Cornflower soap

I made another batch of soap last week as, for some reason, we seem to be going through an awful lot of soap lately. I have been drying cornflower petals to use on top of soap so wanted to try that out and see what they looked like. I have heard the petals don't look so good when added to the soap mixture so perhaps they end up looking like mouse poo which I believe is also the result of using lavender in soap.

I have just been drying the flowers in the sun with glass over the container but not quite covering it up to prevent condensation. As we are having temperatures in the mid twenties already this early in spring, the flowers are dry at the end of the day. I had bought a packet of seeds a few months ago as well as two punnets of cornflowers so I won't be needing to buy cornflowers for soapmaking any time soon but if you do want to buy some they are available from soap suppliers like Green Living Australia.

I just might try adding the cornflowers to a batch of soap in the future to see what it looks like as the Green Living website says you can add them for texture as well as for colour. So I can see an experiment coming up.

Although the Pansy Mica colour didn't really fit in with the blue flowers on top I didn't want to use my coloured clays as I have had trouble with mixing them in properly lately even though I spend quite a bit of time trying to do that but have no trouble with the mica. It is by far my favourite colour and it would probably have been better to use lavender on the top to match the mica but I didn't have any available to use.

I used the same recipe as last time as I wanted to use the cocoa butter I bought from Racheal at Birdsong Market Garden. I am not sure if it has a use-by date but I imagine that butters would. I just changed the colours and fragrance oil and seeing as I had just been weeding the garden and had pulled out a lot of stinging nettle, I made a tea with it and used that instead of the plain water component. 

I coloured one jug of mixture with Pansy Mica, left the other jug plain and then layered them in a loaf mould before doing a type of swirl with a chopstick. The result isn't anything marvellous but the Ginger and Green Tea Fragrance Oil gives it a pleasant, gentle fragrance.

I unearthed a bottle of Ultramarine Blue which I think is the first colour that I ever bought from Aussie Soap Supplies and I decided to use it up.  It is so old that the label has come off and I wasn't sure if the liquid had turned solid but I banged it around a bit and was able to salvage some to use in the remaining soap mixture. The resulting colour isn't as dark as it looks in the photo and it is more a light denim colour.

A soapie friend said to leave the soap in the moulds for longer than usual to try and prevent soda ash from forming so I left it for nearly three days which is a record for me but I think the patience paid off as there doesn't seem to be any soda ash forming so far. 

This is the recipe I used which helps me in the future when I try to remember what on earth I added to the soap :-)

Cornflower Soap

100g         Cocoa Butter

450g         Coconut Oil

150g         Macadamia Nut Oil

550g         Olive Oil

182g         Lye

400g         Water (I used stinging nettle tea)

                 Pansy Mica and Ultramarine Blue liquid

  40g         Ginger and Green Tea Fragrance Oil from Gavin at Little Green Workshops

 

 

When I was cutting the soap I put it on its side to prevent the cornflower petals from being dragged from the top through the soap. I remembered that little tip after doing the first cut right way up :-)

I know some of my readers have made their first batch of soap recently and I am sure they are quite thrilled with what they have produced. The waiting time is the worst of course. Have YOU taken the plunge too? Be warned though....soap making can become addictive!!!