This is a little blog about creating my Irish Landscape bar. I hadn't made it for a few years and I had run out.
After being prompted by a recent guest who wanted a lesson in soap making, I invited her to watch me make a batch. As I haven't made my Irish Landscape bar for a few years, I thought that would be a good one to show her not only how to make soap, but different techniques in colouring and creating images.
The bar was inspired by a trip to Ireland a few years ago to scatter our parents' ashes on their parents' graves in Leenane (County Galway) for Dad, and Garten (County Donegal) for Mum.
There was something about the trip. It wasn't just the nature of the pilgrimage made with four of my nine siblings and their families (making a party of nearly 20 with two cousins joining us from London), but for me it was as if our parents were on the journey with us.
I noticed things on a different level - things I would normally brush over. Colours seemed to be more intense; every photo I took seemed to be a painting - worthy of being immortalised on a canvas (if only I could paint), and things fell into place as though our parents were looking after us. I wanted to capture the essence of the trip in a soap.
Using this iconic image, I created this bar a few years ago although the colours were darker.
Creating a new slab of the hot process soap, was an enjoyable activity as it brought back memories of the trip.
I hope you like the final bars.
The ingredients in the vegan bars include organic coconut oil, organic shea butter, local olive oil, castor oil, coconut cream, French clays, activated charcoal, zinc oxide, a little essential oils of lavender, rosemary and lemon and some food colouring. They make great bath or shower bars or a gift for that special friend.