Coconut Bones

Wheat free dog treat! Our most popular yet made with chickpea, coconut flour, coconut milk, shredded unsweetened coconut. My dog loves them! 

Wild West

Leather scented! Wild West Soap.  Made for the Cambrian players! And we had some left over for Father's Day too! Great gifts! 

Long time no see

Visit canine candies on Facebook and at simple site.comPup Nuts, doggy donut with tumeric! 

Canine Candies, natural handmade dog treats! Our new adventure. For finicky dogs and cats too! 

I haven't blogged for awhile now. It's sometimes a daunting thing to sit here and write about everything we do here at Natures Touch.  Plus I've had a lot going on with personal life.  My daughter moved back from Calgary and had to set her up in a new apartment, my son moved to a new place had to get him set up too! I've been busy making soap, and doing some markets as well as starting a new adventure with my daughter making natural dog treats. Bug B Gone Salve. Citronella and Jaoenese Lemon pack this with bug deterrent! I wouldn't camp with out it!

Back again by popular demand is our Bug B Gone repellant and soap, 

Who says Bug repellant can't be pretty? 

Our Bug B Gone salve! With Jaoenese lemon and citronella you wouldn't want to camp with out it! Me anyways.  

Made Urban new listing

https://www.facebook.com/naturestouchorganicsoap/posts/930450340407322

Wisteria Lilac

I made this soap last year pretty much the same time as now.  With spring upon us and snow melting, one of the first things we think of (in the north anyways) are flowers in bloom.  My grandmother had Lilac trees in her yard and the smell of them reminds me of her.  A reminder to me of my childhood.  My grandma Dagmar, always had these in a vase on her dining room table.  So delicate and perfumey. As a soaper, and all of us soapers do this, dedicate soaps to things that inspire, remind, and vision. This one is for Dagmar, my grandmother. Sweet and delicate and strong! Made with olive, coconut, sustainable organic palm, shea butter, purple vibrance mica and snowflake mica from Nuture's Soap Supply, white titanium dioxide, body safe glitter, distill water, sodium hydroxide. Enjoy 

 

Beautiful! And smells so delish! Wisteria Lilac.  It looks like a piece of amethyst! A gem of a soap. Just like my grandma. Xxxooo Thank you for stopping by the soap kitchen once again. Happy Spring!

Olive Oil infused soap Down Under

Last fall I had herbs growing in my garden, that I planted just for this..... Soap. In a large jar I placed lemon thyme, rosemary, lavender, spearmint leaves.  I then poured olive oil over all the cuttings, and let it sit all winter I kept it in a cool dark place gave time shake now and then and today, 5 months later, I strained it.  It smells wonderful, like sweet spearmint.  I also love the fact that it's natural. And it was super dark green! After straining it I added my other oils from a recipe I found online for an olive oil soap.  This recipe was simple. Olive, coconut, palm, distill water, sodium hydroxide. I added Shea butter to it also.

Yesterday I visited one of my favourite thrift shops and squeeled with delight when I found two, silicone bread molds. 3$ each! Yahoo! Lucky lucky find.  And look in that photo there, they have ripples, now how soaperiffic is that! Squee! As I was looking at these molds I thought ok the bottom would be the top so I'm going to have to build a soap upside down so to speak. Lol! Then it dawned on me to make a soap "down under".  So what is Australian or New Zeland ish? Eucalyptus for one and I thought a perfect match with the spearmint scent of my infused olive oil. I went through my micas and picked out what I thought would be perfect for a down under tropical soap and looking at them above I am pretty happy with those colours. China jade, green vibrance, gold shimmer, white TD. Blending them in sweet almond oil, I brushed the bottom of the soap mold. Then sprinkled iridescent body safe glitter.  Mixed my oils of infused olive, coconut, palm, shea butter, with distilled water, sodium hydroxide. Adding eucalyptus essential oil only to the white TD portion of the soap batter. Left the other colours naturally scented.  I poured the soap on one side of the mold alternating them.

