Whip It Good!

I ventured into new territory (for me) a couple of weekends back and had too much fun. As best as I could, I documented my experience with photos. I made cold process whipped soap. Cold process whipped soap is assembled and formulated differently then cold process soap. When formulating your recipe use 80% hard/solid oils and 20% liquid oils. Hard and solid oils are whipped until white fluffy peaks form, then liquid oils are added. I worked with my oils and lye solution at room temperature. First, I lined my soap mold, mixed my micas, and weighed my fragrant oil.

Weigh out hard and solid oils in a stainless steel bowl. Little side note here - make sure you use a bowl that is big enough to accommodate the hard oils, the air you are going to whip into the oils, the soft oils, and lye solution! I learned the hard way.

To whisk in enough air into your oils you need to use a cake beater or some type of whisk attachment. I switched off between a cake beater and used my whisk attachment on my hand held. The ideal tool to use, if you are lucky enough to have is a stand-alone mixer like Kitchenaid. If I had one I am sure I would have whisked / whipped my oils longer.

HARD / SOLID OILS BEING WHIPPED


I should have paid better attention how long it took to form soft peaks - I would estimate that I whipped the hard and solid oils about 50 minutes.

LIQUID OILS WEIGHED OUT - POUR SMALL AMOUNT AT A TIME



Add the measured liquid oils to the whipped hard and solid oils a little at a time whipping each time after. Your beautiful stark white peaks will deflate a tad, that is OK. Whip to incorporate.

HARD/SOLID OILS MIXED WITH LIQUID OILS










With gloves and goggles on, add about 1/8 of a cup of lye solution at one time to the whipped oils. Whip WELL each time you add a little of the lye solution. Make sure all is incorporated. Once all the lye is throughly whipped in add fragrance or essential oil. whip until a yogurt or soft cream cheese consistency.

If you plan on adding color now is the time to separate the raw soap and add your colors. Do not worry about your soap getting hard. I had plenty of time to color and play around molding my soap.

RAW SOAP SEPERATED FOR COLOR



MICA THAT I PREPARED BEFORE MIXING OILS AND LYE









I kept some soap in the bowl uncolored to have white.


MICA MIXED WITH RAW SOAP




The fun part for me was molding this soap! It does not pour like a thin trace cold process soap. I had to glop it into the mold - very simply to spread around. Side note, this soap hardens VERY hard and can be hard to cut without crumbling. If using a log mold you will probably need to use a wire-cutter. I am using a mold that has inserts so I will need to just pop the bars out. I would not use a fancy mold with designs (although if you can make it work, let me know!). This soap tends to REALLY adhere itself to the mold and even to the inserts! It was kind of a pain to release.

MOLD I LINED BEFORE MIXING OIL AND LYE



RAW SOAP PUT INTO MOLD



INSERTING DIVIDERS



UNMOLDED BARS!


In the pic below, not sure if you can see - the edge of the bar of soap broke as I was unmolding. GRRR!






Oh yeah........




THE SOAP FLOATS!

Sanfilippo Syndrom - One Click Can Help

Hey Everyone,

Pepsi is holding a project called Pepsi Refresh Project. Many great causes are being voted on each day to receive money for further research for disease, equipment needed, homeless and so on. One of the causes that I am asking YOU to vote for is personal to me because my 7 year old cousin suffers from this - Sanfilippo Syndrome. Below is a quick overview of this awful disease:

Sanfilippo syndrome is a genetic error of metabolism that affects children. It is a mucopolysaccharidoses, an MPS disorder, MPS-lll. Mucopolysaccharides are long chains of sugar molecules, used in building connective tissues. When the body is finished using these molecules, it breaks them down, with enzymes, and disposes of them. Children with MPS are missing or are deficient in the enzyme to break down the molecules. Instead, the body stores these molecules and this causes progressive damage.Thus, we plan to construct a vector plasmid for a self-complementary rAAV vector that creates the enzyme to break down the molecules. Once the vector is constructed, we will infect human MPS III skin fibroblasts cell cultures to determine the levels of expression and secretion of recombinant enzyme. After successfully replicating the vector, we will provide the GMP vector for preclinical studies and make this treatment available for all children impacted by this devastating disorder.

