Nefarious, the seven year old soap master, made these soaps today for her teachers (top row is the master and the mold of course), so that should make for an interesting show-and-tell I hope. She made them with a cocoa butter base with walnut hull powder and raspberry seeds, as well as color and fir needle essential oil in one, and the other unscented.
I cast my first candle today. I sculpted it out of polymer clay which I then painted with glue to smooth it out a little before making a single piece mold in silicone. The mold (click here to see the mold) has a slit along one side, so it can be flexed open to take the candle out, and a hole at one side for the wick. The other end of the wick was held centrally by a hair pin, and the whole thing was held tight with elastics as I poured the wax in from the bottom. The candle itself is made out of beeswax, without any added scents or coloring agents. Anyway, it was quite fun to make and I’m sure I’ll make more.
For more closeups click through for the rest of the entry.
Sorry the photos aren’t the greatest. My hands were shaking like crazy (because of caffeine overindulgence, not some terrifying neurological disorder) and the lighting wasn’t very good, plus I hadn’t waited for it to cool 100% (so the wax was of inconsistent translucency), so the pictures aren’t doing the candle justice.
I cast some more soaps in the same mold. The ones below are all slightly different — one by one, they’re scented with fir needle, tangerine and kiwi, blood orange, peppermint, sweetgrass with hemp powder (which makes it look almost like stone), and gingersnap cookies. They’re all done in a goats milk base, other than the clear one (which has plastic bugs floating in it). Lots of fun. I’m going to make another mold in this series. Click to zoom in.
I don’t have any plans to sell these, but if you want to buy one do contact me.
As I mentioned last night, as well as making soap on Sunday we also made candies, a series of Halloween-themed lollipops. They turned out nicely in terms of flavor and detail, but the breakage rate was unfortunately very high. That was largely because of me not realizing how fragile they would be, so I think if I did it again, I could get much better results simply by being more careful. Anyway, if you’re interested there are some more pictures after the break.
I am so thrilled with what I created today. This is my second experiment in soap making, a peppermint goatsmilk bar soap with a sculpted eyeball effect. Check it out, and if you’d like to see the whole process of making it, click through and view the whole entry.
