Because One is Not Enough

More bath salts with leftover Epsom salts from the previous project.

I thought it was boring to have only a single bath salt flavour, so decided to let the DH sniff some EO and make a batch out of the ones he liked best...and it turned out to be an interesting blend, very fresh and uplifting scent. I'm almost certain that if I tweaked it a bit more, I could have gotten a fair seaside scent, but this was not too bad neither.

Sunshiny Day Bath Blend

160g epsom salts

80g himalayan salt

10 drops lemongrass eo - anti-stress, energizing, anti-cellulite(?)

5 drops cinnamon eo - antiseptic, good for colds & flu, arthritis and rheumatism

9 drops tea tree eo - antiviral, immuno-stimulant

I mixed them directly in a plastic bottle, and just gave it a good shake to blend the EO nicely. With this one, the himalayan salt made the entire batch take on a pink hue... (If you want more info about the essential oils used, please see my previous post for links to the brands/ companies. And yes, that himalayan salt is from the kitchen - I use it for daily cooking!)

I noticed that my saliva production went up shortly after I finished making this. According to someone, lemongrass"stimulates glandular secretions" - yes it does indeed! As does, cinnamon, apparently. 

Note about lemongrass EO - some people may have an allergic reaction to it, if you try this out, you might want do a patch test prior to making a large batch: dilute 1 drop in 1ml of any carrier oil first (can even be a neutral cooking oil),  apply it to a small patch of skin, and wait say 15-30 mins to see if you get a rash or itch. Although the same can be said for almost any EO really. So far I haven't found anything that gives me a reaction yet. 

I know I list a brief note after each EO that explains its therapeutic use (and usually I make up blends based on such textbook examples), but for this blend, it was a case of "follow your nose". I like how fresh it smells... I might have to give it a try myself, although generally I dislike taking baths.

Why Sunshiny Day? Because it was raining, and I didn't want it to be rainy. There goes my outdoor gardening plans for today... so I will have to plant stuff indoors instead.

xoxo

Worth its Salt

My DH loves taking baths, and recently ran out of his favourite commercial bath salt flavoured with Valerian and Hops.

Since I recently had the opportunity to refill my essential oil coffer, I decided to chip in a small bottle of Valerian so I could experiment with DIY bath salts too. 

Ta-Dah! My first attempt, ever. 

It only took a few minutes to make the stuff, since I didn't want to fiddle with clays and whatnots - although it is a personal choice and shouldn't really make a difference in time required (anything from 3-5 minutes), since mixing and blending ingredients to scents is all there is to it. 

I'd like to add that I personally dislike the scent of Valerian... (and if DH realized I'd put in Lavender he'd freak out) so this is really a labour of love, lol.

Sleep Tight Bath Salts

Ingredients:

Epsom salts, ca 400g

Sea salt, ca 100g

1 teaspoon dried rosemary (from the kitchen)

Essential oils per 200g Epsom salts: 

15 drops Valerian - calming, and grounding, has soporific effect.

10 drops Patchouli - reduces tension and anxiety, uplifting. 

5 drops Lavender (Croatian) - cure-all. softens the sharpness of Valerian scent somewhat.

How I did it: 

1. Fill 500ml/g air-tight jam jar with 200g Epsom salts (or almost half full). 

2. Add first essential oil, use wooden spoon to break down any clumps and give the salts a good stir.  

3. Repeat step 2 with other essential oils. 

4. Add in half of the sea salt, close lid and give the mix a good shake for 40 seconds - 1 minute.

5. Add in the rest of the Epsom salts, and repeat steps 2 - 3, then add in the rest of the sea salt and rosemary before giving it all a final shake for another minute.

6. Leave to stand overnight. 

Use: 

Fill tub, add 1 tablespoon to bathwater.

Most people use much less EO in their DIY formulations, only a total of about 20-30 drops per 500g or so... but on the bottle it says 6 drops Valerian to a bathtub, which sounds excessive by comparison - but works a treat according to DH. So I've doubled the EO dose in my formula - but really, it's all about how strongly scented you want your salts to be. 

