Farm and Garden: Goats

It finally happened! Friday evening we brought home two new additions. Charlotte and Willow are now a part of our growing farm family. The trip home was a bit stressful for them and they were a little panicked by the time we got them out of the back of my SUV. Noah and I carefully got the dog kennel out of the back of the car and I carried each of them carefully to one of the pens in the back yard where they had to temporarily share space with the rabbits. Separating the goats for the time to get them from the car to the pen seemed like a moment of pure torture for them and they were screaming like babies. I'm not sure what our neighbors were thinking, but it was not at all a pleasant moment. After a bit of timid walking around the pen they found the hidden rabbits and it was interesting. The rabbits were trying to hide and they were trying to figure out what the heck those lightning fast fuzzy balls were. It was so very cute to see their curious looks and posturing. By the time we got them in the yard and settled it was getting dark so the children were not able to play with the kids. They are making up for that now, I'm sure that by this afternoon all the kids will be well acquainted. So now we need to find a puppy to go with the goats.

Saturday morning Noah came in our room saying we almost have our own personal petting zoo. I guess we are getting there.

So, why the goats? I'm sure many will ask...We have a beautiful piece of property, that unfortunately is so very over grown it will take a huge amount of effort to clear and in an effort to find alternative ways of doing-instead of using big machinery, or slowly working it by hand-we have decided to employ a few goats to eat their way through the overgrowth and stuff we don't want. We will have a moveable pen that we set up around the yard so that they can happily munch away and mow down on a rotation schedule to keep our yard cleaner and neater.

Next year we will breed them so that we can begin milking the following year. We will be able to use milk in cheese and soap. So...that's the plan in a nutshell.

Soap: New Batches...

Just out of the molds and onto the curing racks. These are the first batches of the year. As with all the soap we make, every bar is a unique and individual creation cut by hand. Each one will differ slightly size and shape. Every bar containing color, or herbs will vary from bar to bar as well as batch to batch. The color, design and sometimes even the scent are always a state of evolution... I love the ability of always having a product that is growing, changing, and evolving over time...I hope you do too.

Lavender

Plain, simple, gentle, fabulous. If you are a fan of Lavender this bar of soap will probably win you over. It is one of the simplest bars that we make other than plain old soap, unscented Oat and Grain, and Lavender Oatmeal. A simple base soap of Olive, Palm, Coconut, Castor, Almond and Shea Butter, with Lavender and Tea Tree essential oils for scent. These bars contain no color, or exfoliants, they are made simply so that even the most sensitive skins can use it. . Lavender is a calming and soothing scent. These make great soaps the days you need a bath to unwind, or a soothing bath for baby.

                                                      

Orange Eucalyptus

This is an excellent bar of soap for a citrus lover, the combination of Orange, Eucalyptus, and a cinnamon swirl makes this bar a wonderful morning shower bar. It has a warm, spicy herbal scent, sometimes it reminds me of orange cinnamon rolls.

Patchouli Lavender

The mixture of Patchouli and Lavender creates the most amazing scent combination, it is  warm, earthy, inviting scent. Even though floral scents are used, this soap is actually designed to be a manly scent. It has become our best selling unisex bar, and probably our most popular bar sold.

Patchouli Rose

Very similar to Patchouli Lavender, this bar is a beautiful combination of the earthy scent of Patchouli, and the lovely scent of rose a creates the most amazing scent combination, it is  warm, earthy, and inviting and maybe even sensual and alluring.This is NOT the sweet rose fragrance oil that comes to mind when you first think of rose scent. This soap is a special soap that we don't make very often because it uses the real essential oil of rose that creates depth in the scent that fragrance oils just can not reach.

Rosemary Mint

Another of our most popular scents. Rosemary is a blend of several essential oils with the main focus being a mixture of  Rosemary and Peppermint. Each of our scent blends are carefully considered and blended together to make the wonderful scents in the finished bars...It is almost like layering the flavors of a fine wine. This is a classic scent that is liked by most, strong, invigorating, wake you up kind of scent. The peppermint even leaves a tingle when you use it. 

Serendipity

This bar is a citrus floral that we love making at the beginning of  spring. The scent combination just seems to be Spring-like. The juicy scent of lime, mixed with the floral of several lovely flowers, come together reminiscent of fresh dew on new spring leaves.

