More CP Soaps!

I've pretty much been spending any and all my free time the past week or so making more cold process soap. Yup, I've been bitten; I knew it would happen eventually. It's way fun, and I love experimenting with different oil/liquid combinations to see what happens. I've been keeping all my batches small, 1-1.5 lbs, until I figure out which recipe(s) I really want to focus on for my shop. For now, it's just playing :)

Here's what I've been up to:

This one came out really cool; the predominant oil used was unprocessed shea butter; I was trying to use up the last of what I had on hand so I could justify buying some of the processed kind. I know the unprocessed is better for your skin, but personally, I don't like the smell. I use the shea in my lip butter balm recipe, and

it's time to change it up a bit. I'll be ordering the deodorized version soon, and hopefully that will make the lip butter more palatable to me. I haven't heard anyone else complain about it, and in fact I know that some people enjoy the scent of raw shea butter, but it really irks me :P
SO anyway, this soap's got a funny berry-like scent to it, which was strange because I scented it with the most awesome blend of Indian sandalwood and some vanillas... it smelled SO GOOD while stirring it. After curing though, it's got an almost grapey smell. So... I won't be making CP with that scent blend again, which is unfortunate; at least I've still got my M&P soap :D. The bars came out nice and hard, after just 24 hours of cure time- can't wait to see how they do after a few weeks!

This one I'm not too sure about; it's my 3rd batch (ever) and it came out kinda funny. It took FOREVER to trace, and I poured it into the mold, still runny. It eventually gelled, and solidified, but it's got soap ash all over the top of it and it's still a bit spongey feeling. Granted, as I type this, it's less than a week old, so it's going to take some time to cure, but it just didn't seem to come out as well as my first and second soaps did. We'll see though, maybe it will be awesome.

This one came out so awesome, I'm totally psyched about it. It's a pumpkin beer soap, made with Saranac Pumpkin Ale, and scented with Sweet Pumpkin, and topped with a sprinkling of real pumpkin pie spice! The combination of the beer and the fragrance oil make this soap smell like fresh-baked pumpkin bread; it's absolutely divine. It even looks like pumpkin pie- I hope that when I go to replicate this one in a larger batch it comes out just as nice.
That's it for now; be sure to check back later- I have more pics of more soaps I need to upload!