Homemade Orange Cleaner

The other day I stumbled across a recipe on Joybilee Farm blog  for making homemade orange cleaner .  As I have a lot of beautiful old woodwork in my house, I was curious and anxious to test this out! 

Two simple ingredients...citrus peels and white vinegar....and time to "brew" for the next 2-3 weeks.  Once my concoction is ready for testing I will post an update.  I need more orange peels to fill up my gallon jug, first.  :) 

It has been a couple hours since I started the mixture and these photos were taken. and I am already noticing that the vinegar has already started to take on an orange hue. 

Soothing Lavender

Yesterday the school where I work had a half day and I wasted no time getting home to play in the soap room. My enthusiasm escalated with pure delight at the sight of a brown cardboard box waiting for me on the porch when I pulled in the driveway...new essential and fragrance oils! First out of the box...Lavender Essential Oil! This called for a triple batch & three molds to get through this soap making session.



Freshly poured Lavender Goat Milk Soap


Purple swirls were dancing in my head...can you tell?  These lovely logs of soap were made with Goat Milk using the same same formula I was playing with the night before.  I was taking a huge gamble by making a triple batch before knowing how the goat milk was going to factor into the soap behavior.  I love living on the edge sometimes, and this time it worked to my benefit. 

 
Here is a closer look at one of the molds full of freshly poured soap.  I love the white and purple contrast and cannot wait to see what the "inside" of the logs look like.  It will have to wait until tomorrow as I will be busy tonight and no time for soaping.  I am really holding out for a snow day tomorrow, we have not had one yet this school year and I am so ready to have one of those "unplanned" days off work.  :)   

Loving those RazzNilla Bars!

I'm really loving the new soap formula I played with yesterday. Totally delighted with the "inside" look of the soap log when I cut them into bars, from the pour to the cut, I'm in love!. The entire downstairs is smelling like Razz Nilla, even overpowering the strong Rosemary Mint already curing, and the triple batch of freshly poured soap I made this afternoon which I will blog about tomorrow. Now the true test will be once the soap is fully cured when I can take some soap to the shower to test it out!

RazzNilla is Back in the House!

I had the evening to myself and took to the soap room once again, after I tucked dinner into the oven to do its thing.  RazzNilla is one of my all time favorite soaps, and second best seller after the Kitchen Soap.  The mad scientist in me decided to tweak the soap formula a touch, and play away.  This time I used water instead of goat milk because I wanted to see how the formula behaved before advancing to goat milk.  I am anxious to see how this one turns out when it is ready to come out of the mold and cut into bars...but most of all, I can't wait for the cure time to pass by so I can test the new formula.  It is always a mystery until then.  It is hard to see the swirls on top as I used my cell phone to take the pictures, and the lighting at night doesn't exactly do me any favors, either. 


RazzNilla Soap



Green Apple Goat Milk Soap Snafu

Saturday I made a second batch of soap that caused me some grief.  As soon as I poured the fragrance into the soap it immediately started seizing up and I was scrambling to get it into the mold... glob, plop, mash, mush, smush...well, you get the idea.  I did manage to get some color mixed into part of the soap before it was no longer working for me.  In the past I have used this particular fragrance with no issues, so I'm thinking the addition of the Goat Milk might have had something to do with it. I have to admit it was looking pretty bad and I had no ambition to take a photo but now I wish I had. 

To make matters worse, the soap began heating up and I was fearing the goat milk would scorch so I yanked it out of the mold, it was mostly solid going into the mold, so I didn't worry about it leaking everywhere.  Even outside the mold the soap was still slightly warm when I got up Sunday morning and I have to admit...the UGLIEST log of soap I have ever made.  It smells amazing, so I hated to see it go to waste.

Green Apple Soap Balls

What to do?  I grabbed the grater and shredded up the entire log of soap.  Dry it out?  Throw it out?  Rebatch?  As the soap was quite fresh and still warm when I grated it up I took my chances to treat it like playdough.  After donning my gloves, I squished and kneaded and had fun playing with the otherwise ugly soap...and transformed it into cute soap balls just the perfect size for keeping by the sink for hand washing. 

I guess we shall ride the storm and see what happens during the cure time.  Stay tuned for an update.

Rosemary Mint Goat Milk Soap



Freshly poured Rosemary Mint Goat Milk Soap

 Yesterday after cutting all of the Kitchen Soap I made a batch of Rosemary Mint Goat Milk Soap.  I decided this one needed some swirls, and chose to make two colors ~ green and a blue/green.  The mixture behaved very well, and I was absolutely delighted with the way it turned out after the pour. 

Today I cut the end off the slab of soap because I just couldn't wait to see what it looked like inside.  The soap needs to dry out a few more days before I continue cutting the bars, but I wanted to share what it looks like on the inside of the log. 

View inside the log of soap

It is really hard to see the two different colors.  I even had a hard time distinguishing them apart up close.  It still turned out pretty cool and I'm really liking the look.  Smells absolutely amazing!

Saturday Fun in the Soap Kitchen

Logs of Kitchen Soap

I have the day to play around in the soap room.  First off I needed to cut bars out of the logs of Kitchen soap that were made the other night to make room for more soapy creations in the works for today.  This batch turned out much darker this time because I increased the amount of coffee used and it was a darker roast than I have used in the past.  To achieve that dark coffee color in the soap I mix the fresh coffee grounds into the lye water when I mix it together which in turn "brews" the coffee and turns the lye water a very dark brown, almost black color.  When the coffee/lye water is mixed with the oils the color becomes a more muted brown color.   

In the lot of soap making supplies that I purchased last weekend, there was a soap cutter  guide which I was delighted to put to use.  The old method of cutting soap was to pull out the tape measure, mark, then cut the bars.  Often the bars were uneven in size, and harder to keep my cutter from going down straight. With this nifty gadget I ended up with a bit more even size bars, and it was so much easier to cut the bars.  I would have never considered purchasing a cutting guide had it not been included in the purchase, but now I wouldn't cut the bars without it.  I ended up with less waste and one more bar of soap compared to cutting them by hand. 

Cut bars of Kitchen Soap

The bars are now cut and on the rack curing.  Now that I have made room for more molds to be put to use, it's time to head back into the soap kitchen and be creative!