The Elusive Green

I love the colour green.  Didn't realize it until quite recently, well, a few years back.  If asked I would have said red was my favorite colour.  I don't wear green much, but when we bought our home eleven years ago all the windows, doors, fences and roof were a dark green colour.  I guess that's when I discovered that I like the colour.  Then I bought green drapes for the bedroom.  Mostly because they were on sale and that was the only colour available.  And I like those green drapes in the bedroom.  They give a nice green glow into the bedroom in summer.  With the nights so light, it's an advantage to tone the bright light down to a calming green.

I thought I had found the solution to the problem of getting a green colour naturally in soaps.  It is one of the most difficult one to get from plants, both in soap and as a textile dye.  Which is counterintuitive since most plants are green, so what happens to all the green?  Well, it turns either yellow or brown because the Chlorophyll is not water-soluble and therefore can't be extracted in a water bath.  And furthermore, as I understand it, it does fade even if it is used in it's oil soluble form as a soap colour.  Apparently Chlorophyll is a combination of Chlorophyll a and Chlorophyll b and the a is a good dye and can be bought and used in soap.

I thought I had found a shortcut when I was given some very green tablets that were to be used as a nutritional supplement.  No way was I going to eat those pretty green things.  I had to try them in a soap.  Well, you've guessed it.  It really was a nice, nice green for a little while and then it faded.  I knew that!  Of course it faded.  I really knew that was going to happen.  It always does.  I just have to give up this naive hope that somehow I will find a perfect green that says green and doesn't turn olive and brown, or disappears.

But the soap was the Rosemary shampoo bar, slightly changed.

Olive oil         40%     280g / 9.9 oz
Coconut oil    30%    210g / 7.4 oz
Castor oil       20% 140g / 4.9 oz
Sunflower oil 10% 70g / 2.5 oz

Water 30% 210g / 7.4 oz
Lye 99g / 3.5 oz
3% SF.
 
I added a lot of Rosemary essential oil and shredded some soap on top to make it slightly more interesting, but it didn't really work.  I used too fine a grater and I like the look better without, but now I know that.  It has been curing for quite a while, actually 3 months now, but I finally tried it and it has a very strong and refreshing smell, a nice generous lather lather and my hair loved it.  I also really liked the first recipe, but this one may be an improvement, if only slight.  I probably needed more of the green tablets to give a strong lasting colour.  As it it the soap is a yellow green that's not really special.  But I'm getting ready to start dying yarn again.  I'm  going to do it very methodically this time and I'm starting with one of my favorite weeds, Rumex.

Gardening soap

I had decided to make a really pretty soap and I thought it would be such a great idea to use Cochineal to color it pink.  Enough of Rumex oil already.  Enough of subtle shades.  Lets go for gusto.  Cochineal is a bug that had been used for centuries to dye pink and red.  It gives vibrant colours and is soluble in water.  I've used it to dye wool and got a beautiful strong pink.  So I thought I'd try it because sometimes I would like to try some really strong colors for a change.  And I thought I would use the little aluminum tart forms that I have, but line them with cling film, even if it shows.  And then I thought I'd use some of the Poppy seeds that I collected last fall and make it this bright pink flower shaped gardeners soap.

Well, apparently the universe likes me to stick to soft and natural.  I prepared the Cochineal by grinding up a few bugs and adding them to water until the colors was really saturated and way too strong for what I intended.  When I added the lye the water turned to purple, as was to be expected, but when I added the oils and started to stir, the colour simply disappeared.  I had this happen once with Logwood, a beautiful purple that refused to participate in a soap making adventure.  Since I really didn't want as wishy-washy nondescript soap I grabbed my bottle of ... no not Rumex oil, but Rheum oil (that's Rhubarb to you and me).  As I poured it into the soap I could see great red color swirls and they soon turned the soap pink and I was quite happy.  Usually Rumex and Rheum oils turn a tan colour at first, changing overnight to pink.  But this was fine with me.  Immediately pink.  Great.  So I put some Lavender, Lemongrass and Rosewood essential oils into it and then my poppy seeds, poured it into the little moulds and went to bed.

I made a really small recipe, only 260 g. / 9.2 oz, the smallest batch I've ever tried.

Olive oil 33%  

Coconut oil 33% 

Soybean oil 10%

Sunflower oil 10%

Cocoa butter 14%

The next morning this surprising result waited for me.  Exactly what I hadn't wanted:  A rather insipid, undecided, plain, dull, nondescript, wishy-washy colour, if it even deserves that noun.  And to make matters worse, it had a really really thick layer of ash.  I don't mind some ash, but this was really thick.  I don't know how the colour managed to change from a lovely, and yes soft, pink to a really weird blueish-in-some-places-pinkish-in-others-and-no-real-colour-at-all-in-between.  But it did.  And after looking at it for a few weeks (and a hard day of gardening in the allotment garden) I used it and decided that it wasn't a miserable failure after all.  It was a nice size, it smelled lovely, it had a nice lather and the Poppy seeds gave it just the perfect scrub without being too rough.  Just perfectly natural and slightly irregular like the life I live, the vegetables I grow and the raised beds that I built.

Little luxuries

The horizontal rain pelted the windows last night to the point where I thought it would break them.  There was a puddle on the kitchen counter because somehow the roof over the kitchen leaks in eastern winds.  This truly is not my time of the year.  By January my body has finally succumbed to the oppression of the dark, refusing to wake up and generally behaves like a teenager.  I have learned to give it space and wait it out patiently.  I don't expect to be as energetic as at other times and find that this time is more bearable if I try to pamper myself.

One of the things that I like to do at this time of the year, apart from sleeping late, is to use all the herbs and plants that I collected over the previous summer.  I have a lot dried herbs and I make my own herbal mixtures and put them in capsules.  I make up my own mixes in attempts to inject some herbal goodness into my body.  Some of my dried flowers get used on top of soaps, at least before Christmas and my infused oils get used in creams and lotion.  But since I haven't had the energy to do much more than my weekly yoghurt and sourdough bread I started to use the oil as they are.  And I really like them like that.

I am especially thrilled with the Rumex oil that I infused late last fall.  It is the most perfect dark golden yellow and smells lovely.  I use it at night on my face and neck.  The yellow colour is very strong and even if I spread it out there is a bit of a yellow tinge to my skin.  I am convinced that it is an excellent anti oxidant and it really does make my skin feel very nice.  Remarkably my pillow doesn't get stained and my husband hasn't made a comment yet.  I have never had dry skin, so I was a bit surprised how much I like to use the oils on my face.

For the daytime I tend to use the Yarrow oil.  Yarrow is one the traditional medicinal herbs and is wonderful for the skin.  Even if the oil is slightly green, it doesn't color my face at all.  Both of those are infused in Olive oil.  I find that it just glides on my face really smoothly and absorbs quite quickly.  I use mineral make up and find that occasionally it can sometimes look a bit dry when first applied.  Now I usually mix it with oil to make a kind of make up and apply it that way.  It gives a nice dewy finish.

The last of my oils is the Rose oil.  I actually have a Rose oil infused in both Olive oil and Peach kernel oil.  Infused three or four times, the oils really get a good rose scent.  The one I'm using now is the Peach Kernel oil and I like that as a body oil after bath.  It really makes spring seem just around the corner then I emerge from the bath all dewy soft and smelling like a bed of roses in the dead of winter.

