And Now...A "Bastile" Soap

About Face-A Bastard Soap

It's only fair that I give this bastardized Castile soap some love. This is actually my 2nd batch of my About Face soap. The first one was done totally on a whim, and it was purely experimental. The response I've received has been very positive, and it sold out completely. The first batch, too, was bastardized (I'm loving this word, so you'll see it a lot), made with olive and coconut oils. This time, I upped the ante and made the soap with 85% olive oil and 15% shea butter! Ah....lovely, pungent shea butter. I say pungent because I only use the unrefined variety. In its raw form, unrefined shea butter has a sulfuric odor to me (Anybody remembers Sulfur 8 hair grease?), but once you melt it down and scent it, the odor is completely gone (thank goodness!!)

Face is scented in pure essential oils of tea tree and eucalyptus. It's very medicinal-smelling, but not a complete turnoff. I liken it to a solid astringent-except it won't strip your skin bare of its natural oils. The color you see in the soap is actually French red clay. It's a drawing clay, but used in this soap, it's drawing powers are very subtle. I used it mainly for color. These particular bars are also sliced thinner than my others because I really designed this soap to be a "specialty" bar. Although it's perfectly good to be used all over every day, I personally like to reserve this one for "special" occasions-like, uh, washing my face. I CPOP'ed these so they'll be ready in a mere 3 weeks:)