Well, I must say that I’m loving the look of my cold processed beer soap. Isn’t it pretty? No fancy designs, but I’m thrilled with its appearance. This is the soap that I made on Christmas day and it made 17 bars of soap. I still need to weigh the soap, but I’m thinking it’s about four ounces per soap bar.

Yesterday, I tested a tiny slice of the soap under running water and my goodness does it have some rich lather. I cannot wait for this soap to cure.

Although it’s a beer soap, it doesn’t smell like beer at all. Currently, it does have a faint smell, but I can’t place the scent. My daughter sniffed a soap sample and thinks it smells like cherries. Unscented soap is my favorite type of soap that I use for myself, however, I also make scented soaps using essential oils.

This was my first time creating beer soap, and I’ll be sure to make it again soon. Oh, I can’t wait for this soap to cure. But, I said that already. Do you want to know something? With each new soap that I make, I set aside a bar and place it on my nightstand so I can sniff. I know I know… crazy! But… I love the smell of artisan soap. Especially unscented soap, it has it’s own “clean scent.”

Today is Christmas, in our home we don’t really get into the holiday that much, but we do enjoy spending time together. I made one of my daughter’s favorite dishes; dhal, stir fry veggies and… chapati and I made soap! It’s been a few weeks since I’ve made soap, so I was really excited about preparing this soap loaf. During my “time off” of soapmaking I have made body butters and lip balms. I’ll have to write and post pictures of what I created.

A few days ago, I poured three bottles of Guinness draught stout in a Mason jar

and set it aside so it could go flat. Well… after 1.5 days it still wasn’t flat! There was still plenty of carbonation in the beer. I’ve read many reports not to use the beer that hasn’t gone flat because it could cause an explosion when lye is added to the mix. Hmm, since I didn’t want to wait any longer and, I felt that I could live with an eruption (if handled carefully) this morning, I went on and divided the beer into ziplock baggies and placed into my freezer and let it stay there until it becomes solid. Afterwards, I placed the frozen beer into my soap mixing bowl and slooowwllly added the lye. Guess what? No volcano! Of course, this doesn’t mean I can do this with every beer and… even though the soap wasn’t flat, I imagine it wasn’t as fresh as a newly cracked open beer.

Late this morning, I combined all my oils (liquid and solids)  in a large stockpot and turned the burner on low to melt the solid oils. Thie evening, I finally got around to combining the ingredients together and making my beer soap. Because the oils had set several hours their temperature was about 91F and the lye water, after the lye had dissolved into the beer, was 81F. I used one of my favorite recipes and simply tweaked it with the addition of beer and egg yolk.

I’m eager to sample this soap once it cures. Since I’m working on a much-loved recipe, I can only imagine that the addition of the beer and egg yolk will simply enhance the soap. From my research, the addition of beer produces a rich lather. We’ll see, most of my soapmaking recipes already do that and so I’m curious to see if there are any noticeable changes. The addition of egg yolk supposedly adds a creamy texture, again something I do see in some of my soaps but adding these ingredients might mean I can use them in place of others when I’m experimenting with new recipes. I can’t wait to cut this soap. Hopefully, it’ll be ready tomorrow.

A fun test will be to try this again with freshly frozen beer to see what happens. No, I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone to do, but I’ll definitely try it out. I’ll make sure I do my mixing outside.

Wishing those who celebrate it, a very Merry Christmas!

I’ve been eyeing a drying rack for quite some time and I’m finally going to make the purchase.

With the amount of soap that I’ve been making to have a dedicated rack for soapmaking, right? This is the one that I’ll be purchasing. No… I STILL haven’t made the purchase. I’m unsure why I’m still so hesitant. I dislike spending money, but the purchase is justifiable, so…

Also, I’ve decided to upgrade my stick blender. The one that I’ve been using has serviced me well for over fourteen years, however, I’m starting to get nervous about it and to be honest, I’ve been wanting to have a stick blender that detaches and… I’ve always wanted to have a backup blender, and so… I finally made a purchase. It’s not my ‘dream stick blender’, but if things get moving, I’ll think about upgrading to the one that’s on my Amazon wish list. Detachable stick blenders do make clean-up so much easier. I have one that I use for cooking (no, I don’t use it for soapmaking) and so I’ve purchased this blender. It should be arriving a few days after Christmas. Which is just too bad, since I won’t be able to use it when I make soap tomorrow. I’m thinking of making a beer soap and… I’m going to make a few valentine themed soaps. After all, it won’t be long before Valentines Day is here, right?

I’m on a roll with my cold processed soap. Yesterday, I finally got around to making my cold processed wine soap. The wine was purchased on Wednesday. I boiled 48 ounces of wine to remove the alcohol. Do you know, that about half evaporated when the wine boiled? Once the wine had cooled, I put in a ziplock bag and added to my freezer. This was my replacement for water. I typically freeze my liquids so when I add my lye to the liquid, it won’t get as hot. The added bonus is when I use something besides water (which is most of the time) I’m not scorching whatever liquid I choose.

And here’s how my soap looked yesterday, right after I poured it into its cedarwood mold. For the top, I added finely crushed hibiscus petals. I can’t say enough good things about this soap mold. The sides open which makes it extremely easy to release the soap from the mold once it’s set.

About five hours ago, I did remove the soap from my cedar mold. As you can see the design I added was layered and so it looks nothing like wine, but I don’t care. My daughter thinks it resembles a cake. This soap was still too soft and so it was placed back into its mold. Do you know that this is the first soap (in a long time) that will take over a day before it’s ready to be removed from the mold? Today is Friday, I most likely will check it on Sunday.