever leave for a farmers’ market (or craft fair) without a sample bucket packed with soap samples. I use small 3 x 4 bags that contain a business card and a sliver of soap, and hand them out to anyone who looks my way. Who doesn’t want free stuff? Even if they take the sample and keep walking, they at least have my business card in hand and a free piece of soap to try. Often, out of courtesy, though, people will stop and look at the table for a minute, ask a question, sniff a bar or two. I’m not about high-pressured sales techniques, but the free sample has been a tried and true method for me, and I’ll continue to give out those slivers everywhere I go. The first one is always free.

I’ve been using luffa in my soaps for a while now. But until I started looking for suppliers and selling at craft fairs, I had no idea how misunderstood this poor veggie is. Because of my deep affection for the thing, I am taking it upon myself to dispel some myths and spread the gospel of my good pal, the luffa.

1. The luffa is not a sea sponge.

When I was first searching for suppliers for my luffa, I visited a national grocery store chain specializing in, ahem, whole foods. I asked if they carried luffa and the sales clerk looked at me like I’d just tried to eat her hair. “No!” she said aghast. “We would never carry those for environmental reasons.” I left the store feeling a wee bit confused. What in the world was environmentally unsound about growing luffa? Friend enlightened me. Friend said “Well, they’re sea sponges, right? Harvesting animals for shower accessories is so very uncool.” No! No, no, no!

The luffa is a humble plant, a vine really. It belongs to the same family as cucumbers, gourds, and squashes. It is NOT a sea sponge. It doesn’t even like water all that much. I mean, sure, it needs it to grow all green and leafy, but you’d never find a luffa underwater. That’s just not how it rolls.

Luffas grow to be about a foot long (in North America, methinks) and look like a fat, misshapen cucumber when they’re ripe. While in Asia some varieties of this veggie are used in cooking, we normally see it here in America in its dried form. Once the luffa is harvested, it can be peeled, de-seeded and dried.

2. Luffas are great exfoliators. 

Once the luffa is dried, you’re left with a coarse, fibrous tube of plant matter. Not too appealing, right? In the words of one of my farmer friends “They’re really not good for much except letting the kids fight with.” (Which I wholly disagree with, of course.) But in my mind, the luffa is a lover, not a fighter, so let’s focus on less violent ways to use them.

They are phenomenal exfoliators. Their coarseness is great for sloughing off dead skin.

And you can feel good about using them over commercial products because they are totally biodegradable and renewable…and except for the drying and cleaning, there are no manufacturing processes to speak of. Luffas are about as natural as you can get.

3. The luffa is versatile. 

It’s not just for scrubbing your rough spots. You can use luffas in a variety of ways. They’re great kitchen scrubbers, too. I like to use them instead of scouring pads for messy dishes. It is believed that the juice of the luffa plant can also cure jaundice. (I’ll let you test that one yourself.) Wait! There’s more! Once dried, the luffa doesn’t go bad. It can be stored for years and still retain its awesomeness.

Now, the million dollar question. How can you use them in cold processed soap? Two ways. The first is to use the luffa whole by creating a round mold then filling it with soap. This can be done DIY-style by buying some pvc pipe and capping one end. You can also buy pre made molds for this purpose. Another way is to shred the luffa once it’s dried and then sprinkle it into your recipe at trace. This provides a milder exfoliant throughout your bar, and it doesn’t require a special mold.

4. Luffas are great for those who DIY.

Luffas are hearty plants that are easy to grow. According to my farmer friend, they pretty much do their own thing once the seeds are planted. They don’t need any special care or attention. As a matter of fact, my friend didn’t even realize she had luffa until they just sprouted one day. (Her kids must have spread the seeds after one of their luffa battles.) A quick internet search will give you a multitude of sites ready to help you grow your own.

I hope I’ve helped the luffa out a little today. It’s the least I can do; the poor little guy’s been through enough already.

