Red Wine & Roses Soap
Just unmolded a batch of red wine and roses soap which I made yesterday. This batch was a bit different for me because it was the first time working with wine. Working with wine is a little challenging, but nowhere near as daunting as I thought it might be. The thing is, you need to simmer the wine and let it reduce a bit, getting most of the alcohol content out of it so you don’t have an explosion when the lye is added. After the wine reduced, I stuck it in the freezer for about 10 minutes to cool it down and then added some distilled water before adding the lye. In this soap, I used olive, castor, coconut, and palm oils along with shea butter as well as English Rose and Bordeaux fragrance oils. Used a new mold that my boyfriend picked up for me at the thrift store. Silicone is definitely the way to go, because everything pops right out SO easily! Still experimenting with different molds, and saved a quart-sized milk carton to try for next time (that should make some nice square bars).
I seem to have the process down now, and feel pretty comfortable as a soap maker. Now all I need to do is figure out the packaging and get my Etsy store up and running. Woo-hoo! In 4-6 weeks, these babies will be done.
The Mexican Chocolate bars are still curing (it’s almost 2 weeks now) and smell amazing! The color is getting slightly darker, which is part of the process.
The Mexican bars will be called 82 Street/Jackson Heights & the Red Wine & Roses will be called 46 Street/Bliss. Next stop…