These will all be available next week, and for the May Maker's Market on the Square in Oxford. We will also be restocking at Mississippi Madness, and The Farmer's Market. We are always open at Cypress Lake Soap's Website visit us there to see what is currently available. 

 Keep checking back with us to see what will be coming up next...and along with these new batches, new sample bars and soap rocks have also been created. If you like smaller sizes of soap or want to try something out first, be sure to check out these options.

Demos at the Farmer's Market

This year at the Taylor Farmer's Market I tried doing a couple of demonstrations to show people some of what I do to make soap and other bath products. One of the demos was making Bath Bombs. They are really fun to make and since there wasn't a huge crowd involved this time, I let some of the kids that were standing around the table participate and take their creations home. It was really lots of fun to get people involved in the process instead of me standing there doing the demonstration and just explaining each step. I think everyone involved had a good time and it looked like the people that participated were really excited about what they made. Bath Bombs are a relatively simple project that really anyone can do once you get the feel for it. The ingredients are very simple and safe, and there are so many things that can be done to make them your own creation. It is all up to your imagination.



If you are interested in trying yourself, here is a simple recipe that can get you started.

Basic Bath Bomb Recipe

1 cup Baking Soda

½ cup Citric Acid

Witch Hazel (or water) in a spray bottle

Color*

Scent (essential oil)*

The most important step is mixing the baking soda and citric acid. Make sure that it is well blended this is what creates your fizz.

       Add your color and scent and mix well. If you are using a food coloring that is water based mix it in quickly because it will make your mixture fizz.

       Now for the difficult step…Begin spraying while mixing with the other hand. Don’t let the mixture get too wet. When you can squeeze the mixture in your palm and it stays together without crumbling it is ready to put into molds.

       Tightly pack the mixture in your molds. You need to work rather quickly so that the mixture doesn’t dry up on you. The harder you pack the molds, the heavier, denser, and more durable your final product will become. Let your molds set for a while and unmold on a sheet pan that is covered with a towel. Let them air dry for a few hours or overnight. When dry place them in an air tight container.

*Note: because of sensitivities in our family, color and scent only comes from natural sources. I try to use only colorants that are a natural material(vegetable, clay, etc.), and scent only comes from essential oils. Fragrance oils and dyes can be used if you like.

Chocolate Almond Oatmeal

As delicious as it sounds, it is not breakfast, fudge, or a new granola bar, although I am quite tempted to try it. It is my newest soap scent. I think it came out quite nice. The scent is very strong in almond, which may need a little adjustment, and then the chocolate comes through. It is a nice warm scent. 


If you are interested in trying out this new scent, I am giving away 4 sample sizes. All you have to do is post in my comments and let me know if you have tried any of my soap before, what are your favorites, and follow our blog to get future updates and giveaways. I will randomly draw 4 names to receive a sample of this new scent. If you know of anyone who would be interested in natural soap send them a message, if your friend wins I will send one to you and the friend.

So here's your chance to try a new scent on me.
Good Luck!

I will pull names on Tuesday October 25th.

Garden/Farm Update

As of today Garlic, red shallots,  and yellow onions have been put in the ground. Three tomato plants(creole, sweet 100's I think, and a pink variety that escapes me right now). A few egg gourds just for fun. Sweet Peas and a few bush beans. Yellow squash and zucchini two of each I think. A couple of asparagus plants.

The blueberry bushes seem to be doing really well right now and even though they are really small this year, several are bending under the weight of the berries they are holding so I look forward to future years. I also have five new bushes that need to be planted soon, hopefully this week, but the question is where.

Sadly, the strawberries that I planted a few weeks back do not appear to have taken, so it looks like we will have to try again another time...maybe seeding would be better. It was very disappointing I figured they would take off rather well considering there were already a type growing in that area.

Right now there aren't many flowers actively blooming, except a few purple iris, a couple of roses, and one of my favorite my wild gladiola. It is a beautiful spike of bright fuschia/purple blooms that bob and sway with the wind.

Our weaknesses: The soil really needs amending. I will be sending in soil sample tests soon, but recently we did a home test kit just to see quickly what we were looking at and it was also a great project/science lesson for the kids to see. It turns out that one part of our yard is very acidic, very low in nitrogen and potassium and moderately low in phosphorous...so basically it needs quite a bit of work. We also really need to get more sun into our yard. Although we don't want to clear cut and cause issues, there are very few places in our property that has the daylight hours we need for garden plants.

