December 27, 1998

It's true... I'm a big fat lazy brat who never updates her diary. :) OK, OK, Christmas is over and I have 4 -- count 'em!! -- 4 whole lovely vacation days this week, so I'll do my best to get a whole bunch of good stuff up here. I'm thinking, type in all those recipes I've been meaning to copy down.. etc. etc. More good stuff. You know the spiel -- when I get a round tuit. :)

OK, so you will not believe what I got from my DB for Christmas! He gave me one of Barry's gorgeous plexiglas molds!! I had NO idea he paid that much attention to me prattling on about my soap buds and the goodies that people have out there!! Would you believe he went through all my bookmarks looking for the "plexiglas mold you kept talking about," and he bought it for me? Oh, this is such a nice mold! It's just gorgeous. I've used it for two batches already (more on that later); the soap molds with such perfect square edges and cuts so beautifully with a stainless-steel scraper that DB snuck in, and you can watch the soap set up and go into gel stage and everything through the mold! It was just like when I first started soaping, I kept trying to go and peek and poke at the top... too cool. It's just a gorgeous mold. I can't believe he bought it for me. I'm going to be rolling in great molds soon -- I ordered one of Stacey's hubby's molds too, that I have heard such great things about (I ordered it before Christmas; sort of as a birthday present to myself!). I'll never have to use my pyrex cake dishes again!! :)

OK, so on to the stuff I've done lately!!

For starters, I decided on Friday to decant some of the oils I've been infusing with herbs. (The oldest ones were 2 months old.) So I decided to pull the anise, cinnamon, clove, and peppermint infusions -- all of them were infusing soybean oil. Now, the anise was a gigantic flop. El Flop-O-Rama, in fact. It barely smelled like licorice at all -- so naturally, you know me, I had to and screw it up more. :) I decided to dump the seeds and oil in a saucepan and try the quickie infusion method to see if it would result in more licorice scent. In a word -- nope. It actually smelled like -- get this -- PIZZA! I swear! It smelled just like a pizza in our kitchen. It killed me, I mean, how does anise and licorice turn into pizza? Oh well, I dumped that little experiment out. If I want pizza smell I'll call Pizza Hut. :) The peppermint oil went much better. I dumped the oil/herb mix out into a large (4-cup) measuring cup, straining with a large sieve lined with a coffee filter. That stuff separated pretty easily, so I just transferred the oil into an 8 ounce amber boston round. I reserved the peppermint herb and about 5 ounces of soybean oil for a batch of soap (keep readin' :). Next I went after the clove. That stuff was evil. I went through like 5 coffee filters, and I had to keep spooning the ground cloves out of the filters with a teaspoon to get the oil to go through the filter. I transferred the oil into an empty 16 ounce amber boston round, and had about 6 or so ounces left over so I put that into a separate 16 oz boston round. Last I did cinnamon, and I actually did that on Saturday/Sunday because the cloves finished up Friday/Saturday. The cinnamon was a similarly painful and long process as the cloves. (As I type, at 10:20 Sunday night, the cinnamon is just finishing up.) I'm going to store the cinnamon in another boston round. So that was a neat experiment. I'm definitely going to have to get more peppermint herb and infuse more oil; that worked well.

OK, so what did I use that reserved peppermint herb for? I made Peppermint Patty Foot Scrubbie Soaps! This stuff smells great. (It's officially 2 days old now so I can say that.) OK, so on Friday (Dec. 25 -- what can I say, it's just the two of us + cats + fish, and I was on duty for work so we couldn't travel downstate to visit family, so Christmas Day ended up just like any other weekend day. Anyways --) I came up with this recipe:

Peppermint Patty Foot Scrubbie Soap

Combine and let cool:
16 fluid ounces Distilled Water
5.4 ounces (wt) Sodium Hydroxide

Melt together:
8 ounces (wt) Coconut Oil
24 ounces (wt) Olive Pomace Oil
2 ounces (wt) Beeswax

