Where's The Beef? In This Soap!

 I know this post may turn some people off-particularly vegans, but I've never hidden the fact that I eat meat. I love meat, and I am of the philosophy that if you're going to kill something for its meat then you should use all parts of that animal. Didn't they do that in pre-historic and the covered wagon days? Oh well, I'm not here to wage a war between vegans and carnivores, so let's get on to the soap shall we?

This is my first time making tallow soap. What is tallow you may ask? Well, quite simply, it's cow fat that's been rendered (the process of removing all the gunk and meaty bits and converting beef fat into a usable resource). Think of it as cow lard for lack of a better comparison. To see the actual rendering in process, check out this post. I have no desire to learn to how to render tallow, so I just buy mine from here. First off, the tallow arrives in solid white form. Duh, it is fat after all, and the smell is a little off-putting like used cooking grease. But wait-it comes from a cow so what do you expect? Double duh...Once you scent your soap accordingly, there is no leftover fried chicken grease smell.

Using tallow in your soap recipe is supposed to help yield a hard, white bar. Well, I can't speak on the white part-mine look very average, but I can attest to the hard part. The loaf came out nice and firm, and I was actually able to slice it up the same day. This particular batch is scented in black raspberry & vanilla. I didn't get too fancy with the design because I didn't know what to expect. The oils I used were very basic-tallow, of course, soybean, palm, and coconut oils. I haven't decided if I'm going to sell these or use them as a deluxe sample with purchase but if you don't have a problem with using animal by-products in your soaps, I encourage you to give tallow a try.

DISASTER!!!!

I've been reading all these wonderful things about sodium lactate and how it makes for a hard bar of soap, blah, blah. Okay, I'm gonna try me some-o-that! Then I read how adding sodium lactate to hot process soap makes the soap look "smoother" almost as if it were cold processed. SOLD! And here's the result:

Did I use too much sodium lactate? This is a 2 pound batch, and I used about a tablespoon and a half. The soap is all crumbly. If I handle it for more than a minute, it will shatter into pieces, but it smells great! I scented it in Clean Cotton-very fresh, reminiscent of the summers when my grandmother would hang her laundry on the outside clothesline. She still actually does hang her clothes to dry, but she can't hang 'em outside anymore because people will steal her clothes (sad, but true...)

All is not lost because I've made a new batch-same scent but a completely different look. This time I omitted the sodium lactate and I CPOP'ed it. I'll make the reveal early next week once I cut them.

Caribbean Queen Soap

I was jonesing to make something, so I decided to turn the fragrance I used for my Caribbean Queen bath bomb cupcake into a soap. It's an explosion of everything fruity and sweet-like a SweeTart. Every whiff conjures up a different scent-strawberry, cherry, mango, pineapple, grapefruit, and madarin orange...I had to work with the quickness to mix up these different colors. I only soap using the room-temperature method-no heating or temp measures, so once that lye mixture hits the oil (hard and soft) mixture, it's go-time! I used a total of 4 different colors-green, yellow, red, and orange, and I'm pleased with the results, but I can't stop thinking about Fruit Loops and Trix cereal now. I used to eat that stuff dry out of the box...I've never been so tempted to bite soap before-seriously. I love this one!

Some New Soap

 

 Fresh off my April Fool's coup, I almost forgot about this little number. I am making some major changes at TSS, and it's a lot of work. I hate work, lol. This is supposed to be fun. Anyhoo, I'm still playing with my newest obsession, that brushed-mica look. This soap was looking too much like Melony Gardenia even with the pale pink inside. I solved my conundrum (I have a co-worker who uses "big" words like conundrum to try to make herself sound extra intelligent...) by bringing out the pink by brushing the top with this magenta-like mica. I'm liking it now. Oh, I forgot to tell you what it smells like. Duh...I blended peppermint, patchouli, grapefruit, and fir needle essential oils. Umm, it's a little different. Name is pending..

Next up, I'll have a sneak peek of my new website. I'm so psyched!

I'm Felting! I'm Fellllttting!

I've discovered a new obsession: felted soap! About a year ago, I met this fabulous felt and fiber artist on Art Fire who bought tons of my soap so she could felt and sell it. It didn't dawn on me to try it my darn self-not until I met a fabulous woman who has a farm and raises llamas and makes her own yarn and roving and stuff. O--M--G! It is so soft. Pepper (the cat) and I keep rubbing our faces on it, LOL....



Felting the soap is not as easy as it looks. It requires lots of rubbing, mashing, smoothing, rinsing, repeating....Here's a how-to I found on YouTube. You don't need a washing board for this one. Pardon my ignorance, but who just has one of those laying around?

(See? Not enough rubbing, mashing, patting, and rinsing!)

Practice makes perfect. Attn soapers: here's a new way to get rid of those ugly, misshapen, off-kilter soaps that you were just going to toss or give away. Why not felt it and sell it!?