How do I come up with ideas / recipes?

My Matcha Tea Cold Process Soap

A fan on my facebook page recently asked how I come up with ideas and or my recipes. I thought that was a perfect post for the blog. It's pretty simple, and I do use my art background to help me.

The first thing I do is smell my essential and fragrance oils. Then I visualize how they should look based on the scents.  I think of all of the colors associated with that scent (i.e. pink for honeysuckle). Then I figure out how to use them in the soap. Do I want stripes or swirls? Solid color? Do I want to swirl in the pot or in the mold?

For example- Bay Rum- made me think of Green (Bay), Rum (white) and Blue for the ocean. Matcha tea is a powdered green tea used in Japanese Tea Ceremony. Instead of just making a green soap, I decided to use the colors that make green and swirl it into the soap, so yellow and cyan are swirled into white. Color harmony- like the harmony that is needed to participate in tea ceremony.

 

My Bay Rum Cold Process Soap

When it comes to my recipes, a lot of it is trial and error. You have to know what the different oils do. Coconut oil adds to the lather and hardness of a bar of soap and moisturizing too. Too much coconut oil can be drying. Palm oil also adds to the hardness of the bar. Olive oil gives a rich, smooth, feel and helps to create a very hard bar once fully cured. I made a post earlier in the year about the qualities each oil brings to the soaping table!

For the minimalist soap- I used my base recipe, but since it had no fragrance I wanted to add some luxury oils. I like the way hempseed soaps feel so I added that and I have been experimenting with the avocado butter. Really everything is trial and error.