Cold process soap variations

There are SO MANY variations on cold process soap. It's crazy! People ask me what kind of soap I make, and there are so many ways I could answer that half the time I don't even know what to say. And that's not even counting the non-exactly-strictly-cold-process soaps I cover in this previous blog post. So I thought I would run down a few of them here for the soap-curious :)

• Regular! "Regular" cold-process soap doesn't mean plain and  boring. It's just not one of the specific variations below. It can be solid or layered or swirled, colored or fragranced, with any number of additives. For more details on cold-process soap, what it involves and how it's made, see our other blog post on the subject.
• Silk Soap has an extra-luxurious, silky texture because I dissolve real silk into the lye solution before I blend it with the oils. 
• Milk Soap substitutes milk (often goat's milk) for water, and while it can be tricky to make, the result is worth the effort. Milk soaps are gentle and moisturizing, and a lot easier to manage than
  soaking in a whole pool of milk like Cleopatra :)
• Craft Beer Soap explores (you guessed it!) craft beer. You can read more about the process here, but by using craft beer instead of water in the lye solution, and using ingredients and additives that reflect the attributes and flavor profile of the beer in question, you end up with a great-smelling soap with all the fragrance notes of a good beer and none of that boozy smell. And the ingredients, hops in particular, are great for your skin!
• Honey and Beeswax Soap is my first and favorite soap. Using honey and beeswax from our own bees, these soaps are fantastic for the skin and are especially good for those with skin sensitivities that keep them from using many commercial soaps. 
• Specialty Soaps are soaps made with a specific purpose. Some of ours include Jewelweed soap, because Jewelweed is a natural and extremely effective poison ivy remedy, or our Citronella/Peppermint/Lemongrass/Grapefruit soap, which was specially requested by a customer because of those essential oils' insect-repelling properties. 

Of course, there are many more kinds, but these are some of the main ones. We come up with new
ideas and get requests constantly, so there's no end to the new varieties we try out!

American Girls like to make stuff :)

We're excited to be one of the guests at American Girl Camp this week at Little Shop of Stories! If you're not familiar with them, Little Shop is a local children's bookstore and has the highest concentration of awesomeness in the known universe. They have one summer camp per week during the summer, often themed on books. This week's camp is based on the American Girl books, so each day they learn about and do activities from the times of different American Girls, like making teepees and planting victory gardens. They also do tons of fun crafts, so we're going to teach the campers how to make Soapzilla lip balm!

Honeybee swarms

A swarm in a holly tree

I know we focus a lot on honeybees, but since the honey and beeswax are such a big part of our soap making, it's hard not to. Plus, spring is such an exciting time of year to be a beekeeper! The bees are building up the colony after the winter (when they hunker down and conserve energy), any new bees you've ordered are either being delivered or are ready to be picked up, you go over all your equipment, and most exciting of all, it's swarm season! One of the services a beekeeper performs is rescuing bees who have swarmed. Things are settling down now after a crazy spring, but I'm still getting a lot of questions from people who want to know more about how it all works.

People get SO freaked out at the idea of a swarm of bees. It brings to mind "killer bees" and seventies horror movies. But all it really means is that a beehive has reproduced- and people should be less afraid of these bees, not more, because the lack of honey to protect makes swarming bees incredibly docile. If you think of the hive as an entity (rather than the individual bees), it makes sense that the way a colony reproduces is to swarm. They do this a lot in the spring, mostly because, as the colony builds up its population, the hive can begin to feel cramped. The  bees produce a new queen, and the old queen takes about 60% of the hive and flies off to find a new home. This leaves the new queen with plenty of room. The queen and her bees land on a branch or a wall or almost anything, really, and then they hang out while scout bees look for new digs.

Wall cavity after bees are (mostly) removed

Now, ideally, this is when someone notices the swarm and calls a beekeeper. The beekeeper will come out with a whole bunch of equipment, like ladders and buckets on poles and hedge clippers, and collect the bees. Sometimes the bees are really high up or difficult to get to, but generally, it's not too terribly hard to collect a swarm this way. Beekeepers LOVE to get these calls, because they save the bees (bees left unattended may find an unsuitable living space, which we'll discuss in a moment, or they may die of exposure) and also, they get to take the bees home and try to start a proper colony in a hive.

Of course, more often, the bees are not collected by a beekeeper. They sometimes find a place to live that's ok, like a hollow space in a tree, but often they find a place that seems ok to them but is awfully inconvenient to people. Then they build a colony in a space like an attic or inside a wall, and you don't notice until one day you're mowing the lawn and wonder why all those bees are flying in and out of that little gap between your wall and the air conditioner.