The chicken run/coop progress has basically just stopped, just way too many things going on and being taken into too many directions. We are still just where we were at the last post...the posts have been put in. All the chickens are still okay where they are; our big girls are happily laying and egg a day(3 total), and the chicks although restless and I am sure ready to be outside will have to hang in there for another couple of weeks.

I am interested in getting several plants...one of the top on my list right now is jewel weed. Mostly because I will be using it in a future soap and spray in next year's soap season. It is good for relieving poison ivy. So I look forward to testing it...especially right now because I have poison ivy...ugh. Licorice, Bay Laural, Artichoke(saw the plant this weekend and love it), a few woodland ferns and other types of shade greenery that could be used for decoration, marsh mallow, and a few others are also on my mind.

The weather is getting really bad so I will post this now and fill in with pictures later...

Soap Process

The other night I finally got to make two new batches of soap. I really hate it when I get behind because instead of being able to experiment and create new batches I am having to make batches that I run low on...which I am not at all complaining about because it means that it is selling, and that is wonderful! I just want to make new stuff for the 2011 season and haven't been able to yet....okay enough whine.

I wanted to show off a couple of pictures of a stage that I don't often get to witness but think is very, very cool! It is called the gel stage, because as the soap heats starting from the center of the block it turns into this jelly like substance and it spreads all the way to the edges of the block and then begins to cool down from the edges back to the middle. It is very fascinating to me to see. Not all soap makers let their soap go through this stage for various reason, and there are some soaps that you definitely do not want to do this like some milk soaps, or soaps with essential oils that are more volatile because the heat will either alter, or make the essential oils evaporate from the batch and in some cases disfigure or completely ruin the batch of soap. This particular batch is a new batch of Rosemary Lemongrass, it seems to have gelled nicely. When I get the chance to cut it into bars we will see the actual results...but right now is looks pretty good.

Random Thoughts of Spring

This year has been very challenging so far. Winter just seemed to drag on way too long for some reason. It is interesting how hectic life can get, but yet the level of accomplishment just doesn't seem to go along with it. It's not to say that nothing gets done, it just gets done at the level of a scattered-brained snail's pace. How do you handle the fog of Winter and get into the Spirit of Spring?

We are finally starting to see and feel the warm sun again. March is a very exciting time of year; new life comes in many forms this time of year, a time of renewal, rebirth and birth on many levels. For many religions it is the Lenten season; a time to step back, remember, and refocus our priorities in our spiritual lives. It is also the beginning of a new Spring and time to get household priorities together and begin to prepare for all the projects both inside and out. It is garden time, time to start organizing the planting beds, getting seedlings started, preparing garden spaces and landscape areas. Farms and Zoos come alive with all the new baby animals. It is such a wonderful experience for children to see the happy playful new babies.

Some of the projects we have started(some conceptual some actual). In welcoming spring I have begun planting mini-landscapes and and creative plantings to get ready for the coming farmer's market season. The kids are looking forward to being involved in the Farmer's Market this year with activities of their own which could be a great learning experience. Because of warmer weather we are all looking forward to being outside to do more nature studies and hopefully getting nature notebooks together. We will be expanding our chicken coop and run area, we lost too many chickens last year (We should get chicks this week). We are also enlarging our garden space and trying new plants this year. Expanding on the products that we make for the soap company and looking for new stores to carry our products.

These were just random thoughts that have been floating around lately. What are your thoughts on Spring and how are you refocusing and start the renewal process for spring in your families?

First Batches of Soap For 2011

Life has a way of getting ahead of you, but finally, two new batches of soap have been created for 2011. They were cut earlier today and are now curing. It is always exciting to cut into a new block of soap. Every batch is different and every bar has it's own unique appearance and beauty. These two batches are some of our first creations and have become well loved standards in our line.

The Orange Eucalyptus was the first soap that started combining multiple essential oils within the soaps. The formula has evolved over the last few years and has become very popular. It has a very warm, comforting scent. I think the addition of cinnamon to the bar has really made it stand out.

Rosemary Mint has by far become one of the best sellers that we have. It is a wonderful combination of Rosemary, Tea Tree, and Mint, and other essential oils that gives it a wonderful uplifting, eye-opening scent. The beautiful clays that are marbled into the batch provide color, texture, and beauty and all the oils selected for the soaps make each one it's own masterpiece, that is also good to your skin.