I really like this one

I made this soap and I intended it to be just like one that I made last year.  I really liked that soap.  I loved the colour and the scent, and I especially liked they way it felt.  It was the first silk soap that I made.  So I thought I would replicate it.  But I didn't.  In part because I didn't have the exact ingredients and in part because my brain gets ideas most of the time and tends to want to do different things all the time.  And I let it.  Because that way, life is fun and not boring.

So I did this soap, mostly like I did last time, except I couldn't decide if I should use Annatto seeds and make it a soft yellow or use the fresh Rumex oil that I had just started and make it pink.  So I used both.  I thought: Maybe I'll get a pretty orange or coral colour.  But I didn't and it's a rather dark yellow, but that's fine because the really nice thing is that I did a fragrance blend that I really, really liked and the decoration reflected that and I think it just so cute.

The recipe that this one turned out to be is:

38%  - 200g / 7 oz.   Olive oil
28%  - 150g / 5.3 oz.   Coconut oil
19%  - 100g / 3.5 oz.   Lard
6%   -   30g / 1 oz.   Cocoa butter
6%   -   30g / 1 oz.   Sunflower oil (half infused with Annatto seeds and half with Rumex root)
4%   -   20g / 0.7 oz.  Rice bran oil

I used an infusion of Baldursbra/Mayweed as the water.  It gives a lovely yellow colour and also smells really nice.  It's a local herb (almost weed) that is sometimes used the same way as Chamomile.  I also added about a teaspoon of sugar too the tea before dissolving the lye.  Then I added quite a bit of silk threads (still using the bridal silk) and let them dissolve in the lye.

For the scent I used some Sandalwood (the real expensive stuff), Bergamot, Bensoin, Palmarosa and Ylang Ylang.  And as the crowning glory I threw on a few dried flowers: Some tiny rosebuds, some Chamomile and lavender and a few herb leaves that I had hanging somewhere.  I put this in my boudoir    (it's the previous girls room that I now filled with my thrifty treasures) because it smells so nice that I wanted that scent to infuse my special place.

I had this idea a while back that I would like to experiment more with fragrance blends but somehow I haven't really gotten into it that much.  I guess there have been other things to occupy my mind.  But now I feel that I want to make a few experiments.  I've decided to make a few more soaps like this one, but with different fragrance combinations.  I think one very white, but a rosy scent and perhaps one blue (if I can bear to sacrifice my indigo) with a greener sort of scent and then I should do a pink one with either Rumex or Rhubarb oil and something lovely smelling.  Oh, I'm really quite excited about these.  Maybe they look a bit "old lady", but I'm turning into one anyway.  They will be my special blend soaps and I make them in my small 500g mold.  And then I thought I could do a matching fragrance blend for some sugar scrub cubes.  Or dollops, I think dollops look more old fashioned and lady like.  And I would love to do both a bath bomb and lotion bar.  That would make a wonderful Christmas present.

I'm really getting into the Christmas spirit now, in spite of unseasonably warm weather (it's been raining non stop for weeks).  I even baked my first batch of Christmas cookies the other night.  I've never been this early.  Ever.  This is going to be a lovely holiday season.  I can just feel it.  No.  Actually.  I know it.  Because I decided it's going to be just that.  A lovely holiday season.

Peltigera soap

I had to use the lichen infusions in soaps.  That's just obvious.  If one can get colour from something one has to try it in soap.  I was very curious to see what I would get from the lichens in terms of colour.  So I made a few soap with the different lichen decoctions that I had.

After some thought, I decided that they would all share the fragrance of Vetiver, but I would add other essential oils that I felt would match the colour or character of the specific lichen I was using.  Vetiver is a masculine kind of scent, rather dry and I thought it was a great base scent.  I knew that there was no hope of the lichen scent to come through the soaping process on it's own.

One lichen, Evernia prunastri (Oak moss) is extensively used in the perfume industry as a fixative and base scent.  The method of extraction is a trade secret and anyway, I couldn't get hold of that, it doesn't grow here, so Vetiver had to suffice.  But other lichens also have this very distinct and generally pleasant smell and one of the benefits of using lichen as a dye is that the wonderful scent stays with the yarn or cloth through it's lifetime and every time the garment is washed the scent is very noticeable.

I started with Peltigera canina and used a recipe for the soap that I think is going to be a good one.  It contains lard which I find gives a lovely hardness to soaps in the absence of palm oil, which I have a hard time getting without even getting into the ethical issues.  I didn't expect any colour from the Peltigera and I didn't really get any.  I'm pretty sure that whatever slight colour there is, is as much a function of the essential oils as the lichen itself.  So why bother?  Well, besides satisfying my own curiosity, I thought they might be cool to try out.  The Cetraria islandica soap that we made some time ago turned out to be very popular.  And lichens have many unique components and they are still being researched for all sorts of medicinal uses.  Many have anti bacterial, anti viral and anti fungal properties.  Peltigera canina has been used as a liver tonic and cough medicine, as well as to treat urinary disorders, thrush, tuberculosis, and rabies. I wouldn't count on it as a rabies cure, though!
The recipe for the lichen soap was:

30% Olive oil
25% Lard
25% Coconut oil
15% Soybean oil
5% Cocoa butter

The water phase was Peltigera canina decoction and I scented with Vetiver, Orange and Cubea litsea.  I put some dried plant material on top of it just to make it a little bit interesting.  I didn't have the dried lichen so I used Gallium verum, Ladys bedstraw, which I had handy.  Peppermint and Lemongras. (I made a mistake, the soap in the picture is indeed scented with Vetiver, Orange and Cubea litsea, but the water phase isn't Peltigera canina.  I got my soaps a little bit mixed up, sorry about that.  The right picture of this soap is in a post dated Nov. 7 2011.)

I made four soaps with the different lichen decoctions that I had and I had a blast.  They didn't give any spectacular colours, but there was one surprise.  But I like the Vetiver scent with the variations and I think these soaps just might be the coolest gift to the biologists in the family.

Will the lichen do anything for the skin?  I don't know, but I decided to use some of the decoction in a face cream.  It's quite nice and since I have been reading some magazines with cosmetics ads I'm pretending it's one of those 100$ miracle night creams that will make me beautiful overnight.  And guess what!  It seems to work.  Overnight!  I just love the placebo effect.

Parsley for the fresh green of spring.

The clay plaque is by my little one and it hangs in the
kitchen. I completely fell for the measuring cups I saw
in the MOMA store, especially the colours. I like green.

My body is screaming for spring but unfortunately it is a long way off.  The true season to start to be in the garden isn't really till late May up here in the north.  But I have started to plan my vegetable allotment garden and this weekend I will sow the first plant.  I have been making pots from newspaper.  I did that last year as well and it worked pretty well.  I have to admit that I also just like the way it looks all green, sustainable and kinda cool.

I finally made my green soap.  I have been meaning to use Parsley for ages.  The reason is that Parsley has a lot of Chlorophyll and therefore it should give a good green colour.  Chlorophyll, of course, is what makes Parsley such a good breath freshener after eating garlic.  It's also a great antiseptic, by the way, as well as chock full of vitamins and minerals.  Apparently chlorophyl is available as a colouring substance, but I haven't seen it anywhere myself.  I just dried some parsley that I've had growing in a pot.  I use it in cooking too, not just as garnish, I like it and actually eat it.  Dried Parsley is not oil soluble.  I tried to put some fresh Parsley into oil and even used a stick blender to try to disperse it into the oil.  That did not work at all.  So this I time I crumbled dried Parsley and used 2 tsp which I blended with the EO's into a recipe of 500 g. (about a pound) of oil.  I could have made tea and probably should have, but I wanted to have a part of the soap without colour to play with it.  I'm getting a bit bored with one colour soaps.  But the white part got pretty stiff so I ended up with white lumps in the soap rather than swirls of any kind.  Oh, well!

