I *love* the smell of lilac. I have a bush outside that flowers for a sparse couple of weeks in the spring, and I bring in fresh bouquets of lilacs every day until they are gone. When I received a sample of Bramble Berry’s lilac fragrance oil, I loved it enough to buy the 4oz. size.
On Wednesday, we tried making a batch of it. I set out bowls for green oxide and purple mica. We soaped at 90-95 degrees. I mixed the fragrance oil into the oils just before I added the lye. I let Jessica do the mixing, and gave her the instructions to run the immersion blender in pulses of 5 seconds, and then manually stir the mixture in between.
After running the immersion blender 2 times, she says, “It’s really getting hard!” I peer over her shoulder into the pot, and it was ALREADY approaching clay-consistency. Pudding was long gone. I curse and have her quickly hand over the gloves and the goggles. We had to move FAST. I spooned the soap into the 2 color bowls, but mixing would have to be done by hand. The green mixed rather well, but not the purple. I am starting to understand that micas only work if you can blend them in with the immersion blender. And even then…. oxides still look brighter and nicer.
Happy with the green!
Jessica started smoothing a layer of green into the mold… I topped it with the “purple” AKA brown and then she topped that with the rest of the green. I think we did the best we could.
It was pretty much like sculpting at this point.
Beware of the purple mica bombs!
Encouraged gel. Not like it wouldn't have anyway.
This was such a hot soap. The whole next day, the mold was warm to the touch. I just left it in the oven until today. Here are the unmolding pics:
Caught some air.
More air.
The cut pics:
Here’s a closeup, lest you be seduced by the clever attention-diverting crinkle cut:
Probably not a facial soap.
So anyway, my vision of a purple and green soap did not exactly come to fruition. Oh I’ll still use it. And if I get purple mica smears, what the shower does not rinse off, my tattoos will camouflage.
Note to self for future BB Lilac FO usage: stick with one color, and blend it into the soap before adding the fragrance. Then add it in, and work quickly to get it in the mold!
(I still love you, Bramble Berry. I wish I knew how to quit you!) Sorry. I didn’t even see that movie.
Tentacled Monotony 