It's Loofahpalooza 2k14!

New year. New look...I love putting "stuff" in soap lol and loofah is one of my faves. The grocery store near my job was selling footlong loofah's for around $4 and it was divine intervention because I swear I was looking for loofah on Etsy and other suppliers. Score!!!!

Anyway, this one's about as all-natural as it's gonna get-no coloring and scented with litsea cubeba (May Chang). It's very sweet with a heavenly citrus aroma almost like a flowery orange for lack of a better description. I love it! Yup, that's about all I can say...

Just A Few Pics

I made 2 batches over the weekend! Major feat...seriously. I'll post the deets when I cut and photograph them:)

African Black Soap

 I've always been curious about African Black Soap. I read on all kinds of forums how wonderful it is for the skin, specifically, problem skin which I was born with it seems, so I decided that I wanted to make some. But when I read how the soap is actually made, I was like "How in the hell am I supposed to do that???" So I gave up....

Well lo and behold, one of my favorite suppliers, Elements Bath and Body offered an additive called coconut carbon, which is purportedly one of the active ingredients in the making of African black soap, I jumped on it. Of course, I was hoping my soap would look traditionally like this:

But this is my result:

Duh...of course, it's gonna be black. The coconut carbon is a fine, powdery substance, much like activated charcoal, and a little goes a long way. I scented this batch in a blend of eucalyptus and tea tree essential oils and sprinkled some dried calendula on top just because...I can't wait to personally test this soap. I love the medicinal smell of it. I wish I would have made these in my cubed mold though. Maybe next time...

So I Was Bored...

And decided to make some soap-WOW! This is my first batch in, like, forever...seriously. I've decided to make a soap version of my Wake That Ass Up Salt Scrub. I call it Wake That Ass Up Salt Bar. Real original right? Umm, yeah...

The main soap I used is dentritic salt. I really like dendritic because it's very fine, and it absorbs scent like friggin crazy. I added peppermint essential oil directly to the salt to boost the aroma. I had these ginormous salt rocks that I ordered by accident (well, not accident, I just didn't think they'd be the size of baby hail stones.) Anyway, I decided to color some and scent them in pink grapefruit essential oil and embed them on top of the bars...NICE...

The top part of these would make a great foot scrub. I would not rub these directly on any body part because these hail stones are no joke. Definite use a wash cloth or poof...

Til next time...

Sorta Kinda Back From Oblivion…With New Bubblage!

Hello lovelies. It’s been a while.  This blog was in need of a good dusting so I thought I’d post a couple of pics of some soap I made almost 2 months ago! These are about 75% all-natural (The coconut oil is non-organic, and there’s no such thing as organic lye which you absolutely must have to make soap, and I used oxides to color some of these.) These soaps are also scented in pure essential oils (very expensive essential oils compared to synthetic fragrance oils). I’m still training my brain that when it comes to essential oils (or EO’s as I will refer to them) that less is more, and that many of these scents have a very noticeable plant-like aroma (Duh…) I’m so used to my fruity, bakery-scented fragrances that smell so sugary-sweet and dainty, but there is something simplistic, yet elegant about a product that is scented with a straight essential oil. But enough of the chit-chatter, let’s get to it, shall we?

First Up is Your Ass is (Lemon)Grass. I really love the smell of lemongrass. It’s so clean and uplifting. It does have a slight lemony aroma, but if you’ve never smelled lemongrass before, don’t expect this to smell like “lemons”. Lemongrass is said to have anti-depressant, anti-bacterial, and sedative properties. I mixed a little bit of cedarwood with this one. I wanted to merge two contrasting aromas (dainty vs. dashing), but dainty won out. I think you can detect a small hint of the cedarwood, but not much methinks. Of course I had to top it all off with a few slivers of cut lemongrass.

 Next up is Mary Jane. I made this soap with organic hemp seed oil, and it stinks so good. I put no added scent in this particular batch. I wanted the hemp to be the star, but sadly, the natural aroma has faded significantly as it cured. The only saving graces are the natural greenish color, and the lather in this sucker! I have a bar of this one in my shower now, and I love working it up in my wash cloth just to see the bubbles form. Oh, for those who don’t know, hemp seed oil is derived from the seed of the hemp plant, cannabis sativa (yeah, the same plant  used to cultivate weed, grass, herb, reefer, smoke, kush, …marijuana). Okay, I’m slightly exaggerating. This particular cannabis used to make hemp seed oil is grown for industrial use (Yeah, sure…so they say…) Anyway, it makes one lovely soap. I just love the frothy bubblage this one produces…

I Made Soap!

Okay, I actually made this soap about a month ago, but I just didn't feel like talking about it til now:) I call this soap: 99 Problems after this song. "If you got skin problems, I feel bad for you son. I got 99 problems, but this soap aint one..."

Why do I call it 99 Problems? Cause this is one of many new natural soaps that I'm working on. There are no artificial colors, flavors, or scents in this soap so you don't have to worry about "Am I going to break out (unless you're alergic to chocolate of course, then you would not want this soap.) It's scented purely in peppermint essential oil and cocoa absolute. The coloring is from the cocoa absolute. It smells just like a York Peppermint Patty...oh gawd...I have never lusted after a soap more than this one. It is beyond yummo. The oils are all organic and sustainable (yay!)-olive, coconut, palm, and soybean. This soap is so potent, that it will light your bathroom up for hours after you use it. It's making me hungry now. Available here now:)

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:)