The recipe I used is a little bit different than last time, but that is only because I ran out of some ingredients.

36% Olive oil
30% Coconut oil
25% Rape seed oil
5% Castor oil
4% Cocoa butter

Water 33%
5% superfat.

I  used a combination of Rosemary, Peppermint and Ginger essential oils for fragrance and the result is a fresh and green scent that almost clears the sinuses.

The soap is very, very soft.  I cut it after a week, but that was difficult.  I don't know if that is the rapeseed oil or not.  I probably should only use 15% of that.  It produces soft soap.  But the colour is still a pretty green although it doesn't really look very green in the photo.  But I have a feeling that it may turn to olive with time.  I'll add that info to this post at a later stage.

Confetti soap with Rape seed oil

The tiered cake stand is a part of our dinner service and gets
a lot of use. I pile cookies and candy on it at Christmas
and at other times it may store ginger, lemons or whatever.

I had planned to do this soap before New Years day.  I thought it would be so appropriate for the occasion, but I didn't do much soaping during the holidays.  Being the cheepskate... strike that... thrifty, the way I am, I have been saving my off cuts and putting them in a small bowl.  It was starting to look really pretty with all the colours, so I could just see how it would make a lovely looking soap.  It didn't quite turn out the way I wanted, but now I know what I should have done differently.  And that is what it's all about, isn't it?

There is nothing wrong with the soap of course, but I had envisioned it white with smaller speckles of colour.  So why exactly I used Orris root, lemongrass EO and large bits is beyond me!  Except of course I had just gotten the Orris root and had to try it, I hadn't really thought about the colours of the EO's until I poured them and I thought that if I used a grater it would get too small so I chopped it into pieces.  But I like the scent and I used lots of it.  Maybe too much, but that was an accident.

This is also the first soap that I do with Rape seed (Canola) oil.  I have always had this thing about it.  I mean, it's used as a motor oil and up till recently it wasn't edible.  I will still absolutely not use it as food although I might consider it's use as biodiesel.

I am rather pleased with the decoration.  I have gotten these curled bits of soap when trimming and then when I saw what pretty decorations some people used them for I decided to make them especially for decoration.  That was not successful and now I have no idea how I accidentally got the few that I had.  Life is just really strange that way sometimes.

The recipe I used (The soap was 5% superfatted):

30% Coconut oil
30% Olive oil
25% Rape seed oil
10% Cocoa butter
5% Castor oil

I used some sugar in the water which was 30% of the oils.  Maybe a little too much discount on the water, the soap was very quick to trace after I put the EO's in.

The soap bits are ends of soaps that have been coloured with Rumex oil (the pink), Annato (yellow) and Alkanet (lavender).  I used 1 tsp of Titanium dioxide to get the background a bit lighter.  The scent was a blend of Lavender, Rosewood, Lemongras and Ylang Ylang and I used 1 tsp of the Orris root powder to see if the fragrance lasts better.

I did try the of cuts of this soap to see what it is like and I have to say that this recipe has a very creamy lather.  Don't know if that is the Rape seed oil, the sugar or just this combination.  I'll get a better feel for it when it has cured.  One thing that I feel that this soap could have benefitted from is a few scaps of green soap.  It would have made the decoration on top a little bit more flower like.  So that has to be my next soap.  A green trial using dried parsley.

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Orange dog soap

The old books were used as props for the wedding. They were
stacked here and there in the house. We got them for free at the
Good S. Those fall colours we had this year were fantastic.

I thought I would do an orange soap to keep Jennifer at Jenora soaps company. One of the reasons is that I saw unrefined Palm oil in an asian food store the other day and I just had to have it. I have never used Palm oil because it isn't sold here. I know that there is a lot of controversy surrounding Palm oil and I respect that. But I wouldn't be human if I didn't succumb to trying out a new oil!

I decided for some reason that this would be a good dog soap and that it should go into a tube. I had intended to cut it into long half rounds since I thought that would be a good shape to fit nicely into the palm as I wash the dogs. I did cut a few that way, but some I cut smaller. I have no idea why, but ever since I have been thinking of trying to do a landscape, using this as a setting sun. That would be very patriotic.

The soap is without scent, but with some herbal oils because Bichons have a tendency to have skin problems and I thought it would be nice for my bitches to have nice skin conditioning ingredients.

Recipe:

Coconut oil               25% 125 g / 4.4 oz
Palm oil                     25% 125 g / 4.4 oz
Olive oil                    25% 125 g / 4.4 oz
Soybean oil               20% 100 g / 3.5 oz
Castor oil                     5%   25 g / 3.5 oz

Water                        38%  190g / 6.8 oz
Lye                                       71g / 2.5 oz

In addition to this I added 1 tsp. of Comfrey infused oil and 1 tsp. of Yarrow infused oil, both infused in olive oil. So the SF is a bit more than the 5% that the recipe reports.

But the soap traced very, very fast and I had quite a time getting it into the tube. I was therefore a bit surprised that the soap was quite soft when I took it out of the mould. The colour is a very strong orange-yellow. It is a little bit too saturated for my taste.  The colour is not dissimilar to the Sea Buckthorn soaps that I did some time ago but it is more orange, so not a bad try for an orange soap.  But maybe I'll try to use more socially acceptable colourants next time.
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My Incredibly Green Cream

I had dried herbs hanging all over the house in the autumn
and I am always looking out for suitable containers for dried
herbs, face creams, body lotions, lip balms and toners.

I have been making face creams for almost two years now. I really like that and I use no commercially made creams anymore.  In fact, my cousin and I were talking and she was telling me how someone had given her a sample of a well known brand of face cream and she almost threw up because it smelled so artificial.  I so agree.  All those famous brand creams now are about as appealing to me as nuclear waste.

The creams I make are usually made with beeswax as an emulsifier.  That makes a thick, very creamy and slightly oily cream that is very good for the night.  It is concentrated and a little goes a long way.  I tend to slather on lots and lots, probably I use too much, and I really shine in bed at night.  But I have been searching for a lighter emulsifier as an option for daytime.  I ordered some vegetable emulsifier and it came with an ingredients label that said: Sodium Lauryl Sulfate!  That is very irritating to the skin and it is one of the ingredients that I want to avoid.  So I haven't used it at all.

I was really please to read Texia's (at Sanga natural) post about homemade emulsifiers.  She did two recipes and I have made them both and already used one in a cream.  I have a lot of dried herbs and herbs macerated in oil and I figured that I should use all my herbal oils for something.  So I decided to make an incredibly green cream.

The Incredibly Green Cream:

Oil phase - 70g of macerated oils: 20 g. each yarrow (Achillea) oil, chickweed (Stellaria) oil and Calendua oil.  10 g. mock orange (Philadelphus) oil.  And additionally almost 1 tsp. Njóli (Rumex) oil.
Into the oil I added a pinch and a dash of AHA and A retinol.  I don't have a scale that measures accurately in small increments so I eyeball the small stuff.

Water phase - 120 g. herbal tea: I made tea with the following herbs: Yarrow (Achillea), chickweed (Stellaria), shepherd's purse (Capsella), Comfrey and Viola.  I let this steep for about an hour and then I added a bit of licorice extract and niacin as well as the preservative Natrium benzoat.

Making cream is just like making soap, minus the lye.  I warm the ingredients in bain marie and then pour the water phase into the oil while whisking with a stick blender.
I forgot to write how much emulsifier I used, but I think it was somewhere between 10 and 20 g. and I put it into the water phase.

