Earthy HP Soap

 
     I've been making soap for 8 years, mostly just for the use of my own family, and everybody loves it because we all know how gentle they are for our skin. I don't really go around giving my soaps to people who isn't familiar with handmade soaps. Some people don't feel comfortable with handmade soaps, and might toss my precious bars made with good quality of oils and butters into a bin, and that's understandable, but no, with all expensive oils and butters, my soaps aren't belong to the bin, also I am not a kind of pushy person, so I just happily give it to those who interests and asks for and really want to try.

    Like all my close friends, from Thailand, they know that I make my own soaps, and they never have any interests in it before, so I never tell them how good handmade soaps are until lately. Some of my friends saw pictures of my soaps I posted on FB, and all of the sudden, they wanted to try handmade soaps. So when a friend of mine came to NYC, I gave a batch of ten bars of cocoa butter soaps to her to bring back to Thailand and she shared with everyone. Now all of them love it and ask for more.

    lately, I made four batches of ten bars in different natural addictive for this group of friends again when she said that she was coming to NYC, and happy to carry more than three kilo of soap all the way back to Thailand. In return, she carried all kind of Thai goods, like yummy salted king fish, many kinds of dry Num-Prik (Thai chili dipping) and much more with her and gave it to me....now we are going back to a stone age when people exchange things for living, and I love it.

   It is a good thing to give things to people who really understand the value of it because they will always treasure it.

HP Charcoal Soap

I love making soap, but, lately, I was so busy with my sewing machine, and my soap pot was abandoned until the last bar of all the soaps I made for the past five years was used, then I woke up! I have to say that I was a little panic knowing that there were no more soaps in the shelf....and I can't live with the idea that I have to go back and buy soaps again....So I had to leave the sewing machine, and got back to a soap pot, Fast!

There was no time for CP soap, our last bar was as thin as paper, the CP soaps takes at least three weeks to cure, and I couldn't wait.

The HP soaps have become my emergency soaps, since I can use them as soon as the soaps dry. This batch of charcoal soap is my third batch of HP soaps, and the first batch that I had time taking photos of them....Even though HP soaps are so easy and fast to make, the CP soaps are still my favorite when it comes to making soaps.

Mangosteen HP soap for the recuse

We are totally running out of our handmade soap. My last bar in a shower is now as thin as a paper, which, I think, can give me another 3-4 days of rubbing.

Obviously, I need an emergency new batch which is usable within a week, and I can't do that with CP (cold process) soap, which normally takes, at least, 4 weeks to cure and be usable.

So, HP soap is the only solution I have now (buying the store soaps has become prohibit in our house since I started making soaps.)

Because of this is an emergency batch and also my first time making HP soaps, I thought I better made it a small batch - only 20oz. - perfect for four of the 5oz soap molds.

And yep!...first time's already charmmmm for me. My HP soap didn't want to come out from its molds - maybe because of there is too much  soft oils I used for this batch - I hit, kicked, threw them on the floor, put in the freezer....nope!!...nothing came out.

The only way-out I had was to scoop it out with a spoon, which means I will not get pretty bars of soap as I expected, for sure.

I decided to reshape them, and pretend they are cool stone-like soaps, which I think will look cool in my shower anyway. I also got two extra muffin soaps for hand watching in the kitchen when I ran out of molds.

Next project waiting is lip balms and winter lotion. Spending time in Thailand for four months left me so many things to get done here in NYC.

Labeling Lip Balms

When I first finished a new batch of Avocado lip balm, I thought I'd going to make labels for them right away, but then, as you see, they were still sitting in a jar naked since.


My plan was I's going to make fifteen different design labels for this batch. Clearly, I was delirious thinking that I have time to play around.



So I ended up spending five minutes on PS whipping out only this design labels, and left it in my computer, until my husband printed it out recently because he was going to give some to his friends.

And that, all my lip balms are dressed up, eventually.

Making Lip Balm

When the hot wind has gone, it's time to embrace the cool air, and that's when my skin starts to screaming.

It's time for me to go back to my beauty kitchen after living lotion-free for all Summer long. First thing is lip balms, we completely ran out of it - this time I made about fifteen tubes with sweet grape flavor. It smells delicious.


I actually love the look of lip balm tins or jars, it looks cute as a packaging, but I don't like the way of using it with the fingers, so I stick with tubes for now.

This recipe is my favorite. The consistency is perfect for me - not too thick, nor too greasy on my lips, and the whole thing is very easy to make.

This recipe makes about 14-15 tubes of .15 oz. lip balm tube. I ordered the tubes form here , and the oils here

.8 oz. Babassu oil or Coconut oil
.8 oz. Avocado oil
.8 oz. Bee Wax
.4 oz. Cocoa butter
2 tablets of Vit E
20 drops flavor oil


I use the standard size filling tray which fit .15 oz. tube for easy filling.


Start making....Ohhh...you're going to love it, it's very easy.

1. melt every thing together in microwave except Vit E and flavor oil which will be added in after all the oil and butter is melted....and that's it!
2. use plastic pipettes to fill the melting liquid into the tubes.


It's better to over fill the tube since the balm tend to sink creating a tiny dimple in the middle of the tube when it hardens. You can always scrape out the excess balm with the scraper.

