Idle Wednesday

The ingredients, base oil, soap flakes, essential oil, whole dried lavender flowers. (The white plastic thing is a soap mold, but I didn't get to use it due to the lack of Vaseline.)

Bees wax. It smells heavenly.  I bought it from a man who has his own beehives, and so it is organic and fresh.

Potting the soaps.  I ran out of Vaseline, so I had to use aluminum foil to keep the soap from sticking to the bowls.

The cream soap, setting and cooling before I put it in it's final container.

The cream soap. It's very moisturizing, and especially great for washing your hands after you've washed dishes.  I keep a small spoon next to mine to keep from contaminating the soap with dirty hands.

The lotion.  It's very thick, and goes on like a salve.  It is lavender, tea tree oil, and calendula. It's also good for burns, scratches, and bug bites, because of the medicinal properties of the essential oils.

From left to right, lavender soap, juniper and balsam soap, and in front patchouli soap.

I ground some of the herbs, and left some whole, so the red soap has two different rings of herbs.  I thought it would look cool. The first "bar" of soap was made by cooling the soap in a square bowl, cutting it into pieces, then pouring hot water over it and molding it into another bowl. This makes it lumpy and chunky. Not for any other reason than to look cool.