Red Wine Soap

Red wine has benefit of increasing blood circulation, so I decided to try that on the soap.  It's a bit hectic during the preparation, because I need to make sure no trace of alcohol left before making the soap by simmering the red wine at the right temperature, then I left it at the fridge for couple more day to ensure no trace of alcohol left.  It gave very interesting scent after I'm done and I can see a bit of red color in it from the wine.

Name:

Red Wine Shea Butter Eucalyptus Soap

紅酒乳油木果尤加利手工皂

Ingredients:

Extra Virgin Olive oil

Palms oil

Coconut oil

Organic Shea Butter

Grapeseed oil

NaOH

Red Wine

H2O

Essential Oil:

100% Eucalyptus Essential Oil

Benefit of Green Tea

Interesting enough, added green tea in it but no trace of green tea color :)  Green tea is well known for it's antioxidant property that shield our skin from environmental damage.  Some research saying if you add some green tea inside the water and wash the face with it everyday, it will help reducing the pore, help shielding the radiation emitted from environment or computer, and help with the dry skin.

Name:

Gromwell Organic Shea Butter Lemongrass Green Tea Soap

紫草根有機乳油木果香茅綠茶手工皂

Ingredients:

Gromwell root soaked in Extra Virgin Olive oil

Palms oil

Coconut oil

Organic Refined Shea Butter

Apricot Kernal oil

NaOH

Dark Green Tea

Essential Oil:

100% Lemongrass Essential Oil

Organic Shea Butter Time!!!

I'm back on making soap after a long time, life got a bit busy but I'm really glad I gave myself a break to make soap finally, it really helps a lot.  I asked my friend in Taiwan to purchase a block of organic shea butter for me early this year, since it's organic, I feel it's very valuable, too valuable to use it....but then I think, what will do me good if I don't use it? it will just go to waste if I don't, so I decided to try those organic shea butter in my soap this time.  I love the texture a lot, it feels so soft and creamy, and has nice natural smell to it, shea butter is a great natural emollient from Gana, contains great source of vitamins, great for moisturizing and help protect skin from harmful UV ray.

Name:

Gromwell Organic Shea Butter Lemongrass Goat Milk Soap

紫草根有機乳油木果香茅羊奶手工皂

Ingredients:

Gromwell root soaked in Extra Virgin Olive oil

Palms oil

Coconut oil

Organic Refined Shea Butter

Castor oil

NaOH

Goat Milk

Essential Oil:

100% Lemongrass Essential Oil

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. ^_^