Bring the excess balm to melting again and use the liquid to fill the dimple if it happens.


Scrape all the excess balm to get a perfectly smooth surface and let them cool down a bit then slowly slip the tubes out of the tray.


Nicely done! What I'm going to do next is to design the label...truly a fun part, but I have no idea when it's going to happen....

Oh...My Swirl Soaps

I love clean natural looking kind of soaps, and that is how most of the soaps I make always end up look like.

When one of Thaibubbles's member decided to host new challenge under a theme "Swirl", I just thought...well....it's a good time to try on making some fancy looking soaps now.



And this just how far fancy I can go. It's obvious that I can't make my name on fancy soaps at all.

Label Them...Don't Go Plain

I wanted to send my newest herbal Mangosteen soaps to our best friends, Roger & Wanyi, living in Canada as a gift. They both love handmade soaps and all things natural.

First, I wanted to just send them out with plain wraps because I didn't have time to jazz them up. Then my husband came to rescue using his magic wand to whip out these sticker labels for me.






It is much better than plain wraps. Who would argue.

Mangosteen Delight

Another batch of Mangosteen soap I made for the Thaibubbles challenge . The theme was Natural Colorant, which was such a perfect theme for me since I am now so into Magosteen powder and want to make more of Mangosteen soaps, so I used them to color this batch.




I left the top part uncolored and scented them with fresh laundry FO from Snowdrift Farm. It smells really like a laundry room.

Mangosteen Soaps

Finally!...I have my Mangosteen soaps after had been sitting aside watching Thai soapers who has an easy access using this wonderful Mangosteen powder in there soaps for quite sometimes.

I've known Mangosteen for all my life. They are one of my favorite fruit. We even have Mangosteen orchard at my grandma house, still I never know that they have good health benefit for our body.



So, the last time we went back to Thailand, I made sure that one of the list I'd bring back to New York is Mangosteen powder. My mother in law give me a big box of them, enough for me to make a thousand of soaps out of these powder.

This weekend, I just got wooden letter-presses from flea market. They make it perfect for making the mark on the soaps.

Chinese Opera on Bars

I went to grocery shopping in Chinatown yesterday and these are among the items I brought home, Chinese soaps.

I never use these soaps before, and using them wasn't the main purpose of me buying them, either (I have a basket full of soaps I made that I am responsible to finish them all.)


I bought them because of their packages - something of this packaging design that caught my eyes.

The colors and graphic they used reminds me of the beautiful Chinese opera and Old Chinese movies, I grew up watching them my eyes out everyday, with rich and vibrant colors and delicate pattern that goes together beautifully.


To me, even though I don't see that it says Chinese, I can indicate them from miles away that they are Chinese soaps. Their appearance obviously show the oh-so classic - Chinese art. Love them.

Sweet Almond Lotion Bar.

My sweet almond lotion bar with a yummy scent of coconut and vanilla.


My skin has been screaming dry since day one I got back from Thailand to an icy street of New York City. I feel like having something to easily rub it on my skin, especially on rough and dry spots like a back of my hands, elbows, feet with no oozy-mess feeling of lotion or cream.

So, lotion bar is my choice. It is very easy to make, just an equal part of oil, bee wax and butters, melt together in microwave, (in my bar, I later added 2 tablets of vitamin E and a tiny dash of FO) stir well, pour into a mold, let it cool. When it hardens, it will pop off the mold.



I made one 1.50 oz. bar for myself just that I don't want to stock up on this kind of thing. Spring is just around the corner, this perfect palm-size bar will last me until then.



Now, I keep it within reach, rub it on only the spots that is needed, whenever I need it - truly a good stuff to keep close to my hands and get rid of the itchiness.

Oh-So Coconut shell.

Coconut shell soap tray with my handmade coconut lavender soaps.

During our last visit at Jatujak market, the biggest weekend market in Thailand, of our trip in Thailand, I saw a lot of coconut shell products there, from home furniture, lamps, handbags, buttons, tableware, kitchenware etc. all that can be made out of these versatile coconut shell, they were all there.

I remember the first time I saw the coconut shells made into something unseen-of was almost fifteen years ago. It was coconut shells made into woman evening bags and some forms of jewelry by my friend, Moo, who's then living on Koh Tao, a diving paradise island in the Gulf of Thailand.


He opened a small shop and sold his crafts to visitors there before moving to UK five years later. All of the stuffs in his shop were made out of coconut shells, which I think it is a brilliant idea to make a living on the island full of coconut trees.

But then he designed to move to UK with his British girlfriend and got married there. His craft shop was closed eventually. My memories of seeing coconut shells in another forms of products was faded too.

its legs look a bit awkward to me. They don't go with the beautiful textured petals.



I believe the coconut shell products have been around for quite sometime, only that I wasn't there to see them rise.

So in this trip, I was so excited to see these coconut shells made into different kinds of shapes and forms and, of course, functions all over Jatujak market. I think these hard shells are cool in their own ways. I wish I had the ability to take them all home if the airline allowed me to pack more than 50 lb a bag.

Well then, all I could grab was these cute coconut shell soap trays. I bought enough for my friends as a gift to go along with my handmade soaps.

Some products made out of coconut shells at Jatujak market in Thailand.