20 pounds of soap

Decided to make soap this weekend. LOTS of soap. I was going to make it around Thanksgiving but never got around to it. Made 3 batches, the 1st 2 were 5lb batches and the last I doubled and it was 10 lbs. Barely fit in my pan and I made a mess pouring it but it turned out fine. Made a Basil-Lime - RedLeaf soaps has a great basil-lime that my sister and I really like so I was trying to imitate it. Hopefully it will be as crisp and delightful. Then a Peppermint with a touch of rosemary. I've made this one many times before and really like it. And I love lemongrass so I made some with that and put a touch of lime in that. I only use essential oils for scenting as "fragrance oils" sortof freak me out and I am probably allergic to most of them. And then left about 3 lbs unscented. Ended up not putting colorants like I sometimes do. I did try infusing spinach powder into the oils for the peppermint soap. We'll see if the soap ends up tinted green. Right now it just looks yellow. I did put lots of fun oils and butters in them all (used the same recipe for everything) - mango butter, avocado oil, fair trade organic cocoa butter, shea butter, and jojoba oil, along with the normal coconut, olive, palm, and palm kernel oils.

the 10 pound batch.

took this picture as the first batch was in its "gel" stage. too crazy. The soap once you pour it into the mold heats itself up turning it to gel before it hardens into soap. I rarely see this stage as its usually all wrapped up in towels to keep the heat in so I get a nice hard bar.

here's all 7 milk cartons of soap. 2 each of the scented, and one unscented.

and here they are all wrapped up for a few days. Yay!

I also made a batch of liquid soap from a recipe everyone was posting on pinterest. It is made from a bar of peppermint soap and is sortof a snot-like consistency but seems to work ok.