Olives

Our first crop of olives are changing colour. They are an oil variety (Frantoio), and I suspect we might need a whole lot more than this to press some olive oil (and an olive oil press). We have 5 trees that are 3 years old, and they have grown so quickly!

Maybe one day we can go from this...

to this?

How satisfying would it be to make soap from your own olive oil? I made this batch last week, and it is made with rose geranium and patchouli essential oils, and pink clay for marbled colour. Musky and feminine.

Mmmm, aniseed soap

I made this batch of aniseed soap last week, after some family members said that aniseed was their favourite soap, on Christmas day. I haven't made any for ages, I'd sort of forgotten about it, maybe since I'd run out of aniseed oil. Well here it is with it's sweet licorice scent, coloured with ground cloves. Smells gooood at my place!

Less than 2 weeks until Ecofest

These packs of soap will be coming with me to Ecofest on Saturday the 5th of November. I packaged these up today with my little helper Evie, into biodegradable cellophane bags and jute string. There is only 10 packs, so if you're a handmade soap lover, you'd better get in early. I completely sold out last year. They make great Christmas presents, and of course, lovely treats for yourself. In each pack, there's a lavender & almond meal, peppermint & lavender, and a rose geranium & patchouli. They're all naturally scented and coloured with clay (or not coloured at all), and are palm oil free. $10 per pack.

The sweet scent of lavender...

...is wafting though my house. This batch of lavender and almond meal soap is 3 weeks old tomorrow, almost ready to use.

Soapmaking Masterclass

On Saturday night, my friends Bec & Ali came over for a bit of a soap making lesson. We made lemon myrtle soap with green clay marbled through. Here's the first lot cut into bars, it smells like lemonade icy poles. Next up, bread making.

Makin' for the Ecofest...

Peppermint and lavender soap

Little skirts

On Saturday the 9th of October, Western Heights Uniting Church is holding an Ecofest from 10am-3pm. Andrew & I are helping to organise it, our task is finding inspiring speakers for the day. Bec and I will also be having a market stall, with eco friendly children's clothes, accessories, and handmade (palm oil free) soap. If only you could smell my house at the moment, the peppermint and lavender is wafting through mmmm, fresh! The 4 skirts in the picture above are made from fabric sample books generously given to me by Jiddi's Patch. I'll be keeping these skirts for the Ecofest rather than listing on Etsy, though I'm rather fond of the purple one, which I thought I might keep for Liv, Evie thinks she might like it too. I think it will fit both of them! It might be good to have a little model or two wandering around on the day ;) We just found out last night that Gavin Webber from The Greening of Gavin blog has signed up to speak about his green epiphany. We're very excited about that, he thinks he'll spend the day down here. We are hoping to raise enough money to buy a watertank or two, to cut down our church's water use. We're also hoping to build a veggie and herb garden that the community can access. So mark the date in your diary if you're going to be in Geelong on the 9th of October, and we hope to see you there!

Rose geranium and patchouli soap

This is my favourite scent, and I haven't made it since early last year! I ran out of the vital essential oils, and only bought some more when I was in Melbourne a couple of weeks ago. It's nice and musky, and coloured with pink Argiletz clay. My second batch of soap free from palm oil.

Palm oil free soap

Here is some of my latest batch of peppermint & lavender soap, made without palm oil. I just doubled the coconut and olive oil and left out the palm, and it looks just the same as my other batches. I'll have to wait until it cures (4 weeks), to see if it lathers the same. I'm sure it will. I think most people know by now that palm oil production destroys the habitat of orangutans, and palm oil is in processed foods, soaps, detergents etc, mostly labelled as vegetable oil, so you don't really know if you're buying it. Even the solid cubes of palm oil I used to buy to make soap with said they were solidified vegetable oil. Now I can wash without a guilty conscience.

Missus Moonshine

I thought I should explain my blog name. No, I'm not into illegal brewing. It's just a name I came up with as a brand name for my soap some years ago. I don't use the name anymore, I don't use a name at all now. But it's hard naming a blog when every name you think of has already been taken. Or your husband is coming up with names with a German theme (I'm not German, never been there either). So there you go.
I've been making soap since the year 2000, back when I was still living with my parents. I made up to 10 different varieties back then, now I stick to 3- Lavender & Oatmeal, Rose Geranium & Patchouli, and Peppermint & Lavender. I make about 3 or so batches per year which keeps us in soap, and is good for gifts (I slip one into Etsy packages when I'm feeling generous. I sell some occasionally too.
I use the cold process method to make soap, and I only use vegetable oils, pure essential oils, herbs and clays for colouring. I use beeswax to make the soap a bit harder, it also makes it last longer. I've never had to buy soap since I left home, that is pretty satisfying :)