Citrus galore!

Yesterday I made two different citrus batches: the first one is all organic, with real zest of lime, lemon and grapefruit and lemon and petitgrain essential oils; the second one is scented with some sensory perfection’s lemon&verbena and lime, decorated with poppyseeds.

Cutting the first bar!

I *love* this colour & texture!

For the second batch I used the exact same mix of oils (minus the essential oils), but the color tourned out quite different!

As usual

Oatmeal soap

Another experiment: oatmeal soap, with freshly ground oatmeal. I’m quite pleased with it :)

Vanilla Soap

I made this soap few weeks ago. It’s a plain cold process soap (olive oil, coconut oil and cocoa butter) but at trace I added loads of vanilla seeds, freshly extracted from some fresh vanilla beans I bought on Ebay from a female cooperative in Madagascar. I can’t wait  to try it! I hope the delicious scent of vanilla will still be there after curing.

Ho fatto questo sapone alcune settimane fa. Si tratta di un semplice sapone a freddo (con olio d’oliva, olio di cocco e burro di cacao) ma al nastro ho aggiunto tantissimi semi di vaniglia, che ho estratto dai baccelli freschi che ho acquistato su Ebay direttamente dal Madagascar. Non vedo l’ora di provarlo! Spero che il meraviglioso profumo di vaniglia resista anche dopo le settimane di maturazione.

Chamomile soap

Yay! I’ve managed to get all my supplies in one place, so I’ve put together a quite rich soap, with five kind of oil instead of two :)

I always loved how herbal-decorated bars look, like those from You’re Gorgeous, via The Bonnie Bath Blog:

My favourite are the rose buds and the dryed lemon (as I write, I have some lemon slices outside on the sun). Today I had ready some chamomile buds, so I’ve put together a mild chamomile soap.

Ingredients:

• 25 gr castor oil
• 50 gr cocoa butter
• 75 gr coconut butter
• 100 gr canola oil
• 600 gr olive oil
• 20 gr Chamomile buds
• A cup of very strong chamomile tea
• Tea Rose fragrance from sensoryperfection

It’s the usal Cold Process Soap, but instead of water I used some strong chamomile tea (three bags per one cup).

I’ll update the post with pictures after the cut!

Fav soapmaker of the moment? DirtySanchez!

I just can’t stop reading all the item descriptions and laughing my lye off :)

If I were in the US I would definitely try some of her bars:

DirtySanchez

And, just for our ‘things you don’t know and you’d still prefer not to know, but I’ll tell you anyway’ moment, this is what ‘Dirty Sanchez’ actually means.

(via thesoapseduction)

Lily of the valley soap

Ingredients:

• 600 gr olive oil
• 100 gr coconut oil
• lily of the valley scent

I’ll wait until the usual 6-weeks-cure, but if I had to say it now, I’ll spit it out… this is the whitest shade of white I ever got in a soap! Despite the very high content in olive oil – that usually give a greenish-yellowish shade – this beauty is pure white :) the perfect colour to pay honour to the perfect flower.

Clay soap

Sapone all’argilla

Inspired by this post, today I tried my very first batch of clay soap. I had only olive oil and coconut butter on my hands (all my supplies are elsewhere at the moment) so those are the only oils used.

I added geranium and tea tree essential oils because of their skin-care properties, but I have to say that the combination of those fragrances is just amazing! I can’t stop smelling the bar!

Ispirata da questo post, oggi ho provato a preparare il sapone all’argilla. Al momento ho a disposizione solo olio di oliva e burro di cocco, visto che la maggior parte delle mie scorte sono a casa dei miei, per cui questi due sono gli unici grassi utilizzati. Ho preparato altre volte del sapone con solo oliva e cocco, oppure oliva-cocco-ricino, e se preparati con cura hanno riscosso lo stesso successo di altri saponi più ricchi.

Ho aggiunto olio essenziale di geranio e di tea tree, pensando questo sapone per una pelle del viso un po’ problematica (come la mia) ma al di là di queste proprietà sono rimasta affascinata dalla combinazione di queste due fragranze! Non riesco a smettere di annusare il sapone.

Soap-aholic

My name is Elena, I’m 20something years old, I currently live in Italy, Milano, and I am a soapmaker since 2009 – ok, this will sound better in a couple of hundred years, but still :)

This will be the log of my soap related craftyness, and – perhaps – the history of me buiding from scratch my soapy business, which is quite difficult due to italian legislation about chemical products.

Ok, let’s get the lye started!

Mi chiamo Elena, ho 20qualcosa anni e abito a Milano. Mi dedico all’autoproduzione del sapone fin dal 2009 – anche se questo probabilmente suonerà meglio nel giro di un paio di secoli ;)

Questo blog sarà l’archivio delle mie esperienze di saponificazione e – magari – la storia di come riuscirò a mettere in piedi il mio piccolo laboratorio artigianale, cosa che in Italia è più complessa rispetto ad altre nazioni, vista la nostra legislazione in materia.

Ok, direi di iniziare a parlare di sapone!