Dared to go bare!!


Unscented soap with Frangipani flowers from my mom's garden.
Also known as Temple flowers they are my favourite flowers.
 I jut love their colors and scent. 
If not for my cousin who sneezes when she uses any kind of scented soap on her face, I don't really think I would have made an unscented soap. While moving back to India, almost 90 percent of the weight in my bags was due to soap or something soap related. But now I have a lot of happy guinea pigs (mom, grand-mom, aunts and cousins...maybe some friends too in a few days) trying out the soaps I made while in Austria. :)
Over the weekend my cousin came over to see how soap gets made and together we made the first batch of unscented soap and also the first batch of 'Indian' soap. Thankfully no soap volcanoes in spite of humidity and higher temperatures. I used coconut, olive, sesame and palmolein oils and kept the superfatting at 5%. Palmolein was something I had never worked with before and I was worried it would cause some problems. But Hallelujah to the world wide web and the teachsoap forum where some other soaper had the exact same doubt, whether palmolein and palm oil had the same SAP. She used the same SAP and so did I. It came to trace very quickly, but that wasn't much of a problem as I didn't have to add any essential oils or color or any herbs.

Though the soap is unscented it has it's very own scent, which my guinea pig cousin customer loved when the soap was being made. I hope this unscented scent doesn't give her the Achooooos!!

My mom generously offered to hold the soaps while I clicked.
The dark pink is another variant of Frangipani.
Again from my mom's garden


Just some plain soap

11 comments:

Angela said...

The pictures are adorable, the Frangipani flowers look absolutly beautiful, I would love to have them in my garden :-)
And Congratulations on your first Indian soap!!!

Alegria Mediterranea said...

Hi Nitya,
Congratulations for your wonderful soap!
I love floral soaps!
Keep doing your wonderful work,
Love&Bless,
Claudia

Sheryl said...

Nitya--your soap is gorgeous. I had never heard of palmolein--what is it?

claudia mold said...

I love these flowers and the scent!

Polly McNamara said...

What beautiful soap - as are the flowers. I live in Scotland so have ever seen frangipani flowers in real life but I do use the absolute in my body butters and the smell is amazing. A beautiful scent from a beautiful flower and the perfect flower for your lovely soap xx

Nitya said...

@Angela: Thank you! I am so super kicked that I could soap even in high temperatures. I love the Frangipani!! They are surprisingly very easy to grow. I am just not sure if they can survive in cold temperatures though.

@Claudia: Thank you so much!

@Sheryl: Red palm oil is refined bleached and deodorized and then when it is fractionated further for cooking usage it is called palmolein. Thank you for your lovely compliment!

@Claudia Mold: The Frangipani are my favourite flowers. I can keep smelling them all day...the flowers have a heady intoxicating fragrance.

@Miss Polly: What a lovely compliment!! Thank you! I have not used the frangipani fragrance oils, but would love to incorporate it into a soap one day. I am sure your body butter must smell heavenly. You live in a beautiful country that I wish to visit one day. :)

Bobbins and Balms said...

your soap looks lovely.
are your soaps sweating in india? when the weather is hot in london i have had problems with my soaps sweating and i have had to re-package them recently.

Amy W said...

The soap and flowers go together so beautifully! I've never had the pleasure of smelling a frangipani flower in real life, but I think I've smelled the fragrance oil. It was quite nice!

Nitya said...

@Bobbins and Balms: Thank you!! I was expecting my soaps to sweat like crazy because of the humid and above 35 degrees weather, but surprisingly they haven't. They still have a 4 week curing period to complete, so I will be looking out for the sweats.

@Amy: Thank you Amy! I haven't smelled the fragrance oil, but the real flowers smell heavenly. They are my favourite. I so wish I could send some real flowers over for you to enjoy. :)

Geetha said...

Hey Nithya saw in network blogs and came to know about ur blog. It's fabulous! Great going!

Nitya said...

Thanks for stopping by Geetha!! I blog about my soaping adventures here. :)