Growing up, the neighbors across our house had an almond tree, when we wanted to eat an almond (the actual fruit, not the seed), we would either pick it up from the ground after making sure it didn’t have bat bite marks (another neighbor had a capulin tree/Mexican cherry that bats particularly liked) or throw rocks at one so it would fall from the tree.
After eating the fruit, we would find a larger rock to break the shell and then ate the almond seed inside of it (what is sold in stores). It was soft, moist and small. Ahhh, memories!
You can see some almond fruit/tree in this video I found online.
Anywho, I was recently asked to make a slab soap and decided to attempt an Almond Blossom’s design again. My first attempt in 2018 was not very successful, as I had yet to learn to be careful with floral fragrances.
This time I wanted to be more accurate with the colors too. However; now that I think about it, I don’t recall my neighbor’s almond tree ever looking like this painting, as it was mostly large oval leaves all over. It seems Van Gogh was inspired by Japanese prints when painting it, which were mostly from a lower viewpoint, as in looking up to the branches, so that the main trunk is not visible.
I had the opportunity to see the painting in person when it was on loan to the Fine arts museum of Houston. Here is the picture I took of it.
In the soap my colors came out darker than I wanted, it was probably because I changed my recipe due to the high price of olive oil and I am using rice bran oil instead, which has a darker tone. Also because I decided to try unrefined shea butter, which has a yellow/beige tone instead of the white color from the refined version. So I lightened it up with some face paints after unmolding it.
Here is a video of the making and below the supplies I used.
Mold:
Fragrance:
- 2 oz of Persephone’s Kiss
Colorants
- 1/4 tsp + 1/8 tsp Midnight blue mica for half (20 oz)
- 1/2 tsp of Neon blue for other half
- For 3 oz sage green: tried1/16 tsp of silver shimmer black mica + 1/4 tsp of Lily pad mica (Wholesale Supplies plus)
- Face paints: Green gold shimmer, Ziva blue shimmer, (you can use micas blended with alcohol instead)
Embeds
To make the embeds I used soap dough and this mold
- Flower embeds: you can watch how I made them here.
Equipment
Safety Equipment:
Respirator (I use this when mixing the lye, I mix the lye in the window sill, window opened, with a pedestal fan blowing the fumes away, better yet, freeze your distilled water prior) I also try to wear long sleeves, pants and closed shoes. In my personal experience, most of my near misses (when I feel my skin itching or a slight burning sensation), or when I come contact with the soap batter, have happened when I am wiping down the containers, when I am almost done.
Facial Shield (I use either a facial shield or the goggles below)
Needed Ingredients
| Ingredient | Gram(s) | Ounce(s) | Pounds(s) | Oil % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coconut Oil, 76 deg | 217.72 | 7.68 | 0.48 | 24% |
| Ricinus Oil (Castor Oil) | 63.50 | 2.24 | 0.14 | 7% |
| Karite Butter (Shea) | 99.79 | 3.52 | 0.22 | 11% |
| Tallow, Beef | 244.94 | 8.64 | 0.54 | 27% |
| Rice Bran Oil | 281.23 | 9.92 | 0.62 | 31% |
| Ingredient | Gram(s) | Ounce(s) | Pounds(s) | Batch % |
| NaOH (5% Superfat) | 118.53 | 4.18 | 0.26 | 9.59% |
| KOH (5% Superfat) | 8.75 | 0.31 | 0.02 | 0.71% |
| Water (40% Lye + 60% Water Solution) | 190.92 | 6.73 | 0.42 | 15.45% |
| Total Oils | 907.18 | 32 | 2 | 73.43% |
| Soap Weight (Pre-Cook) | 1,235.44 | 43.58 | 2.72 | 100% |
Last Thoughts
With my soap recipe and water discount, the fragrance did thicken quickly after pouring, which made it hard to get an even soap (some parts were thicker than others), so this is something for me to keep in mind when making slab soaps in the future.
Have you ever eaten an actual almond? Would you like to? I wish I could eat them again; perhaps I will in my next visit to El Salvador.
Soaps by Glenda 