My pal S has started making her own laundry detergent. I’ve been listening to her extol the virtues of homemade detergent, endured her bragging that it only costs her pennies to clean her clothes. And I’ve had enough! I’m positively green with envy. After doing some research, I’ve found that 90% of homemade detergent recipes call for borax and washing soda (sodium bicarbonate), in addition to grated soap. This got my brain to whirring. What if I just used my homemade soap? Would that work? Could I make an effective laundry soap from regular old bar soap and water? Oh, I feel an experiment coming on.

I decided to give it a whirl. If this works out, it’s going to be a great way to get rid of end pieces, fragments, and orphan bars/batches. I just changed the recipe for one of my unscented soaps, so I decided to use those. I imagine that something with a lot of scent or color wouldn’t be the best choice…unless I wanted all my sheets to turn out a murky gray. I grated the white, unscented bars, then packed the grated soap into a jar. I filled the jar with just enough water to cover the shreds.

After 24 hours, the water had absorbed and the top layer of the soap had turned to gel. I gave everything a good stir and added more water.

The shreds absorbed water like crazy. I had to keep adding water everyday in order to create a gel. When you add your shreds to the jar, don’t pack them in there too tight or you might outgrow your jar like I did.

After three days, the whole jar of shreds had turned into a oh-so-manageable gel. I added a bit of essential oil for scent, then dumped about a half cup of the gel into the wash with my dirties. Voila! Laundry soap! Now, I’m sure my homemade cocktail doesn’t clean as well as it would if I’d added borax and washing powder, but I think it works just fine. I’m just super excited to have another way to use up old pieces of soap.

Beer soap has been one of those things I’ve been putting off making. Is it because the thought of wasting that precious elixir upsets me? Well, partly. Mostly it’s because I’ve been afraid. I’ve read forums that warn of all the dangers that go along with making beers soap, ominous-sounding things: volcanoes, overheating, deathly smells. Turns out, it really wasn’t that hard. I’m sure it can be a bit overwhelming if you don’t know what to expect, but that’s what I’m here for. To pass on what I’ve learned. So raise your glass and let’s talk beer.

The reason I’ve been afraid of beer soap is because of the properties in it. Alcohol, sugar, and carbonation are not lye’s besties. All of those components can cause a lye mixture to bubble out of its container (volcano) and get as hot as hell (which can cause your container to break or leak). But if you can get those things under control, they will actually contribute to a fine bar of soap. Sugar is amazing for making lather, so keeping some of that around will benefit the end product. But how do you deal with the excess of sugar, alcohol, and carbonation? First you need to get the alcohol out of there. The easiest way to do this is to cook it off. Use the same amount of beer as you would water in your normal batch. Open the beer and pour it into a pot from high up (causing it to fizz, which releases a lot of the carbonation). Now I have a strict, “one for the soap, one for me” policy when making beer soap, but you divide the booze however you want. Next bring the beer to a boil, then let it simmer for about 20 minutes. After the boil, I highly suggest opening some windows unless you want your house to smell like a dive bar. Boiled beer is smelly. A bubbly film will float to the top of the beer, so periodically scoop that off and discard. This process gets rid of all that carbonation, too, so no shaking required.

Next you need to cool the beer down, so pop it in the fridge or freezer and have a cold one for yourself. After it’s chilled, use it as normal, replacing your water with the flat beer.

There is another method people use for getting their beer manageable. Instead of cooking the beer, you can flatten it. Pour the beer into a large container, put it into the fridge, then shake it periodically over the course of a few days. Once you’re satisfied that all the carbonation is gone, you can use it as a normal water replacement. I’ve also heard that this makes a super lathery bar since you’re leaving the sugar alcohols all in tact. I am nothing if not impatient, though, so I always use the cooking method. If I leave beer in the fridge for 3-4 days there is a very high possibility that it will never make it to the soap.

