Chunk Soap

I’m starting to branch out and make soaps that take a little bit more effort. Chunk soap is easy to make, but takes more effort because the chunks need to be made first, so you’re basically doing twice the work for one batch of soap (I made four of each soap). However, since they are so pretty look at, the effort is worth it.

The soap on the left is fragranced with a mix of orange, grapefruit and lime fragrance oils (FOs). The orange chunks really overwhelm the green ones, and they look more salmon-y to me rather than orange but that is because the orange colouring came out really fast, and I ended up with more than I wanted. This soap kinda remnids me of carrot and celery sticks that are cut up for dipping. Sean said the same thing when he saw them, which made me smile – talk about same wavelength!

The soap on the right is fragranced with an FO called “Ice Wine”. I’m not sure if it smells like actual ice wine, but it is sweet, sugary and grapey. This fragrance can become too strong really quickly so I only use a little bit when I use it in soap or other bath products. The chunks came from a another chunk soap that I tried to make that fell apart. I cut the broken pieces into smaller pieces using a wavy soap cutter.

I think that when I do this again, I won’t put quite as many strips as I did in the citrus soap. The soaps have a lot of rough edges on the bottom from the strips sticking out. On the whole though, I’m pretty pleased with how they turned out.

Vox Hunt: This Is DIY

Show us something that’s DIY.
Submitted by Jenstar.

These are bars of soap that I’ve made. They are normally wrapped to maintain their scent, but I unwrapped them for the picture so you could see them in their full beauty.

These soaps are made using the melt and pour technique. Unscented, uncoloured soap base is melted into liquid at low heat. Once it is liquid, scents and colours of your choice can be added. Once the ingredients are mixed together, the liquid is then poured into molds to cool. The soap is ready to use in an hour or two.

These soaps are meant to be used so Sean and I don’t buy a lot of regular bars of soap anymore. I like being able to control the amount of fragrance a bar of soap has.

Melt and pour soap can also be as simple or as fancy as you want. These soaps are super simple to do, but with the right techniques, you can make some really beautiful soaps with multiple colours and layers.

I also make bath bombs and lotions, but I don’t have any around to photograph. Bath bombs are surprisingly easy to make. The lotion is easy too, but that is because I use a lotion base, rather than make it 100% from scratch, which is more finicky.

I love melt and pour soapmaking as a hobby. The soap doesn’t take a lot of time to create, and the product is to be used and not just looked at. Cleanup is also usually pretty easy cuz the pot is covered with soap – a little water and some light scrubbing and everything is clean again!

soap

I made some soap for the first time in a few months today. The first batch turned out okay, but unfortunately the soapbase I bought doesn’t reheat well after it’s been melted once and it warped one of my favourite molds when I poured it in. It’s a real bummer since I really liked the mold, and now it’s wrecked. I can replace it, but that’s money I really didn’t want to spend.

I really want to get into making soap regularly again, but since I have four pounds of base I don’t like, and I want all sorts of new fragrances, I need to spend some money to perk up my soaps. Of course, I only want to spend money when I don’t have any to spend. I need to start buying Christmas presents and since I don’t think I’m giving soap to anyone this year, soapmaking supplies shouldn’t be high on the spending priority list.

My inner child is screaming “But I waaaaannnt it!” in my head. That child makes me nuts sometimes.

I want to do more creative things in my life. However, I’m having a hard time getting started. I don’t feel like I can sit down to do something creative until I feel settled. Then once I feel settled enough to do something, I start interrupting myself to do other, more mundane things of varying usefulness. Just, while writing these few sentences, I got up from the computer twice and opened up several new tabs in Firefox to do and look for other things. I didn’t really need to any of those things at any of those moments.

I want to take a creative writing class, but I just can’t afford it right now. I also need to produce something of a creative nature (be it writing, soap or whatever) that I am happy with so I can feel like I am actually capable of doing creative things.

I can’t even admit out loud that I am interested in creative writing. (It was hard to type too.) I want to write, but I am afraid. I’m not sure if I am afraid of the writing itself or the material that would come out of it. Or whether it is something else completely.

I’ve always said that I wanted to write a book before I am dead. The problem is, I have to actually write a book before I am dead.

Photos of my latest soap:

This is the first time I’ve made soap in a long time. I set up a “soaping centre” in my office where I could make soap (or any other crafty thing) and tonight was the first time I used it (I was waiting for some pyrex pots I bought off of Ebay to come in so I wouldn’t be trucking the kitchen pots up and downstairs all the time). I’m really happy with the way the space, and the soap, turned out.

One of the best things Sean and I have done in our house is separate our offices. Now we both have a space in the house that is solely our own. I love working in my office much more than I did when Sean and I had a shared office, and I think I’m becoming more productive on the hobby side of things again, with the soap, and the increased entries on the site, so that is a great bonus.

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 Canada
This work by Melissa Price-Mitchell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 Canada.
%d bloggers like this: