Sunny Soap Balls

I want to do an elemental swirl design for the summer line. It's all in my head, but may take a few weeks to transpire. Most of my family of origin--my mother, father, sister, brother, nieces  and nephews have settled in Northern Florida. Years ago, when I was in sixth grade, we lived there for a stint, and now all these  years later, they have returned--except for me--lone redheaded daughter dumped in Akron, Ohio, which I love, and can't imagine leaving. I plan to bring a box of soap for the family when I visit in June. We rented a beach house on St. George Island, so I thought an elemental soap design depicting a Northern Florida beach dune landscape would be apropos.

It's all in my head, but first I needed to make some orange soap balls, my miniature suns for my design. I made a half pound mini batch of plain inexpensive soap recipe, colored with paprika and boiled water, strained and added to my soap after trace. I thought I did this before, with success, but apparently not--it was horrible. I mixed it up, poured into a 9 cavity silicone mold and popped in the oven like I've done several batches. At 20 minutes in a warm 170 degree oven, I took a peak at an oily mess. Hmm. It was the water. Why did I mix the paprika in water and not just in the soap itself or oil? Totally stupid. Good thing it was just a half pound batch cause it was destined to the trash. My soap balls would wait another day. When I told her about the mishap, she said, "Gosh, Mom, don't use paprika--it leaves little specks!" Anticipating specks, I took the wherewithal to strain my paprika though cheesecloth, but the greater evil was the water.

Then I had it! I'll make a carrot soap, slice off a bit when it's still soft, make soap balls and the rest will  be good ole carrot face soap.

Of all the soaps I've created, my carrot creations are the best for my skin. The last carrot soap I made was a carrot cream soap. The design, a two color-mantra swirl, was an indistinct disappointment, but the soap itself, a favorite.

I used a very basic recipe--coconut oil, Crisco, olive oil and rice bran--and used pureed all organic carrot baby food as a portion of my water for the two pound recipe. It's very hard for me to make a bald plain soap, but I felt better going forward with a bronze mica swirl. For the scent, I used an essential oil blend of tangerine, patchouli, carrot seed, and ginger. I whipped it up to a medium trace, poured and donned with a subtle bronze mica design.