Set aside:
5 ounces (wt) Soybean Oil infused with Peppermint
3 ounces (wt) Shea Butter, melted
0.5 ounces (wt) Peppermint Essential Oil (I used Deb S's FABULOUS peppermint EO from Elaya's quick buy; this stuff is the BEST)
1/4 cup fine Corn Meal
1/2 cup finely ground peppermint herb

I mixed my lye into the water and let it cool on the back porch, while I melted together the coconut oil, olive oil, and beeswax. (I decided to use beeswax since the soap was mostly liquid oils.) I also nuked the shea in the microwave to melt it down, and then set the measuring cup over the pilot light on the stove to keep it liquid. Mixed the lye-water with the coconut oil, olive oil, and beeswax mix for about 10 minutes (hand stirring). Then I added the peppermint-infused soybean oil with peppermint herb. At trace, I added the cornmeal, EO, and shea. All mixed together, it filled one half of Barry's beautiful mold, with two additional bars (from a Soap Saloon body bar size mold). I didn't insulate the mold but left it sitting on the kitchen counter so I could ooooh and aaaah about my gorgeous mold, so I saw when it went into gel stage a while later. It was really neat to watch. Anyways, since it was a soft soap, I left it in the mold until today (2 days), then I pushed it out and cut the bars. I got 16 bars total, plus 4 little sample sized bars (the two ends of the log from Barry's mold, each cut in half). I swear this soap smells exactly like York peppermint patties. Just a great smooth peppermint scent. It's not as abrasive as I thought it might be from the cornmeal. But I think the cornmeal plus the ground peppermint herb will make a great foot soap. Can't wait to try it.

OK, so I filled up one half of the mold -- I couldn't just let the other half of the mold stay empty! I would feel guilty all day. LOL. So I made Bay Rum soap! I used the FO I bought from Sweetcakes a while back that I've never gotten a chance to use yet. Oh, it smells great. I don't know how much of this stuff is going to make it past me... :) Here's the recipe:

Bay Rum Soap
(Very simple)

Combine and let cool:

15 fluid ounces Distilled Water
5.1 ounces (wt) Sodium Hydroxide

Combine:
32 ounces (wt) Olive Pomace Oil
6 ounces (wt) Palm Kernel Oil (

Reserve to add at trace:
2 ounces (wt) Sweet Almond Oil
2 ounces (wt) SweetCakes Bay Rum FO

Mixed together like a dream. Hit it with the stick blender to speed things up a bit, then when it traced and I mixed in the almond oil and FO, poured it into the lonely half of Barry's mold. LOL. It fit perfectly, with less than half an inch of space at the top. This one I only left in the mold for one day. It had a little bit of oil come out at the top, but I don't think it was a problem. I sliced it up into 14 perfect little bars (OH, I love this mold already) and lined them up on the drying rack to cure. Can't wait to try them. That Bay Rum smells *so* good.

Wait, what's this, I hear you saying? Only two batches? Not good enough? Gotta stay up late and make more soap? Well, OK! I made a third batch, plain olive oil castile, for "general purpose" soap, to use in bubble bath, etc. Here ya go, although you can't get much more basic than this recipe!

100% Olive Oil Castile Soap

Combine and let cool:
18 fluid ounces Distilled Water
6 ounces (wt) Sodium Hydroxide

Gently warm:
48 ounces (wt) Olive Pomace Oil
Mix the warmed olive with cooled lye-water. Hit that puppy with the stick blender and blend the dickens out of it! I used a pyrex cake dish, lined with Saran Wrap, for a mold (since I wasn't going for anything impressive with this particular soap). It's still in the mold today (2 days later), but I think I can unmold it tomorrow evening after work. Looks and smells like your basic soap. :)

So, you think I've talked enough today? Good... because I have a headache and I have to get up early tomorrow while my stinkin boyfriend takes a vacation day, so I'm going to have to be especially loud when I sing in the shower, send the cats to pounce on him when he turns over and hides under the covers, etc. HAHAHA! Serves him right. :)