Embedded Files
An Introduction.
An Introduction.
I have been in soap making for a very short time! The COVID-19 pandemic sent us all into lockdown in March 2020 and between keeping kids on task with school work and gardening, I found ways to reduce, reuse, and recycle everything from my dad's extra work envelopes to the bacon grease from Easter morning! This started with me wanting to make use of the bacon fat! What a snow ball effect!
I have used an old vanity drawer, an old wooden garage box, craft boxes, Pringles cans, coffee cans, and even a box made from the hard wood of a school gym! The beauty of using parchment paper to line just about anything to make soap cannot be understated!
The twine used in the photo was given to me from a friend's estate sale, the box I made the soap in as well! I have raided my parent's garden for calendula petals! My brother had honey and wax from his bees and thousands of dried flowers from the garden. I wash and dry every orange, lemon, lime, and carrot peel. My mint leaves have been hung and blended and I save coffee grounds and tea leaves! I should really invest in a dehydrator but a southeast facing kitchen is a blessing.
I reuse plastic fruit and takeout containers to organize orders into. Before getting out of the house I went through every office label I had, no matter the shape or size. I am putting my scrapbooking paper to use at last! I have dug out all the old cupcake tins and liners, silicon molds I never used and plastic measuring cups that had lost their labels! I feel like a reusing Queen!
Lastly, the soaping experiment has turned out to be a huge help in our home. My kids engage in brainstorming business ideas, colours and scents, and ways to help our community. My husband suffers from eczema and the sanitizer at work was disintegrating his hands. Using exclusively our handmade soap, his eczema was gone! The only breakouts he gets now are when he has to use liquid soap at work!
Well, maybe next time I will get to soap making....
A Lesson in Vanilla!
A Lesson in Vanilla!
Have you ever noticed that vanilla is brown? It certainly can come in a variety of colours, including colourless but in soap, anything including vanilla is likely to turn brown! There is a vanilla stablilizer that can help to prevent this turning of the soap colour, however. Check out a few of our vanilla fragrance soaps.
Trying new designs
Trying new designs
Early on, I was struck by how geometric lines could be achieved in soap making. My first attempt at doing diagonal layers was with two batch loafs. Make one and cut it diagonally, then add the new layer the next day on top of the embed. Lemon Earl-Grey bars were my first attempt. I used tea as the water portion in the dark side and lemon zest on the lemon side the next day. given the molds I had available I ended up with large rectangles and fun mountain ranges! I also experimented with some embeds to make some guest bars.
As I have started to use new ingredients, so have I tried new designs! This chamomile honey design was inspired by this tutorial by Tree Marie Soapworks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDnQ0Q63Vz0. I wanted to decorate the top of my Chamomile Honey bars with flowers and I have been wanting to try a decorated top since watching her design.
I was using my large slab mold with the oatmeal honey embeds. The top was scented with chamomile extract and an essential oil blend of lemongrass, orange and marjoram. Honestly, one of my new favorites! The recipe for this bar was complicated by the honey in the first half of the bars because it can really accelerate trace and it needs to cool gradually so the honey doesn't scorch in the soponification process. Then I had to cut those loaves on the diagonal with a knife, sure wish I had a huge cutter! I simply lay the diagonals into the mold again and prepare the next layer. With this bar the black activated charcoal didn't come out as dark as I had planned but the grey was a pretty background to the white flowers. As I only use natural colours, they were muted but still very clear on the final bars.
Cure or not to cure? Cure silly!
Cure or not to cure? Cure silly!
So why do I have pictures of soap that is unavailable? Well, let me tell you. The process of soap making takes the basics of lye added to a liquid like water and then combines with oils. Saponification occurs and can cause the combined ingredients to heat up (gel phase) and then gradually it cools and gets harder. The reason it hardens is that the water content evaporates over time. This is the process of curing the soap.
It is important to allow the soap to become sufficiently hard. If you use it too early the bar doesn't last very long! If you wait too long, some scents fade, oils can spoil and additives like natural colorants can decay. There is a sweet spot at about 6 weeks that most soap is ready to be sold/used. Some can be ready earlier if a natural additive like Sodium Lactate is added (4 weeks). This hardens the bars and helps to preserve them. Beeswax is another very good additive but it can cause the soap to come to trace very quickly and cause intricate designs to be thwarted. Best not to use when trying for a chamomile flower! The other thing that can cause cure times to increase is the types of oils used. There may also be a higher superfat content, the calculated extra oil in a recipe to ensure a moisturizing bar!
If you are interested in a soap bar that isn't yet available, you can always preorder. I have the bars on drying racks until they are ready to sell. They get lots of air circulation so new bars can't be wrapped for Christmas just yet! Bars should last 12-24 months with proper storage in a dry airy space. Essential Oil can seem to fade on bars but often just washing with the bar will remove the layer of soap that has faded. If I find a soap has faded during the cure phase I sometimes rebatch it or use it as tiny embeds in another soap later. Check out the Mr. Grinch Soap which will be available right away. I made it November 17th and as it is a rebatch of other soaps the bar just needs a couple weeks to dry out. I use a small amount of extra oil or water to soften the soap in a slow cooker. Once it cools it should be ready but if there was a lot of water added, it will need some cure time.
