Χειροποίητα‬ Lip Balms για τις κρύες μέρες που έρχονται

Ενυδατικό, θρεπτικό βάλσαμο για την περιποίηση των χειλιών σας από λάδι ελιάς και άλλα πολύτιμα λάδια και βούτυρα, εμπλουτισμένο με μερικές σταγόνες αιθέριο έλαιο. 

Μπορείτε να επιλέξετε ανάμεσα σε αυτά τα δύο, για τώρα. Σύντομα θα υπάρξουν περισσότερες επιλογές.

1) Cranberry & Λεβάντα με βούτυρο καριτέ, αμυγδαλέλαιο, λάδι από κουκούτσια σταφυλιού, το μελισσοκέρι, βιταμίνη Ε και αιθέριο έλαιο λεβάντας.

2) Σοκολάτα & Μέντα, με βούτυρο κακάο, αμυγδαλέλαιο, ελαιόλαδο, καστορέλαιο, μελισσοκέρι, σκόνη κακάο και αιθέριο έλαιο δυόσμου

Έκανα αυτές τις ετικέτες μόνη μου, χρησιμοποιώντας το PicMonkey. Μου αρέσει να πειραματίζομαι με αυτό, δημιουργώντας μια διαφορετική ετικέτα κάθε φορά. Αυτό μάλλον θα πρέπει να αλλάξει όταν θα έχω να κάνω μεγαλύτερες παραγγελίες, αλλά μέχρι στιγμής είναι διασκέδαση και όχι αγγαρεία.

Butterfly Swirl Gallery

And something quite unexpected...instead of a butterfly I've got a Happy Feet :)

Few words about handmade soap

I started writing a post on my Facebook page that turned out to be long-ish, so I'll just write it down here and update it whenever I feel the need to add something.

Let's be honest: Soap is meant for cleaning, polishing and skin care.

It is not a "natural" product, as some soap makers claim. It is not a medicine either. Although using quality handmade soap can benefit your skin a lot. Why is that? Because our skin was exposed to commercial soaps, which are basically detergents that have dried out our skin over the years. Using a good handmade soap will recover our skin to it's natural state and that is why we say it benefits your skin. Also, commercial soap manufacturers remove the glycerin from the soap to make it cheaper and to use the glycerin in different creams and lotions that, after using a commercial soap, you will most definitely need. So basically you have to buy a soap and a lotion separately. That is not the case with handmade soap, where glycerin is still present.

Coconut Oil Soap

Ever since I first read about properties of different oils for soap making and found information that even though large amount of coconut oil in soap can be drying for the skin, it is still possible to make a good, nondrying Coconut oil soap, I wanted to try making one myself.

Some of my soap making buddies even make 100% Coconut oil soap without lye discount and they swear that it's the best soap for the laundry. I didn't want to use so much Coconut oil for a laundry soap, because it's not a very cheap ingredient here in Greece, but I decided to make a small batch of Laundry soap with 50% Coconut oil and 50% Lard. While I was at it, I figured i could try making a small batch of 100% Coconut oil soap with the remaining 250 g of oil I had left.

How to Prepare Lard for Soap Making

Why Lard?

As you probably know, I live in Greece, in the beautiful peninsula called Halkidiki. I would say the nature has been very generous here and provided us with sea, long sand beaches, clean drinking water, mountains covered in Pine, Oak and Chestnut forests. Hills and valleys are mostly covered with olive farms, some Apricot orchards and livestock farms that supply local butcher stores with meat. Halkidiki is also known for its tradition of beekeeping, which is mentioned by Aristotle in 4th century B.C. Today Halkidiki holds 10% of Greek honey production and it is most densely populated area in regards to beehives. There are 84 beehives per square kilometer in Halkidiki, while the average density of beehives in Greece, which ranks first in Europe, is only 11 per square kilometer.

 This area has also been blessed (or cursed) with the presence of gold, silver and magnesite, and therefore we have several operating mines as well as one (at Skouries location) that still haven't started mining, because they have been strongly opposed by our local community for years, due to immense danger they pose for our lives and the nature of Halkidiki, but also because of numeral transgressions by the company that has bought the mine for dimes with the help of corrupted politicians who were in government at the time. So, we try very hard to preserve the nature here, nature's balance is not just some abstract concept for us, it's literary the foundation of our survival, because everything, from olive farms, beekeeping and livestock farms to tourism depends on that balance. Our economy is mostly based on agriculture, beekeeping, fishing and tourism. You can imagine how the pollution or lack of clean water would affect those, not to mention air pollution.

So, I can say that yes, I am interested and invested personally in environmental issues. Having said that, I am not by default a vegan, and I'm not opposed to using lard for making soap. I've read a lot about lard before trying to render some myself and I am convinced that this is an amazing, cheap ingredient for soap.

Soap Adventures of last couple of months | Photo Gallery

Here are some pics of my latest soap adventures that I still haven't had time to write about. Coloring soaps using Alkanet root is definitely something worth writing about and I intend to explore this more. I've already experimented with different alkanet oil infusions and got some interesting results that vary among light green to dark purple, but more about it in some future post.

Using Alkanet root to color soap

This particular soap was named "Lavender Crocus" by my friend Carolyne because of some interesting swirls that resulted in something resembling Crocus flower in her opinion. It was colored with Alkanet root infused in Almond oil and TiO2. More about it later.

This soap was inspired by Lemon Poppy Seed soap by Soap Queen, except instead of using Lemon fragrance for this project, I've used Silk Melon Fragrance and Spearmint EO. My friends said it reminds them of Lemon Merengue and we ended up calling it Melon Merengue. The bottom half is colored with just a few drops of Carrot infused Olive oil and I added TiO2 to the upper half. The final touch were poppy seeds which I added for exfoliation as well as esthetic reasons. 

Recycling the used cooking oil

I hate to waste stuff, especially oil, so I always try to find another use for stuff that is considered waste. Here in Greece we often use Olive oil for frying and since my husband loves fried potatoes, there's a lot of frying going on in our kitchen and I always feel uneasy about discarding it after use. I mean, what do you do with it once you have fried those potatoes? Do you dump it in the sink? That doesn't seam like a good idea. Dump it in the garbage? More likely, but how? Some people pour it into plastic bottles before dumping it. I didn't feel good about any of those options, and I wanted to find a way to reuse it, but not for making body soap, because I like to use clean Olive oil for that (even though I know some companies recycle waste oil and make soaps for hands and body). There is a company here in Greece that recycles oils and trades them for laundry detergent or soaps and they pass by my house sometimes, but not regularly and I still haven't pinpointed their schedule.