Bechard’s Botanicals is Born

Back to Eden

Spring seems a little closer as we’ve had two days of mild melting. "Back to Eden" somehow reminds me of early spring, when all that green underneath is trying to push up. I’ve had my head buried in soap recipes, ordering scents, colors and oils and getting the new website organized. You'll be seeing much more botanical colors added to my batters. It’s an exciting time for me, as I have found my belated “calling” as a soapmaker. I hope to combine this with my love of the outdoors and gardening.

Back to Eden is an experiment it color placement in a “bastile” (70% olive oil) base. The bars are a little crude, but okay for my first try at this particular design.

Ingredients: Saponified olive and coconut oils, parsley, turmeric.

Uncut Castile Log

I knew I’d better get some 100% Olive Oil (Castile) soap made, as it takes a minimum of 14 weeks to cure. It’s amazing what some advertisers call “Castile”. It’s always, always pure olive oil. I like the little glitter flowers on top.

Showing off little gold glitter flowers

 I have made eight tries at Cucumber soap, using Garden of Nemesis frozen, organic cucumber puree. This time I added ground, dried parsley and the color stayed a nice green.

Hand Milled Cucumber

Ingredients: Saponified coconut oil and olive oils, Garden of Nemesis organic cucumbers, dried parsley, fragrance oil.

Nemesis Cucumber Soap

 This pic doesn’t do it justice. It’s lightly scented with cucumber-melon fragrance oil.

Eucalyptus Mint Storm

 Eucalyptus Mint Storm is my second attempt at using dried, ground parsley as a colorant. I think it looks pretty good.

 

Ingredients: Saponified olive and coconut oils, parsley, turmeric, rosemary essential oil, Eucalyptus and mint fragrance oils.

Kaleidoscope

This is the soap I thought I messed up. It is 70% olive oil and 30% coconut oil, with the latter being added 20 minutes later. It's curing nicely. This morning I grabbed a sample and lathered up to test it. It's just fine, but will take additional cure time as it believes it is super, super "superfatted". It is very moisturizing.