Latest creation

I am a sucker for citrus scents and I have all my soaps to prove that. Sparing one of two soaps, all my bars have a hint of citrus somewhere. Here in India spring sneaks in very quietly and before we can actually get a feel for it, the hot summer sun is blazing away. Here is a 'Whiff of Spring' before it vanishes.

Made with coconut, palmolein and olive oils and scented with grapefruit and bergamot esssential oils. The two layers have been colored with wheatgrass and calamine clay. 

Have a great weekend people!! :)

~Nitya

Happiness is handmade

'Soap and Soup for your Soul' hampers for my yearly Diwali sale

Where did one whole year go? I wanted to update the blog and kept postponing it to the next day almost everyday and without noticing, a whole year went by. My oh my!!!

The past year has been fruitful though...now I sell my soaps under the name 'Amoda Handmades' and Amoda means happiness in Sanskrit. I use the tagline 'happiness is handmade', which I thought of about 2 years ago on a train ride through the Austrian alps. I remember struggling really hard to have something related to happiness as that is what Amoda means and then it sudden struck like lightning and it made perfect sense. Amoda Handmades and the tagline should be registered trademarks in a few months from now and I can't wait.

Some more things I did in the past year:

My website is up and running. It is a very basic one but I wanted to have a place where people who are interested can visit and see the soaps.

Made many lip balms and finally settled on a recipe made with very few ingredients but the balm keeps the lips moist and also lasts decently long on the lips.

Tried my hand at liquid soap making. The result...slightly cloudy soap, but that doesn't bother me that much. I didn't use any alcohol or glycerine or sugar solution. Also didn't start with a lye heavy soap, as I didn't want to add any neutralisers towards the end. I quite like the concept of liquid soap and can't wait to churn out more batches. The only thing that pained me, is the really long cooking time.

Made a sugar scrub...didn't like it that much. The sugar was too coarse. Need to work on that this year.

Got some soap racks made to accommodate more soaps, hope to get some big orders too this year.

Got a soap cutter made. Had to make corrections. Still needs some more corrections.

I kept the best thing for the last...I got me a new little puppy. <3 Soo not related to soap in any way, but he is a real bundle of joy.

Hope everyone has had a good year and wish you all a very happy, peaceful and successful 2014!

~Nitya

Soaping in full swing again

I can't believe I haven't blogged for such a long time!! I hate to admit, but sometimes there are things more important than soap. And now I can't believe I had the nerve to even say that!! The  past few months were really busy for me. It all started off with three sales in two different cities. They went well and I had one returning customer who was looking for a particular rose soap she bought from me last year. Unfortunately I had none of those left, but she agreed to try a different one. The feeling of having a returning client is unexplainable...I felt so thrilled and satisfied. Following the sales we had cousins coming from different parts of the world. It's so great to be able to meet up with family and we had a blast talking about our childhood and going to the movies and also many many family potluck dinners. And while I was having a great time with my folks, my soap stock slowly started dwindling to a point where I had no more soaps to sell. Wake up!!!!!

Thankfully I got bitten by the soap bug all over again. YAY!!!

Rose: Scented with Geranium FO and
colored with Calamine and cocoa powder

Very Vanilla: Colored with Cocoa powder and Kaolin clay and
scented with Vanilla FO

Scented with Rosemary EO. This contains a mix of ground lentils
also known as Sunni Pindi (in a south Indian language...Telugu)

Peppermint, Eucalyptus and Bergamot EO's

Thin line colored with wheatgrass powder

Scented with Basil, Citronella and Lemongrass EO's
and colored with cocoa powder

I'm finding it hard to try out any new swirl techniques because of so many almost seize and volcano situations. But I still get a high every time I soap and the excitement at the time of unmolding and cutting up the soap to see the design....I feel like a little kid with a wrapped up gift in hand, waiting to open it up. :)

Have a great day people and happy soaping!!

It's hot in the soap kitchen! (picture heavy)

There have been no posts for sometime and that is only because many batches of soap were being whipped up in the kitchen. My candle making cousin and I are getting ready for a sale around 'Diwali', more popularly known as the 'festival of lights' outside India.

Each batch of soap ended up surprising me. When I expected everything to go smoothly, I ended up with some pretty rough looking soap. And when I kept the design very simple anticipating overheating, the soap didn't even gel. Before I get all whiny, I'll just shut my trap!!

Here are some pictures:

Scented with
cedarwood, frankincense and grapefruit EO's
Swirled with red sandalwood and wheatgrass powder
Happy Surprise!
EO blend worked beautifully!

Madder root experiment.
Scent blend: Palmarosa and Patchouli
Almost seize situation.
Embeds got wonky from banging the mold on the counter

Plain Eucalyptus soap
Colored with wheatgrass
Went as planned, just couldn't do away with the soda ash

Like the swirls, but had a very hard time with this soap.
Mold lining bent, so not a perfect round.
Scent blend: grapefruit and vanilla.
Brown colored soap seized halfway into pouring! Yikes!
Got some solid air pockets in some soaps.
A lovely scent blend though!!

Leftover special.
Made with soap scraps and leftover essential oils.
These soaps are just for me!!

Vanilliscious!
Scented with Vanilla fragrance oil.
Things didn't go too smoothly this time.
Controlled a slight volcano situation,
by smoothing out the soap with a spatula :D

Basil, lemongrass and citronella scent blend. Great blend!!
A dash of neem oil.
Seize-o-rama!!
Scoop, glop, smooth!!
Scoop, glop, smooth!!
Design turned out not quite like planned, but not totally off either. 

Never in my wildest dreams did I expect Orange EO to misbehave.
Scent blend: Orange, pimento berry.
Jazzed up ever so slightly with calendula petals.

Orange, cedarwood EO blend.
Cocoa powder and turmeric swirls.
I like it! 

Lemon-eucalyptus, lemongrass and rosemary.
First batch of soap that I remade!
(the earlier batch was a hot seller)

Rosemary and peppermint soap with a dancing cocoa line!

The superstar!!! B)

There is yet another batch of soap in the mold and I am waiting for it to cool off. Hope everyone is having a great week! 

~Nitya

Soooo purple!!

I'm back with the very last purple trial. After this soap batch, I decided to call myself a pro, coz I now know how to exactly work with alkanet. How much root, how much powder, what oils to infuse in, for how long, how much infused oil to use to always get a consistent purple that is just right for a lavender soap. Did you fall for all that?? I lied!! :P

After making the easy batch by adding alkanet powder directly to soap, I realized it was too scratchy to shower with. The next time around I infused alkanet powder in olive oil and used that in soap. I got too light a purple and after curing it faded some more and turned somewhat grey. Actually I can't describe the color. In some angles it appears grey and in some angles it appears purplish. Or it is just my mind playing games with my eyes.

So for this batch I infused the alkanet root in olive oil and used 10% of that oil along with the base oils.
Result:

Quite a dark purple there. Next time a little less
infused oil. 

I almost forgot to mention, there was a soap volcano again. I might just become a volcano soap specialist one of these days. For now I will stop the lavender soaps, as I still have to try out some pinks.

Ta ta!!

Spice up the Myrtle

Myrtle and spice and all things nice!! That's what I kept saying all the while I made this soap. The soap gremlins were not too nice to me though. Just before making this soap, I was thinking of how it had been a while since I had any soap disasters happening in the kitchen. And with the kind blessings of Mr. Murphy, we had a soap volcano.

Lessons learnt during this soaping session:
- Try to keep it cool in the kitchen. Use a fan.
- Clove can not just spice things up, it can heat them too...especially soap. I knew this, but wasn't prepared.

Right after pouring the soap into the mold, I was trying to get things a little organised and I saw it happen right before my eyes. The soap was slowly rising and bubbling. All I could do was go WHOA! WHOA! WHOA!! Like that was going to calm the soap down. Then I ran with the mold (Note to self and others: DON'T DO THAT!! The hot soap could bubble out and fall on you) to the dining table, under the fan and tried to stir and release the heat. That wasn't working, so I WHOAED my way to the kitchen, grabbed a big pot and WHOAED all the way back to the table just in time to get the soap into the pot, before it bubbled onto the table. After a few moments of stirring and singing a 'Please don't separate and ruin the mold' song, the baby calmed down. I carefully tucked it into a blanket to catch any leaks just in case it decides to wake up and get angry again and tucked myself in for the night too. Thankfully nothing happened. I guess, I am one good singer!! ;)

Rustic looking Myrtle soap

Scented with Myrtle and Cypress essential oils

This was my first soap volcano, but not the last. Will share about another adventure soon!!

Lavender again

Last time the lavender soap was made with Alkanet powder added directly to the soap at trace. I did get a purple, but not one I liked. Plus the soap is speckled quite a bit. 

This time around the alkanet powder was infused in castor oil for some days. This castor oil I used along with the base oils (about 3%). Outcome:

I whipped up some air into the soap

I like it a lot more than the previous lavender soap, but I'll try again. After a few weeks of curing, the color is more greyish than purple and there is a layer of soda ash. Grrr!! I cling wrap the soap after pouring it into the mold and when it is time to cut, there is absolutely no ash at all. But a few days later it magically forms on the top. I wish there is some way to avoid it altogether.

Have a great day everyone!!

Honey, honey!!

It's been three months since I moved back to India and I have loved every bit of it. What a wonderful feeling to be back home!! I love that everything is so familiar. Casual chit-chat with total strangers, vegetable shopping at the farmer's markets, valuable lessons of honesty learnt from a ripe old granny selling vegetables at the market (I will never forget her), hardworking people who come door to door selling wares...anything from oils to steel utensils. :)

So, a few weeks back I opened the door to a person selling honey freshly taken out of the hive. Though I already had an unopened jar of honey I got from the supermarket, that didn't stop me from buying another kilo from the kind person at the door. He had just taken it out a couple of hours back. He filtered it right before my eyes and told me to store the honey at room temperature. I could see the beeswax in the big container and I asked if he could sell it to me. Didn't have much luck there, as it was already sold. But he promised to get me some the next time around. 

Time for a honey soap!! My generous cousin shared some beeswax with me, so it was time to get bubbly.  Made with coconut, palm and olive oils, beeswax and of course wild honey: 

I just love the honey color and lovely honey fragrance

Gelled almost the instant it went in the mold.
Just about avoided a volcano situation.
Thank God for fans!!!

Beehive pattern.
Some of the air bubbles were already popped.
I wonder who did it!! ;)

Beeswax makes some really hard soap.
Added  just about 3%.

Next post will be about how soap can climb out of the mold. LOL!!

Going for lavender and wheatgrass soap update

I love soap with natural colors. Granted, I can't get all colors with natural stuff and not to forget how fickle they are to play around with, but still, there is something that I just so totally love about them. This time around the quest was for a lavender colored soap. 

I read so much about alkanet and have been wanting to try it out for a really long time. The nudge to actually look for a supplier and order it, came from the very lovely Claudia from alegriamediterranea soaps. :)
Thank you Claudia, I'm going for lavender this time because of you!!

Outcome when alkanet powder was added directly at trace:

Immediately after pouring soap into the mold. A light cement grey

The soap gelled and darkened

Final outcome. 

Not happy with this lavender color. I remember reading that the color lightens while curing, but I still have to see that happen. Vegetable oils used: Coconut, palm and olive. High percentage of coconut oil. 

I will need to go for that lavender again. Just made another batch. This time the alkanet was infused in castor oil for a week. Fingers crossed! 

A few weeks back I made a soap with my cousin with Tea tree and peppermint EO and used wheatgrass powder to color it green. Here is how it changed over time. 

Taken right after it was cut

Taken right after it was cut

A month later

Slight fading

There has been a slight bit of fading, but I usually see that happen with all natural colors. Jennifer I hope you try out wheatgrass in soap. :)

Here comes the artist

I finally tried my hand at making flowers in soap and here's the outcome:

Turmeric soap meets cocoa flowers

Here's how they came out of the mold:

My art skills surprised me ;)

I love this mold. It is actually used to sort and store jewellery. It make great guest size soaps. And yes, I still see a soap mold in every container. :)

Scented with Orange EO and Lavender FO and colored with turmeric and cocoa powder. A vegetable soap with coconut, palm, sunflower and wheatgerm oils.

Couldn't escape the soda ash even with a cling wrap cover

More soaps in my next post...adios!! 

Going green again

Here's yet another soap colored with wheatgrass as I couldn't get enough of it in the castile soap, which by the way has still not set. Wheatgrass imparts a very elegant green to soap and me loves a green soap. So here I combined tea tree and mint essential oils to help a pimply teenager (my cousin). She wanted to see how soap is made and we had a blast that evening with a lot of weighing, stirring and giggling. The partly liquid coconut oil refused to come out of the bottle with a micro mini opening and we both had to squeeze it out with all our might. And when the stubborn thing actually came out, it was all over my clothes.
Here's a tip I found on the internet: rub shampoo into the oil stain without wetting the cloth and then put it in the washing machine with other laundry. Worked like magic. :)

Brown and green layers 

The brown swirls on top didn't work out like how
I wanted and since it was a very small batch,
a lot of air bubbles got whipped in

Coffee beans on top was my cousin's idea

Have a great bubbly week!!

Experimenting continues

The experimenting continues with so many things all around, just waiting to get into that soap pot. This time around it is for that light pink color.

Take 1:

How's that for a light pink?? Yuck!

Take 2:

A little too light, but I can live with this :)

I used Kumkum to color these. 

Kumkum is the red powder applied to the forehead by women in India, made by mixing turmeric or saffron with slaked lime.

I have been having serious shelf-life issues here. So this is also an experiment with wheatgerm oil. The first batch was made without and the second one with wheatgerm oil. I also ditched the olive oil for sunflower oil. Kept reading that olive oil could be the culprit, although I don't think substituting with sunflower oil was too wise, considering it's already short shelf-life. Will wait and watch. 

Happy soaping there!!

Three soaps with one stone...err mould!!

People have already hit two birds with one stone, so that would be boring to try again. Plus why would I want to hit a bird??

All the pent up soaping energy had to put somewhere, so many ideas swirling in my head and many more scribbled into many books. If I had to try one new idea at a time, I would be dead long before all the ideas get exhausted (exaggerating here). And what happens to all the new ones that keep popping up all the time?? So I decided to put three new ideas into one cauldron.

- Wheatgrass powder to get that green
- Room temperature method
- In the pot swirl

The stone was thrown right back at me. Ouch!! I could hardly seen any swirls, so decided to mix the whole thing up to get a homogeneous extremely light, barely there green (almost cream) color. A castile soap that refused to harden after more than 24 hours. No gel due to the room temperature method. Did I forget anything else...ah yes, some oils were slowly seeping out. I wanted to wait it out and see what happens. Patience is a virtue, which is definitely not mine. So.....

I threw the whole thing into a big pot and set it on fire. Not really! I hot processed it and added some more wheatgrass with a little water for a darker green. The beautiful scent of Mint and Tea tree was replaced with a grass smell. Yuck!! But luckily it sobered down and the nice scent surfaced out again. The soap is still resting in the moulds. I might have to leave it there for a couple of days.

Let me share some before and after pics:

Not much of a color contrast there,
so I stirred the whole thing up. It turned
a lighter green the next morning.

Post HP with added wheatgrass. Still very gooey to
unmould.

Patience is definitely not my virtue but 'repentance in hindsight' for sure is!! All the joys of soap making!!
Will share pictures of cut soap as soon as it sets up...maybe in a year or two. LOL!!

Hanging up those invisible shoes

I finally hung up those invisible shoes that kept creeping onto my feet so often. Here I am back in India, in the city where I was born, grew up, went to college and got married. It feels great to be back after leaving this lovely city almost 9 years ago, right after I got married.

The past month was exciting and chaotic and I barely had enough time to breathe. After our tenants moved out, the house had to be painted and cleaned and furnished, well partly-furnished...I still have a ton of things to buy. I hated and loved every minute of the past month though. Hated that I had to get all the things done by myself in the fantastic heat and humidity, but loved laboring to get the house my husband and I so dearly dreamt of, in order.

Now that I have time to breathe and a little more to spare, things are going to get soapy again. :)

Before going back to Austria in January I made a couple of batches of soap so they would be cured and ready to greet me on my return to India. I tried my hand at the spoon swirl and let's just leave it at that. The color contrasts were very subtle, almost too subtle to notice any swirls. Plus I just wanted to finish using up the Lemon-Eucalyptus EO.

Another one was a coffee soap, made with brewed filter coffee. I love the scent and surprisingly after 3 months of curing it still smells like coffee. Maybe it is due to the 20-30% chicory added to the coffee beans in India. The soaps got generously showered with coffee beans for decoration, which have been falling off with every fondle.

Some of these coffee soaps I gave as Mother's Day gifts to my aunts and a cousin, all wonderful mothers who spend so many hours in the kitchen.

I leave you with a picture and promise to be back soon with more soap pictures of new creations.

Please don't notice the ribbon edges...again no time to breath
applies plus couldn't locate the scissors.

Soda ash on the top.... not too bad.
Missing coffee beans....no comments!! :D