A frame full of brood comb

Then you have to call someone to extract your bees. This is very messy, involves a lot of work, and is best left to someone who knows what they're doing (as opposed to trying it yourself). Some people just call an exterminator, but aside from the fact that we need all the honeybees we can get, you're still going to have to cut open the wall or ceiling or what-have-you to remove the bees and honey, because dead bees and brood smell REALLY bad, and the honey and wax will attract pests like mice and ants.

However, a brave homeowner who helps out with the extraction will be amply rewarded, because a cutout is SO. COOL. It can go in a lot of different directions, based on where the bees are located and how they've built the colony, and how long it's been there, but the beekeeper will basically cut an opening and remove the comb (with various cutting tools) and the bees (with a modified vacuum. Yes, I'm being serious - a vacuum). The part of the comb with the brood (i.e. baby bees) is placed into frames and set into a deep (which is what the bottom box of a bee hive is called). We take that brood box home, and empty the vacuum contents onto it, and go from there. The homeowner can expect a fair number of lost bees wandering around over the next few days, but they dissipate over time, since they can't reform a colony without the queen and brood.

Beekeepers generally will not charge anything to come rescue a swarm, but a bee extraction requires specialized equipment and a LOT of work, so expect a charge (ask up front what it will be). Also, a bee swarm, by definition, has a queen, which is what makes it possible to establish that swarm as a colony. In an extraction, the queen bee may not be captured, or she may be killed or damaged, so the bees that the beekeeper takes home are not nearly the incentive that a swarm is. Still, do please call someone (you can google your local bee club or association for references) as soon as you notice the issue; colonies only get harder to remove the longer they stay. And since they can contain tens of thousands of bees, it's better to remove them to a safe place, even though honeybees are far more docile and less prone to sting than, say, wasps or yellow jackets. They will definitely still sting you if you're bothering the hive, and if that hive is in the wall of your garage, for example, then you run into a major conflict of interests.

All that being said, new colonies are fun fun fun for a beekeeper. It's often hard work, rescuing bees, but it's all worth it when you get the colony to thrive in a good home. Nothing makes me happier than relaxing on a sunny afternoon out in the bee yard, watching happy colonies of bees do their thing.

P.S. If you're in the metro Atlanta area, absolutely feel free to contact me for your swarm issues. I'm always happy to answer questions, and more bees= more colonies= more soap and lip balm.

Botanical soap ingredients

I talk a lot about bees and the hive products we use in our soap, but I do also get questions about the botanicals. One of the reasons I got into beekeeping (and thus soap making) in the first place was because of a natural progression from gardening, and I still spend time in my garden every day. I used to be a professional gardener, and became a Master Gardener for my county in 2007.

Whenever possible, the botanicals in Soapzilla soap are home-grown in my own garden. It's kind of the same reasoning as using my own beeswax: if I plant and tend the garden, I can be sure that the plants are totally chemical-free and of good quality. You hear so many terrible things about every kind of ingredient under the sun these days, that it just seems prudent to use what you produce yourself when you can. Plus, it's really satisfying, and I love working in the garden anyway.

So without further ado, here are some of the ways we use home-grown botanicals in our products:

The fig tree, just starting to leaf out. 

Figs! Our figs are white Marseilles figs (as best we can determine; the tree is probably older than we are) and are very sweet, which adds sugar to the soap, increasing lather. We put the figs in a food processor and use them in cold-process soap. Fruit in general makes for an interesting texture, but figs are great because the seeds are a great, gentle exfoliant. The most popular soap using this ingredient is Brown Sugar Fig, which we generally make in autumn.

Strawberries have a similar effect, but with fewer seeds and lower sugar content. But they really have a unique effect on the texture of the soap.

Roses are my first gardening love. The first plant I learned to take care of was a red rosebush I found growing in my jungly backyard when I bought my house over ten years ago. Since then I've learned to prune and fertilize (no chemicals, don't worry), hybridize and start cuttings, transplant and trellis. So I love using them in soap- the dried petals as an added touch on the surface of soap that's scented with rose oil, and rose hips in lots of ways. They can be used the same way as the petals, or ground up as a beneficial exfoliant throughout the soap, or rose hip tea or rose hip-infused oils can be used in the soapmaking process.

Hops, drying.

