Saturday 7 September 2013

Shampoo Bars & Back to Basics

I have a serious love affair with shampoo bars. However, not any old soap will do. I like to use lots of conditioning oils, tussah silk and a nice scent. Moreover, I omit coconut oil from my shampoo bars, as I find that my hair stays fresh and non-greasy for longer.

Recently, I set about to make a new batch of shampoo bars. Though I have always used essential oils in my shampoo bars, I decided to mix things up and try a new fragrance oil, called blackberry jam. I used this fragrance oil at 3% of the weight of the base oils as the supplier had advised that no more than 3.3% should be used in soap. The fragrance soaped beautifully and a few days later, I unmolded the soap. To my surprise, there were pockets of fragrance oil seeping out of the bars. I have no idea why this happened as the fragrance oil was fully emulsified into the soap batter (in fact, I added the fragrance oil to the base oils before the lye water and stick-blended to ensure that it was fully incorporated). 

I must admit that this occurrence has tempered my previous excitement about fragrance oils. I found this experience to be discouraging and frustrating, mostly because the reviews for this particular fragrance were good and my usage rate was below that advised by the supplier.  As a result, I have scaled back my plans to make a selection of Christmasy fragranced soaps this holiday season. For now at least, I intend to focus on soaps scented with essential oils, which I'm much more familiar with.

Since moving back to basics, I have made a few soaps that I'm quite happy with. First up is a batch called "Botanicals". It is scented with an equal blend of lavender and peppermint essential oils, and naturally coloured with swirls of kelp powder and calendula blossoms. It also contains a good helping of coconut milk. The overall effect is quite delicate and pretty, and I like it a lot. 


Next up is a soap made for my grandmother, who loves oatmeal soap. It contains lots of ground oats, and goat milk powder and honey as well. It is very lightly scented with cinnamon bark essential oil and benzoin resin for a sweet scent that is reminiscent of oatmeal cookies.


Finally, my favourite new soap is called "Detox". It is scented with lavender and citrus essential oils, and naturally coloured with activated charcoal, white kaolin clay and cranberry seeds.


And because I still needed shampoo bars, I made a new batch today that is scented with citrus and mint essential oils. I feel calmer already :)



10 comments:

  1. Sorry to hear your experience with flagrances, I could say the same: I have only tried several times and every time I was disappointed, that's why I like so much essential oils :)
    Your soaps look good, I especially like your grandmother soap!It looks so yummy!

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  2. Thank you very much much Natalia! I'm also sorry to hear that you've had this kind of experience as well. It's kind of a downer eh?

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  3. I'm sorry you had a bad experience with using FOs, I could see how that would put a damper on your excitement about trying them :(

    Such gorgeous soaps Deirdre! I love them all, especially the oatmeal soap you made for your grandma and that last picture of the shampoo bars..what a beautiful swirl! What are the speckles in there? They're so pretty!

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    1. Thanks for your comments Cee :) I hope that I will be confident enough to try FOs again in the future, but this experience has definitely put a damper on my excitement for the moment.

      The speckles are ground nettle leaves. I had picked up a bag of dried nettles at the health food store months ago and finally put them to use in this shampoo bar. I ground them in a coffee grinder and incorporated them into the green portion of the soap. I've heard such good things about nettle leaves for hair!

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  4. Hi Deirdre! All your soaps look good! How did you get that beautiful rust color for your grandma's soap? I've also had my share of disappointments with fragrance oils. Some of them just smell unpleasant to me, and some don't perform well, even with the good reviews written about them. But I have to say they're so much fun to use. I love the infinite possibilities and at the moment, I am addicted to browsing and shopping for them. I hope you will have much better luck with your succeeding experiences with fragrance oils. :-)

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    1. Thanks for your kind words Silvia. I didn't add any colourants to my grandma's soap. After unmolding, the soap was shockingly orange, which I think is from the honey (I've seen that once before in one of my honey soaps). It's since mellowed a bit to this rust colour.

      If you don't mind me asking, do you have any specific fragrance oils that have worked for you? Some really do smell lovely, but I'm so hesitant to try them in soap now. I made a lotion this weekend with Tahitian Vanilla fragrance oil that is absolutely gorgeous. I might have to bite the bullet and just try it in small batch of CP soap.

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    2. I just saw your reply now, after I left a comment for your orange spice soap.

      Gosh, i'm just going a bit nuts with fragrances right now! :-) To answer your question, I find Bramble Berry's Black Tea very well behaved. It does not discolor and gives you a lot of time to play with colors and designs. It smells like fresh iced tea with a hint of raspberry and citrus. I love their Vanilla Bean but it accelerates trace a bit.

      From New Directions, their Green Tea Infusion, Ruby Grapefruit, and Lily of the Valley smell good (all of them are good blenders) and soap well. I used to like their English Lavender, but I feel it is starting to smell as if there is a bit of garlic in there! Maybe it's just my nose. I blend it with lavender e.o. and that solves the problem.

      I soaped with new fragrances today and I was happy with them. From Nature's garden, Smoke Eliminator smells nice and lemony (but not Pledge-like) and Tangerine Dreams has a lovely orange smell. Both behaved well. From Peak Candle, I really love their Almond Pastries (smells like marzipan) but it accelerated trace so I had to change my design. Their Wild Raspberry smells nice too but that accelerated too. Bartlett Pear smells great and behaved fine. Tart Apple from Bramble Berry smells just like apples and it accelerated a bit. I think all the acceleration was due to my recipe, and I soaped at around 90F. Nothing major though, so all in all I was happy with the results. I am crossing my fingers that the fragrances stay after cure. :-)

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    3. Wow, thank you so much for the tips Silvia! It sounds like you're having a lot of fun with fragrances :)

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  5. Hi Deidre, I hope Silvia doesn't mind me butting in here. Is your Tahitian Vanilla from Voyageur? I've tried it and it is lovely in soap, but just a word of warning...it turns super dark, it's a lovely color but very dark! When I made it I left a little bit of soap unfragranced for swirling.

    I've had hit-and-miss luck with Voyageur. They have some wonderful fragrance, but I really wish they were more specific on their website about how the fragrances behave in soap...it would be so much easier!

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    1. Hi Cee, yes the Tahitian Vanilla I used is from Voyageur. I've purchased some gorgeous-smelling fragrances from them, but it is difficult without more information (if they haven't tested it or there aren't user reviews). I made a soap with their Mango Madness fragrance that, unfortunately, has stayed really soft; it kind of melts in the shower. I think that if I'm going to go forward with fragrances, that I'll just have to get in the habit of test batches, which isn't something that I've done a lot of. I never have these kind of issues with essential oils. But there is so much more variety, so I imagine that I'll give in at some point!

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