savoy052

I have been meaning for a while to post about how I use Aloe Vera in my products. I make an Aloe Vera soap with 100% of the liquid being Aloe Vera gel from the plants in my garden. Recently I also tried using the Aloe Vera gel from my garden in my moisturizing hand and body cream. I scented it with Spearmint and Lavender Essential Oils. I have posted about Grandma Aloe Vera before but here she is again, and she is just about to blossom!!! Grandma Aloe Vera was the very first Aloe Vera plant I had here. She was given to me as a cut off/shoot off from another plant about 5 years ago and was quite small at that point. Now, as a size reference for you, the top of the tallest stalk in the phot comes up to my nose!! I call her grandma because she has offered a lot of shoot-offs which I have re-planted and now the shoot-offs offer shoot-offs. She may be a great-grandma soon! Take a look in the photo at the two stalk-like things. Excuse the lack of proper terminology but most of what I know...

I feel honoured to have been awarded a Blog award by Sonja of Purali http://purali.blogspot.com/ Thank you Sonja! It is called the Liebster Blog (Nicest Blog) award and has been created to give relatively unknown blogs a spotlight. So now I would like to pass this blog award onto some new bloggers I have discovered and am really enjoying: Soap is Beautiful http://www.soapisbeautiful.com/ I recently discovered this delightful blog and am amazed at her showcases and photos!! Briny Bar soap http://brinybarsoap.blogspot.com/ I am not sure what I enjoy most about this blog - the photos of her innovations? Her wonderful and comical writing? Or hearing about her enthusiastic soap-making escapades... Sahara Supplies http://saharassoapmakingsupplies.blogspot.com/ I love this blog for the simple yet awesome skin care recipes she offers. I have tried out several and loved them!! Happy soaping and Happy blogging!! xo Jen

I have been wanting to create a lemon soap for a while (Essential Oil combination of Litsea Cubeba, Lemon, Lemongrass & Citronella) and have also wanted to try varying my salt soap recipe with different salt quantities and oils so I tried both at once. The whole soap room smells fresh and clean and citrusy right now, as I have just cut and stamped these. Not easy to get a clean-cut stamp with a salt soap. I love the colour FOR NOW. I made a Lemon Poppyseed soap a while back (http://jenorasoaps.blogspot.com/2010/06/lemon-poppyseed.html) which was coloured with Carrot Tissue Oil. It was a stunning yellow straight out of the mould, but after a few months it had faded almost completely. See recent photo of the same soap. So... I hope that the luscious yellow of the fresh salt soap stays more this time. Will let you know! Any other suggestions for natural bright yellow? Xo Jen

I did it! I got a great honey colour I love! It may not be as deep honey brown as I might have liked but I am really pleased. Wow.... I am on a roll! To get the richer honey colour, I simply soaped at higher temps and incubated lightly! You can see the richer colour when you see the lighter soap next to it. I loooooooove honey. In my tea.... in my coffee... in my Breakfast Oats Bake... on bread... on toast... in soap! I would love to see some examples of other honey soaps! Can you post links to photos in comments? Maybe someone would like to take on a honey soap showcase? Happy honey soaping! xo Jen

Wild Lavender Soap - fresh out of the mould I have finally achieved a Wild Lavender soap that I adore, although for some reason I am getting some serious bubbles! I don't really mind them but will work on getting this soap smoother in the future. For now, this is my soon-to-be-launched Naturalmente Mediterraneo Wild Lavender soap. In the end, I use Ratanjot instead of Alkanet but as I understand, they are basically the same. The wonderful thing about working with Ratanjot or Alkanet is the colour evolution during the curing period! This is the soap fresh out of the mould... I will try to remember to post a picture after 4 weeks curing. Honey Goat-Milk In my attempts to get a nice dark rich honey colour, it seems each batch of my honey goat-milk soap keeps getting lighter! As I have been soaping at lower temps lately (28º both oils & lye) I think that maybe that is what is having an effect on the colour of the honey soap. Usually when I make any soap with goat milk, I freeze the...