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!!

Jugaad

If you are a north Indian I won't have to explain what it the title means, but for the rest of us (I hail from south India) this is what my husband had to say when I asked him what it means (I'm not going to give it out right away...I need to build up the excitement).

As soon as I got married I moved to Gurgaon, a city very close to New Delhi and Hindi is the spoken language there. Luckily we studied it in school and even though my Hindi was very broken with a strong south Indian accent, I could follow conversations. At this point of time I would like to thank the Bollywood industry whose films I watched over the years and learnt more Hindi from here than at school. Now who wouldn't like to watch some lovey-dovey scenes and peppy dance numbers instead of learning sentence formation. Grammar is for dummies anyways!! :D

So I kept hearing this term 'jugaad' almost everywhere I went. 'We cannot find a part for this vehicle...no problem we can do some 'jugaad' 'is what the mechanic would say. Some days back this word was floating in my mind while still in bed, so first thing after waking up I asked my husband (who spent most of his childhood in north India and speaks Hindi better than his mother tongue Telugu) what would the English word for jugaad be. While he pondered, I asked if it meant creativity. He said, it could mean creativity, but also something more.

Just found out there is a whole Wikipedia page for this word. There is also a vehicle called 'Jugaad'!! :) I saw it a couple of times around some rural areas, but never got a ride in it. So basically my post is a waste??? Hey wait!! I will show you how I did jugaad! :P

You know the whole pledge I took about not making soap till I get back to India because of weight issues (not mine, but the soaps that have to be carried back in my bags). But soon enough the soap itch was getting too much to bear. So I scratched some internet pages to see if soap bars could be converted to liquid soap....Hallelujah they could be!! Some of my very first batch of goat's milk soaps were lying in the cupboard and had lost almost all the scent, so I scraped them up and added them to just about steaming distilled water, like the recipe said. I don't know where I found the recipe...just google it if you want to try. 

The old Goat's milk bar. I added 3 bars, about 200 gms
to about 7 tea cups of water. The recipe wasn't strict about the water

Soap shaving...I am craving something caramel right now

Into the pot of hot water

I stirred in a little bit of pumpkin seed oil (the recipe said you could add any oil for some moisturizing). In the end after the solution cooled down in went about 10 ml of Lemon essential oil.

I think it's ready

After some time, two layers...separation??
I don't know.
I just shook the heck out of it till it mixed again.
;)

Well the soap solution is quite nice. We have been using it for a few days now and it isn't drying out my skin like the store bought liquid handwash. This is how I tackled the no soaping situation.

Jugaad, according to Wikipedia is an innovative fix or a work-around a problem. Many solutions to everyday problems lie in this widely used concept in India.

Do share your jugaad stories...would love to read them!!

I'm off to jugaad something for lunch! ;)

Soap rescue!!

I have some good news to share! My broken heart got mended with the help of the microwave..YAY!! The yellow spots in my last batch of soap were indeed essential oils that seeped out due to the high speed trace and also a little seize situation. I tried to go to sleep thinking 's*** happens' but the next morning decided to go and lick my soaps again. :P Get this people...no sting...only lots of essential oil fragrance that hung on in my mouth for quite long. I licked and re-licked and confirmed it wasn't undissolved lye (I poured it through a strainer when I made the soap, so it was kinda impossible to get so many yellow spots) and then took the knife to it. My mom and dad helped with the chopping and grating and we had about 2.5 kilos of finely chopped and grated soap noodles in no time.

Then in small batches I microwaved the soap with just a tad of water, mixed the whole soap thoroughly and poured it into the mold again to set up. The next morning rustic looking and lovely smelling soap!! Zap test....Hallelujah!! The soaps are still quite soft to the touch, due to the extra water, but a couple of extra weeks of curing should take care of that, I hope.

I tried the re-batch thing only once before and hated it (I used the freezer bag in boiling water method) so much I called my soap 'Scrap c***'. But with the microwave it was very easy and quick. I chopped up the soap into really tiny cubes, so that and the soap being pretty fresh might have helped with the quick melting. I feel pretty smug about the whole soap saving thing!! :)

I have another batch of soap in the mold and have my fingers crossed hoping it won't wipe the smugness right off my face! ;)

Soapnuts

Is anyone else having problems with blogger?? I am just not able to leave comments on many lovely blogs. The drop down list which enables you to select the profile.....well, there is no drop down list for me. If I try Internet Explorer, no matter how many times I sign in, it doesn't log me in. This happened before too, but it automatically corrected itself out...but not this time. :(  I use Chrome by the way. Does anyone know what to do?

On a more soapy note, some of the 'Everfresh' soaps I had poured into individual molds. The colors didn't turn out like I hoped and the soaps were still a little soft when I took them out of the molds (Yes!! Impatience can be my other name). So I cut those up and tried to re-batch. I called them 'Fuglies' for a few days before grating them up. 

Now I call them Soapnuts!!