The lavender soap that I added the blue dye to is in the back. It was peachy when we poured it into the molds, but has become a lovely purple color. I think it's close to the perfect color for lavender soap.In the front is the Crisco soap. It didn't harden as much as the others, in fact it's still roughly the consistency of fudge. My online resources say that Crisco soap is a hard soap, so I may have screwed this one up somehow. My alternate plan for this soap is to redissolve it in hot water and make it into a liquid soap (like for soap dispensers and dish soap). I'm sure it'll be good for either that or as laundry detergent.
Here's a closeup of the weirdly fudgelike Crisco soap. It might dry out still.. maybe..
This is the Tahitian Vanilla scented soap that's supposed to turn dark brown as it cures. 
The shea butter soap looks lovely. It's a nice golden brown color with little flecks in it. I'm not sure about the pink spots, but they sort of generally blend in. This mold was somewhat poorly shaped for a soap mold, so we have blocks of soap that sort of look like brownies.
The white soap in the back is the peppermint castille soap. It looks pretty much like generic soap. TD cut these two soaps (and the lavender one). He did a much better job than I did - these actually look like bars of soap.The bright pink one is the jasmine soap. I'm concerned that the color may transfer to skin when the soap is used. We'll find out in another couple weeks when the soap can be used. It has to cure for several weeks to complete the saponification process. If you use it too early, there's still lye left in it and it's really harsh (to the point of burning you if it's way too early).
I spent the morning designing a label to put on the bars so that they look a little more like gifts. If anyone has any idea on how to package soap so it looks nice as Christmas presents, let me know.
I'd try plastic wrap with a sticker covering the bits that come together. That would give you something to use as a label and you could keep the soap from smelling up the joint in the mean time. I'm also envisioning some ribbon going around it and tied in a bow.
ReplyDeleteLike the jam, but not. You could always use some of the fancy lame` (La-MAY) that you've used in the past for the jam lids.
The lavendar turned out a beautiful color. The first batch I ever made used just Crisco for the oils. I had some soft batches of soap that I tried to make into liquid soap. Mine didn't work out very well. I think I put too much soap for the amount of water I had and it seemed to thicken even more as time went by. I say use it for laundry soap. I use 1 box of Borax, 1 box of Washing Soda, and 1-2 bars of my handmade soap grated up realy fine. I mix those together and store it all in a plastic gallon ice cream bucket. I use 2 tablespoons for each large load of laundry.
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