I've seen videos of people using a large container to mix all the salts and scents and then put it all in a jar, but then I saw this clever way of doing it, putting it all in a jar and shaking it all together which saves me the trouble of washing up an extra bowl. :) 

I opted to use a small wooden spoon to even out the clumps formed when you drip in the essential oil - they break apart rather easily, and don't seem to clump up the way flour does when water is added (which is what I expected to see - and no one seems to talk about it either, which can be frustrating if it's the first time you're doing it). If you shake it hard enough, I am fairly sure the clumps will break down just as well, but I felt safer mixing it all up with a spoon before giving it a vigorous shake.

The glass jar is a normal jam/chutney jar with rubber gasket on the cover, supposed to hold around 500ml of jam. I probably bought them from a local ÖoB store (Överskottsbolaget, the Swedish equivalent of a surplus store). Epsom salts are surprisingly easy to get a hold of here in Sweden, you just have to google around a little to find the best prices. I bought some from med24.se mostly because I was already buying some other things from them... (They are one of the few companies that sell original Ricola sweets, for joy! Locally the stores tend to sell Läkerol or Vicks menthol sweets, not Ricola.)

The essential oils brands: I bought the latest batch from a wholesaler in the UK, oils4life.co.uk. (Valerian and Lavender), the Patchouli is a different brand, Amphora, from an earlier purchase.

Valerian is one of those scents where you either love or hate, just like patchouli and vetiver - and they can ALL be described as having various degrees of "deep, rich, woody and musky" aromas. I'm OK with patchouli, and verging on OK with vetiver, Personally, I think Valerian smells like a sharp, dirty something that's been sitting in the compost for too long; patchouli is a slight sweet-woody earthy scent, while vetiver smells a bit like forest mushrooms on the verge of being off. Unfortunately, while DH finds the Valerian soothing and helps him sleep, it makes my teeth go on edge, but then makes me feel sluggish instead of invigorated, so it's really not a scent for me...

Update: DH says it works, so I seem to have the proportions right. :D

xoxo

Demystifying Soapmaking.

Let's talk a bit about how soaps are made, and then in another post, I'll talk about the decisions I make when deciding what goes into my soaps.

According to Wikipedia, soap is "a salt of a fatty acid...obtained by treating vegetable or animal oils and fats with a strongly alkaline solution." Whereas a detergent is "a surfactant or a mixture of surfactants with "cleaning properties"... [consisting of] alkylbenzenesulfonates, a family of compounds that are similar to soap." They also tend to be concentrated, which means they have to be diluted in water prior to use, as in laundry detergent and dish-washing liquid.

So, to make soap "from scratch", you add fat(fat here includes oils and butters too) and a saponification agent, usually an alkali, such as caustic soda (lye) together. Really, just like Wikipedia says. But there are variations in the process, some of which include:

a) the cold-process method (CP). 

b) the hot-process method(HP). 

Initially there is no difference between making CP and HP soap. You add caustic soda to water, and melt the oils and butters separately. Once both parts are roughly around 40-50 degrees Celcius, you blend them. A stick blender makes things go a lot faster than simply stirring by hand, as the mixture will thicken after a few minutes, resulting in a thick gooey "batter" with little or no visible oil or fat globules on the surface. This stage is called 'trace'. At this point, you can add colouring and scents before pouring it in the mould and leave it to set for 24-48 hours. Unless you're using individual moulds, the soap sets in a block, which has to be cut into grab-friendly sizes and aired for about 4 weeks or longer. This results in CP soap, which is what I do. 

Apparently in the old days, people saved ashes from burnt wood to get lye - but you'd have to press water through a lot of ashes, and the strength of the resulting alkali was hard to control which makes for variable soap... There are soapers who do this, and frankly, after seeing pictures of them valiantly trying, I decided that it's not something I really want to bother with. Especially since I have a easy access to pure caustic soda in various stores here in Sweden. 

Caustic soda is also known by other names: Sodium hydroxide and/or lye. Yes, the same stuff that you pour down sinks to clear it. Yes, it burns if you get in on your skin. And yes, unless your soap contains too much of it, the resulting soap made with it is safe to use since the lye is used up during the saponification process. You cannot make soap without an alkali, period. I shall discuss the brands I use to make my soaps in a later post on ingredients.

HP soap is something that I haven't tried per se, because instead of the 2-3 hours it takes to make CP soap (I'm a slow worker), it will take at least 6 or so hours. This is how it's done: once the mix has reached trace, slow-cook the goo for at least 4 hours in a low-temperature oven or slow-cooker. Then, towards the final stages of cooking time, scents and additives are added before it too is poured into a mould, then left to set and cut. So far not much difference, right? But there is. The heating accelerates the saponification process, so in fact, the soap is ready to use as soon as it is poured in the mould. However, since the soap still has quite a high moisture content, it still needs to be aired for at least 2 weeks before it will make a longer-lasting bar. 