I like the cream very much, so thank you Texia.  I've been using it for about 2 weeks now, both morning and night.  It absorbs well so that my husband's goodnight kiss doesn't slide right off.  It is chock full of goodies for the skin and smells a bit green and I am pretty sure that it has taken twenty years of my appearance already.
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Calendula soap - Triple luxury

That improvised soap mold worked beautifully and I could
easily use it to practice swirls. The heart shaped evening bag
is pretty and the ornate hairband is a little over the top.

Now I know that it's fall again.  My cousin and I just started to make soaps together again after taking the summer off for the most part even though I have made a few soaps on my own.  I can't not do it.  I guess it's an obsession of sorts, or it's just too much fun to not do it.  And there always seem to be some really fund things to try out.

But our joint soap making sessions are ususally fun.  We always manage to agree on what to do and this time she wanted to make calendula soap with her homemade Calendula oil and my dried Calendula petals and her dried flowerheads.  We ended up making it in a tray mold that I had picked up at "The Good Shepherd" a thrift shop charity where I spend all my spare cash.  It isn't really a soap mold, that much I know, but I can't imagine what else it could be used for.  I frequently get asked by the staff at the till: "What is that you are buying?" and very often the answer is: "I have absolutely no idea".  I usually figure it out or find some use for the stuff myself at some point.  But back to soaps.

Very pretty and very nice soap for delicate skin.

We intended to make just one recipe and since we wanted it a bit yellow we used carrot juice and we also hoped that the infused Calendual oil would contribute a bit of colour.  But as it turned out we made a 3 layer soap because the mold required at least 3 pounds of soap and we just made a regular size batch the first time.  So we made the other two a bit different, just for fun.  We could have made swirls, but didn't since she wanted to put dried flowers on top and I have to admit that that looks very nice.

I was asked for cut pictures and here they are, the little hacked up darlings.  It did surprise me that the dried calendula petals came through with their colour so orange, but I don't know if that will last.  We used no fragrance.  Two reasons for that.  I placed an order from a UK company at the beginning of June and am still waiting for it!  This might turn into a separate post about fraud pretty soon.  I've called and emailed... But... later.  Anyway, in the absence of the EO's that we should have received a looong time ago we thought we would make this unscented and therefore suitable for people with allergies and sensitivity to fragrance.

The recipes are:

Layer 1:
Olive oil            56%        420 g / 14.8 oz
Coconut oil       28%        210 g / 7.4 oz
Cocoa butter       6.3%       70 g / 2.5 oz
Sunflower oil      5%          50 g / 1.8 oz (Calendula officinalis infused)

Carrot juice         38%       285g / 10 oz
Lye                                    103g / 3.6 oz
8% SF.

The infused oil was added at trace as well as a generous amount of dried Calendula petals.  This layer turned out to be a slightly yellowish tan colour.

The next layer is almost the same except we added unrefined palm oil which I found in an Asian store and couldn't resist trying even if there are all kinds of ethical issues.  So layer one has different percentages, but mostly the same numbers are layer 1.

Layer 2:
Olive oil                   52.5%      420 g / 14.8 oz

Coconut oil              26.3%      210 g / 7.4 oz

Cocoa butter               8.75%       70 g / 2.5 oz

Sunflower oil              6.25%       50 g / 1.8 oz (Calendula officinalis infused)

Unrefined Palm oil     6.25%       50 g / 1.8 oz 

Water        38%       304g / 10.7 oz

Lye                         109g / 3.9 oz

8% SF.

To this we also added dried calendula petals and the infused oil went in at trace.  This layer turned out a very pretty yellow.

The third layer was the same as the first except we used water instead of carrot juice.  That layer is quite white and is a perfect backdrop for the dried flower heads we pushed in on top for decoration.

Cutting the soap turned out to be a bit of a challenge.  I hadn't really thought about how I would do that since the mould is larger than any knife I have.  I guess I need to make a wire cutter if I use that mould again.  I had thought that we would end up with 3x4 soaps out of the mould, but when I had cut (hacked?) them up they were way too big so I cut them in half again.  And they look kind of cute, if a bit crooked.
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Mock orange / Philadephus coronarius - oil infusion

My mother gave me that colander and I use it for all sorts of
things. It's perfect to separate the stamens from the petals.

I have two Philadelphus bushes in my garden.  They are on either side so when I walk into the garden when they are in bloom, the air is filled with this magical fragrance that is so different from any other.  To me it is like the scent of oxygen, if it had any.  Just so refreshing and light and a hint of vanilla.  I have often thought about trying to capture the fragrance somehow and the scent is so unusual.  So this year I decided to collect the flowers and pour oil over them to see what happened.  I have done this with roses and viola, but one of the dogs got into that jar and licked it up!

It is time consuming to collect enough quantity, but I was in the company of eager bees and it was nice and sunny.  The bushes were absolutely covered in flowers so they still looked pretty after I had raided them.  I then tried to isolate the petals from the stamens (the things in the middle of the flowers) and was successful using the old Swedish colander that my mum gave me and shaking it.  Then I put the petals in a jar and poured oil over.  This I let sit for only 24 hours during which I try to poke the petals into the oil.  They tend to float up.  I find that longer time does not work well with Philadelphus petals, they wilt quickly and start to look bad.  When that happens there is no fragrance left in them.  So I strain them out and let the oil sit for a bit.  There are always some impurities and bits that gather at the bottom.  These are water based and and heavier than the oil so they sink to the bottom.  When the oil looks completely clear I pour it into another container.  A turkey baster also works well.

I managed to make two infusions, one with Apricot kernel oil and one with almond oil.  I infused the first 3 times and the second 2 times.  The fragrance that was left in the oil smelled surprisingly of pinapple to me.  It's not the same as the fresh scent of the flowers, especially when I sniff the oil directly.  But when I put it on my skin it smells heavenly.  I intend to make this into a body lotion.  I know that this would never survive a lye bath.

I looked for medicinal uses for Mock orange and found some described for P. lewisii which is the American variety.  I haven't found anything about it's European cousin, P. coronaria, and don't know if they are similar in this respect or not.  But the American mock orange is described as used by native Americans as anti-hemorrhoidal and anti-rheumatic, used as a poultice or in oil.  Apparently the leaves are very high in saponins and can therefore be used instead of soap.  I found that a bit amusing.
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Shaving soap - for my barber friend

I love the old fashioned look that this colour gives. The razor
and the leather strop came in a cabinet that I bought that
had a small sink and a mirror perfect for bachelors to shave.

This one had better be good.  I wrote about my encounter with the barber before last Christmas a few posts ago.  I guess that one of the reasons that I never went back to him with a shaving soap that he could try is because I wasn't really sure that it was any good.  But that would of course be the whole point of having him try it.  To tell me if it was any good.

So I decided to make another shaving soap and this time I thought a lot about the ingredients.  The first one I basically did a soap recipe and added some clay to it.  It was pretty early in my soap making days and I just thought it was cool that adding clay would make the soap into shaving soap.  And, don't get me wrong,  it was a fine shaving soap, but I always thought I could improve it.  So I sat down and thought long and hard and this is what I came up with:

I need good lather, not because that's so important for a good shave, but because most men think it is.  So this one will be with a good percentage of Coconut oil.  To make up for the rather drying qualities of the Coconut oil I have to have some Olive oil because that is really conditioning and and it makes the lather stable.  The same goes for lard, which I included because it's macho... well... and conditioning and makes a good stable lather as well.  And of course I also had to include Castor oil which has such nice lather and conditioning, but makes a soft soap.  So I added some Cocoa Butter for it's moisturizing and hardening.  So that was all my oils.  Except I thought that Njóli oil (Rumex) would be very good in a shaving soap since it is so good for skin disorder and some men experience a rash from shaving.   So that added a bit of Sunflower oil as I had infused the Rumex root in that.  And for the water I did a tea from Shepherd's purse (Capsella bursa-pastoris).  And then I added the clay.

I made the soap in the traditional way and I had intended to use 15 g. of Njóli oil, but as I was pouring it into the soap at trace I kind of lost control and ended up with a lot more than that.  Luckily I had placed the bowl on the scale so I just adjusted the recipe.  This means that I will be making another soap with 15 g of the oil because I need to see what the colour will look like.  I was a bit concerned that the soap would look too pink and that wouldn't be macho enough, but then I thought that maybe the green colour of the weed tea should make it a bit more brown.  I'll have to see what my barber friend says about the colour, but here is the recipe (always run it through a calculator, the oz. are approx.):

Coconut oil       33% 175 g / 6.2 oz
Olive oil            24% 125 g / 4.4 oz
Lard                   23% 120 g / 4.2 oz
Castor oil         9%      50 g / 1.8 oz
Sunflower oil    5%    26 g /  0.9 oz  (Rumex longifolius infused)
Cocoa butter      5%     5 g / 0.8 oz
Bentonite clay    1.5 tbs


Shepherds purse tea         38%  208g / 7.4 oz
Lye                                                     75g / 2.6 oz
6% SF.

I poured this into a tube and used silicone baking sheets to make sure I could get it out again.  That worked really well, except that I got a "seam" along the soap tube.  But I got it out really easily.

Now, I don't think I should be the judge of how this turned out.  I will simply take this to my barber friend along with my first shaving soap (which I have in a very macho brown coffee cup) and see what he has to say about them.  I'll be posting the result.

Plants with purpose

I hang my kitchenalia from the upper cabinets. I tend to
favour hanging things up to any other method of storage.
I also dry small bunches of herbs that way. This is Comfrey.

When I was little my parents would take us out to the country for day tours.  Since they didn't own a car, we would go with the local equivalence of a rambler organization.  Once off the bus, the others would walk briskly and look up at the mountains.  We walked slowly and with our noses practically in the ground because we were looking for plants.  My parents were both biologists and both specialized in plants.  So they taught us their names and my father and I collected whole plants that we dried and labeled, just like real professionals.

I have ever since been able to name some plants without even thinking about it.  Their names would just pop into my head when I looked at them.  However I recently noticed that I wasn't been able to put a name to many plants anymore, so this summer I took out my books about local plants and started to read them.  My incentive was mostly from wanting to use the plants in creams and soaps.  Partly for their benefits and partly for their colour, but I have found that I have really enjoyed this refresher in botany.  I can now name practically all the plants that I encounter in the woods where I walk the dogs.  If I come accross one that I don't know I take home a sample and look it up.  It might just be a fantastic medicinal plant.  The result of this has been plant collection en masse.

It started innocently enough last year with drying a few sprigs of Mint and infusing some in oil.  I also made infused Rose hip oil.  And this summer I was given a Comfrey (Symphytum officinale) plant and gathered the leaves and of course then I started digging up the roots of Njóli (Rumex longifolius) for soap colour.  Soon after I picked rose petals to make rose oil.  Very soon thereafter I realized that Chickweed (Stellaria media) and Shepherds purse (Capsella bursa pastoris), both of which grew profusely in the allotment garden, were very good medicinal plants, so I collected a few to infuse in oil.  Then some more to dry.  And then there was the local Chamomile.  And by this time my mind had recollected most of the plant names and I just kept seeing these amazing plants everywhere around me.  And then I just went wild.

The plants that grow practically on my doorstep, most of which I have started to collect include:

• Achillea millefolium - Vallhumall / Yarrow:  One of the best medical plants.  Used to treat colds and fevers, skin disorders and to stop bleeding.  Arial parts; stems, leaves and flowers are collected.  I have this dried and in oil but need more of it so I am still collecting it on my walks.
• Alchemilla alpine - Ljónslappi / Alpine Lady's mantle:  Long history of using this herb for a variety of ailments, but all the Alchemillas have a reputation as women's herbs.  Can be used in skin creams for cuts and wounds and internally for menstrual problems and symptoms of menopause.  I have been collecting the leaves and flowers of this plant which grows profusely where I walk in the woods close to home.  
• Alchemilla mollis - Maríustakkur / Lady's mantle:  Same as above.  This one grows everywhere and I have bunches of it hanging in the shed.
• Arctostaphylos uva ursi - Sortulyng / Bearberry:  Great value in diseases of the urinary tract, it soothes, strengthens and tightens irritated and inflamed tissues.  However this should only be taken for a week at a time and not more than five times a year.  I have just started to collect small amounts of this.  
• Calluna vulgaris - Beitilyng / Heather: Used for urinary tract infections and to drive out kidney stones, it is diuretic as well as cough suppressant.  In ointment it is good to rub on  affected joints.  This has been used in dyeing cloth and yarn, but produces an uninteresting tan/grey.  The flowering stems are collected and dried.  This is in flower now and I am collecting and drying some. 
• Caltha palustris - Hófsóley / Marsh marigold:   It has been used locally as a painkiller and anti spasmodic as well as a expectorant cough medicine.  Young leaves are best used and either dried or boiled.  Older leaves may contain toxins.  It should always be either dried or boiled as otherwise it may irritate.  I have this growing by the pond in the garden, but haven't harvested it yet.  It will probably wait till next year.
• Capsella bursa-pastoris - Hjartaarfi / Shepherd purse:  Good for cystitis and is styptic.  Arial parts collected all year long.  I have some of this dried and used it in my latest shaving soap, but again I need some more.  The allotment is a good place to collect this one.
• Elymus repens - Húsapuntur / Couch grass:  This is excellent for the urinary system and kidneys.  It is good to treat cystitis, painful urination and is even good for an enlarged prostate.  It is the root that is collected, preferably in spring or autumn.  I have collected a fair amount of this invasive weed and plan to collect more later in the year when it should be even more potent.
• Epilobium (syn. Chamaenerion) angustifolium - Sigurskúfur / Rose bay:  Externally it is healing.  Internally it is good for stomach complaints.  The leaves and flowers are used.  I picked bouquets of these pretty flowers and leaves and have them drying in the shed.  
• Equisetum arvense - Klóelfting / Horsetail:  This strange and ancient plant is very diuretic.  It contains silica which helps to fix calcium so it strengthens bones and ligaments and is very good for hair, skin and nails.  There is some talk of it improving memory and concentration similar to Ginko biloba.  This is best harvested when young.  I haven't harvested this yet although it grows absolutely everywhere.  Next year.
• Fillipendula ulmaria - Mjaðurt / Meadowsweet:  Good for heartburn and arthritis.  Leaves and flowers are collected in summer.  I have a gallon jar of this herb dried.  
• Galium boreale - Krossmaðra / Northern bedstraw:  Apparently this was used to stuff mattresses, but it's main uses are similar to it's yellow cousin.  I have a fairly large jar of this herb dried.
• Galium verum - Gulmaðra / Lady's bedstraw:  Good for eczema and psoriasis and in an ointment for cramped ligaments.  The whole plant can be used, mostly leaves and flowers.  The chopped up plant can be used as a rennet in cheese making.  The plant is related to Madder and it's roots and stems can be used to get a red dye and the flower tops yield a yellow dye.  I haven't used it as such, but I would love to try that.  I have large jar of this dried.
• Matricaria maritima - Baldursbrá / Sea mayweed:  Anti inflammatory.  Flower heads are collected and dried, the good stuff is in the yellow part.  I have a gallon jar of it dried .
• Menyanthes trifoliata - Horblaðka / Bogbean:  This is an arthritis medicine, both for osteo- and rheumatoid arthritis and it grows in my pond.  The leaves and flowers are best dried and gathered in early summer.  It haven't used this one yet, so it may have to wait until next year.
• Rumex longifolius - Njóli / Northern dock:  This weed is great to make soap pink, but it is also very good for skin disorders such as eczema, psoriasis and itchy skin.  I have it infused in oil and some dried, but plan to dig for more roots later, in autumn for more potency.
• Stellaria media - Haugarfi / Chickweed:  Good for cooling the skin and relieving itching, eczema, varicose veins.  Arial parts are collected in summer and dried.  It is excellent to pick fresh and toss in a salad as well.  I have it infused in oil and some dried.
• Symphytum officinale - Valurt / Comfrey:  The most fantastic plant.  It's a terrible weed, but it has been used for ages to heal broken bones, wounds and skin ailments.  There are some concerns about toxic alkaloids, but many people still take this as a tea.  I'll just use it in creams since it's quite safe that way.
• Trifolium pratense - Rauðsmári / Red clover:  Traditionally used to treat skin complaints and is considered good for symptoms of menopause.  It also has a folkloric reputation as a cancer cure, specifically breast cancer, but no conclusive research exists.  Mostly the flowers are used either internally or externally.  Apparently the flowers give a reasonable yellow dye colour.  I have two gallon jars of this pretty thing and will probably consume it myself as well as put it into creams.  
• Tussilago farfara - Hóffífill / Coltsfoot:  Tussilago means cough suppressant so it comes as no surprise that this the best cough medicine.  It has been used for asthma, emphysema and smoker's cough.  It flowers very early and the flowers appear before the leaves and they along with young leaves are used.  Some concerns about toxic alkaloids in this plant, so best taken in moderate quantities and for a short time.  I have made a tea from this but I need to collect more of it if I find yung leaves.  Otherwise it will have to wait until next year.
• Urtica dioeca - Brenninetla / Nettle:  This is one of those miracle plants and is often taken as a tonic.  It is also eaten in soups.  It's really good for asthma and allergies and as a hair tonic.  The leaves provide a good green colour.  I have a small plant, but haven't been able to collect it yet.  It should be collected in May and June, before flowering.  This one is definitely for next year.
• Valeriana officinalis - Garðabrúða / Valerian:  Natures valium, this one.  It is calming and aids in sleeping.  The root is used and it is most potent fresh apparently.  It should be collected in spring or autumn like all roots since they are most potent when the top growth is dormant.  I am waiting for autumn to dig this up in a garden were the owners want to get rid of it.
• Viburnum opulus - Úlfarunni / Cramp bark:  Long history of using the bark to treat period pain and even to prevent miscarriage since it is a smooth muscle antispasmodic.  I have two shrubs growing in my garden and they are getting a good pruning this autumn and I'm going to harvest the bark from the branches to dry it. 