Hops are a fun one for me. My husband and I are home brewers (he makes the beer, while I focus on wine and mead), so we grow several varieties of hops for beer-making purposes, but hops are also fantastic for your skin. I use them in beer soaps for the fragrance and exfoliating properties and the skin benefits, and have had some recent requests for shampoo bars with hops, because they're good for hair as well. Hop tea and hop-infused oils can be used too.

Herbs are versatile as soap ingredients, too. We grow lots of them anyway, because we love them, but you can use them in tons and tons of different soap styles and combinations. Thyme, oregano, rosemary, tarragon, sage, basil, parsley, a billion kinds of mint (more or less)... yum!

Lavender is one of those plants that I used to dismiss as grandmotherly and useless- you can't eat it, right? I don't feel like making sachets and doilies, people! But two things changed my mind and turned me into a lavender addict. One: I was given a facial as a gift, and the... technician? facialist? what do you call those people? Anyway, she used lavender oil and massaged my face and scalp and it was one of the better tactile experiences I've ever had in my life. Two: my favorite little French restaurant has homemade ice cream, and they have a honey & lavender flavor. I'm a sucker for anything honey, so I tried it, and now I can't smell lavender at all without my mouth watering (or walk past that restaurant without getting some of that ice cream). So lavender in soap became irresistible, and I use lavender flowers from the garden to make a french milled soap with lavender essential oil. It's a glorious bar of soap for a bubble bath or for washing one's face.

A baby artichoke!

We're always trying new things, so you never know what else we'll figure out is great in soap. We grow lots more fun things- artichokes, asparagus, grapes, tomatoes, Italian stone pine, various plants with useful flowers (like violets or echinacea) or leaves (like tea camellia or bay laurel), et cetera. If you can eat it, odds are that eventually I'll put it in some soap!

Stuff We Made Up, Part 1

Sometimes we use terms for our soap that we made up ourselves, just because we can - and also because no appropriate term seems to be available. One of these is Leftover Surprise, named for one of our favorite weekend brunch dishes, which involves a fritatta made with anything delicious left over from the week (you haven't lived until you've had a shrimp, baby potato and roasted garlic fritatta).

Anyway, when we trim and smooth our bars of soap, we save the trimmings and make Leftover Surprise. Basically, we look at what we have, try and match up pleasing combinations, mill up the trimmings in the style of a french milled soap, and melt them down into new bars. We sell 'em on the cheap, because the cost to us is less (it basically helps up recoup the labor costs of trimming the soap) and unlike our regular soaps, which we can duplicate if we get requests, each batch of Leftover Surprise is unique. The combinations can be really lovely and unexpected, too- we made a few this week that are especially good: Fruit & Honey, which was a blend of all of our Honey & Beeswax soaps plus Peach, Tangerine Creamsicle, Blood Orange, White Fig and some Fancypants for good measure. There was also one we just called Man Soap, which is made with all of our men's shaving soaps, Black Pepper bath bar, Bay Rum bath bar, coffee, chocolate, and all of the beer soaps. We're hoping to finish up trimming enough soap this week to make a garden-themed one, with Sweet Pea, Gardenia, Hyacinth, Lilac, Lavender, Honeysuckle, Chamomile, Ladies' Shaving Soap (which is honeysuckle, grapefruit and Honey), our bug-repelling soap (made with citronella, grapefruit, lemongrass and peppermint) and Garden Grits (which is a lightly exfoliating bar with

 peppermint, spearmint, rosemary, basil, and lemongrass). Even some of the weirder combinations turn out amazing, like Blueberry and Amaretto. Also, the texture of each bar varies, depending on what's used- the ones with glycerin are silkier, and often they have various exfoliants, like the coffee in the Man Soap and the slightest bit of ground oats in the Fruit & Honey. 

So keep an eye out for these, because once they're gone, they're gone!

Lip Balm: it's always the quiet ones.

It's a funny thing, but we almost never talk about our lip balm, even though it's very popular... even at festivals and things, when people usually ask tons of questions and want to talk all about the different kinds of soap. They walk up to the lip balm, try the tester, stare at the different kinds for a minute, then buy half a dozen and walk away. It's crazy. But when I asked my customers who I know personally, they told me why. It's a combination of flavor, texture, and effectiveness, and really, once you try it, it doesn't need a whole lot of discussion or explanation. It occurs to me, though, that the habit of not talking about it at sales events doesn't help those of you shopping online, since you haven't had the benefit of trying it in person to see how yummy it is. To quote one of our very first customers, "You know how most lip balm smells really good but sort of just tastes waxy blah? Not this stuff. It actually tastes like it smells. It's glorious. I have some sort of tangerine citrus punch and I love it."

