A while back I decided I would do some oil infusions because I had read about them in a book. Since I was not in a rush to use them, I went for the cold infusion method. I poured some olive oil on top of annatto seeds in a container. Then another bottle I filled with dried rose petals, and the third with calendula petals. I tucked them away in my storage supply closet and once in a while I would manually rotate the jars to distribute the annato seeds. (The petal flowers I decided to infuse merely for illusion of their benefits in soap, not for coloring) The jury is still out on whether these benefits carry in the soap.
To my disappointment, later I learned that my annatto infused oil would not last long once it is used in soap (the color will fade), but since I already had it, I decided to use it anyway. So I used it in my peach soap. So the annatto would do the yellow, and to do the orange, I used the rose clay. Rose clay gives a pinkish color when used with regular oils. Since my infused oils were yellow, I figured this would give result in a nice orange/peach color.
I noticed I got glycerine rivers around the portion colored with the rose clay, though my water/lye ratio was at 33% (Recipe here)
Getting inspired by the fragrance to do a Soap Designs
The whole inspiration for this soap came from the fragrance, it is called Maple roasted Southern Peach, from Crafter’s Choice (I bought it from WholeSale Supplies Plus). To my surprise, I learned that peach is a popular fragrance. I knew I liked it (that is why I bought it) but I was surprised about people inquiring where I had gotten it, and comments that it sounded like a delicious fragrance. I did the soap at room temperature, and did not have any problems with acceleration (as you can see in the video, linked below). And even though I poured it when it was very fluid, by the next morning I was able to unmold it and cut it. (My recipe has lots of solid oils) However, I did another soap with the same recipe, poured it into a silicone mold with no wooden frame, and that one I had to wait 12 more hours to unmold.
This fragrance does discolor to a medium brown, I knew that and figured it would go with the maple part of the design. This is how they look 3 weeks later:
So, for the design, I used soap dough peach embeds. I did a video on the making of those that you can find here, if you are curious. When I put embeds on top of the soap, I try to keep the bottom part simple. And viceversa. The fragrance also has a strong maple scent, which by the way, is very strong when making the soap, then it does mellow and the next day you are able to smell the peach more. I wanted to illustrate the maple in the soap design, so I colored some melt and pour with a little bit of a copper block I had laying around and I poured it on top. Man, just writing about this makes me think of pancakes, I must be hungry!
If you want to watch the video of the making and cutting, here is the link:
Soaps by Glenda 