abendgules (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
abendgules) wrote2013-12-15 03:29 pm
abendgules) wrote2013-12-15 03:29 pm
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Soapster work continues
This weekend I discovered that you can leave your hardening soap too long before cutting it into bars. 1-2 days is ideal. 7 days is too long.
So folks getting my 'squire' soap will have charming and rustic soap chunks, rather than bars.
However, the honey soap that didn't harden very well because the trapped moisture enclosed in the molds kept it 'damp' emerged on Sat, and firmed up enough overnight that I could cut it up fairly neatly for further curing in the cupboard.
SO: from this we learn that plastic drink bottles don't make good moulds and trap moisture.
I shall have to ask my friends to eat more Pringles, or other junk food that comes in convenient waxy cardboard tubes, and keep the tubes for me. Any volunteers?
Once Robert is finished patterning armour with Cate, we're away to grocery shop, where I'm hoping to buy lard towards trying lard-based soaps. They're likely accurate for northern European medieval period - Castile soap, made w/ olive oil, was apparently an imported luxury.
Everything I've tried so far has been veg-based, and I'd like to try something animal based.
Lard is cheap, and comes from the grocery store already refined so no rendering required. I want to try it in smaller batches, to experiment with additives I have - pumice for one (can use up at least a couple of spoonsful of my lifetime's supply!), oatmeal for another.
On the successes front: I sorted making 'Galen's cold cream', mostly as described in S Pointer's book about historic beauty. I swapped almond oil for olive, and this time I warmed the oils more, to bring them closer to the temp of the wax, and then poured the oil into the wax, rather than other way round, and mixed them while quite warm, still in the double-boiler (or for me, the mixing container sitting in a pan of hot water).
Previous efforts were hit-and-miss: I got one perfect result, and one lumpy one, and one I had to throw out last year. This year, I got one lumpy-but-useable (not as heated) and two very good ones, with the extra warming of the oil. So now I know: keep oil and wax closer in temp while mixing, and pour into containers before it sets firm. AND: I have the quantities written down.
I now have over a dozen small bottles of medieval-plausible cold cream as gifties.
Today I also made up the paste for 2nd part of making Spanish leather - scented squares of leather that you put in sachets. You soak squares of leather in a paste of oils til dry, then stick them together with the second scented paste. I've folded them up, and squished them between some books. (Instructions say 'press flat til dry': if only we had some heavy books in the house...)
They smell delightful to me, but I'm biased.
Yesterday evening, I pressed and sewed loads of teeny bags in linen for scented sachets, and sewed up some lined bags for decorative purses. I like sewing them entirely by hand, but life is a bit too short, when I also fingerbraid the edges, and make the braided purse strings, and the beaded tassles. Hopefully recipients can overlook the machine-sewn internal seams.
So folks getting my 'squire' soap will have charming and rustic soap chunks, rather than bars.
However, the honey soap that didn't harden very well because the trapped moisture enclosed in the molds kept it 'damp' emerged on Sat, and firmed up enough overnight that I could cut it up fairly neatly for further curing in the cupboard.
SO: from this we learn that plastic drink bottles don't make good moulds and trap moisture.
I shall have to ask my friends to eat more Pringles, or other junk food that comes in convenient waxy cardboard tubes, and keep the tubes for me. Any volunteers?
Once Robert is finished patterning armour with Cate, we're away to grocery shop, where I'm hoping to buy lard towards trying lard-based soaps. They're likely accurate for northern European medieval period - Castile soap, made w/ olive oil, was apparently an imported luxury.
Everything I've tried so far has been veg-based, and I'd like to try something animal based.
Lard is cheap, and comes from the grocery store already refined so no rendering required. I want to try it in smaller batches, to experiment with additives I have - pumice for one (can use up at least a couple of spoonsful of my lifetime's supply!), oatmeal for another.
On the successes front: I sorted making 'Galen's cold cream', mostly as described in S Pointer's book about historic beauty. I swapped almond oil for olive, and this time I warmed the oils more, to bring them closer to the temp of the wax, and then poured the oil into the wax, rather than other way round, and mixed them while quite warm, still in the double-boiler (or for me, the mixing container sitting in a pan of hot water).
Previous efforts were hit-and-miss: I got one perfect result, and one lumpy one, and one I had to throw out last year. This year, I got one lumpy-but-useable (not as heated) and two very good ones, with the extra warming of the oil. So now I know: keep oil and wax closer in temp while mixing, and pour into containers before it sets firm. AND: I have the quantities written down.
I now have over a dozen small bottles of medieval-plausible cold cream as gifties.
Today I also made up the paste for 2nd part of making Spanish leather - scented squares of leather that you put in sachets. You soak squares of leather in a paste of oils til dry, then stick them together with the second scented paste. I've folded them up, and squished them between some books. (Instructions say 'press flat til dry': if only we had some heavy books in the house...)
They smell delightful to me, but I'm biased.
Yesterday evening, I pressed and sewed loads of teeny bags in linen for scented sachets, and sewed up some lined bags for decorative purses. I like sewing them entirely by hand, but life is a bit too short, when I also fingerbraid the edges, and make the braided purse strings, and the beaded tassles. Hopefully recipients can overlook the machine-sewn internal seams.
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Robert says when he was in theatre he used cold cream as a makeup remover, which may be where it survives.
We're now awash in specialist face and body creams with different scents and consistencies, but at one time, cold cream was the main option for moisturiser, makeup remover, overnight masks, whatever.
You can still get it in England at Boots. I got a pot to compare to mine. The commercial one is more strongly scented, is shinier and absorbs more easily, but otherwise seems very similar.
At their cores, moisturisers still use an emulsion of oils and waxes. They can be sourced from plants, animals or petroleum products, but you still need some combination of oil, wax, water and scent.
Better quality ones have combinations that are more pleasant, or are gentler on the skin, but all the rest is packaging and personal preference...and marketing.