Natural Handmade Soap
Mailing List
Services
Soap Naturally Recipes
5th International Soap Swap
Alison's Soap Recipe
Want to learn how to make soap?
Alison's Riddell Beach
Alison's Riddell Beach
This is Shelley's current favourite soap. While the soap is made with our
"standard" recipe of olive, coconut, palm & castor oils, it is special for a
few reasons:
Meaning: The soap expresses love for a very special beach in Broome, which few tourists
visit. Local people go there for R&R - to relax, unwind, unburden and feel restored.
This soap reflects the sacredness of this beach to us, Aboriginal people and especially to
women. It is a
quiet bay which symbolizes the "sacred feminine", often visited at full and new
moon times, when emotions run high, or when difficult decisions need to be made. There is
pressure right now from the tourist charter boat industry to build a marina at Riddell,
which would destroy its nature and the natural bushland surrounding it. We chose this soap
also as it is a current fundraiser - 10% of every soap purchase is donated to the Alliance
for Riddell, which opposes the marina. Local people enjoy having something to buy that
expresses their feeling, raises money for an issue they feel strongly about, and helps to
publicize this issue to the people they give the soap to.
Aroma: The essential oil blend is clearing, balancing and nurturing, like Riddell. There's
a lot of lavender, but also vetiver (grounding, base chakra), juniper (protection &
clearing for solar plexus), WA sandalwood (calming), palma rosa & geranium for
balancing the feminine and sweet marjoram for comfort & compassion.
Colour: we imitated the colours of the eastern sky and the ocean itself at sunset, when
the predominant blaze is of gold & reds. These are the shadows, the contrasts to the
setting sun. Broome is colourful, and we love to express this in our soaps.
RECIPE
Cold process. We premix several large batches at once, pouring off the required weights of
pre-warmed oils and lye. However, the proportions are as follows:
Olive 32.5%
Palm 34.5%
Coconut 31.5%
Castor 1.5%
We use approximately 4% superfat and discount water 32%. Our water is good but hard, and
some of the lye is taken up counteracting the salts in the water.
When we mix the lye into the oils we say this prayer:
"Let this soap cleanse away fear, let love be here."
We then add a few drops of Citrine & Rose Quartz crystal essences to the brewing pot,
putting our intentions into the soap, asking for openness to abundance, clarity of life
purpose, protection against negativity (Citrine), and divine light strength, purity of
heart, body healing & soul courage (Rose Quartz).
Essential oils are premixed at 1.8%, in these proportions -
Vetiver 1.5, Sandalwood 1, Juniper 3, Lavender 8, Palma Rosa 5, Geranium(Bourbon) 4, Sweet
Marjoram 2 -
Colours: We premix Ultramarine blue & Ultramarine violet in 2 separate jugs (1 teaspoon per 4 kg soap batch) with a little macadamia oil. At trace we then add soap to each jug (100ml for every kg of soap) & use these for the marbles.
Soap takes 48 hours to firm sufficiently to cut, then is cured minimum 3 weeks.
Love to all from the isolated North West of Australia.
Shelley, Tanya & Alison
Hidden Valley Handcrafts
ISS5 members | Soap recipes: index
Contributors: Alison & Staff [ Hidden Valley Handcrafts ], Shelley Bordeleau
© 2000-2007 - This page was last updated on 15th February 2007
Soapmaking Books: |
Editors & maintainers:
Ersilia Vitale
[ ccdream --at-- iprimus.com.au - Cosmetic grade colours: oxides and ultramarines ],
Marina Tadiello
[ Soap book co-author, Soap Naturally - Ingredients, methods and recipes for natural handmade soap ]
[ AquaSapone - natural soap, essential oils, soap making supplies & kits ]
Email mailing list on natural soap making: information & options