To Autumn

Fun project last night after the kids and Kevin went to sleep. Week three of the semester and apparently things have slowed down enough that I can breathe a little and do little artsy things I’ve been meaning to do for a while. Melt-and-pour soaps take very little time — cut up and microwave at half power in a Pyrex measuring cup for 4-8 minutes (depending on how much you’re doing — I did two pounds, so closer to 8 minutes). Stir in scent and color, pour into molds, let set overnight. (This is great to do with kids too, but last night, I just wanted to putter on my own. )

I adore these little seed packet soap molds! I went with lemongrass, avocado, and mint for the scent, and it’s a lovely herbal result, just what I was looking for. I don’t measure carefully when making my soaps, but for a pound of soap, I’d say I used about ten shakes each of the two essential oils (lemongrass and avocado-mint).

I waffled for quite a while about color — it would’ve been cool to do four different colors, but that would require four different Pyrexes, which ends up with both more cleaning to do, and some extra wastage of soap. So I was going to do a single color, and I did think about green — if I were making these soaps in winter, when I typically start seeds, I might have gone with green! But it’s September now, so harvest gold seemed just right. I went with the sparkly mica for coloring, so the soaps are rich and glimmery, like sunlight on the harvest.

I’ll do a book sale in the next few days (cookbook, literary fiction, romance, sci-fi) , and will offer these (as well as apple cider marshmallows) for bonus gifts; comment on this post if you want to be tagged in!

Clear glycerin soap, seed packet mold from Milky Way soap molds:

https://www.wholesalesuppliesplus.com/products/garden-seeds-milky-way-soap-mold.aspx

If anyone local wants to borrow the soap mold, I’m happy to loan it out. I’m going to make one more batch in the next few days, and then it’s just going in a bin for months.

“Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees….”

– from “To Autumn,” by John Keats