I've been making soap for about eleven years now (I think). My aunt taught me when I spent the summer with her in Alaska when I was fifteen. She did it as one of her many side businesses. I loved it from day one- the chemistry and science, the cooking and mixing, the crafty picking and choosing of colors and scents. So of course, when I came back home, I really wanted to start making and selling soap as a business (and it sounded a heck of a lot better than working at some fast food joint while in high school). My mom agreed to help and Dixiesoap was born. We mostly sold at the farmer's market down the street and to some family and friends. When I graduated and left for college, soaping for profit kind of died. However, we were hooked on handmade soap- its SO much nicer than the store bought stuff. We turned the kitchen in one of our cabins into our soap kitchen- soap making takes up its fair share of room, from having taking up precious refrigerator space with all the fancy oils, to needing somewhere to lay out flat ~15 bars of soap per batch. During the past year we have talked of soaping for profit again. I'm a stay at home mom with our ten month old (how in the world did THAT happen?!) and living on a single income anything extra is always welcome. Anyway, very long and circuitous story short, there is talk of actually selling this stuff again, who knows if it will actually happen....
That whole point of this post was my excitement over some of out latest batches. We have been experimenting with natural pigments lately, as well as in general moving away from fragrance oils to essential oils.
The first is one of our old stand by fragrance combinations from the very beginning, its called Summer's Bounty, my aunt named it and she totally hit the nail on the head. Its fruity and a little floral-a blend of raspberry, cranberry, and apricot freesia fragrance oils. For a colorant we used some REALLY old saffron, and the vegetable oils add to the mellow yellow color.
The second batch is a new fragrance oil, picked especially for my aunt for her birthday this year, its a plumeria fragrance oil. Normally, I don't care much for floral scents, but this one is very nice. I spilled some on my shirt and enjoyed the bit of perfume for the day. It's colored with alkanet root. We were thinking this might be a light purple or pink with a white swirl. It came out a really dark, almost licorice, colored purple. I didn't think I liked it at first, but the color is growing on me, it really matches the scent. Our swirling efforts have improved greatly, but I would have liked to see just a hint more white, maybe next time. Here is what it looked like before we cut it up to cure.
And here is the final product
Now, we just have to wait for them to cure so we can take them for a test drive. Everyone has about a dozen different bars of soap in their shower, right?