We are in the process of restocking all of the best sellers and I will soon be making a few new scents to add to the line. The most exciting for me personally this year will be something with vanilla! Keep checking with us to see when your favorite will be restocked for the year.

Christmas Time Soap

A few weeks ago I made these two batches of soap for the Christmas Season. They are cured and ready to go.

Peppermint which has a strong peppermint scent and is speckled with pink and green soap chips from other batches of soap; this one always goes fast.

The other is called Christmas Pine. It has the scent of pine mixed with other scents that remind me of Christmas like pine from Christmas trees, peppermint, cinnamon and other spices. the green batch is topped of with a little of the Peppermint batch that is pictured above.

The New Bars of Soap

Here are the new bars ready for the curing racks.

This green marble batch is Tea Tree Oil.

These Brown bars are Chai Tea.

Harvest Season

I love this time of year. There is always one day in the year that signals it, and today was the day. There are other nice mornings, but this was that first briskly cool morning that really says fall is here. It just makes you want to start storing food for the winter...jams, jellies, canned vegetables, and my next new adventure, lacto-fermentation. I am really anxious to get some things done. Today I have several projects that I would like to complete. Lately my expectation on finishing things has been very low, but I just keep trying. I will be making a couple of new batches of soap today. These will be my seasonal fall batches. One of them will be Chai Spiced Tea, and the other will either be Pumpkin Pie Spice, or Spiced Apple Cider.

Bread needs to be made today, and if time permits, and the baby allows, I will be attempting the following:

Sauerkraut in a Mason Jar

1 Head of Cabbage(8-10 Cups)

10 Juniper Berries

1 tsp. caraway seeds

1 tsp. yellow mustard seeds

1-2 tsp kosher salt

1 cup filtered water mixed with 1tsp. salt

In a clean non-metallic bowl, mix cabbage, juniper berries, caraway seeds, mustard seeds, and salt. Stir to release juices. Let is rest 10 min(or more) and stir again.

Pack into a sterilized quart jar and push down with a wooden mallet. Add filtered water with salt to the rim of the jar. Loosely cover and place on a tray to catch overflowing juice. Place in cool room for 2-3 weeks.

After bubbling stops, check container and top off with more salt water if level drops below rim. Skim any white spots or film off of the top and close jar tightly, wipe off outside of jar and store in refrigerator until you use it up.

Well, my hands are free for a few moments, so it is time to start the lye, and get the bread dough rising, maybe I will be lucky and get to chop the cabbage also....

Newest Soap Curing

Today I will be cutting and setting these two batches of soap to cure. One is Lavender Ylang Ylang(pink), and the other is a new scent that I think will be rather successful. It has, among other essential oils Grapefruit and Jasmine(light yellow). It is lightly citrus and has an exotic feel to it; it is a sweeter floral than I have made previously I did not use the essential oils that have a spicy tone to them so this bar is a bit more feminine than the other florals. The scent of Jasmine is not overwhelming, but it helps to round out the citrus in the bar. In future batches I will probably add a little more scent to make it stronger, but for a first try I am rather happy with it.

One Week Left

Well we are down to the last week of pregnancy...It went by faster than I expected. There is so much to be done until Monday. I am pretty sure that I have planted my last plant until the fall...maybe. Everything seems to be growing really well now and we actually have vegetables on the plants. Yesterday we picked our first cucumber and yellow squash. Matt made a trellis with some of the sticks from the trees that were in the yard for the cucumbers to start climbing on. All of the tomatoes have now been staked and yesterday we noticed that many of the plants now have marble sized tomatoes on them. There are also several small zucchini and yellow squash and what looks like a pumpkin, and a melon of some sort growing also. The watermelon seedlings seem to be doing pretty well so far. The eggplants are doing okay, but seem to be growing a little slow. I am not too sure of the bell peppers that were planted, something seems to be eating them and they don't seem to be growing very well yet, they may need a supplement of some sort to get started. Yesterday I planted my hot peppers and pimento peppers. It doesn't look like the onions are going to survive this year, we will have to try again next season with those and maybe some garlic.

My last Farmer's Market for a while will be this Saturday. Either Matt will be out there, or Katherine at Broken Magnolia Farm will have a table at her stand for me until I am able to return. I think that this weekend will be the last 'ice pop' weekend until I can get up and around again, hopefully that will only be a couple of weeks.

Soap has to be prepared and Ice Pops have to be made for the weekend. One of the local papers will be doing an article on me and the soap, so today I will be making a couple more batches of soap so that pictures of the process can be taken. It is so exciting to have an article in the paper.

