Friday Fun Part 1!

*waves* Hey y'all!! Soooo...I was going to do a blog post on the carrot soap adventure that I had, but decided to forgo that and jump to the fun filled weekend that I had at Miss Daisy's house. :) Her and I have been brainstorming, and we have been getting a bit crafty. So we planned a weekend of soap making adventures and thought we would add some additional things as well. So our Friday went a bit like this....
We decided we were going to do hot process batches, and got our three crock pots plugged in and ready to go. We began measuring our oils and then I realized that I left the Castor oil sitting on the table at home!! So while Miss Daisy continued to measure the oils that we were going to use, I scrambled looking for an adequate substitute for the Castor oil. I went on Google, and then began hitting every soap group that I am a member of on Facebook but unfortunately as I feared there was no substitute because Castor oil is an oil unto itself. So I decided on two different oils to try instead, and ran them through the SoapCalc. Yes, we were flying by the seats of our pants on this one!
We got everything measured out and off we went! We got two of our crockpots going and decided to do a different recipe for the third one. This recipe included the addition of Blue Moon Harvest Moon Pumpkin Ale. Because we were working on the third recipe, we were unable to get pictures of the first two crockpot cooks. But we did manage to get the beer soap pictures. ;-)

I added the Beer Lye mixture, and Miss Daisy stick blended away!

Miss Daisy brings the soap mixture to trace.

It didn't take as long for the beer soap to get to this phase as it did the other soaps we made.

Look at her cook! I was amazed at how quickly this cook went.

We only let it cook for a few more minutes after this. Once the soap cooled down we added a pumpkin spice fragrance to it. We had to work fast getting it in the mold, but as we were molding it, we put pumpkin embeds in.

The top looks a little messy because that sucker hardened up so quickly. We did manage to lighten up the top though.

Here are the pictures of the other two batches that were made during the same time. 

Here is the Pumpkin Spice Beer Soap. I just want to mention that whenever you are doing embeds in a soap, it is best that you have enough embeds to fit the mold so that when you cut you get an embed in each. I am embarrassed to say that I had one pumpkin fall out that I had to put back in. *giggles*

This is our Autumn Mums. The only difficulty we had with this one really was the purple not being as vibrant. It was slightly muted after drying. It is still a gorgeous bar. The smiley face was definitely a bonus.

This is our Falling Leaves soap run. Thank goodness Miss Daisy's Mister was there to offer an extra set of hands over the weekend! On this batch we decided we would do a sort of criss cross thing with embeds on top. It hardened so quickly that I am not 100% sure that I like the edges, but it does look rustic. The three of us got to the point to where we had to glop it in the mold, slam it down, and hope for the best. We unmolded and wallah!

Well these are all of the pictures that I have on hand of this run of soap. I do want to mention that we were able to unmold these three batches and cut the loaves within less than a few hours. I was pleasantly surprised. :)
Ok folks, it's getting late here and I still have a few things to do (labels) before I can hit the hay for tonight! Please check back for the next part of this adventure.
Suds & Bubbles,
Soapy

Soaping with Miss Daisy!!

*waves* Hey y'all! I hope everyone is doing great! 
So this weekend I headed to the mountains to see some of my favorite people, and get some soaping time in with a dear friend of mine, "Miss Daisy". Now Miss Daisy and I met eachother a few years ago at the start of our annual family camping trip. We met through Cyndy, of Cristal Dragon Candle Co. (I have all sorts of crafty friends and family members y'all!) Well... to make a long story short, awhile back Miss Daisy got the handmade crafting bug so to speak, and started making these wonderful sugar scrubs to sell! Goodness sakes you want to talk about yummy-ness on your skin! Woo-weee! Auh-mazing!  Anyhow, we decided we were going to do a batch of hot process soap together over the weekend. So, here are some pictures of that adventure.

So Miss Daisy used the stick blender for the first time, and stick blended her very first batch of soap to trace. Well I say a batch of soap but it was a double batch to be exact. We had just enough room in that crock pot for the soap.

So this is the batch after cooking for awhile. We would check on it and stir it periodically until it reached complete stage.

Now you might be asking whats with all the oils on top...well...after it hit gel stage, we superfatted it with some additional goodies, and Miss Daisy began to stir.  

Miss Daisy stirred the superfats into the gelled soap until they were completely incorporated and we then cooked it for about 30 more minutes after that.

 Now, fast forward because since this was a double batch, we were busy and just didn't think about getting any pictures of the colors we chose. So we got it in both the molds, sprinkled some glitter on top and wrapped the tops of the soap. The next day we unmolded and one of the guys cut the soap for us. (Y'all know I can't cut soap straight to save my life! lol) 

This was after the first soap loaf was cut. See the pretty glitter??? :)

So "The Misters" took the soap outside to see if the glitter catch the sun rays and sparkle a little more. It didn't, but it still looks pretty outside too doesn't it? Goodness sakes it has a light lovely fragrance to it also! :)

We did do a test from a couple of soap scraps we had leftover, and I plumb forgot to take a picture of the lathery and moisturizing loveliness of this soap. I will next time we use the hot process method, promise!! Well, that's it for this adventure! Stay tuned for the next blog post coming up soon about my adventure with Carrot soap!
Suds & Bubbles,
Soapy