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Monday, September 19, 2011

Diary of a Pumpkin Soap

We make pumpkin soap only once a year, in the Fall. It is a warm and yummy scent perfect for the season. We use real pumpkin puree and then add a pumpkin scent that makes it smell good enough to eat. (but we wouldnt recommend that!)

Pumpkin tends to make the soap heat very fast and quite hot, so it is one of the few soaps I do not insulate. After a couple hours I realized that maybe this soap is not going to go through the gel phase after all....but I made that thought to soon and within a matter of minutes this baby heated right on up and went into full gel....


The dark spot in the middle is the gel phase turning the soap translucent....




And soon the entire log is in full gel.




And in the morning we find it cooled off and back to its original look....





And here is our finished product....Pumpkin soap with a line of cocoa sprinkled in.



Friday, September 16, 2011

Spotlight on Neem Oil

Neem oil is a vegetable oil that is pressed from the Neem tree, which is an evergreen prevalent to the Indian subcontinent.

Raw Neem oil is well-known for its strong unpleasant odor, but aside from that it does have many positive attributes. Not only is it known to relieve and soothe dry and irritated skin, but it is also known to be antibacterial, antiviral, antifungal and insecticidal.

Neem oil is great for use on acne, eczema and psoriasis. It isn’t a miracle remedy, but has shown to be very helpful with noted results. In addition, it is high in vitamin E giving it moisturizing qualities.

So how does Luster Canyon use it? We use it in one of our facial bar soaps, adding tea tree essential oil and activated charcoal to further compliment the bar.



To purchase a bar you can find them in our store in Prescott or online in our Etsy Shop.

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

A Dragonfly?

When I let the lil pup in last night a moth flew in....or so I thought...just look what flew in...


...and is flying about tormenting the furbabies....
(I love it when Charlie does his chattering)








No worries though, with the help of a box and a sheet of paper, the dragonfly was safely caught and returned outside where he belongs.





Friday, September 9, 2011

Jumbo Lip Balms Coming Soon

Now here is a gift for your favorite lip balmaholic!! Jumbo lip balms that are 3 times the size of our normal lip balms.

They contain over a half ounce of moisture for your lips...and well they just make me giggle! Plus they take me back to when I was a kid and had that jumbo bonnie bell soda flavored lip balm necklace...you know you remember those!


Our lips balms are made from scratch and contain avocado oil, cocoa butter and jojoba oil and feel wonderful on your lips.

They will sell for $5 each and I think they will make fabulous stocking stuffers.

Look for them to be listed soon.



Wednesday, September 7, 2011

ORANGE??? What Happened to my Pink??!!

Sometimes when you cut a log of soap you get little surprises...sometimes wanted, other times not.

Like this fabulously unplanned, perfectly defined, crescent moon floating in my heart instead of the usual planned swirly blobs....this is cool!

Cutting my planned gorgeous shade of pink soap to find orange.....sooooo not cool!!!





But hey in soapmaking land this happens. I was going to use pink clay but opted for my pink mica instead. I went a little light on the coloring, and my first thought was it too light to withstand the high heat gel phase, so it morphed into orange....but what I am sure happened is my sample raspberry mica pack was mislabeled and is actually strawberry pop mica, which is known to morph to orange. It is still a pretty soap, but not quite the look I wanted for my egyptian geranium essential oil soap.

I tried a couple of new (to me) techniques. One is the spoon swirl....Baby Girl and I hand spooned each glop here. Takes a bit of time, and I obviously need more practice. Also I did my first soap curls and added on top because I love this look for florals.




All in all I think the soap looks great, and of course it smells wonderful....not quite what I was going for but the beauty of soaping is the buyer doesnt know what my intentions are, just that they ended up with a fabulous bar of soap. :)







Monday, September 5, 2011

I Made Pineapple Upside Down Cake

OK...OK...so I cheated...I used a box. :)

But there was still assembling to be done. First off...the box does not come with pineapple or cherries, you have to get that separate. You melt butter and sprinkle the brown sugar around...makes quite a messy look....



Then I arranged the pineapple...I opted against the cherries.




Mix up the cake as normal with water, eggs and oil. Pour over the pineapples....I made sure I poured directly onto the pineapples until I created a base layer, otherwise the sugar was wanting to float to the top.




(I realized I spent time making sure I had the correct cake pan that had the lid that fit....forgetting that this cake doesnt stay in the pan....so a foiled cookie sheet to the rescue!!!)




Bake and turn out onto the pan....Look...One Piece!!!!!! Of course I needed Baby Girls help to flip as I was a bit unsure about it.





Pretty easy to make really, hope it tastes as good as it looks. :)

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Big "Beefy" Bars...Coming Soon...

What is a Big "Beefy" Bar you ask? Well not only is it a bigger heftier bar of soap in comparison to our usual size....but it contains beef tallow as one of the oils.


Why beef tallow when vegan/vegetable soap is more popular? We like to offer a variety of products to suit everyones needs, and there are quite a few people who enjoy Beef Tallow in their soap. It does makes a nice bar of soap with a rich and creamy lather.

Here is a size comparison to one of our regular bars...



Coming soon we will offer a few Big "Beefy" Bars in a variety of scents....pictured is Green Tea Cucumber...








...And Gingered Apples.