           Love that gold,shimmer mica in there, 

Then I took a plastic fork and ran that through.  On the top I took the handle of the fork and fanned the soap to look like leaves. I love how that's looking too!

It smells amazing.  I can't wait to cut it up and reveal the inside. The green on here is so beautiful.  Great way to break the monotony of recouping from hand surgery.  I am getting back to normal and to make soap, yah I'm getting better. Come back and check out the results! Thanks for always stopping by my soap kitchen

 Update on this soap it's amazing! Smells beautiful, Looks beautiful! Check it out

Love.  Thanks for coming back 

Surgery and Carpal Tunnel

I have been suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome for quite a few months now.  Every night like clockwork, I've been woken up to ecruitiating pain and numbness in my right hand.  It took a coup,e of hours for that pain to subside and leave me deprived of sleep.  I'd be up at 2 am and just up.  Awful.  There were times at the end of this ordeal that my fingers were blue. I've never felt such pain ever in my life. The decision was made after getting tested for carpal tunnel to have the release surgery on my right hand, leaving me off work and not able able to lift or do much.  It's amazing the difference I've felt since my surgery.  I can sleep! The other thing has been not being able to make soap.  I did three batches before my surgery and am itching to get at it. I have been infusing olive oil all winter with rosemary, lavender, lemon thyme, from my garden last summer, so I am going to use that today and make an organic soap.  I've been so bored I ended up going to the local thrift shop and lucky me found two silicone bread loaf molds with a wavy bottom and 3$ each! Lucky lucky find.  I've washed them and I can't wait to use them.  I want an organic, all natural bar with this soap and want it to be green.  With summer fly and tick season I am also thinking of eucalyptus essential oil as I have heard that repels ticks.  I want to say thank you to my followers, and passers by of my blog, for stopping and reading and hopefully enjoying my soaping adventures.  Come back for more! When I do the photos I'll add them to this post, so come back and check often to see what new in our little soap kitchen. 

All bandaged up.  This was the same day of my carpal tunnel release surgery.  I can't believe that I was in and out of the operating room in ten minutes.  The worst part was waiting in the reception room, that was an hour. Then the waiting in the bed and getting prepped for surgery.  That was an hour.  The nurses gave me one of those hot blankets that come out of the dryers, or whatever they use, I love those hot blankets, and falling asleep.  I was at the hospital at 8 am in the prep at 10, surgery was 11 am out of surgery by 11:15 am dressed at 11:30 and a good cup of coffee and biscuits.  My husband was there to pick me at at 11:45 and was home by noon. The nurses and staff at the regional hospital here in Thunder Bay were very accommodating, friendly and funny.  The most painful was the tourniquet they wrapped around my arm to stop the blood flow and the needles to locally freeze my hand.  It felt like a million needles getting stuck into me.  The doc says "do you feel anything sharp?" I says "no" as soon as I said that he just started cutting, pushing shoving something into my hand then I felt him sewing it. Done.  So fast.  My fingers are still kind of numb when I do things.  I walked the dog this morning and my fingers were numb.  This kind of surgery is not guaranteed but so far it's been an improvement.  Ok, off to soap. As promised here arête soap photos I did make another blog about the making of it so go check tat out too, Thanks once again for checking in. 

Beautiful hey!