One great thing about using beer in natural soapmaking is that you won’t need to use a colorant. The type of beer you use will affect the color of your bars. Want a light tan bar? Use a light beer. Dark brown? Go for a stout or amber bock. Thankfully the end result won’t smell like cooked beer. You might get a slight whiff of the beer smell, but that will fade quickly. When scenting your bars, I suggest playing on the components usually associated with beer. Test out some essential oils of orange, clove, or any other herbaceous/woodsy scents.

There are plenty of ways to add interest to your beer bar, if you so desire. Try adding ground hops for texture. Or make a frothy white top with a second layer of CP soap. You can even find cutesy molds in the shapes of bottles or cans. Want to go full-on DIY? Make your own beer! You can get home beer making kits for next to nothing, and making your own is often cheaper (and more fulfilling) than buying at the store. You’ll also know exactly what’s going into your beer and can control the color, too.

A few weeks back I got a sample bag of soap nuts from my pals over at Green Virgin Products. 
While I wasn’t wildly impressed with their laundry-washing ability, I had an itch to use them in cold process soap somehow. I thought about grinding them and using them as an exfoliant. They’re tough little buggers, though, and I quickly realized I’d probably take a layer of skin off if I went that route. So I decided to use them another way: in my lye solution.

I added about a cup of soap nuts to the water I was going to use in my lye solution and boiled them for about 15-20 minutes. If you do this at home, be sure to use a lid. Those soap nuts are smeeeelly. After the boil, I let the soap nuts soak in the water til it cooled, about another half hour or so. Then I went along and made my soap. The batch I made had three pounds of oil, so if you want to try this for yourself, be sure to adjust the soap nuts to suit your recipe. Be warned, the smell is very off-putting. I now know it would’ve faded during cure, but at the time I added some essential oil just to be safe (I used camphor and eucalyptus, but any ol’ scent should do).

Normally I let my soap cure for about 4-6 weeks, but I got antsy with this one. After about 2.5 weeks, the soap had hardened enough for me to cart it to the shower.

The scent had faded from the soap nuts (thank goodness). When I started lathering up, I was pleasantly surprised. The soap had a rich, dense lather with stable bubbles. Normally it takes a few months for my soaps to have a lather like that. I can only assume that the soap nuts were the reason. (Although I won’t be able to say that for sure until I do some more testing.)

So, while soap nuts aren’t the best laundry detergent, they could be a great bubble producer in CP soap! If you’re trying to make a soap without coconut oil, try using soap nuts to give you some bubbles. I can’t wait to see what this soap does in a few more weeks.

Last weekend I attended the Alabama Soap and Candle Association Conference. While there I met some amazing and wacky people and learned a metric heapload of new stuff. In the coming weeks I’ll be posting some tips and tricks I picked up, as well as reviews of some fun new products I snagged.

Today is devoted to a book written by one of the keynote speakers at the conference, Kayla Fioravanti. She is the diva and owner of Essential Wholesale, as well as a registered aromatherapist. She rocked my nose off with her knowledge of essential oil blending and had some great tips for how to use EOs effectively in soap. She even brought testers of a ton of EOs, so I got to put my sniffer on some scents I’ve never tried before. (Benzoin resin and Peru Balsam coming soon to a Music City Suds product near you.) But we’ll talk about that later. Book time.

Kayla has written a book on a subject I know jack about: melt and pour soap. I stray away from the medium because I am OCD about knowing what goes into my soap. Those melt and pour bases just frighten me. I don’t trust anybody else to build my soap for me, so I’ve never even given them a chance. Kayla’s new book changes all that. It’s called “How to Make Melt and Pour Soap Base from Scratch.”

In the book, she gives recipes and tips on making your own base, as well as descriptions of all of the ingredients. That’s a good thing for people like me who wouldn’t know a triethanolamine if it sat on my face. Now a lot of the ingredients she uses are synthetics, so yours truly probably won’t be melting and pouring anytime soon. It is nice to know, however, that someone out there is taking the mystery out of MP soapmaking. Knowledge is power, y’all.

To make things even easier, Kayla is offering a starter kit through her website which includes everything you need to make your own base.