My own private paradise. This woodland is a 2 minute walk
from my house. There I can find most of the plants I write
about here. The rest I find around the allotment garden.

Looking at this list I am amazed at the variety of beneficial plants I am able to harvest from my immediate neighborhood.  And I left out Dandelion, Viola, Calendula and a few more.  You'd think I was living way out in the country, but I live in a very urban area.  I guess it is just a question of opening ones eyes to the possibilities that are around.

I am still learning about all the plants so that I can use them with confidence to treat minor ailments in the family.  I bought a thingy (on a whim on the internet) to stuff capsules and some capsules to stuff.  It works pretty well although I think my vintage glass turkey baster works best for getting the herb powder into the bigger capsules.  I think it makes sense to ingest the herbs that way.  Even if I have read about making tinctures and decoctions, it just sounds as a bit of a bother, although quite a bit more romantic.

But in the end I'm really thrilled with this abundance of goodies from nature and will now officially stop envying inhabitants of warmer climates for their plants. 

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Alkanet and eggshell

I love that little dish. It's not silver, I don't even know if it's
silver plated, but the design is just lovely. It's another one
dollar find at the Good S...

I used Alkenet in a soap the other day.  I have used it before with no great results.  It has turned beautifully blue as I add the lye to the oils, but during curing it has all but disappeared.  I now know that I need to use more of it than I have been doing.  I think I have only been putting a tablespoon or two into a batch of 5-800 g. / 17-28 oz which is my usual batch size, but I am not quite sure.  So this time I was careful to measure everything.

This time I figured that if I used yoghurt I should get a nice colour, since it is acid.  But just to make sure I had some lemon on hand to add to the soap as well.  The experience was really strange and I thought I was losing it when the whole thing turned a greeny-yellow with a blue frame around it.  I didn't take photo's of that because:

1. I thought it looked really, really ugly  - and 
2. I  was convinced that the soap would stay that way and I would get a chance to snap a photo should I develop a desire to do so.  

But instead it changed colour and first turned gray and then it started to turn lavender.  Not a strong purply lavender, but a soft shadowy kind.  So I haven't cracked the Alkanet mystery yet althought I like this soap.

The colour isn't perfect, in fact it looks better in the photo than it really is.  The white flecks in it are egg shell.  I read about that and had to try it.  I amassed a large quality of egg shells when I was baking for the wedding.  As I used the eggs I washed the shells out and let them dry.  Then I put them into a mortal and pounded with a pestle.  It was quite hard work to get them to be very small, but I got there in the end.  Now the thing that I read said that the egg shells would sink to the bottom and make a layer on the bottom, which I thought was quite a good idea.  But in this soap it didn't do that but is dispersed throughout the soap.  I think I will try this again and add the egg shell to a very thin soap to see if I can get it to sink to the bottom.  I think that is quite cool.

The recipe is for 500 g. of oils / 17.6 oz (the oz are approximate):

Olive oil            30% 150g / 5.3 oz
Coconut oil       25% 125g / 4.4 oz
Lard                  25% 125g / 4.4 oz
Sunflower oil    15%  75g /  0.9 oz  (60 g of this was Alkanet infused oil - I didn't have any more)
Cocoa butter      5%   25g / 2.4 oz

Yoghurt            38%  190g / 6.7 oz
Lye                              71g / 2.5 oz
5% SF.

I used frozen yoghurt for the water.  I dissolved the lye VERY slowly since I didn't want to burn the milk proteins in the heat.  The liquid turned a pretty yellow once I had dissolved the lye.  When I had added the liquid to the oils the whole thing turned a gray colour with blue around the edges and as I stirred the thing it turned this greeny-yellow.  At that point I added 2 tbs. of crushed egg shells and some lavender and bergamot EO.  I also added 1 tbsp. corn starch to see if I can get the scent to stay a little longer than usual.  I have just tried out the off cuts, a bit early, but it produced a nice lather and the egg shells were great for exfoliation.  But then again I can never find bath brushes that are scratchy enough, but it may not be to everyones liking.
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Local herbs - Chamomile substitute - Matricaria maritima, Sea Mayweed

I have a tendency to look towards warmer countries and bitch and moan about the abundance of plants that grow on other peoples doorsteps.  Just look at Lavender and Rosemary and Thyme.  They grow like weeds in some countries and I'm jealous.  These can all be grown here, but only in the summer and even then, they are not likely to thrive.  Too wet and too cold.  (I have to say I agree.)

