Jump to content

Black-swirled lemongrass tester


Recommended Posts

Not a lot to see yet, but thought I'd share anyway. This is a tester out of my 2-bar mini mold. The way it looks and the way it smells are not meant to be related. It's part of my natural veggie soap project, which is keeping me and my little mold busy trying to do 3 things at once:

 

1 - Come up with an all-veggie oil formulation that's at least as good as my old signature recipe with animal fat.

 

2 - Learn about essential oils and blending.

 

3 - Learn about natural colorants.

 

The swirl is just to try out a colorant, which you can guess in this case is activated charcoal for an easy-peasy black.

 

I should dust off the SLR and start posting nicer pics again. Phone cameras are just so convenient.

 

post-612-0-94844000-1430584157_thumb.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Great job on the swirl. I love the look of using charcoal in soap. I just hate working with it as I always make a mess just opening the bag of charcoal no matter how careful I am!

 

Good luck with the veggie blend. Took me a while to perfect some all veggie recipes that I love as much as using lard or tallow. Veggie fats just don't feel the same-- but I embraced that and by using different combos found some simple recipes that really felt nice on my skin. I like that I can now offer all vegetable and even a couple vegan recipe soaps to my customers.

 

Did you get SMR's sample collection of natural colorants? They have some really nice ones in that. Some of my favs are the clays, spirolina, and nettle leaf.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Great job on the swirl. I love the look of using charcoal in soap. I just hate working with it as I always make a mess just opening the bag of charcoal no matter how careful I am!

 

Good luck with the veggie blend. Took me a while to perfect some all veggie recipes that I love as much as using lard or tallow. Veggie fats just don't feel the same-- but I embraced that and by using different combos found some simple recipes that really felt nice on my skin. I like that I can now offer all vegetable and even a couple vegan recipe soaps to my customers.

 

Did you get SMR's sample collection of natural colorants? They have some really nice ones in that. Some of my favs are the clays, spirolina, and nettle leaf.

 

I never tried swirling in my little test mold before. It's just enough soap batter for 2 bars, so imagine separating 1/3 of it for a swirl. Without scraping it down, half your swirl portion would just stick to the bowl.

 

On the matter of charcoal being messy, I plopped. Yes, I plopped my charcoal into the soap bowl. So of course, POOF! Cloud of charcoal dust. The coating all up the sides of the bowl was particularly rewarding.

 

I haven't ordered the sampler kit. I want to create some different looks but not necessarily go too crazy coloring every fragrance. There could be swirls, solid colors, botanicals, scrub, or what have you. So far I've been picking and choosing colorants to try based on how desirable the results seem and how convenient they are to use. I've got charcoal, indigo, Moroccan red clay and annatto.

 

Maybe I also didn't want to feel like I'm juggling too much, so I've approached the aesthetic matters gradually.

 

I'm getting kind of excited about the veggie formulation. Even though it's harder to get a good balance without the animal fats, I think I might end up with a veggie recipe that's even better than the original.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...