Last Tuesday my niece and my sister-in-law came to my came to my house, along with my three great-nephews and great-niece ...to see "Aunt B" make soap.
The oldest two are home-schooled & currently learning about chemistry, and are now pretty well-versed in the art and science of soap-making. -yay! They listened attentively and chose colors and essential oils for fragrance.
My eldest great nephew ...whom I've nicknamed "Schroeder" (a fabulous pianist at the tender age of 9 1/2) chose Eucalyptus essential oil + chlorophyll as his colorant.
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| "Schroeder's" Soap |
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| "James Bond's" Soap |
My second-eldest nephew whom I shall refer to as "James Bond" (the real-life orinthologist, not the fictional spy) chose 5xOrange as his essential oil and Moroccan Red Clay as his colorant.
After much talk of saponification (they LOVED that word), acids, bases, safety, ingredients, etc. We got busy, combined their choices into two soap "logs" but and topped them as each preferred. James chose a smooth top, Schroeder loved the peaks -but alas, that soap would not peak!
I wrapped the bars to insulate & harden ...and have now (after vacation) removed them from their molds and cut them into bars. Nice work, boys!
I hope we'll make soap together again -perhaps as an annual thing. There's so much chemistry involved behind the scenes that I personally don't give a thought to from day to day. Not to mention marketing -packaging, photography, blogging, website maintenance blah blah blah. Perhaps Aunt B still has a few "lessons" up here sleeve! :D
p.s. The flower stamp is one I made (with the help of Hubby, of course) I thought I saved the link, but now I can't find it. If anyone is interested, I'll take photos of the process next time and post how to do it. It's really pretty simple and I love the idea of an "original" stamp of my own. :)