Natural Colours
Natural Colours
At Soap Arch Naturals we colour our soap with a variety of plants, clays and charcoal. I have dried out coffee grounds and tea leaves for exfoliants that create light to dark brown and cream to grey tones. when used along with tea or coffee as the water portion, the colour lasts a lot longer. Dried herbs and flowers can also be used but often if used to colour soap they can turn brown over time. My first use of mint in a soap made an amazing green swirl in a coconut milk based soap.
Then next time I used it opposite oatmeal in the white soap base but it has turned brownish over the last 6 months. Mint leaves can be great as an exfoliant in soap because they stay in tact in the soap. In using a powdered version, they don't fully incorporate into the soap and so make a speckled soap. In both the pictures to the left, you can see the speckles made by the mint and how it incorporated only partially to create a different colour from the basic soap base. The second picture shows how a plant can brown in soap. Mint of course has an amazing scent even if it has turned brown in the soap.
Carrot is an interesting botanical to use in soap! I have been able to create lovely yellow and orange like in the title picture above and peach like the sunset camping bar to the left. The base was made with carrot water puree and created a very uniform colour. However, mixed with other types of oils in the Slice of Morning bar, carrot powder can go brownish grey. Regardless it is great for your skin. The benefit of using carrot is that it contains beta-carotene (Vitamin A) that makes it great for dry or sensitive skin.
Natural Clays are fabulous in soaps. They create great facial bars and can even be used like a mask depending on the concentration of clays used. I have used bentonite for oily skin types and it creates a light grey coloured soap. Often kaolin will be used for dry skin types and purple and pink Brazilian clays are good for skin types in between. French green clay is usually used for sensitive skin as well. They incorporate better into water because the absorb it. They create a nice uniform colour in soap as long as they are blended in well.
Regardless, clays are a nice way to add softness and a creamy element to soap so they are always used in my shaving bars!
The Mountain Storm bar has Kaolin clay, spirulina and alkanet powder. The difference between the smooth incorporated kaolin is white but the green has some specks from the unique algae it comes from and the alkanet always will have purple speckles through out. The bottom half of the bar is naturally yellow from the lemon zest powder I used.
In contrast, below we used a combination of bentonite, purple Brazilian clay, madder root, spirulina, and indigo powder. The random swirl technique with a swirl tool and several colours poured into a white base yeilds some very unique bars. Happy soaping!
STOP FREAKING OUT! March 8th, 2021
STOP FREAKING OUT! March 8th, 2021
In these COVID times, I started this business thinking, "Hey, everyone needs soap! Everyone likes know what goes into their products and goes on their skin, right?" Of course, reality is different. We are all busy with finding ways to be alright with the changes Covid-19 has brought with it. Finding a natural, locally sourced, and unique soap product isn't high on anyone's list!
While enjoying the craft of combining lye, oils, colours, and scents, I have found myself stressing over flops and wasted soap experiments. The many, no, endless combinations that can be created are staggering! I find that the easiest designs came from planning around holidays. Seasonal bars are easy to plan, even easy to make but will they sell?
The math addict in me enjoys the re-batching measurements and calculating the batch weights for different containers. I love getting the soap cured and organizing the shelves in my soap closet. I like packaging and labeling but I stress, stress, stress about how a soap will sell. Hey, I also stress when I get the success of selling out! Now I get to make new batch of a soap. Will it look the same? Should I make any changes? Will people wait and buy it once it cures?
I have learned I have to let it be. I am not really in a rush to "get rid" of anything. Soap benefits from longer cure times. The soap gets harder and will last longer for my customers. To be completely honest, my favorite part of making soap is not just the measuring, mixing, cutting and wrapping, it is hearing the successes from customers. My favorite thing is when I get feedback that let's me know my soap is helpful. From the mom who was searching for a solution to her daughter's disintegrating hands, to the woman who found the perfect mix of products for her co-workers at Christmas to the customer who returned again and again because they loved the interesting colours and awesome fragrances! Thanks everyone and keep giving me feedback! I appreciate it!
October 13th, 2021
One day at a time! Here at Soap Arch Naturals I have been madly working on Christmas stock in the hopes that Winter Markets will be in full swing this November and December. The many new designs and embed bars like the Snowy Friend and the Forest bars have been a real challenge to create. There have been rebatches and hot process corrections! The Grinch Suds are always made as a confetti bar of combined bars and using a whole new fragrance. This year the Grinch Suds is an amazing tropical spice scent with hints of rum! Christmas at our house always includes a rum and coke so I thought this would be fun!
I have also experimented with birch essential oil which was almost a disaster! The bar I made is amazingly scented but the batter froze and I had t really work at getting it fluid enough to mold and design! I was so worried it was going to rice up (leave little white rice looking spots in the batter!) but I stayed calm, mixed it out and got a little colour in to make it look interesting! If you are lucky enough to get the limited edition Birchwood bars, they smell just like a rootbeer! Awesome, but the next project with it will be in a massage lotion bar or balm. The Birchwood essential oil is great for its anti-inflammatory properties. It makes a great massage oil for feet or any joints sore from arthritis.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse