Sometimes, It's the Simple Things

As a soap maker, I often find myself browsing Pinterest for ideas. There are some amazing soap makers out there... swirls, colours, techniques. Really, some of the soap they make would qualify as pieces of art. I'm serious! Check out this woman's soaps - From Grace to You. She even has a bar of soap that she sells for $300 (US) per bar! I wouldn't be able to decide whether to use it or hang it on the wall, to be honest.

I'll stick with the simple soaps I make. I don't want anyone to be so intimidated that they refuse to use my soap because "it's too pretty". It's meant to get you clean, with some enjoyment thrown in for good measure. Call it an affordable luxury, if you will.

This week, I did simple. We have a small challenge going on in the Ravelry soap makers group, making soap with natural colorants. It's something I've been meaning to do for a while but just haven't gotten around to, never had the push to just do it. This week, I did it.

A month or so ago, I infused two jars of oil with natural colorants, one with Annatto seed powder and one with Turmeric powder. The jars of oil have been waiting for me to put them to some kind of use. Incidentally, the oils can also be used in food making. Both herbs are also food herbs. Annatto is most commonly used in rice dishes, giving it a gorgeous yellow colour (from my reading) and I'm sure everyone is familiar with turmeric, widely used in Asian food.

Annatto on the left and turmeric on the right

I chose a low coconut oil recipe and made enough to fill my mold, plus a little extra. I haven't taken pictures of the main soap yet (that will happen later today) but here's a picture of the mini loaf, coloured with annatto and turmeric. Oh, I added a little bit of turmeric into the soap batter as well.

It's very lightly scented with sandalwood fragrance oil and there are calendula petals on the top. Calendula petals can also be used as a soap colorant and it's one of the very few botanicals that doesn't discolour in soap. This picture doesn't show the colour very well. It's much more obvious in the following picture. The scrap that the mini bar is resting on is the end cut of the loaf; some of the batter was left uncoloured to make the natural colours "pop".

I've already said that I'm always on the lookout for techniques I can implement in my soapmaking. I came across another, very simple, one that I will definitely be using. It was inspired by a pin that lead me to this website - Forest & Fauna - and a way of making your own chocolate chips. I had no intention of making my own chocolate chips but I could immediately see a way of implementing this in soap.

When I made another batch of "My Poop Don't Stink" this week, there was a little bit of batter remaining that wouldn't fit into the molds. Instead of letting it go to waste, I spread it on to one of my silicone trivets, one with a honeycomb mesh. This morning, I unmolded my little chocolate soap chips. Aren't they cute?

I intend to use them as confetti in a soap batter or as decorations on the tops of future soaps, once I have enough to do something with. They won't all be chocolate, as these are, but multi-coloured. And they're SO easy!