I have been interested in gardening for a long time and have mostly liked flowering plants, for their scent and beauty.  Part of the thrill of gardening is the challenge of growing delicate and difficult plants.  When that goes well, success is sweet.  But when one is growing plants to use them, either to eat or to use them in creams or soaps, then everything changes.  The most important thing becomes not to find something exotic, but to find varieties that grow well in this climate.  I now have a small allotment garden and along with the vegetables I grow a few medically beneficial plants.  I inherited some Mint from a German neighbor who also donated a Comfrey plant and gave me some beens to sow.  I have sown Calendula and violas.  Both are good for the skin, so I'm macerating their flower petals to use later.

But what I have realized is that there are so many plants here that grow like weeds (and actually are weeds) that are medicinal and quite wonderful plants.  And I haven't been using them.  The grass is always greener on the other side, isn't it?  One of those underutilized plants is the Sea Mayweed - Baldursbrá.  It grows everywhere and I remember that we used to pick it when I was little and take off the white petals and chant: "He loves me, he loves me not, he loves...."  But I digress.  What I hadn't realized is that this humble plant, which is a close relation to the Chamomile (Matricaria recutita), shares most of the benefits even if it lacks the smell.

I have just picked a bunch of them and they are now drying in the oven on very, very low heat.  I could actually smell a whiff of the essential oils when I opened the oven door.  So I lowered the heat to next to nothing.  I'm so thrilled to have made this discovery and I can't wait to use the dried flowers.  I'm now planning some trips to collect more and dry a bunch for use this winter.  Now is the perfect time, they are at their peak.

As far as I can tell from my research Matricaria maritima has a number of benefits.  Among a host of other things it is anti-inflammatory, anti-rheumatic, it is a mild muscle relaxant, anti-infective and what is most relevant for me: It is good for eczema and dry skin.  The only thing that is seems to lack, that the Chamomile has, is the well known calming and sedative properties.  So I won't try to use it as a late night tea, but I am going to use it instead of regular Chamomile in my Lemony shampoo bar for blondes and see if I notice a difference.  It might also make it's way into a face cream or even a body lotion, now that I have an abundant supply.

The photo: I just love the birdcage that I found. It's obviously homemade from scrap building materials. The colander was a present from my mother. It probably comes from Sweden.

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Flora and Fauna (To lard or not to lard...)

I am not a vegetarian, so I use animal products in some of my soaps, both milk and milk products, honey and fat.  I have no problem with that, seeing as I eat the animals without any moral dilemma.  Being an omnivore I think it makes sense to use as many parts of the animals we kill to eat as possible and I think it is great that I can easily get hold of lard fairly cheaply and easily.  It is already rendered, pure white and practically without any smell.  Lard has many really nice qualities in soap, it is pure white in colour, it gives hardness to the soaps, it gives a soft and long lasting lather and is conditioning for the skin.

I also tried to use sheep's fat.  Probably the most common animal fat here, but the fat that I could find had a bit too much meat smell for my liking.  Although I did make a laundry soap with it (and used it for the first time yesterday).  It still smells a bit, but it has cured to a nice hard laundry soap that seems to clean well. The blue Alkanet colour had completely vanished, replaced by a very, very slight pink tinge.  Rather disappointing, but it's just for laundry so it doesn't matter.

I have also made soap using milk and yoghurt.  The soap was really nice and creamy so I want to do some more experiments.  I use cows milk and milk products only.  Goats milk sounds very tempting to use, but we do not have many goat farmers and you can't buy the milk in stores.  Goats milk here is used almost solely for premature babies and I wouldn't dream of trying to take some away from them.  But I like the challenge of making soap with milk.  I freeze the milk products and try to dissolve the lye without burning the milk, but I usually get a tan colour from my soaps anyway.  As I understand it, the goal for many milk soapers is to get the soap to be as white as possible.  I may achieve that one day.

Honey in soap is another favorite and I have read that others are using a little bit of beeswax.   I have never tried that but think I might since I use that in the creams I make.  I have read that it makes soap harder, so that might be a good additive to the Sea Buckthorn soap that was a tad too soft.  Honey smells great and gives the characteristic honey colour to soaps and is supposed to be moisturizing.  I have suggested to my husband that we get a beehive, but his enthusiasm was underwhelming, to say the least.  So we are not doing that.

The strangest animal products that I have used (or rather am contemplating using) is eggshell.  I read about it's use in a book and I thought "What a great idea. Lets try that".  So now I'm waiting to try it.  I have amassed a large quanty of egg shells from baking for the wedding and I have pounded that in my mortel to make it into tiny pieces.  I will post the results as soon as I am done.

I really enjoy using local ingredients where I can.  I'm planning to head to the shore (somewhere far away from the city) to gather some seaweed and kelp.  I need to read up on those plants since I don't know them like I do land plants.  I have planted Comfrey in my allotment garden and have started to dry a few leaves.  I need to get a nettle to grow close to home too.  Just haven't figured out where to plant something like that.  Both are fantastic plants to have access to.  I did sow a lot of Calendula, but didn't have much luck with the seed.  Im hoping to get a few plants to flower and to macerate a few petals and use in soaps.

The garden is getting to it's best at the end of June and I'm getting a bit excited for the wedding on Saturday.  There is a lot to do.  The wedding ceremony is to be outdoors and the reception is at home and we are having 80 people over for coffee and cakes.  And then some 30 for dinner and about 40 for a party into the night.  The house really isn't all that large so it will be a bit crowded.  So I'm hoping and praying for nice weather so that the guests can sit outside too.  Right now the forecast is for a bit of drizzle, so please send you warmest sunniest thoughts :)  But I know that even if we need umbrellas it will be lovely.
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Pure and white, this is the best soap.  It sits on a flower pot that has a lovely rose pattern.  I have three of them and they hold some of my summer flowers.

Soap with teas and oil infusions

I like novelty and I guess one of the things that I like most about soap making is the endless possibilities to experiment.  I sometimes get almost an itch to make soap.  Most often late at night and usually I'll have had an idea that I need to test immediately.  One evening I was rummaging in the cupboards and came across my Celestial Seasoning teas.  They are made in Boulder, Colorado where I used to live, way back in the old days.  Wonderful place!  Tension Tamer and Sleepytime are favorites and I just had to try to use those in a soap recipe.  How lovely to sip the tea in the bathtub using a soap made with the same herbs, both as tea and infused oil.

This is what I made.  It turned out to be one of my "everything but the kitchensink" recipes.  The soaps are lovely, they retained the scent of the herbal tea in a very gentle way.  The colour is a yellow tone.

This is a small recipe, only 313 g / 11 oz.
The figures are a bit strange because I just sloshed this that and the other thing on the scale and wrote it down.  I use grams, the oz. come from the Soapcalc lye calculator.  I suggest to always double check all recipes by running it through a lye calculator.

33.5%  Coconut oil  -  105 g / 3.7 oz
32%  Almond oil  - 100 g / 3.5 oz
12%  Lard  -  38 g / 1.34 oz
8%   Sunflower oil  -  25 g / 0.9 oz
4.8%  Avocado   -  15 g / 0.5 oz
2%  Castor oil  -  10 g / 0.35 oz
2%  Jojoba wax  - 10 g / 0.35 oz
2%  Shea butter  - 10 g / 0.35 oz

45 g / 1.6 oz of lye.