My Sister-in-Law will be here this weekend with her children, to visit and help out and we just can't wait until she arrives. They live in Texas so we don't get to see them nearly enough of them.

This will probably be the last post for a while too, If I get a chance at the end of the week I will post pictures of the new soap, one of them will be a new floral scent and I am leaning toward a combination of jasmine and grapefruit.

Just an Update

I have really been trying to keep current on the Blog Front, and realized that it has been a while since my last post. The Taylor Farmers Market was excellent for the opening day. I really hope that it keeps up this momentum through the year. It was great fun to see old faces as well as new faces. We had a great time and a successful day with both the Soap and the Handmade "Ice Pops". It is a weird combination to have with soap and we did get odd looks and lots of questions, but they were well liked and I am hoping that as the summer continues to warm up they will be a big hit at the Market.

Juggling Life, Kids, School, Market, Chickens, Garden, and House will become increasingly difficult in the next couple of weeks. Time has just flown by and we have a just over a week before we will be welcoming baby Zerangue into the family. June 21st is the date scheduled for my c-section. So there will probably be another unintended gap in posts on the blog, not to mention everything else coming to a screaming halt for the next month, but we will adjust and work through it just like everything else.

On the Garden, everything seems to be growing well. It has gotten rather hot in the last couple of weeks, so watering has been more essential lately. We are continuing to put in new plants when we get a chance. There are a few that really need to be planted this week. The herbs are growing well, and the watermelon although slow are starting to get true leaves. The squash, zucchini and my mystery vine now have small fruits. Tomatoes have grown to about 3 feet, were tied to stakes last week and are beginning to flower. The cucumbers are starting to climb and produce flowers. The blueberry bushes that we bought are full of berries, but won't be planted until the fall, mostly for ease of taking care and making sure they get the proper water over the hottest part of the summer.

The chickens are really doing great. They are enjoying all the garden weeds and vegetable/table scraps that they get daily. As much as I would like to let them forage it just isn't possible without building a portable pen(which will just have to wait now). They are really fun to watch especially when you put a favorite food in the pen, not only is it usually a race to see which of the chickens get to their favorite, there is also usually a few that get chased around because the others want that same treat.

So for tomorrow at the market we will have the following soap choices:

Oat and Grain
Mojito
Lemon Basil
Rosemary Mint
Spicy Citrus Shaving Soap
Patchouli Lavender

Orange Eucalyptus

Sportsman

The Ice Pop Choices will be:

Sweet Tea with Lemon

Strawberry Lemonade

Blackberry Limeade

Pear Blueberry Polka Dot

Berries 'n Cream

Also, CypressLakeSoap Etsy site has been updated today. I would really like to have a stand alone website for my soap and products, but for now I think it best to just keep things the way they are and not make it more complicated.

The site name is http://www.etsy.com/shop/cypresslakesoap

Getting Ready For The Farmer's Market

June is approaching fast. What a quick spring we have had, It seems like winter would never end and then in the blink of an eye summer has quickly descended upon us.

This week and most of next week will be rather busy preparing for a new season of soap at the local Farmer's Market and local stores that carry our soap.
New batches are now curing in anticipation of the June 5th opening of the market. Many of the batches have been updated in some way to make them more unique and to add more interest. Late last year I began experimenting with sugar and salt body scrubs and got good feedback on it. I am thinking of adding these if time allows. I am also still trying to find a lip balm recipe that I am happy with so that I can have those ready this year too. Later this summer I am hoping to begin making a line of liquid soap. Then in the Fall I would like to also add lotion bars, and body butter. Another change we are working on for this year is adjusting the labels a bit and eventually changing the packaging.

This is the new label for the soaps. Anyone have any comments on it, they would be appreciated.

Getting A Late Start on the 2010 Year For Soap

On top of all the other projects we have going on this year with the new baby coming, homeschool, chickens, garden, landscaping, house projects and keeping up with the ever growing list of house chores, I have also decided to "re-start" our soap business. I am not really considering anything drastic right now, but there are a few things that I would like to change and add this year. Because I have misplaced my diary of formulas during the move, I will be working on editing the soap scents and colorings that have been done in the past, and figured that it is time for some new editions for the year.

