Cinnamon & Ginger Soap Recipe

A week ago, a reader asked my Cinnamon & Ginger CP recipe.  Though occupied by my routine day jobs and taking care of my puppies, I had this in my mind for a while and want to share with all my friends.  It's nothing really new or different with other recipes you might find over the internet.  But the soap came out really aromatic, plus the scrubby touch of ginger powder.  I have friends who really enjoy this soap.  This soap does not produce bubbles but has subtle & creamy lather with a rather good moisturizing score.   I actually did three batches in the past few months:

Here is the recipe:

Olive Oil       30%

  Coconut Oil       28%

Palm Oil       16%

Safflower Oil     8%

Shea Butter     10%

Castor  Oil         8%

with  5% Lye Discount

Additives:                Ginger Root Powder added at trace

                                     Cocoa Powder added into half of the soap mixture

Essential Oil:                                                                   

  Ginger Root      24%

Cinnamon Leaf    24%

Cinnamon Bark    52%

Run thru any software (Bramble Berry or SoapCalc) to calculate the corresponding Lye & Water you will need.  Handle lye with proper care.  It should bring you a warm, aromatic & blissful bar.

Happy Soaping!

End of Summer Soaps

These soap were made about a month ago, well in few different days when I was filled with that huge soap-making urge.  Guess it'd be time again for soap making :)

Old time love - Lavender Fusion (color by mixing Ultramarine Blue & Ultravmarine Violet, well too bad the color was not quite as expected)

Cinnamon & Ginger

Ginseng & Mugwort Buttermilk

Rosemary, Nettle & Lemon Balm (infused)

Dead Sea Salt Soap - Lemongrass, Rosemary & Lavender Scented, topped with Himalayan Salt

Soda Ash

Few weeks ago I stumbled into Jenny's blog regarding options to deal with a common problem for almost all soapmakers, more or less.  It just happened with one of my recent soap .  This is a batch of Black & White color theme.  I had Pearl Mica for the white part & activated charcoal for the black.  I did spritzed the top with alcohol and covered the soap but that annoying ash still decided come & stay.  This makes the top surface looks really blur, without the clear & crisp image I want.

So here it is the perfect thing for me to try this method Jenny did and it worked.

The ash floats especially on the white part.

Close-up of the soda ash almost covers the whole white part the 2nd day the soap log was cut.  And I know it's gonna spread and cover more area.  

After steaming (by holding the soap surface over boiling water), the soap is shining freshly.

A close-up on the surface.  It even enlarged the tiny crack line.....

Right after steaming,  the soap looks great.  Once they got dry, the sheen becomes a little bit dull but still nice.

Ultramarine Blue Challenge

Among all the natural colorants, Ultramarine Blue definitely ranks very top of my list. It's a beautiful & brilliant color to make your soap shine thru when properly handled.  Yes, properly handled..... It takes several trial  and error to get what you want to achieve, especially with cold process soap.

See the first photo was that vibrant, vivid blue that got me hooked since.  I still remember it was REALLY dark when the soap mixture was poured into the mold.  At that time I thought I had too much pigment in it.  But 24 hours later it turned out so beautiful....

Another batch, the blue became dark due to the Oakmoss essential oil.

In this batch, the charcoal kind of ate up the thin fine lines of blue.  Only the top blue survived.

 This is my latest batch about 2 weeks ago.  While mixing the pigment, a shearing force is required to get it thoroughly blended.  I used a mini  blender.  Apparently it was not blended enough, I ended up having these undissolved tiny dots in there (see the speckles in the picture, yak!!).  Imperfect color makes me sigh every time I saw it.  Fortunately it still smells wonderful with the Clary Sage, Lavender & Sandalwood EO. 

Now the urge to make another batch just to run after that splendid blue has grown inside of me every day.  How many days I can tolerate with that sound repeating "one more shoot" ?  I really have no idea !

Flora Infusion

Chamomile Blooming / Filled with Boiling Water /  Strained Infusion with the help of coffee filter paper

 Chamomile, Horsemint & Rosemary / Filled with Boiling Water / Finished Infusion

Chamomile & Rose Petal / Filled with Boiling Water / Finished Infusion

Breaks Along The Journey

I've neglected my blog for quite a while.... but if this is a record of my journey, no matter what the journey turns to, it still needs to be written.

First quarter of the year, I still made soaps.  Soaps made of herbs & spices, milk & clay.

