Fruity Soap

I've always been skeptical of adding fruit or juice inside the soap like my friend suggested me a while back, so this time, I decided to overcome my mental obstacle and gave it a try. I blended some raspberry and mixed the juice and mushed raspberry inside the soap, after the soap done, you can even see tiny seed from the raspberry. I also get to use new oil this time - Apricot Kernel Oil, this oil is well know for its various mineral and vitamin property, such as vitamin A, B1, B2, B6, and C, great for softening/hydrating skin, perfect for mature and dry skin.

Name:

Raspberry Apricot Kernel Rosemary Soap

小紅梅杏桃仁迷迭香手工皂

Ingredients:

Extra Virgin Olive oil

Palms oil

Coconut oil

Apricot Kernel oil

Castor oil

NaOH

H2O

Essential Oil:

100% Rosemary Essential Oil

New Goodies for my Soap!

Thanks to my friend, my mom and my brother's help, my soap goodies finally arrived here safely all the way from Taiwan. My friend also kindly gave me her old bevel tool, a new silicon soap mold, soap wrap, and 4 bricks of fresh bees wax from the bee farm.

I've always wanted to try making soap in the silicon mold, but it's hard to find the shape I want here in US, also it's very very expensive. Not only it's easy to remove the soap from the silicon mold, it will ensure the soap comes out smooth on all side where as before, my soap comes out wrinkly because of the additional wax paper I had to put inside my wooden mold. Here's what the soap look like now after taking out from the mold.

After cutting my soap, I started putting new stamps on my soap, it was so much fun, I can even combine two stamp designs into one.

Thanks to my friend's bevel tool, my soap look so much better now, so no more sharp edges on the soap now.

Name:

Red Palm Olive Rosemary Goat Milk Soap

紅棕櫚橄欖迷迭香羊奶皂

Ingredients:

Gromwell root soak in Extra Virgin Olive oil

Red Palms oil

Coconut oil

Grapeseed oil

Castor oil

NaOH

Goat Milk

Essential Oil:

100% Rosemary essential oil

Macadamia Gromwell Milk Soap

One thing good about gromwell root is I can soak it by refilling olive oil till the natural color runs out. After two weeks of soaking the oil, I got beautiful purple olive oil again, and this time, I'm going to try it with milk to see what color it came out. I also tried Australian Macadamia oil this time, this oil is known for anti-aging property.

Name:

Gromwell Macadamia Grapeseed Peppermint Milk Soap

葡萄紫草根胡桃薄荷清香鮮奶皂

Ingredients:

Gromwell root soak in Extra Virgin Olive oil

Palms oil

Coconut oil

Grapeseed oil

Macadamia oil

NaOH

Organic Milk

Essential Oil:

100% Peppermint essential oil

Thought After Charity Event Sale

The charity sale turned out better than I thought, I sold about 16 of them, but what I really care is what the customers think, but I'm happy knowing that someone appreciate the value of the handmade soap and willing to try it out. Thanks to a nice coworker of mine, she gave me some of her left over decoration so my table look a lot more nicer now :)

In my first handmade soap sale, one big mistake I made was everyone who stops by my booth immediately bring the soap up to their nose and tried to smell it, but I wrapped all the soap, so I had to poke some holes in the bag to let customers smell.

I also learn a lot on what people's reaction to handmade soap:

1. For those who prefer using shower gel, their reason is because the soap dry their skin out. What I really want to say is, have they try "handmade" soap? shower gel is actually worse for you because of other chemical stuff they put in it to make your skin feel extra smooth and smell nice. Many case studies showed similar chemical (Paraben) they used in shower gel can be also found inside breast cancer patient. While this is an ongoing study and may not be true, why risk it? if you use shower gel, make sure to use water that is hot enough to clean off everything off your body.

2. Handmade soap is expensive and I heard you all, I was once thinking just the same when I started using one, I thought to myself, why so expensive? but after learning how to make one myself, I finally understand why, and totally willing to pay for the price, especially to those who make soap locally or as their hobby. Most important question you should ask yourself is, would you be willing to rub chemical or natural oil on your body?

3. Smell isn't strong enough? The one they sell at the store has strong and nice fragrance, notice I used the word fragrance? fragrance is like perfume, a form of chemical as well, it's like rubbing perfume all over your body, I only believe in using 100% essential oil, while it may not smell as strong, it preserve the soap naturally and more gentle to your skin.

I'd like to THANK YOU ALL who came by and support handmade soap, that really made my day and gave me encouragement to work harder on making more soap :), hope you all like it. Not only you spend a little extra to pamper your skin, better for the environment, part of the proceed also goes to helping hand. ^_^

Natural Color is the BEST!

I soaked the gromwell root my friend gave me into the olive oil for nearly a month now, and WOW, I've never seen such beautiful purple color in my life. Gromwell root is a type of herbal plant that's been used for skin treatment, such as eczema, promote coagulation, anti-baterial, anti-inflammatory. The purple pigmentation is so strong the whole time I thought I was making dark chocolate. I hope it won't turn my skin to purple when it's ready to use :) This time I also use Japanese green tea as soap base instead of water, green tea will add anti-oxidant property into the soap itself.

Name:

Gromwell Rosemary Shea Butter Soap

乳油木紫草根迷迭香手工皂

Ingredients:

Gromwell root soak in Extra Virgin Olive oil

Avocado oil

Palms oil

Coconut oil

Shea Butter

NaOH

Green Tea

Essential Oil:

100% Rosemary essential oil

＊For information on Gromwell root, please see below website

http://www.mdidea.com/products/proper/proper094.html

Company Charity Event Sales

I saw a flyer at my company advertising that next month, there will be a "handmade craft charity event sales", all company employees get to sell stuff that they made or wish to sell, 15% will be donated to the charity. I tried my luck and asked my company if selling handmade soap is acceptable and I got approved, for past 2 weeks I made additional 20 bars of soap to get ready for this, I'm super excited, this will be my first time selling my own soap to the customer face to face. I can't wait to tell people all the benefits about using handmade soap. This time I made my most popular grapeseed eucalyptus soap since I heard complimentary on that particular soap from two of my friends already(my favorite so far too), I also made another one where I mix coffee ground into the soap and add peppermint essential oil in to simulate "peppermint coffee".

Name:

Eucalyptus Grapeseed Mung-Bean Soap

藍膠尤佳利葡萄籽綠豆粉手工皂

Ingredients:

Extra Virgin Olive oil

Palms oil

Coconut oil

Grapeseed oil

Castor oil

NaOH

H2O

Essential Oil:

100% Eucalyptus essential oil

Other:

Mung-Bean Powder

Milk

Name:

Shea Butter Avocado Peppermint Coffee Soap

乳油木酪梨薄荷咖啡手工皂

Ingredients:

Extra Virgin Olive oil

Avocado oil

Coconut oil

Shea butter

NaOH

Milk

Essential Oil:

100% Peppermint essential oil

Other:

Blue natural mineral clay

Coffee Ground

Preparing for the Winter

Yay, my foam insulation box has arrived....keeping the soap warm or in room temperature is very important after you finishing making the soap, so it will keep hardening itself. The drastic change in temperature will worsen the quality of the oil, or if the humidity is too high, it will change the texture of the soap. Of course, I don't just order the foam insulation box, it comes with my favorite Omaha steak(which I only get when I have a gift card from Discover :p) I was worried the box might not be big enough since I didn't order a lot, but wow, my soap mold fit in it perfectly even with my soap cutter sitting on top :) now I have a peace in mind for upcoming winter now.