And it works! I find that I don't need to explain to people what makes it so good when they've just tried it for themselves. Sure, I use great vegan ingredients, shea butter and coconut oil and Vitamin E and a few others, with raw honey and a beeswax base, but the results speak for themselves. People come up to us months later and tell me how much they love it, how they threw away all their other lip balm and just drool over my Etsy shop, waiting for new flavors. They use it on cuticles, elbows, heels. I even had a pregnant mama tell me how she used it on her stomach to help with stretch marks!

It is a constant source of amazement to me that using the crafting equivalent of the golden rule is such a surprise to people. Instead of doing unto others as I'd like others to do unto me, I just make products with ingredients and methods that make them appealing to myself. Tastes good, smells good, feels good- check. Food-grade, lip-safe, non-animal ingredients- check. Cute reusable container- check. It seems simple to me, but I think I will never get over being thrilled that everyone else loves what I make as much as I do.

Bees? Really?

Bees on honeycomb

People are often very interested in the beekeeping aspect of soap making. Obviously, not all soap makers are beekeepers, even the ones who make beeswax and honey soap, but they're two hobbies that go together very well. Once people find out that I use my own honey and beeswax, they have a few questions. Also, as a beekeeper, I often do talks about honeybees at elementary schools, so it's a very nice change of pace to explain things in grown-up terms :)

I'm often asked how bees make honey and wax. They don't just magically appear, after all. So: honey is made when bees collect nectar from flowers and store it in the beehive in a small hexagonal cell of the honeycomb. They fan it with their wings to dehydrate it, and when it's at the proper moisture level, they "cap" it by covering the cell with a thin layer of wax. To a beekeeper, a capped cell is proof that honey is ready to harvest. Honey is one of the few food substances in existence that will never spoil, due in large part to the level of dehydration attained by the bees. The only honey that ever goes bad is honey with too much water in it, which is harvested too early (or it might also happen if extra water got into the honey after harvesting; honey with water intentionally added, for instance, can be fermented into mead). Beeswax is secreted by bees from glands in their legs- in people proportions, imagine a big flake of wax on your thigh. They use the wax to build honeycomb, which, as mentioned, is a storage place for honey, and also for pollen, and for baby bees.

Honey still in the comb

To harvest all this requires some management of the hives. Beehives are built of a stack of boxes, called "hive bodies" or, depending on the size, "deeps" or "supers"; the lowest box is typically filled with eggs, baby bees and the adults who care for them, plus the queen, who is always busy laying more eggs. The next box is filled with honey; if this box is the same size as the lowest one, that's usually enough honey to see a colony of bees through the winter, and must be left for the bees to eat. Any boxes above that, though, are fair game for the beekeeper to harvest. You slide something called a "bee escape" between the lowest boxes and the ones with honey you want to harvest. This has a little maze in the center, so that bees can exit the honey boxes but not get back in. After a couple of days, there are no bees left in the upper boxes, and you can take them indoors to harvest.

A full frame of capped honey

Harvesting involves opening the boxes and removing the frames of honey and beeswax. You pull each one out and use a very sharp knife to carefully slice off the "cappings," or the layer of wax that seals the honey in. You then put the frame into an extractor, which is a hand-cranked cylindrical device that uses centrifugal force to whip the honey out of the comb. You repeat this until all the frames are empty, and then put them outdoors again, so that the bees can reclaim any residual honey.

An extractor full of frames

The cappings are your beeswax, which you then melt down for use in soap and lip balm.

The honey gets strained and then stored in jars until used. One of the reasons the bees cap the cells of honey is that honey is a humectant, meaning that it attracts and absorbs moisture- which is part of the reason it's such a good ingredient to use on skin. Honey soap can be very helpful for dry skin. Honey's also antibacterial- I use it instead of Neosporin on cuts and scrapes, and they heal faster and leave less of a scar. You can read more about the healing properties of honey here.

You can make soap without honey and beeswax, and in fact, I often do. But the honey and beeswax soaps are always my favorite, because while everyone's skin is different, my skin always feels and looks better when I use honey and beeswax as my everyday shower soap. And I love going out to my bee yard and seeing the girls flying around; it's great to know that you're making something good and you know where your ingredients come from. In the summer when the sun warms up the hives, you can smell the honey and beeswax, and it just smells so good that I'm never satisfied until I take a shower with that soap :)