Another soap just off the rack is this Gardener’s Honey soap. In addition to the honey, it also has organic oatmeal and organic yogurt. To keep it really natural, it’s not scented but still smells very pleasant.

Ingredients: olive oil, grapeseed oil, palm oil, soybean oil, coconut oil, illipe butter, wheat germ oil, distilled water, sodium hydroxide, organic oatmeal, honey, organic yogurt, calendula petals and geranium petals.

I chose all these ingredients because of their soothing and conditioning abilities. It’s the same ingredients found in a facial mask, but put into this great bar of soap. Not only is a great facial and body soap, but also ideal for gardeners or anyone with super dirty hands! As the bits of oatmeal is very exfoliating.

This is also the first time I’ve soaped with fresh yogurt and illipe butter. The yogurt did leave a soft bar while it was being cut. But after several weeks of curing, it’s perfectly hard and nice as my other soaps.

The soap is also topped with calendula petals and geranium petals harvested from last summer’s flower garden.

Benefits of Illipe butter from Mountain Rose Herbs:

• Moisturizing chronically dry skin
• Mature skin
• Sunburn
• Healing sores
• Damaged skin
• Rough skin (such as on feet)
• Mouth ulcers
• Dry or over processed hair

This is one of my new batches of handmade soap and is now ready for use. They’ve been curing happily for the past few weeks.

I call this the “Moroccan Spice Argan” soap because of all the spicy and herbal essential oils. But the real magic is from the argan oil which is really great for the skin.

Benefits of argan oil:

- Nourishes your skin with super rich in vitamin E, antioxidants and amino acids like Omega 3, 6 and 9
- Pure and natural skincare
- Reduce signs of aging and improve skin conditions like acne, eczema and psoriasis

Ingredients: rice bran oil, coconut oil, palm oil, soybean oil, sunflower oil, hemp oil, distilled water, sodium hydroxide, Moroccan red clay, rosehip powder, acerola powder, sweet orange essential oil, anise essential oil, clove essential oil.

I also added acerola powder. The acerola fruit is also called Barbados cherry and is loaded with vitamin C, great for it’s skin brightening abilities.

Another magical ingredient in this bar is organic hemp seed oil. I’ve never used it in soapmaking before until now. And it is really great stuff for both the soap and the skin. Not only is it great for soapmaking, it’s also very healthy stuff. The oil is very green and mixed with yogurt it taste very nutty and delicious.

This bar is scented with only essential oils. Including sweet orange essential oil, which leaves a nice light citrus scent. The clove and anise also gives in a bit of spice. A perfectly great bar of soap that is safe and beneficial to any skin type.

Ever since I heard about the benefits of neem I wanted to make my own neem soap. I’ve tried many other neem soaps made with neem oil, but the scent was just too strong to use on a daily basis.

It’s been known that all parts of the plant has medicinal qualities, I decided to use the more pleasant smelling neem leaf.

My neem soap is made with some really great ingredients. Besides the neem leaf powder, I’ve included licorice powder for it’s skin brightening qualities. Other ingredients include extra virgin coconut oil, which I consider to be the most premium of all vegetable oils. Not only is it a healthy oil, but it’s a great ingredient for skincare, from lotion to soaps.

Even though this soap is unscented, it does have a very herbal and grassy scent.

The white ashy part on top is a natural occurrence of handmade soap. It will just wash off after the first use.

It’s a good size bar weighing about 3.5 to 4 oz bar. The herbal powders provide a mild exfoliation. It would be okay to use daily as body soap but once a week as facial soap.

Pukka Herbs note, “The roots, bark, leaves and seeds all have medicinal properties and are used for a multitude of purposes; in Sanskrit it is known as sarva roga nivarini, which means ‘the curer of all ailments.”

Another new addition to my handmade soap is this skin nourishing facial soap. It’s made with skin detoxing French Green clay and healing carrot seed essential oil. Both ingredients are beneficial to skincare.

According to Mountain Rose Herbs, french green clay is super absorbent due to the constitution of its micro molecules.

It’s used to remove impurities from your skin. The toning action from the clay is also stimulating to the skin. Thus helping to revitalize the complexion and tighten the pores.

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Introducing the “Chocolate & Sea Salt” handmade soap. It’s fresh off my curing rack.

Ingredients: Oils of coconut, palm, rice bran, and soy. Guava juice, sodium hydroxide, wheat germ and sunflower oil, cocoa powder, and fine Brazilian sea salt.

The guava juice smells fruity, but none of the scent made it to the final bar. So it’s a rather unscented bar with the slight chocolate scent from the cocoa powder. It’s the first time I’ve used guava juice instead of water or milk. Turned out to be a great bar of soap that my skin loved.

Notice the white speckles? They’re from the salt. Only the top portion has the chocolate and looks to be seeping. I’m starting to think it looks a bit creepy, so maybe that’s perfect for Halloween.

The cocoa powder is added because it’s rich in antioxidant and has natural moisturizing properties.

Brazilian Sea Salt. Photo from Amazon.