For the water I used 4 tea bags in 110 g / 3.7 oz of water and infused it until cold.
I also cut up 4 tea bags and poured sunflower oil over it.  This I heated up gently over hot water and let it infuse for about an hour.

I have already made tea with the Sleepytime tea and the oil has been infusing at room temperature for a few weeks, so that one I need to make soon to see what difference there is.  Then there are all the other teas that I haven't tried.  I am determined to try a licorice tea and maybe Roobois and ...

The photo: Almond oil and avocado oils really are nice in soap. I use them in facial soaps and also in face creams. The glass thing was my grandmothers and I never knew what it was for when I was a child, but it is to hold flowers nicely arranged in a vase.

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Cetraria islandica - Iceland moss

It is fun to use all sorts of plants in soaps.  I love to make teas and infusions with herbs that I grow in the garden and I also love to pick some fresh plants from nature.  Foraging, I guess it is called.  To me it is wonderful that one is able to walk around and pick things for free.  I guess that for those who are brought up in countries where fruit grows on trees that is just very common, but here we don't have that.

I am always careful not to pick endangered species.  My parents were both biologists and both specialized in plants so I have been brought up with a healthy respect for nature.  We don't have such variety of wild plants as more southerly countries, but we have some really nice ones.   Alpines are of course right at home here, but I don't pick those since the habitat is really delicate and it is better to pick some of the plants that grow in lower altitudes, some of them weeds.  Nettle grows here in abundance.  Angelica too.  And we have a wonderfully fragrant variety of thyme that I would love to try and capture in oil.


All plants are not equal, though.  Some plants here are foreigners that have gotten quite out of control.  They are strong and robust plants that run over the more delicate local flora.  Good examples of these thugs are the Alaska lupin and Cow Parsley.  Pretty plants, but quite a nuisance in our nature.  These two I am picking in great quantities for my daughter's (fast approaching) wedding.  Two flies in one...  Flowers for free and preventing them setting more seed.

But this post was supposed to be about something local:  The Iceland moss.  This curious plant is really a lichen.  It was traditionally been used here to feed starving people (that was the general condition back in the old days) and it is supposed to do really good things for you when eaten.  It was used in cooking for soups and stuff, but also very commonly boiled in milk and drunk that way.  It is considered antibiotic and was used for coughs and tuberculosis among other things.  Topically it was used to treat boils!  But use it in soap and you have this really nice, abrasive scrub.

The recipe I used is very simple.  For something so natural and lovely I thought Olive oil is perfect and with a bit of Coconut. So the recipe turned out to be:

73% Dark Olive oil
27% Coconut oil.

The liquid (standard Soapcalc 38%) is Iceland moss tea and crumbled Iceland moss in the soap.  SF 5%.

The stuff on top is dried Iceland moss, but that isn't such a good idea because it is very brittle.  But it looked nice!

The photo: I was very happy to get my first real soap mold. It's small,but I don't make large batches. The trivet is a 1$ find. It looks worn, but I like shabby. I really like second hand stuff I love to think who owned it before me and why they let it go.

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Soap for dry and delicate skin

I have used soap on my face since I was about 16 years old.  Or not soap really, detergent in a bar form.  Back in those days soap was considered drying to the skin.  And the stuff that has been depleted of glycerin probably is and was.  Natural soaps were unheard of in those days.

But I have just always felt comfortable with cleaning my face with a soap bar rather than with cleansing milks, cold creams or liquids of any kind.  I like to rinse stuff off my face with water.  Tissuing off some cream just doesn't feel like cleaning the face to me.  But then I never had particularly dry skin.  But now I guess my skin is a bit dry and I like to treat my face gently.  So I like to do experiments to make gentle soaps for the face.  That is not to say that they don't end up being used in the shower as all over soap.

I tend to make these recipes up as I go along.  Very often I get one fairly simple idea ("I should make soap with honey and coconut milk and almond oil for the face") and then it gets a bit more complicated as I open drawers and find all my oils ("O o o, I really should add some Jojoba oil!" and "Rose hip is really nice for older skin, I should try that").  So here is one of those rather complicated recipes.  I tend not to put any fragrance in facial soaps since I like them to be as free from allergens as possible.  But I can just imagine that this recipe would be nice with a soft feminine scent.

I love the soap and I have to admit that I use it all over in the shower.  It is also a nice size to take to the gym and I do that.

Facial soap for dry and delicate skin:

30%  Coconut oil  -  150 g / 5.3 oz
20%  Olive oil  -  100 g / 3.5 oz
20%  Almond oil  - 100 g / 3.5 oz
10%  Avocado   -  50 g / 1.8 oz
8%  Castor oil  -  40 g / 1.4 oz
5%  Rose hip oil  - 25 g / 0.9 oz
5%  Jojoba wax  - 25 g / 0.9 oz
2%  Shea butter  - 10 g / 0.35 oz

For the liquid I used semi-frozen Coconut milk to which I added 1 tsp honey dissolved in a bit of water.  This together should amount to  165 g / 5.8 oz
Lye 69 g / 2.5 oz

This time I used 5% SF (but check in a lye calculator as always, especially the ounzes,  they are approximate since I use the grams myself).

I dissolved the lye in the half frozen Coconut milk/honey liquid and watched it turn a bright red.  This then turn into a beautiful yellow when the liquid had been added to the oils.  The soap hardens pretty quickly so don't wait too long to pour into molds.  I poured this into my pastry molds that had been covered in cling wrap (they are aluminium).   The soap doesn't stay a sunny yellow unfortunately, but turns that nice honey colour when it is cured.

The photo: This is one of my favorite soaps.  I is just lovely for the face. The little bowl is one of those things that I keep picking up at flee markets and that lovely little bottle broke, but I do have pictures to remember it by :)

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Rosemary shampoo bar for brunettes.

Rosemary has traditionally been used for dark hair and I remember using a shampoo in my youth that contained Rosemary.  So I just had to make a shampoo bar with rosemary if only for the wonderful smell.  Apparently the smell of rosemary helps memory and boy do I need that!

I have made this a few times and sometimes added a bit of neem oil to it, but this recipe is without that.  The neem oil was intended for exema in the scalp, a condition that some people in my family suffer from.  It has a very strong earthy, smokey scent that the rosemary masks pretty well.  When I use neem oil I have used about a tablespoon of it in a recipe this size.  Neem oil is also very good for insect control as in my insect spray (those mites are dead!) and for lice.  Althought I don't think the concentration in the shampoo is enough to combat lice.

Olive oil       40%    280g / 9.9 oz
Coconut oil  30%    210g / 7.4 oz
Castor oil     20%    140g / 4.9 oz
Sunflower oil 10%    70g / 2.5 oz

Water           38%    266g / 9.4 oz
Lye                           98g / 3.5 oz

5% SF.

To the sunflower oil I added Rosemary EO and added that at trace.
For colour I used the spirulina powder that I have.

I love to make teas with herbs that I grow and also infuse oils with herbs.  I do that regularly with mint and I have also used Thyme and a dying Rosemary.  I haven't had much luck with growing Rosemary so I don't have a good supply of it.  So many herbs are Mediterranean and don't like the wet weather here.  Plus, I think I must be slightly codependent because I tend to smother my plants in fertilizer and water them well and consequently torture and drown plants that prefer arid conditions.  I could buy Rosemary  at the store I suppose, but it's just not the same!  But I'm sure that this would be wonderful if made with rosemary tea and infused oils.

The photo: I bought this very ornate mask in Venice. I love masquerade balls, but my friends never wanted that back in the 70's. Now my daughters friends are always having dress up parties, but I'm not invited. Even so I lent her this to wear once.

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