Soap, Sewing and Fabulous Christopher Pics

Here are some of my new soap along with my ever so busy wine soap. The winery that I have keeps me on my toes and they are my bread and butter. They allow me to continue to create other soaps and body products.

Below you will see my white Zinfandel. MMMM it is such a nice smell. Strawberries, rose petals, red raspberries really round out this wine, mmm Soap.






Below is a slice of cinnamon and chocolate that will tickle your senses. I love marble cake don't you. But this isn't to eat but to have a wonderful Shea butter soap rich shower.




Here is one of my bread and butter soaps. Black Mesa Winery's Black beauty soap.
With a generous helping of Shea and wine you can't go wrong and as their web site states "A little chocolate. A little sweetness. A little naughty – could lead to dancing!" This is a chocolate flavored wine that lends itself perfectly to soap. Wine is an antioxidant for the skin also and retains that quality in the soap.






I guess lately I have been feeling inspired on the sewing machine. The last show I did was the Dia De Los Muertos (Day of the Dead). To go along with the theme I made several white skull soaps and some Hemp oil melt and pour soaps. I left some unpainted and hand painted several others with soap paint that I ordered from PJ's Soaps. Unfortunately I really don't have any real good pics of those but here are the few that I did take. Most of these following pics I took with my cell phone which doesn't take the best pics.







Below is Christopher after working a deal with the face painting lady. Of course he traded soaps and lip balm for it. He so loves to be cool.




He is also a a great model for my items I sewed and since he loves to pose its actually fun for this guy. I love sewing Bags and they usually go over well at the craft fairs and what not. I have fallen in love with what i call a sling bag. It is similar to a back pack but only has one strap. Below is the latest that I finished.


One the strap I put a pocket that would be great for most sell phones or even an MP3 player.

On the front there is a pocket and then the bag actually opens up on the side with a zipper.

Inside is a small pocket but other wise its all wide open space.



My son seen a pattern for a Do-Rag (Or head Rap and he had to have it) He picked out the material and everything. Now he wants some shorts and a tank top. Isn't he a great model.

Published My first Knol

http://knol.google.com/k/sha-marie-reid/making-natural-soap-and-its-history/32fkb2hqn5ywk/2#




Please take a look and comment. If you find areas where I need to make corrections please let me know.

New Creations - Don't Take Me for Granite and Rosy's Orange Crush

Rosy's Orange Crush is as creamy as it gets. 50% Shea Butter and rose water make one fabulous bar of soap. The top has dried rose petals embedded for the extra touch.

The scent is of rose with earthy undertones. Not overly sweet but fragrant such as a freshly cut roses right after a rain.



The next soap is also very lovely, also made with Shea butter and coconut oil with soap is masculine soap but gentle enough for a woman. This Drakkar type scent is a sharp, spicy, lavender, amber fragrance. This masculine scent possesses a blend of lavender, citrus, spicy berries and sandalwood.

Perfect for either a man or a woman. It is really like the slipping into my husbands tee shirt and snuggling up on a rainy day.

Whipped Soap Finaly

Here I put on my trusty whipping attachment and whipped that color and the fragrance in. The soap at this point is to thick for the blender attachment.




Here the soap after whipping it a little more I determined that I should cook just a little more before adding the Glycerin.


Here is what it looked like after adding glycerin to it and about an ounce of stearic acid







After this has been thoroughly whipped in let the soap cure in a closed container for 24 hrs ( I actually think its better after 48 hrs).

Now you take a little at a time (I found trying to do to much at one time is a big mistake. Slowly add a little Glycerin to the soap as your whipping. You don't want to add to much because it will all collapse on you later. You want a stiff consistency more like uncooked meringue. Any thing less stiff and it will later collapse and separate.





Ta Dah all done.

2nd Edition on the Whipped Soap

Here is more on the Whipped cream soap. This stuff goes through many transformations during the cooking stage. I may have forgotten to tell you that the entire time I have my crock pot on low and through our the cooking stage I stir the soap with my hand blender. Once the soap has gone from its separation stage it gets to a thick applesauce phase. I tried very hard to take clear pics so that you could see each phase.


It is important that you keep an eye on your soap through this phase I would continue to stir every couple of minutes.





Once you see this the soap will cook for a couple more minutes before it goes through the "I am going to puff up triple my size" phase.


During this puffy phase you need to continuously stir it down. I had the first batch go over the crock pot. This is one reason that you only want the oils to fill 1/3 you crock pot ( So for my recipe you need a rather large crock pot, I suppose you could also use the double broiler method also).









Once it has finished the Puffy phase and calms down it goes into a gel phase. I still cook this about another 30 minutes before emptying into a Tupperware container for curing. Below you will see on this batch I added the coloring and fragrance at this point. You can wait until after the curing phase and that way you can scent and color smaller batches. I will post the rest in a couple of days. See ya then.

Been so busy. Having fun and loving my new whipped soap

Here is my whipped soap recipe.

Shea butter 5 oz
Olive Oil 3.2 oz
canola oil 3.2 oz
coconut (76 deg) 15 oz
Stearic acid 10 oz

stearic acid 2 oz after it sets

Sodium Hydroxide	1.63 oz
Potassium Hydroxide	5.34 oz
Total Water	41.93
Glycerin	2.28 Oz

The one thing I learned through my experimentation with making the whipped soap is that the stearic acid is very important if you want to have fluffy whipped soap. The other important thing I learned is patience. What seems to be too thick of a soap later will soften up and be way to runny. Do not add to much water and let the soap set for 24 hours before trying to whip (Actually 48 hours is better).

I used a crock pot for this but I suppose a double boiler could also work. Also this soap foams up to over double its size at one point so make sure you crock pot or boiler has the room. I melt my oils on high in the crock pot. This soap is made hot and actually seems to turn out better if the lye is poured in at around 120 to 140 degrees Fahrenheit.


At this point I turn my heat to low and pour the lye mixture in.





During this initial stage there are many things that happen. It immediately reacts and starts to thicken. It then turns into something that resembles apple sauce. Of course though most of this I use my trusty stick blender. Soapers best friend.






There will be more to Follow.

I also must apologize for not getting to this sooner it seems I have put the blog on the back burner but I really hope that I can get back to posting on a regular schedule again. I do promise to post more on the whipped soap by Wednesday.

Working on a Recipe for whipped soap

I have been working diligently on a recipe for whipped soap that is stable. I whipped some not long ago if you remember (Scented with apple jack). Well, that batch did not stay whipped. So I have been working with the formulation and searching the Internet for clues. I think I finally have the answer but a few thing happened that have made me scratch my head and go Hmmm.

I plan on following this up and sharing with everyone once I know that my whipped concoction will stay after adding fragrance.

In the mean time enjoy The Chris G Show.