Shampoo Soap

Ginger Spicy

Ginseng Buttermilk

Shea Butter with May Chang & Benzoin

Have been focused on my day job by devoting almost all my energy & time, my mind is also hibernated......

Shelf Life of Handmade Soap

One of the most frequently asked questions is the shelf life of handmade soaps.  In my opinion there is not a standard answer.  Many factors impart shelf life of a handmade soap such as oil/butter, additives & storage conditions.

A week ago I found a bar in my closet and has been forgotten for quite some time.  I had to go back to my soap-making log and was surprised that it was made in March 2010.  It was shrink-wrapped and labeled and still in very good shape though the color has been faded a little bit.  But it still smells good.  Driven by the eagerness I took it to my shower.  Even though the scent had become mild and the bar is a bit smaller and hard, but all qualities a good handmade soap are there.  Things that brings you smile & happiness and this is one of them.

Finished Custom Soap Cake

Happy Ending.  In the package & gone for her home !!  Happy Friendship Cake.

Custom Soap for Cheryl

Recently I got a Etsy custom order for Cheryl, a very humorous & considerate lady and I had a lot of fun emails with her.....

Not only because I'll have my annual oversea trip in less than 2 weeks and CP (cold process) soap takes time to cure, but the eagerness to create a visual treat tickles me the most.  So in the past two days, again, at weekend, I was designing my "friendship cake".

I want it to be colorful and meaningful at the same time;besides it has to represent what I always want for my soap - natural ingredients.  Here are pictures of the process:

Start with very bottom (Base 1), mixture with Cocoa Powder

Base 2, Ginger Powder & Poppy Seed

Matcha(Japanese Green Tea) with Calendula Powder

(knowing the tea solution will be darkened by mixing with high PH soap mixture so I actually had Green Chromium Oxide to make sure it turns greenish)

This one is an accident color, I dropped some Pink Clay in the soap mixture... well, guess I'll just keep it.

Mixing the frosting with Pearly White Mica.  Until it got really thick then fill my piping bag.

TA-DA,  here comes my "Friendship Cake".

Since hubby was not home when I made the cake, I was not able to take pictures while decorating my toppings.

A close-up before it went into my cabinet.  After 1 day or 2, will slice this lovely yummy cake.

Saturday & Sunday = Soaping Days

As usual I always try to make soap, a batch or two on the weekends.  Last Saturday & Sunday, I made three batches.  Unfortunately all three came to a terrible end result.  All three did not even took few minutes to trace.  I couldn't figure out the cause of the acceleration.....

First batch, I infused green tea & lemon balm leaves, mix lemon peel powder at trace (it only took me few minutes to trace).  Because of the infused liquid, the color turn out a dark dark brownish green with the burnt lemon peel......  Ooooh...  =:(   Toss it into my insulated box.  The next day, I got a crack right in the center.   Note: Infused tea+Lye solution 105°F   Oil 100°, only few bursts to trace!

Sunday morning, out of a whimsical thinking (an article about the benefits of raw brown sugar),  I add brown sugar at trace (stupid, isn't it?!) and poured into a new column mold just bought from Brambleberry.  10 minutes later this is what I found out, the tearing syrup overflowed from the mold. 

That reminds me of my terrible scores in chemistry & physics back to the old school days.  The next day, though feel bad, I still unmolded it and randomly cut it.  Here is how it looks, by the way, with a sticky feel when you pick up the soap, like a sugar gets moisture....

By the time I got the bleeding sugary soap, I was so frustrated and cannot help myself but just rushed picking up all my tools.  Oil that I've infused for a couple of months, containing Annato Seed Powder, Calendula Flower & Chamomile Flower petals.  The soap mixture got to trace fast and I still cannot figure out why.  I took out a small portion of the soap mixture, added Titanium Oxide powder trying to do frosting top on the soap.  The mixture looked all right until I add the EO.  Suddenly the soap curdled, kind of like separated from the water..... yaik  (Is the EO, or th EO+Titanium Oxide).  Because the majority of the mixture (without Titanium, only EO) was all right.

Couldn't believe what I saw, I quickly pour them into my caking bag and squeezed them on some of the soap.

They looked so horrible and I have to give up.  This is the leftover of that curdled mixture:

Fortunately the soap came out really nice (without the curdled frosting top of course).  It's a golden orange vivid color I've been dreaming of for a long time.  My poor photography would not show its yummy luscious look.  The natural yellow colorant from Chamomile just enlighten up the Annato Seed orange to a next level.  I know I'll be making more.