With the CP method, the long curing time is necessary to ensure that all the lye is slowly saponified. This means that if you try to use the soap after 48 hours, it might give you a negative reaction instead. Also, the soap will probably disintegrate almost immediately. (I suspect this is what happened to me when I first tried Lush's soap.) 

Sometimes, when my CP soaps have not turned out as well as I hoped, I have done a rebatch. This means, I shred the soap and cook it on my slow cooker with a small amount of water, just as if I was doing HP soap. While the resulting soap is serviceable, they invariably turn dark, and getting the goo in the mould is like fighting with taffy. On the upside, it does make cleaning up in the sink easier, since the soap is ready to use! With some iffy material, such as real tar soap (as opposed to tar-scented), the only way to ensure that the tar is fully incorporated in the soap "batter" is to slow cook it.

The fat-to-lye solution ratio is extremely important in order to make good usable soap; most soapers use a 2,5-2,8: 1 water to lye ratio. I always run my recipes by SoapCalc, so I can tweak my recipes before I start "cooking". The various oils and fats have interesting properties that SoapCalc does not mention, so getting to know the ingredients is as important and getting the fat, lye and water proportions right. For example: although it is possible to make soap with, say, only olive oil and lye solution, for the small-scale soap maker, trying to get it to trace might take a frustratingly long time, even with a stick blender. 

Some Things I've Learnt About Making Soap.

Making a soap with too much coconut butter/oil (that is, over 20% of total fats and oils) will result in a very harsh cleansing bar normally, but you can counter this buy making salt bars. Tried and tested: 40% coconut butter, plus seasalt (also at 40% of total fats) makes an excellent exfoliating bar without drying out skin. (More on salt bars later). 

Having 10% of castor oil in your total fats makes for more suds. Handmade soap is not as bubbly as commercial soap. Most people equate suds with better cleansing power, even though that's not true. Other soapers (such as myself) use denatured beer to get more suds in the soap. It is important to boil away any alcohol in liquids used, as even small amounts can cause an unpleasant mess of volcanic proportions once lye is added to it.

Soaps made with tallow (or butter or ghee) tend to have a certain "tallowate" smell (the underlying scent in Lux soaps for example), but also make for a harder, longer lasting bar. Using strong scents or essential oils should mask any unpleasantness. Tbh it is a personal thing - some people hardly notice it, but others, like myself, dislike the tallowate smell. Rendering your own tallow is a cost-effective way of getting good soap-making fat, although if you're chums with the local butcher, you might be able to get some for free. (And the leftover gristle can be fed to the birds.) 

Some additives do strange things to soap! Honey and ground cinnamon tend to make soap softer, and the soap may not even harden after 48 hours in the mould. Adding coffee grounds does not impart any coffee smell to the resulting soap, and the grounds can make for a surprisingly harsh exfolliant. Sprirulina gives a lovely initial green colour to soap, but fades over time especially if exposed to light.

Speaking of additives - if you stick to natural colours, then your choices will be severely limited to mostly yellows, browns and reds.There are various clays that can impart other colours to your soap, but they will in turn be affected by your choice of oils. Herbs and natural dyes have been used in soaps, but some (like paprika) can cause an allergic reaction in a few individuals; and indigo if not used carefully can make a "bleedy" soap (and can sometimes turn grey instead of the expected blue). Some soapers use mica powders (although the mica is a straight-out-of-nature product, the dyes are probably man-made), or liquid dyes - you can almost any colour soap this way.

Scenting soap can be a tricky business (and may lead you to yet another hobby). Some essential oils (and fragrance oils) tend to "disappear" in the resulting soap; most of the time, the scent fades after a few months too, although some, like Patchouli, persist for a much longer time. There are loads of sites sharing essential oil flavour recipes, but try to mix your scents ahead of time. Letting a new mix sit for even a few hours may change the overall flavour and may differ slightly from how it smelled when freshly concocted. Also, using EDT in soap: do not expect your soap to smell exactly as your perfume does, it won't. It might still result in a nice-smelling soap, though.  

 Other Soaps

Some soapers make liquid soaps too. Instead of caustic soda, potassium hydroxide is used - and yes, the pre-soap goo is cooked. Sometime in future, when I've felt that I've researched the matter a little more, I will have a go at it. For now, making good CP-soap is my main priority.

Other soapers proudly claim that their soaps are chemical-free. This is not entirely true, since once fat is added to an alkali, the resulting chemical reaction (ie, saponification) is exactly what is needed to make soap. What they probably mean to say is that there are no chemical detergents in their soap. 

Some craft stores, such as Panduro, sell a melt-and-pour kit, usually a glycerin-based clear soap, and it is made as the name implies. You can make some pretty patterns with those, and apparently it is easier to scent. But, just like tallowate, unless it's clearly stated, the glycerin could come from any animal source, since it's a naturally occuring compound in fat. But honestly I don't think making CP soap is really much more taxing, and  it allows for greater control in terms of ingredients. 

A Brief Introduction: or, Why I Came to Make My Own

Prior to my Scandinavian migration, I used to order artisan soap from the Soapmeister, all the way from USA.

I was intrigued by handmade soap. For one thing, the Soapmeister used only vegetable oils, which meant it wouldn't contain lard - which is incompatible with my religious beliefs. And I had found out that the Lux soaps my family used while I was growing up had copious amounts of tallowate, of - surprise, surprise! - indeterminate origin. So I had been looking for other soaps. For a long time I used Johnson's & Johnson's wash. I loved the peach fragrance but really hated the slimy film it left post-shower. For a while I used the Body Store products, but they weren't cheap.

By this time, I was trying to be more eco-friendly - which, in my native Singapore, back in the 90's, is not easy to do. I became a regular shopper at one of the few places that stocked eco-friendly imports by accident. When The Organic Paradise moved from its Orchard Road location to Chinatown, I followed. I overlooked the Buddhist overtones (they usually played chants in the store) and found competitively priced Ecover laundry detergent, Natracare feminine products, and discovered the joys of cooking with rock salt.

But, more importantly, two other things happened that made me a loyal  Soapmeister customer for several years.

One: Lush opened it's flagship store in Singapore (so yes, this was early in the new century). I came, I sniffed, I was convinced!.... at least until I used it. The seaweed soap tickled my fancy, but using it gave me a bad rash.

Two: after I told her my tale of woe, Cheri sent me a free sample. All the way from the US. And her soap was the best thing my skin had had, ever. She even became a pen-pal of sorts.

Fast forward to the summer of 2006. From the tropical humidity of an island "paradise", I came to live in Sweden. I thought I could take the weather in stride. In the beginning it was actually not so bad. But the low humidity meant my skin took years to recover. Winter was the worst time. If I didn't slather myself in mosturizer twice a day, my skin became papyrus. And then, the Soapmeister's lovely, lovely soap didn't do anything for me.

Then and again, nothing did. Some of the commercial stuff they sold in local pharmacies helped some, but by far and large, I found that the mosturizers sold at Apoteket didn't stay on. As soon as I washed my hands, all the emollients disappeared, leaving my skin drier than before. Also, the lack of daylight in winter, when at best we'd have 4 hours of sunlight, was terrible. I didn't work up a sweat properly for years (except when I had been heavily exercising).

It took years for my body to stabilize somewhat, and eventually, in 2011, while on a cruise liner to Talinn I found a mosturizer that worked for me, Onboard, in one of the duty-free stores, I found a small pocket-sized aluminium pot of L'occitane's shea butter. And when I washed my hands, the butter stayed on. It was a revelation. In a short time I found that L'occitane's shea butter was probably processed, and numerous blog posts agreed that the unrefined stuff was much better... they were right. The nutty smell didn't bother me as much as olive oil or coconut butter did (primarily why I didn't consider using them). As my skin got better, I began to think that perhaps I could go back to using handmade soaps again. But the Soapmeister seemed to have closed up shop and disappeared.

And so I turned to Google. I reasoned, if it was handmade, then, perhaps I could make my own soap.
The first soap batch I made was a disaster, since I had no idea how to work with coffee grounds, and for some reason I thought it was a good place to start. (Warning for new soapers: it really isn't!)

This was 3 years ago.

I still consider myself an amateur soaper at best, and I'm not sure that my soaps are anywhere as good as the ones from the Soapmeister. But that's not going to stop me experimenting, now that I know how not to screw up too much.