It seems like I haven’t blogged in forever! The last month was absolutely, crazy, insanely busy. I was out of town several weekends. First to Haiti to check on the progress of OFEDA. They are doing remarkably well and were making all kinds of soap. (More on that later.)

Photo by Paula Allen, Ofeda.com

Photo by Paula Allen, Ofeda.com

After that was Kansas to teach at the first ever Central Soapers Workshop. This was an awesome conference! Then I went to New York to teach with Holly Port and Marla Bosworth for Soap University. So much fun! I’ll be writing about some of these trips later…but for now I want to share a few things.

I’ll be teaching silicone mold making at the HSMG Conference this year in Raleigh. Originally I was going to teach simple single cavity molds but I think most people really want to learn how to make the log or block molds. So I’ve added that to my presentation.

Here are some pictures from the progress with that. Come to the conference to find out more! I’ll also be having a class in Dallas and a class in Austin on how to make these types of molds along with the single cavity molds.

To break it in, I made a batch of tea tree soap.

Tea Tree Soap

Coconut oil – 42 oz
Shea butter – 10 oz
Apricot kernel – 10 oz
Avocado oil – 10 oz
Castor oil – 8 oz
Olive oil – 40 oz
Rice bran – 10 oz

Lye – 18.3 oz
Water – 36 oz

Tea tree essential oil – 4 oz

Make the lye solution by adding the lye to the water. Set this to the side to cool down.

Lye solution

Weigh out the coconut oil and shea butter and melt.

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Weigh out the liquid oils and add to the melted oils.

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Add 4 oz of tea tree essential oil.

Pour the lye into the oils and bring to trace.

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Pour into your mold.

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Let sit overnight. I’ll add unmolding and cut pictures later.

Updated: Unmolding and cut pictures.

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Happy Soaping!
Amanda Gail