Future bars of lemon soap

I've been doing more cold processing soap making lately.  here's another soap I just put into the mold.  This one has base oils of olive, coconut, avocado and shea butter and scented with lemon essential oil.  It was really hard to get out of the mold so I will have to use sodium lactate next time for a harder bar of soap that will unmold a little easier.  When i pulled it out, the corners were dented because the soap was still too soft - these are just cosmetic defects and the soap is 100% usable.  These are clearly handmade soaps but fun nevertheless!

Gorgeous Grape vines

Recently I went to a wedding at Fogerty Vineyards in Woodside.  These are some of the rows of grape vines that were planted on the property, which also had majestic views of Silicon Valley.  

Living Room String Beans - part deux

Here are some of the grown string beans from our living room string bean project.

It was a fun experiment and we want to continue growing more veggies.  It is a lot easier to buy string beans from the farmers market or grocery store and in bigger quantities but it's nice to be able to have it super fresh right in your own living room.  Unfortunately, the plant is long gone now.  We have planted a few seeds which have sprouted!  If they are viable, we'll do another post soon with those new plants.

Castile soap

Real Castile soap is 100% olive oil. It's a mild and gentle soap that is great for all skin types but especially those who are more sensitive.   The ingredients of this soap is olive oil, water, sodium hydroxide and essential oils.  I used a blend of lavender, tangerine, mint and it smells heavenly.  this soap was made using the cold process method.

I should have cut it earlier in the day becuase when we tried to cut it tonight, it was a little hard.  Live and learn.  it should still be a great bar of soap when it's ready for use.  Castile soap is one of the ones that needs to cure for a longer time to get a better soaping experience.  These were made last night and I will recommend not using them until Dec 1.

Here's the soap right after I poured it into the mold.

Here are the cut bars.  You can see that it went through partial gel