I was lucky enough to participate in a soap swap with some online friends recently. The challenge with this particular was was to keep all ingredients natural. I know a lot of soap makers make exclusively natural soap (no artificial colors or scents), but I like using more variety in my scents and colors, so I frequently use synthetic fragrances, as well as oxides and clays as colorants. (There’s some debate about whether micas/oxides/clays are natural or not… for me, they are.. others disagree… so for the sake of the swap, I went without them.) So this swap was going to challenge me for sure!
I’ve always wanted to try using milk in my soaps, but never had the courage. Now, I had a reason to try it. My oatmeal soap (which is one of the few all natural soaps I make) is one of my most requested; my friends with sensitive skin tell me it is one of the few soaps they can use. However, I wanted to spice it up a bit, so I decided to create a goats milk, honey, and oatmeal soap. It wouldn’t have a scent, and it wouldn’t have any coloring ingredients, but it would be filled with lots of good stuff.
I have to say I was nervous, but in the end it all worked out great! (Except for the part about it being too stubborn to get out of the mold! I had to both pop it in the freezer and use a knife to loose it up. In retrospect, I realized that I poured it at a much thinner trace than I normally use, and some of the soap seeped behind the paper wrapper… I decidedly poured it thin so that it would be extra smooth on top… but I didn’t anticipate it being so difficult to unmold.)
I decided to decorate the tops of the soap with lavender buds, giving a tiny bit of natural scent to the bars.
These are half size bars. I attached a label with some hemp twine to finish them off. I hope my swap mates like the soap!!
