Rolled Reindeer Washcloths for Soap Gifting

While in one of my Facebook groups that is completely unrelated to soap, I found a link for how to make these adorable washcloth deer.  Here's the link:  https://youtu.be/KzY0-Esa6vs

I found my washcloths at Walmart for 47 cents and used the tiny hair elastics from Dollar Tree that I had on had from that gnome project.  Unlike the video, I didn't glue anything because I wanted it to be usable so I found adhesive googly eyes so they could just peel off and I tucked in the nose instead of gluing it. 

I put it with my soaps #36, #37, #44, and #45 from my soap page on my blog.  These were made over the summer or fall and are all fully cured.  I changed the names on a couple to relate to the gift recipient (for example, #36 is scented with ginger ale fragrance oil, but that also smells like Ale 8, one of my recipient's favorite soft drinks.  That was labeled as Ale 8 soap!) These are the general formulas and all of my soap information can be found on my Soaping page on my blog.  These are NOT intended to be complete instructions with safety measures; these are intended for persons already advised on basic soap making and already fully understanding lye safety.  I am not telling you how to make soap, I am simply giving you my formulas for what I used to make these soaps.

Soap #36:  Red Bottom Marble

30% olive oil, 20% lard, 30% coconut oil, 10% rice bran oil, 8% cocoa butter, 2% castor oil.  33% lye concentration, 5% super fat.  Temps:  75° lye, 95° oils.  Powdered sugar added to water before combining with lye.  Sodium lactate added to cooled lye water.  Fragrance:  2T kaolin clay mixed with Bramble Berry Ginger Ale fragance oil.  Colorants:  Red layer-oil from oil mix combined with 1/2 t of each color from the Mad Micas True Red Color Set. Black and white swirl- activated charcoal and titanium dioxide mixed with 1T oil mix.  Red layer was poured into slab mold bottom.  Black and white batter was added concentrically, using up all batter.  It was swirled using a skewer.  This fragrance is fantastic and is staying put during cure.

Soap #37

30% olive oil, 20% lard, 30% coconut oil, 10% rice bran oil, 8% cocoa butter, 2% castor oil.  33% lye concentration, 5% super fat.  Temps:  75° lye, 95° oils.  Powdered sugar added to water before combining with lye.  Sodium lactate added to cooled lye water.  Fragrance:  one sample each (.5oz or so each) Litsea Cubeba and Grapefruit essential oils from Bramble Berry.  Two previously made embeds were inserted.  Colorants:  From Bramble Berry, zinc oxide, ultramarine blue pigment, and cellini blue mica mixed oils from the pot.  Regular loaf mold used.  

Soap #44:  Mechanic's or Gardener's Soap

34% coconut oil (76 degree), 16% shea butter, 5% cocoa butter, 40% olive oil, 5% castor oil

Mixed with lye when oils were 114 degrees and lye water solution was 80 degrees.  Soaped warm and got to medium trace with stick blender to go fast.  

No color was added.  

Additives:  (for 32oz oil weight batch)  2 T cranberry seeds, 22g grapefruit EO, 5g peppermint EO, 6g spearmint EO, 12g 10x orange EO, sodium lactate, 2T clay (mixed with EOs).  

This is for hand washing only because the seeds are really rough but they work great for scrubbing.

Soap #45:  Snowflake Soap

25% coconut oil (76 degree), 30% lard, 15% shea butter, 5% cocoa butter, 20% olive oil, 5% castor oil

Mixed with lye when oils were 106 degrees and lye water solution was 80 degrees.

Additives:  (for 33 oz oil weight batch) 2 T coconut milk powder (used 1 oz from soap calc's water quantity that I reserved from that which was to be mixed with lye), 2 t powdered sugar added to water pre-lye, 2 t sodium lactate, 2 t titanium dioxide mixed with 1T oil from the oil mixture, 1 oz fragrance oil mixed with 2 T kaolin clay.  This ended up not being pure white due to clay, cocoa butter, and FO.  More like the color of a sand dollar-- will have to remember that when using my sand dollar mold!  

Happy holiday crafting!  Hoping your gift-giving crafty workspace is humming along as we near Christmas!