All the Soaps!

Guess what? I made soap! It's been two years since I'd made any, and I'll confess, I'd thought about giving up that particular hobby a few times in the last two years. I'm glad I didn't though, in the last month and a half I've made about 16 batches and now I remember why I love soapmaking so much! I've had some ups and downs in the 12 years since I started making soap (lots of craft fairs, having my products in a gift shop, losing creative control), but I'm pretty happy where I am now, making the kinds of soap I want and finding people who want to buy (or swap!) my soap.

Calendula Lemongrass Eucalyptus

The first couple batches I made I posted to social media and a lot of people wanted to buy them, so I started taking reservations. (I don't want to take any money before the soap is ready to ship because there's always something that can go wrong! The soap could seize while I'm making it, it could mutate colors while it's curing, or a nephew could come along and poke his cute little fingers in 8 bars like a certain someone did when he was 5 (although, after making him work off the amount of money I could have sold those bars for, I don't think he'll be doing that again.)) After the first couple of batches were all reserved, I had to make some more of the same fragrances because more people wanted them!

Oats n Honey

I want to thank my amazing Craftster moderator friends who support me in so many ways and are my loyal customers as well!

Since I'm not much of a photographer (understatement!) my sweet friend Kim is taking pictures for me again to use on Etsy. I'll post a a few more here but probably replace them when I get the ones from her. I bevel all my soaps before labeling but these are all pre-bevel.

All of my soaps are made with vegetable oils only and most are vegan as well. All ingredients are always listed on the bar. The batches below that are not vegan are Oats n Honey, Egyptian Rose Geranium with Silk, and Fresh Tweed Goat's Milk.

All soaps are currently $6 or 3 for $15. My prices will go up a bit when I post to Etsy due to fees. If you see something you would like to order please drop me a line and I can send you a Paypal invoice.

Everything Balm is $4 for 1 oz or $9 for 3 oz. This is the product that finally healed my contact dermatitis after years of being on steroidal creams which were expensive, stained my clothing, and according to the warning label, "causes thinning of the skin." Unrefined shea butter, lavender essential oil, tea tree oil, and Vitamin E oil.

Essential Oil Soaps:

• Calendula Lemongrass Eucalyptus--with avocado oil and dried calendula petals
• Shea Lavender--a high percentage of shea butter, soothing lavender essential oil and a purple swirl
• Egyptian Rose Geranium--colored with pink clay and containing silk
• Gardener's Scrub--poppy seeds, orange peel powder, dried calendula and chamomile with a blend of citrus and mint essential oils
• Lime Ginger Peppercorn*--lime and black pepper essential oils with a bright green and dark black swirl (*this soap has a small amount of ginger fragrance oil as well as the essential oils) (sold out)
  
• Rosemary Mint--fragranced with peppermint and rosemary essential oils and swirled with blue and teal (currently sold out but will be making more soon)

Fragrance Oil Soaps:

• Black Raspberry Vanilla--a sweet and fruity fragrance with a pink swirl and strawberry seeds for light exfoliation
• Dragon's Blood--earthy and musky, this blend smells of amber, sandalwood, patchouli, vanilla, and chocolate.
• Orange Dreamsicle--sweet and citrusy just like Orange Creamsicle ice cream bars, with an orange swirl
• Spring Rain Sea Salt--a fresh and floral fragrance with a blue swirl and lots of sea salt, which makes for a hard bar that can be slightly crumbly, but makes lovely soft lather and leaves your skin feeling extra soft and smooth (sold out)
  
• Fresh Tweed Goat's Milk soap--like a lightly spicy, fresh man's cologne with goat's milk for extra soft and moisturizing lather
•  Pineapple Sage--sweet and fruity with a hint of sage, this bar is swirled with teal and bright purple  (sold uut)
  
• Red Sedona--this is another sweet and fruity bar that is hard to describe, it's swirled with yellow, orange, and pink neon pigments
• Vanilla Coffee Bean Scrub--this bar is fragranced with almond vanilla cappuccino fragrance oil and is full of ground coffee beans for a gently exfoliating bar

Unfragranced Soaps:

•  Oats n Honey--no added fragrance, but there is a sweet warm smell from the natural honey and a nutty smell from the ground oats in this bar
• Facial Bar, Normal to Dry Skin--this round bar contains no fragrance or colorants and is full of skin loving oils--olive, rice bran, avocado, and shea butter. 

 Upcoming batches of soap

• Facial Bar, Oily or Acne prone--with bentonite clay and tea tree oil
• Orange Clove--essential oil bar
• Fresh Grass--just like fresh cut grass!
• Jamaican Bay Rum--my favorite fragrance on a guy
• Not soap, but I'll be making some of my lotion bars. What's a lotion bar? It's a solid bar of lotion that contains beeswax to stay in a solid state. It's great for keeping in your purse/backpack or in the car or anywhere else that regular lotion might spill. It's extra moisturizing so it's great to use on extra dry skin like heels and elbows. These won't contain any fragrance oil or essential oil but I'm using unrefined cocoa butter as part of my recipe, so there is a bit of a chocolate smell.

Lavender Shea

Lime Ginger Peppercorn
Happy accident with this swirl. What do you see?

Red Sedona in the mold

Orange Dreamsicle

Gardener's Scrub

Vanilla Coffee Bean Scrub

Spring Rain Sea Salt

Spring Rain Sea Salt in the mold

My main curing rack, there are about 4 drawers/shelves not showing
From top: Dragon's Blood, Rosemary Mint (sold out), Black Raspberry Vanilla, Lavender Shea (left),
Calendula Lemongrass Eucalyptus (right), Pineapple Sage, Red Sedona

These were my curing racks before I purchased the handy dandy ones above. They got pressed back into service when
those racks filled up! Left, from top: Fresh Tweed Goat's Milk, Spring Rain Sea Salt, Orange Dreamsicle.
Right, from top: Vanilla Coffee Bean Scrub, Gardener's Scrub, and a secret something on the very bottom.

Also made some of my Everything Balm, in two sizes.

Quick and Dirty Body Butter

Ok, the body butter isn't actually dirty, everything is crystal clean to start with, I promise! But my pictures are less than inspiring and my recipe is ridiculously easy but I still thought I'd share. I actually never know what to call this.

In the soap and lotion making world there might not be strict, consistent definitions for certain applications, but in general I consider a lotion to contain oil and water in an emulsion, and body butters to be, well, butters (shea, cocoa, mango, kokum, etc.) So this little recipe that is a mixture of Oil, Butter, and Palm Stearic? Eh, I guess I'll still call it a body butter.

This is a pretty greasy recipe, I have some friends who live in drier areas who like it, or use it in winter. I wouldn't consider it an everyday moisturizer for most people, but a heavy-duty, occasional one.

I keep all my recipes in percentages so I can make any size batch any time I want with minimal math. This particular batch (well, 3 batches really) happened to be an order for a good friend.

This is my recipe, but please don't get overwhelmed at the complexity!

MareMare's Body Butter

70% Liquid Oil
15% Solid Butter
15% Palm Stearic (Stearic Acid)
Vitamin E oil (a few drops)
Fragrance oil (use to smell, keeping under manufacturer's percentage recommendations)

For two batches I used olive oil, the third was half olive, half jojoba oil, along with shea butter and 3 different fragrance oils.

Weigh first three ingredients into large pyrex bowl. Microwave in thirty second/one minute bursts, stirring in between. When melted fully, or very close, remove to counter and begin stick blending, trying not to incorporate too much air into it. Stick blend occasionally as it cools. When it begins to thicken slightly, but is still a pourable consistency, add in fragrance oil and vitamin E oil. I like to add a little fragrance, stir, and then add more if needed. For 22 ounce batches I probably used around 10 mL of fragrance.

Since this does not contain water, there is no need for preservative. Pour into bottles or jars and allow to set up overnight. Label immediately if you are using different fragrances so you don't get them confused.

Since this was for a friend who needed it sooner rather than later, I just slapped some labels on with the fragrance. The body butter is on the left. As you can see it is very thick and definitely not the prettiest. On the right is my rash creme, also 3 ingredients: unrefined shea butter, tea tree oil, and lavender essential oil. It's wonderful on my contact dermatitis and it's also great on bug bites!

My friend likes earthy, musky scents so I made her 2-3 bottles or jars each of Dragon's Blood, Moroccan Rain, and Oakmoss.