It's been far too long between soap cooks. The irony's of life. I finally have a meth soap lab but hardly ever get to use it for that as our house reno's will ensure any time I have is committed for a good while yet. Anyway...... I'm on holidays and I'm gonna cook soap.
I've never had the desire to do a lavender soap. It just seemed too boring and lavender soap is the mainstay of any hand soap production I do. However there are some lavender aficionado's out their who just like their lavender so I was curious to see if I could put my twist to it.
I remember my first introduction to handmade soap bought at the local markets. It was a lavender soap with a camphor accent that really caught my attention. I try and capture that sometimes with my hand soaps, but I wanted to do something different for the shave soap without straying too far from the purists lavender.
I was really pleased with the test scent made up in July 2023 but as always the test scent is never truly replicated in the soap process for a number of reasons including base oil choice and saponification and I made the soap on a fresh batch of Smokey Lavender essential oils so it didn't have the sophistication of the test scent which had months to develop. At this stage there is freshness and sweetness with a hint of smokiness (it's so easy for White Birch to take over) and hopefully the scent will develop with age. There is hint of earthiness and depth.
Test shave was great with the Colonial General with plenty body to the lather, so I expect it will perform well with straight razors. I love clays in my shave soaps and I used Brazilian Purple Clay to give the appropriate coloring but perhaps a lower dose of clay and some alkanet root maybe part of a 2nd iteration.
I'll spend time with this first iteration to decide if I make changes but for now it was a worthwhile exercise, if for nothing else but to get back into the soap lab.
Ingredients: Stearic Acid, Castor Oil, Tallow (Beef), Coconut Oil, Lanolin, Avocado Oil, Jojoba Oil, Water (RO), KOH, NaOH, Tussah Silk, Brazilian Purple Clay, Glycerine, Essential Oils.
Essential Oils: Lavender French Blend, Lavender Spain, Lavender True - French, Gurjun Balsam, Camphor, Elemi, Marjoram Sweet, White Birch.
I've never had the desire to do a lavender soap. It just seemed too boring and lavender soap is the mainstay of any hand soap production I do. However there are some lavender aficionado's out their who just like their lavender so I was curious to see if I could put my twist to it.
I remember my first introduction to handmade soap bought at the local markets. It was a lavender soap with a camphor accent that really caught my attention. I try and capture that sometimes with my hand soaps, but I wanted to do something different for the shave soap without straying too far from the purists lavender.
I was really pleased with the test scent made up in July 2023 but as always the test scent is never truly replicated in the soap process for a number of reasons including base oil choice and saponification and I made the soap on a fresh batch of Smokey Lavender essential oils so it didn't have the sophistication of the test scent which had months to develop. At this stage there is freshness and sweetness with a hint of smokiness (it's so easy for White Birch to take over) and hopefully the scent will develop with age. There is hint of earthiness and depth.
Test shave was great with the Colonial General with plenty body to the lather, so I expect it will perform well with straight razors. I love clays in my shave soaps and I used Brazilian Purple Clay to give the appropriate coloring but perhaps a lower dose of clay and some alkanet root maybe part of a 2nd iteration.
I'll spend time with this first iteration to decide if I make changes but for now it was a worthwhile exercise, if for nothing else but to get back into the soap lab.
Ingredients: Stearic Acid, Castor Oil, Tallow (Beef), Coconut Oil, Lanolin, Avocado Oil, Jojoba Oil, Water (RO), KOH, NaOH, Tussah Silk, Brazilian Purple Clay, Glycerine, Essential Oils.
Essential Oils: Lavender French Blend, Lavender Spain, Lavender True - French, Gurjun Balsam, Camphor, Elemi, Marjoram Sweet, White Birch.
