Bambikitty X Soapmaking

Hey all! So much things have been going on and whaddya know that the first two months of the year are over and we are here in March. So much has been going on with life lately that I haven't really sat down and wrote entries. I started the year pretty nicely and I really hope it means that it would carry on for the rest of the year. I'm currently in the process to adjusting to new schedules as I started teaching actively again in Yoga For Life after my self-induced -ber month break as -ber months suck the life out of me and I also added a new class in a new shala to my roster of classes. Like a friend told me, I hardly had time for myself, and sometimes, sitting down for a few minutes in front of the PC and really writing things down helps me slow things a bit and get me to reflect (and perfect, it's Mercury Retrograde. Time to reflect).

Speaking of Retrograde, how has Mercury Retrograde affected you? I've noticed that lately they've been really unkind to me. Before it was quite manageable, but last year and this year, it's been quite horrible. I don't know if I started being more sensitive to these things or what. This one is crazy. There was a day Facebook and IG would act up, then phone connections acted up, then confusion, omigod. Just a few minutes ago, I had a panic regarding my tax deadlines and then when I clarified it, I was mistaken. Whew! I got scared for like 10 minutes at 3 am.  And really, from the word "retrograde" I should really just re-tract, re-flect, and re-connect. Funny thing though, when I checked my zodiac, that's what it said. I'm not really an astrology expert nor do I follow horoscopes to the letter but somehow, when my gut feel tells me so and from past experience when making rampa just messes up life during this time, I'd rather not. Take it slow. 

As my crafting is literally a form of moving meditation, that's what I've been doing for this whole period. I'm starting to re-connect back to fitness as well and trying to get into regular workouts as life has gotten me being lazy 80% of the time. I try to vary my workouts so my body doesn't plateau. My crafting is also a way of re-connecting because I was doing that even before blogging or makeup started. It just took a back seat because of life happenings like work or busyness (sometimes drama) but thankfully, crafting has found a reinassance in today's very hipster era of Pinterest and DIY. Anyway, that's what I've been doing lately so if you follow my IG you see me doing crochet work (I DIY-ed my hats, gloves, and scarves during the Japan trip), doll crafts, the toys I make for the baby kitties, etc. Just recently, I got into soapmaking. Yes. I now make my own soap.

So how did I get started into it? I started because I saw how sometimes my skin would get red and patchy from certain brands of commercial soap. At first, I thought it was okay but then I was like, "Hey, this never happened before!" Even if I would switch brands, I would often find a bit of rough and red patches on my skin. When a friend of mine who got into soapmaking  started selling her soaps, I bought because 1) I wanted to support her businesses and of course, as a small business owner myself,  I would do so. 2) #lovelocal 3) I thought it might save my skin and believe me, it really did. It had that pole-friendly feel (unslippy skin is a pole must) yet it didn't leave my skin itchy and raw. When I switched over to handmade and more natural processed soaps, my skin has been better. Since I use those soaps most of the time anyway and seeing how fun and fulfilling it must be, I thought, why not start to make my own too? Besides, it jives with the yoga lifestyle as well.

After asking around for soapmaking workshops, I found one at the recommendation of my friend at Satinka Naturals in Kamagong, Makati. This location was perfect because it's super near and the price is affordable.  The shop had a very quaint hipster apothecary vibe that serves really good food and coffee. The workshop was taught by the owner of the shop herself.

handmade soap by Satinka Naturals

Soap is basically a combination of butters and oils (basically fat) combined with a lye  (sodium hydroxide) solution. You let their molecules come together to have a party until you have this cake batter-like substance that hardens in time. The fragrance, extracts, and additives are just icing on the cake (and sometimes handmade soap does look like cake).  Sounds simple right?  It's a lot more than that apparently. Soapmaking I found out is both an art and science. It is an art because you make an artwork with your soap and a science because it involves chemical reactions (it's basically a very pretty smelling chem experiment) and a lot of  Math. I mean if you look at my soaping notebook right now, it's got more numbers than words. During soapmaking, three things are totally ingrained in my head: to never, ever use aluminum in soaping (aluminum reacts with lye to produce a very toxic and flammable hydrogen gas), be careful (but not scared) of lye, and lastly, to have separate gear for soaping and cooking. So yea, I literally had to buy a kitchen extension after, lol. 

