Soap Challenge #3 - Rimmed Soap

Amy's soap challenge of this month was rimmed soap.

Step 1, make soap in a slab mold, gel it in the oven, and slice off a 4-5 mm sheet of soap, and make a cylinder to fit a Pringles chips can.

 I don't know what the white dots on the surface were, but not too worry, it has been sliced off.

Step 2, make another soap and pour the batter into the cylinder. I chose 100% coconut with 20% super fat, and scented with lime, bergamot, and lemongrass.

Every step I had to take to make this soap was new to me. I had never made soap in a slab mold, never forced soap to gel, never rolled soap... Actually, fitting the sheet of soap into a Pringles can was the most difficult step for me.

And... Here it is !

My first rimmed soap! It smells very fresh :) Because of the colour and the scent, I'm calling it Margarita soap.

And, another one (below). I call this one cantaloupe soap because of the colour combination.

Update

I have been very busy lately.
最近、またどんどん忙しくなってきました。

My main job, teaching ballet, is getting busier because the competitions, ballet exams, choreography for the recital, etc... However, it was expected because this happens every year.
毎年のことなので驚きませんが、本職のバレエは、コンペティション、生徒の試験、年末のリサイタルのための振り付け、と大忙しです。

My (future) part-time job, soap making, is also busy. I was surprised that I emptied the 5 liter buckets of coconut oil and palm oil I bought last June. Wow! But soap making is half hobby, so I can actually relax when I make soap :)
副職の石鹸づくりは、忙しいですが楽しいので大丈夫。

And the school! I don't want to talk about it... It's going well, but when I think about it, it stresses me out.
大学院は。。。触れないでおきます。　順調ですとだけ書いておきます。

I would like to give you an update about my blog.
さて、私のブログですが、

This blog is becoming my diary, so, I created more dedicated, focused blogs.
このブログはただの日記になってきているので、バレエ専門のブログと、石鹸づくりのブログに分けました。

For ballet blog (in Japanese), visit Profession of Ballet Teaching.
バレエのブログをご覧になりたい方は、こちらへどうぞ。日本語です。

For soap blog (in English, and lots of photos!), visit CHICHI.CA.
石鹸づくりのブログがご覧になりたい方は、こちらへどうぞ。　英語です。でも写真がいっぱいあります。

I am also creating e-commerce website Chichi.ca for selling my soap. It's not ready yet, so when you visit the website, it will show the maintenance page. I will let you all know here when it's ready :)
石鹸販売のためのウェブサイトも製作中です。今はまだ工事中ですが、出来上がったらこちらでお知らせします。

And... I created a logo for Chichi.ca soap store.
お店のロゴも作りました。

If you want to know why I have a camper as my logo, this blog post will tell you the story.
どうしてこのロゴに行き着いたかは、こちらのブログ記事でどうぞ。

New soaps

St. Patrick's day soap.
I was going to make St. Patrick's day soap, but didn't have enough time to cure new soap. Then I saw this blog post from soap queen! The ingredients are different, but the look of the soap is almost the same. I hope mine is as good :)

The soap below is purple snow flake soap. I coloured this with alkanet root powder, so it's all natural:) I made this in the early Feb, so it will be ready by the mid March.

And, I made Easter soap (below) on Sunday. It turned slightly brown because I used the fragrance oil that contains vanilla... Lesson is learned!

This will be cured and ready to be used in 6 weeks. Wait! Easter is in three weeks?! Oops... I can give them to people with big letters saying "Good AFTER April 15th."

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My work is getting very busy. I just sewed 5 costume decorations! I hope my students appreciate my effort...

Soap Challenge #2

I am participating in the soap challenge again :)

(You can participate too! Click here)

The challenge of this month is Winter Wonderland. You have to have cold processed soap with some kind of element of snow.


I wanted to participate in the all-natural category.

I didn't have any natural colourant that would make soap blue, so I used a very small amount of alkanet and hoped that it would somehow turn blue. But magic didn't happen, and it was purple (of course)...


So, I decided to go for the synthetic category.

I used a snow flake shaped mold as a base, a bear shaped mold and an iceberg shaped mold (you don't see much of iceberg but the bear is using it as a pillow), put them together, and created the theme of a polar bear enjoying a very cold snowy day.

The soap looks slightly crumbly because it's a salt bar. I thought salt would make it look icy, and it did :)


And... IT'S HERE!!! I think the polar bear looks very relaxed in the snow.

CHICHI Co. Product #2

I made shampoo!

I have tried to use handmade soap as a shampoo bar, and have tried to make liquid shampoo from liquid soap in the past.

Using regular soap as shampoo seems to work for many people, but not for me... the pH level was too high and my hair just got really really dry.

I wasn't sure what type my hair was, so I chose the recipe for normal hair.

And here it is!

I only made such a small amount because it's a test batch. Mmm... I think I needed a thickener.

Pineapple Body Butter

Recently, I have been reading the blog "Point of Interest!" written by Susan.

She is very informative, and everything I wanted to know is on her blog.

I picked her body butter recipe because that was the only thing I could make with the ingredients I already had.

I should be able to make other things if I had more knowledge about substituting the ingredients, but unfortunately, I don't... And I needed my first body care product to be a success in order to keep myself going :)

And... here!

The ingredients are:

-          Water 118g

-          Glycerin 6g

-          Sweet almond oil 30g

-          Shea butter 20g

-          E-wax 16g

-          Cetyl alcohol 6g

-          Geogard ultra 2g

-   Pineapple fragrant oil 2g

 
Yay:)

Valentine soap

I made Valentine soap about a month ago, and it's fully cured!

with pineapple fragrance oil

I was worried that the red colour would become more orange-y, but it turned out ok!

Another soap I made yesterday.

Lavender essential oil, pink+purple drop swirl

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I finally received the result of my final assessment of the 1st semester, and I passed!

I passed with a good grade!

Soap Challenge

This month, I'm participating in the soap challenge hosted by Amy Warden.

The challenge of the month is to make a lotus using the technique called Circling Taiwan Swirl.

My first attempt didn't go too well.

first attempt

As you can see, the blue colour faded because of heat loss...

I think the second attempt went better.

second attempt

I had fun!