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Maude Vuille's Soap Recipe
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Maude's Sea Shea
Maude's Sea Shea
Why Sea Shea?
Sea Shea is a combination of olive oil and shea butter - about 13%.
Why do I love shea and olive? First, in Europe, the
olive tree is almost of mythical nature. France,
Italy, Spain and Greece have gorgeous landscapes
of olive groves. The leaves of the trees shimmer
silver in the wind, the trunks are twisted by the wind
and the earth is often red. As a matter of fact, some
of my best travel memories are related to olive trees
and olive oil: The ruins of Delphi, Greece shaded
in silver, the taste of delicious olive oil made from
the backyard's olives, France's Provence region, full
of lavender, rosemary and thyme and olive oil...
Then, olive soap for me is so rich in history -
Syria's Alep soap (olive + bay oil) dates from
antiquity, castile soap, Marseille soap and my
soap (hihi). History aside, I love olive soap on the
skin. If properly cured, it doesn't seem to develop a
slimy feel.
I like the Shea Butter because it feels moisturising
and leaves the skin soft. I am fortunate to
know a lady who helped create a women's coop in
Senegal. She exports syrups, fruits and Shea butter,
so I also appreciate the fact that this Shea is
"green" and "politically/socially correct".
I really appreciated the following the first time I
amde olive/shea soap:
The first is that the texture is rich and lovely, this
soap has true moisturising properties. Then, the
color is lovely, like very clean sand. Finally, the
scent of olive-shea evolves in a lovely way over time.
You may not notice this as the samples have been
wrapped in cellulose. But over time, the scents of
the shea nut and the EOs blend in a subtle manner. To
me it is very representative of a scent that I have
contributed to making, but other elements, such as
time, chemistry, CP process and quality of ingredients
continue to work well after the soap is "ready". So
this is why olive/shea is a favorite. I added much
more EO than usual in this batch, so we will see how
that turns out in the long run.
Why Sea Shea? It is in my nature to have great
difficulties in following once recipe to the letter.
I nearly always do something different. This time, I
was mysteriously drawn to sea salt from the French
salt swamps (or whatever these are called) of
Guerande. I thought that this time I'd add to my
favorite soap an exfolient layer - which is ground
up sea salt. I don't have much experience w/layering,
some of you will get a thin layer of salty soap, while
others will have much more. I love the way
it looks, but I do fear that the salty half may
disintegrate quickly in the shower. Although I am
dying for your feedback, it may be better for you to
let this soap cure a bit and it may be more solid.
EOs: used lavender, rosemary and sage, all time
favorites which again send most Europeans right to
Southern France. We have always had all three herbs
in the garden, stuff lavender in drawers and cupboards
to keep these fresh smelling. My dad has always used
lavender after-shave and my grandfather too. Again,
the curious part of me would not be still, and I
blended Listea cubeba to the salty blend of soap.
and finally the actual recipe:
about 87% oilve
13% Shea
melted both oils together, added lye water at very low
temperature (38oil, 45 lye). It took about 15 minutes
to trace with the blender + spatula. I then added
lavender, rosemary and sage at about 3% of total
weight. While the soap traced, I added about 8ml of
litsea cubeba to 120g of ground sea salt.
Once the trace was getting a bit heavier, most of the
soap was poured into the mould. I then added the salt
to the remaining soap - did I fear that it would melt
(illogical I agree)!! Added the salty soap to the
olive-shea already in the wood mould with a ladle
since both soaps was still quite liquid... (if only
I'd been a wee bit more patient..). As a result, some
of you will have lots of salty soap, and others, not
so much. It heated up a long time, about 40 hours. I
then cut it up VERY UNEVENLY as always...
QED.
Maude in Geneva, Switzerland
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