Scents That Have Been Created In Past Years:

Lavender

Lavender - Ylang Ylang

Lavender Oatmeal Goatmilk

Rosemary - Mint

Rosemary - Lemongrass

Orange - Eucalyptus

Lemon - Basil

Mojito

Spicy Citrus Shaving

Serendipity

Sportsman

Patchouli - Lavender

Patchouli - Rose

Oat and Grain

Unscented

Beer and Bay Rum

Mulled Red Wine

Peppermint

Christmas Pine

Almond Oatmeal

Chocolate Almond Oatmeal

Some Possible Future Soaps:

Ginger and something

Vanilla

Some kind of Floral

Grapefruit

Pine Tar

Garden Herb

Pumice(or other) Scrubby soap

Calendula

Sassafras(Root Beer)

Soap with sea salt and sea weed

Ocean Scent(just don't know if it is possible with just essential oils, researching now)

Future Products:

Lip Balms(Still working on formula)

Laundry Soap

Sugar(Salt) Scrubs for bath/Shower friendly cubes(less oily)

Baby Products

Body Butters

Solid Lotions

Roll-on/solid perfume

Face Masks

So with all that being said I would like input from people around me, especially if you have used my soap and products in the past. Let me know what your favorites are, if there is anything you would like changed about them, and anything that you would like to see me add in the future. Please pass this along to anyone you think would like to participate in this study. If anyone has ideas that I choose to use I will send gift products to them and also give them credit for their ideas. So be creative, but keep in mind that I will only use real essential oils so many of the "flavors" that are out there may not be able to be made by me. You can leave comments here, or send it to my email mzerangue 'at' gmail.com. All comments are welcome, anything about scent, amount of scent, packaging, etc...I look forward to your comments and ideas on making the 2010 year a special year.

New Soap Creation

This was a busy week. I was able to make four batches of soap. Patchouli-Lavender, Rosemary-Mint, Orange-Eucalyptus, and Mojito...a new creation. It is always fun to create something new, especially when it turns out to be a good soap and not sent to the pile that gets ground up for laundry or dish soap.

After making the Mojito soap it inspired me to expand my product base and add lip balm. Making a lip balm has been on my mind several years now, but just wasn't sure about jumping in. So far the results are favorable and the people who have tested it really like it. I will create several new flavors(all natural of course) hopefully in the next week or so. A solid scented lotion bar to match the soap scents will be my next project. If all goes smoothly they will be added near the end of April also. Look for its debut at the end of April.

My mystery soap from an earlier post has been named. After sending out samples of the soap to several people my Brother-in-Law came up with the name Serendipity. It is a very clever name as well as fitting. This soap has had some really wonderful comments so far I think it will be a popular soap.

Mystery Soap

I created a new batch of soap. With the intention of making a Spring scent this particular soap developed. This expirement was actually good, because it gave me ideas for three future soaps. I love developing new scents, especially if they are successful oness.

I think I will call it Spring Floral...but I will decide later after some of my product testing team has come back with their thoughts on the bar. The scent is quite different, it has the complexity of a wine because there is quite a bit going on, it has floral, fruity, citrus, and spicy scents mixed in. Some of the essential oils used are lime, clary sage, ylang ylang, and geranium.

The marbling in the bar was attempted with three different colors. Marbling is a very tricky process that I feel I could use more work with. Getting the percentages of the color mixtures to the right amounts, and getting the mixtures at the right thicknesses without having the whole batch seize in the mixing bowl(luckily that hasn't happened yet).

Soap Pictures

OK, here are some of the new batches that I have been working oh so diligently on lately.



This one is my new favorite, it is Patchouli-Rose. Using a mixture of Patchouli, Rose and a few other floral scents this new scent was born for the Christmas Season, but will probably become a year round favorite.




This is my batch of Peppermint. It sold out really fast last year, so I am hoping to make two batches this year. It is a combination of lots of Peppermint oil and Tea Tree oil.






I also tried Frankinscense and Myrrh this year. The combination is a little difficult to describe; spicy, but very subtle compared to some of the other scents that I have come up with. It will be very appealing to people who like the softer scented soaps.






I think I will be calling this one Christmas Pine. It is a combination of several woody essential oils, peppermint, and a couple of pine essential oils.






This batch was an experiment with apple cider. My lye solution contained apple cider instead of water. The texture is a little different from the other batches that I have created, but the scent is wonderful. It is a warm spicy scent that reminds me of sipping cider in front of a warm fire in the winter time. It really does smell like a warm mulled cider.