The salt (Brazilian sea salt) makes it a harder bar. When I was cutting the bar, the bottom edge tend to crack a bit. After several use, the edges smooth out on it’s own.

The salt in the soap also provides a relaxing and soothing effect on the skin. And instead of taking a messy salt scrub shower, why not just use a salt bar instead? Other popular salts being used in soap include Himalayan salt, Dead Sea salt and Hawaiian sea salt.

I love using the Himalayan Honeysuckle as I always feel much more refreshed after each shower. Maybe it’s something to do with the salt?

The only down side with a salt bar is that it doesn’t lather too well. To fix that, just use this soap with a bath sponge and it will produce loads of sud and foam.

So lather up!

These are my new “Seabuckthorn & Green Tea Handmade Soaps”. Since I was having so much fun with hot process soaping, I decided to make these the same way.

You can usually tell if it’s hp soap by the little bubbles around the surface. This is noticeable even when I made sure to fill the mold all the way with soap. Hot process soap is tricky in that sense.

Ingredients: Olive oil, soybean oil, coconut oil, palm oil, distilled water, seabuckthorn oil, rice bran oil, green tea powder, and green tea melon fragrance. Because they are half circle bars, they fit well in the palm of my hands.

The last Seabuckthorn soap I made was was nice and I added lots of good ingredients. Including red palm oil, which gave it the deep golden color.

For this version, I just kept it simple. Except I also added green tea powder. Green tea is making it’s mark in many cosmetic products due to it’s benefits to skincare.

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In addition to the Peppermint Poppy soap, I also made another batch of hot process soap. It’s made with fresh goat milk and scented with a sweet floral scent of Bali jasmine blossoms.

This batch was much easier to work because there are no sea salt or other extra ingredients. It’s also a much smoother bar too.

Sometimes exfoliating soaps are nice, but some days you just want a smooth bar of soap. But each type of soap has their own benefits. And most of all, handmade soaps leave your skin well moisturized and clean.

Once the soap was done cooking, I poured them into my empty (clean) goat milk carton. After letting it cool down for 24 hours, I sliced them into medium sized bars.

The bars are pretty and a good size too. With fragrance, there are variations and difficult to describe. So I went with a lighter jasmine scent that is not overpowering. But it’s a nice sweet scent that reminds me of someplace tropical and breezy.

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Here is my latest handmade soap: Peppermint Poppy. Because I wanted to use it within a couple of days, I went with hot process soap making. With traditional cold process, the cure time would have been at least three weeks or longer.

When I was pouring hemp milk into my cereal, I immediately thought about making hemp milk soap. Hemp oil seem to be more common for soap making then with hemp milk. To make sure I didn’t mess up, I also added equal amounts of goat milk.

The hemp milk I got was from a natural health food store. Hemp milk taste a little like soy milk, but creamier and nuttier. It is naturally rich in omega 3, 6 and 9. It also contains minerals, vitamins and antioxidants, high in vitamins A and E.

Besides the hemp milk, I also added other stuff to this batch. There is fine Brazilian sea salt, peppermint essential oil, and poppy seeds. It’s going to be one difficult to name soap. So I just decided on “Peppermint Poppy Soap”.

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Ever since Açaí (pronounced ah-sigh-ee) berries came into the health market, it’s interest has not slowed down. Native Brazilians have been eating acai berries long before the rest of the world knew about it. And to the natives, it’s just part of their daily diet.

My latest bar of Açaí Berry Superfruit handmade soap.  It’s made with acai berry extract. And also other superfruit such as pomegranate juice powder.  I also included organic beet powder and grape seed extract.

Acai has also found it’s way to the beauty industry too.  Some of Ikove Amazonian beauty products are made using Açaí as it provides a remarkable concentration of antioxidants that help to combat premature aging.  It contains essential amino acid complex and valuable trace minerals.

The Acai berry extract or pulp can be added to anti-aging creams, after sun products, body creams and lotions. Science Daily News noted, “Acai berries are packed with antioxidants that are essential to assist our bodies as they help fight illness and reduce the aging process.” It’s just good all around.

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My latest soap off the curing rack is Sea Buckthorn.

It is made with real Sea Buckthorn oil which is commonly used in skincare and soap. This oil is full of vitamins A (derived from -carotene), vitamin C (ascorbic acid) and vitamin E (-tocopherol).

This is probably one of the best soap for trouble skin. When the weather got warmer in the past few days, I noticed the skin on my back started to break out a little.

Acne is caused by the inflammation of the surrounding skin tissue. The combination of pores being obstructed by sebum and dead skin cells clogs hair follicles and leads to bacterial attack.

But since using the Sea Buckthorn soap, my back acne started to clear up and healed within a few days. I think it may do the same for people with sensitive or problem skin.

Sea Buckthorn oil is known to promote the healing of skin such as burns and eczema. It also helps improve skin condition, especially with dryness and wrinkles. It also leaves your skin feeling very pampered and moisturized too.

It’s a common plant used in both skincare and food source from Europe to parts of Asia. I may try growing them from seeds and see how well they grow in Northern California. But you will need both male and female trees to produce this much berries.

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