You can help this much needed money go to Sanfilippo Syndrom by voting each day via email, text, and through facebook. There is no cure and these children die young. Please, Please vote and help us get this much needed money so we can learn MORE about this disease and find a cure. VOTE NOW

Anyone Can Give

I want to start this post by saying how truly blessed I am. I have a husband who loves me, is beyond kind to me, and respects me. I have two children (teens) who are productive and treat me with respect and love. I am not hungry, or cold, or wear tattered clothes. I consider myself fortunate. Sadly, many are hungry, cold or only have tattered clothes.

All year round everyone should be thinking of the less fortunate; however, during this time of year can be especially hard for those in need – in need of companionship, food, warmth, clothes, and of course money.

Obviously not all of us are in the position to give money, but that should not stop you from giving. There are so many ways to help someone in need – no one really has an excuse not to give something. It is important not to forget those who are homebound, those who are older, or those who may not have family or many friends.

I thought of some ways we can give. I am confident this list contains at least one act of kindness anyone can do.

Monetary donation to a trusted organization
Donate Services. Offer to baby-sit for a single parent so they can have some free time.
Cook a meal and enjoy it with someone homebound
Donate time. Volunteer at a hospital, nursing home, soup kitchen
Donate clothes, blankets, toys and/or toiletries to a local shelter
Give life. Donate Blood
A simple smile may not pay the bills, but can do WONDERS for someone.
Offer an ear and listen. Everyone needs to be heard and validated.

Let's keep this list going - so many more ways to give this time of year and all year round.

Stocking Stuffer Sale

Stocking Stuffer Sale **FREE SHIPPING** to continental United States. Shipping charges will be refunded via paypal. Good on all items. http://www.mybestapple.etsy.com/ No promo code needed - shipping charges will be refunded on all items via paypal.

Hint for Contest

I promised a hint to the contest 'Guess My Destination'. You can read about the contest here to win 5 bars of homemade soap. Ok, so here is the hint....

The destination place is located in the state of Missouri.

Post your guesses on my wall here.

Have a great day!

xoxo

Win 5 Bars Homemade Soap

The Mr. and I went on vacation couple of weeks back. At the end of this post are pictures of the neat things we saw. Can you guess where we went? If so, you could win 5 bars of my homemade soap. Winner will be notified Jan 1st, 2011.

Details:

To be eligible all you need to do is "Like" my facebook page here. Leave your guesses (guess as many times as you would like) on my wall here. If you would like to gain more entries all you have to do is tweet this blog post, include @soapexperience in your RT so I can view.

I will be giving out hints from now until I pick a winner via blog, twitter, and facebook.


Huge christmas tree at night




Glass Blowing Demo Area

HUGE Christmas Tree

Candy Store
Yum! Tons of Taffy

blacksmith demo area

swinging bridge

Old fashiond flour mill

Candle store

one of many christmas trees

handmade soap demo area

handmade brooms demo area

Nothing like a couple years between posts!

Wow, it has been a LOooong time since I have written in my blog, shame on me! I am going to forgive myself and move on.


I am super excited I finally opened up my Etsy shop “My Best Apple” homemade soaps. You can view my shop here. Additionally I took the plunge and created my facebook page which you can view here, My Best Apple. Psst, if you want to “like” my new page and / or share it please do. For the wonderful, extraordinary peeps that have already liked my page a big FAT THANK YOU.

I started a contest on my facebook page in which you can win five bars of my homemade soap. I will shortly post another blog with the details. If you just cannot wait you can read the details in the ‘notes’ section here.

Thanks!

Brooke