We also learned how to formulate our own recipes such as a combination of oils, the proper ratio to get the kind of soap we want, and what ingredients are good for certain conditions. I also learned to use the term "natural" soap instead of "organic" soap. Organic apparently refers to the product or the actual ingredient. So if you say "organic", you picked the produce from the tree or harvested it and didn't use pesticides or hormones. But since we already processed those fruits or vegetables and used oils, extracts, and stuff, the term we should use is "natural". To say "organic" shampoo means to pick the shampoo bottle from a tree and use it. I think a proper term is natural process soap/shampoo using organic products (in case they used organic coffee/ milks, etc).

cooking hot process soap

We learned three ways of making soap - cold process, which doesn't use heat and which produces the swirls and cute designs we see in handmade soaps. It's nice because it requires less tools and produces the swirly things but curing time takes a month and a half. There's hot process which we cook the soap through the saponification process and "gel" phase and make the lye solution evaporate quicker so the soap is ready for use sooner. Lastly, there's glycerin soap, which is a gentle soap for babies and face and we also learned how to make this from scratch. Glycerin soap is also the base for melt-and-pour soaps sold in craft shops. 

At first, I was a cold process loyalist because I wasn't fond of heat  in a tropical country. But after delving into hot process, I'm a convert of hot process now (my teacher Satinka prefers this too and now I know why). Turnover is faster and it's more efficient.  Plus what I love about HP (hot process) is that cleaning is much better and less wasteful. The slow cooker I used to cook my soap batter in practically became self-cleaning because the batter residue has already become sudsy soap and not a mixture of oils and lye. I didn't need to use a lot of detergent and water to clean out oil residue or mop out soap batter with a lot of paper towels. The only sad thing I have about it is that I can't get as artsy with my soap designs. But honestly, I like the rustic and more handmade look of hot process soap.

The disadvantage I have though with handmade soap is that it's meltier than the commercial soap we buy in the grocery. I've noticed that even with those handmade soaps that I buy. The reason for this is that handmade soap does not contain hardeners and extenders. As a bar of soap from the grocery would sometimes last me weeks or even months (I know, right?), handmade soap lasts for a week or maybe just even a few days. However, at least I know what's in my soap and that there are no extenders or added chemicals that can cause more irritation on the body. 

It, however, does take a lot of planning and formulation. We were taught how to formulate our own recipes and not rely on being super dependent on recipes online. If you want to make a soap on Christmas that looks like cake or muffins, you start as early as June with the execution because that would be a cold process soapmaking procedure. For cold process soaps, you can't use them right away since you have to wait for the lye to completely evaporate from the soap. There are some soapmaking processes that take 2 days to make if you plan to infuse oils or do layers like soap within a soap kind of thing. And just in case the first attempt doesn't come out right, you have proper lead time to get t right until Christmas comes.

Boldy-Boldy - the first cold process soap I made
I called this Boldy-Boldy because it's fragrance and colorant free

I remember my first ever soap I made on my own, I stick-blended so much that my batter got so thick it looked more like mashed potatoes than cake batter and I had to glop it in the mold like oatmeal instead of pouring it in. I've had soaps that stuck to expectations and soaps that didn't turn out as expected. As some of my soapmaking friends stuck to cold process and found how it worked for them, I found more success in my hot process attempts for usable and pretty soap.

all soaps that I made

Part of retaining the craft I learned is to practice it more often. Just like dance, you need the muscle memory so you don't forget it. Plus also, I make more bars for selling. The selling part came unexpectedly when I started posting my soaps and I've gotten inquiries. So funny though, I never thought of selling my food but soaps I am good. Another funny thing is that I never owned a slow cooker ever. I just started using one when I made soap. 

It certainly is an art and science and pretty much you'll see more posts of my creations. I'm putting up as of the moment an online shop of all my crafts (that's why I've been making a lot of stuff lately!). Selling it wasn't really expected but when I got inquiries about my handmade soaps after posting them online, I thought of giving it a try. After all, we do need clean at one point.  Once it's fully up, I will announce details here soon.