This batch of soap did not go at all smoothly. First off, I was trying to do this while cooking dinner, on my own because R was not yet home from work. Yeah…not a good idea.
Anya was very helpful, in her own goofy way.
Glycerin blocks smell “Mmm!”, she says.
As I was attempting to scent these bars with tea alone, instead of supplementing with essential oils, I let the tea steep for a couple of hours first. So far, so good.
A mixture of green tea plus thyme and basil from our herb garden. Smells divine.
No, the issues I encountered were threefold:
- Kai was in no mood for a multitasking mother.
- I had no idea how to suspend herbs in a glycerin base. Or how to make soap using tea. Actually, I really had no idea what I was doing. Nor did I research beforehand; we just followed our instincts. Which weren’t exactly on target.
- Anya decided to help while I paused to deal with Kai.
And I even put in some green coloring.
What all this means is that the soap, while it smells good, is more lightly scented than I’d intended. And more Ricola brown than green tea green. Plus, rather than being suspended throughout the bar, almost all the herbs sank to the bottom (now top) of the bars. Which have ragged edges rather than clean ones because Kai was yelling at me while I poured them, and I bumped the mold and soap sloshed everywhere. Then Anya stirred them while they were half hardened, so they’re a bit lumpy on bottom.
Not bad, just not quite what we’d had in mind.
Still, they’re nice soaps. I offered to melt them down so we could try again, but Anya decided to keep them as they are. And her instincts were not wrong; we have been using one of the small soaps as a tester (as we do with each batch), and it’s really quite lovely – I think it’s my favorite of all the soaps we’ve made so far. We may revisit this recipe later on to perfect it, though.
Sakura Oliver 