Coffee Krazy Soap

I love milk carton soaps.  Milk cartons make one of the best soap molds out there, especially for rebatching soap, or for what I do, melt down all my soap shavings and bits n bobs of sampler soaps. In the crock pot I throw my shavings in add additives to them such as milk, oils like sweet almond oil or olive, I add micas or colourants and fragrances too.  This one I added 2% milk about 1/3 cup, sweet almond oil about a tablespoon I just pour it in but not too much.  It's like my grandmother, just little bit. And I added same about a tablespoon of olive oil. I set my timer to 15 mins let it start to cook, then go and stir, timer, go stir.  As I'm timing and stirring, when it starts to melt down I add more shavings to fill the crock pot.  Until I can't stir or add anymore.  This time round I added in some brewed coffee about 1/2 cup. There I go again like grandma, but that's how I measure it with this type of soaping anyway.  Then I added the brewed coffee ground from the coffee I just made, plus you get to drink it too and enjoy a cup while you're doing this! The coffee grounds I measured, I put in 4 teaspoons. Let this cook and melt so it's pretty thin consistency you'll know. I would watch it now and stir every few mins.  If you have soap shavings or bits of soap that haven't melted all the way I wouldn't worry too much because that's what gives this its Krazy Soap name.  When it hardens and you cut it you will have confetti type effect in the soap.  I added no fragrance to this at all. The soap shavings I had are all fragranced and when I clean my soaps I save them in a zip lock bag.  The big freezer bags.  So all the fragrances are just married together. I used a big milk carton for this batch and poured it,then added coffee beans to the top.  With milk carton they bow or wow, so I set it straight with soup cans whatever books even to keep it straight.  It works for me! Coffee and coffee grounds are great odour busters and exfoliaters which makes this a great soap to have at your kitchen sink.  When cutting onions or garlic things like that it seems to remove those odours from your hands. Another good thing this soap would be good for would be as a gardeners soap for removing dirt from your hands.  In any case, it's fun to make. I can't wait to cut this open.  

Fun!

And here they are!

 My new business cards have arrived.  And always take orders by phone or email. Give us a fb like too! Our little soap kitchen is always open. Thanks for stopping by.

Travelling Soap

We are doing a spring fashion show market with a "beachy" theme.  What to make for travelling on an airplane or carry on or gym bag perhaps? We came up with making some soap in clamshells. 

For the women's soaps we did a eucalyptus and peppermint soap made with essential oils, coconut and shea butter. And coral reef mica.  The clam shells I had in hand and were perfect for a travel size one ounce soap bar.  We did the same for men using Bayrum and allspice I love that blend, it's manly.  These bars are all in one.  Shampoo, shaving, body cleansing.  

The clam shells are perfect for this project! 

We are packing them in a soap container along with a solid lotion bar and a freebie lipbalm to throw in your suitcase, gym bag, carry on.  

We got such a great deal on the containers from dollaramma, and they fit perfectly in here! The lip balm, I would have loved to make, but because we got these same,Es free we threw them in. And they're peppermint.  A perfect match for this set! 

Shrink wrapped and a used atlas we whipped these together to be security free.  No liquid and the total pack weighs 4.5 ounces. Small and powerful little travel item. Thanks for tuning in as always! Bye now. 

Marching for Paws Fundraiser

I saw a post on Facebook from a local pet rescue group looking for donations for an upcoming fundraiser to help with medical expenses and I thought I should donate some pet shampoo bars.  I've made these before and use them on my dog Marty. When I first started making pet shampoo I wanted ingredients that I knew where safe for our pets.  So I researched ingredients that would make these pet friendly as well as provide a skin and coat benefit.  One was tomato juice to help with odours.  Red palm oil I found that it's been recognized with veterinary groups.  Providing healing for  itchy skin and for shiny coats. Olive,castor and shea butter are moisturizing as well for doggy. I add purée tomato to the final soap to give extra anti oxidant properties.  And to clean our dogs of dirt and dander.  I love this soap. When I bath Marty his bath water is always brown, it lathers really well and rinses off leaving no soap residue.  Squeaky clean! Marty, I just love him! Here he is I the tub. Lol

After seeing the facebook post I contacted the girl organizing it and told her I'd like to donate a batch of this soap.  She was like.. Thank you.  And I figure as well as helping our furry friends, it's also a marketing tool for me! And a write off. Win, win. I made them today and added an extra design element to them to make them pop, as my reputation as a soap maker needs to be spot on.  I had ordered from Wish, three silicone paw molds that I knew I would use in the future.  With melt and pour organic soap base I made the paws. Using yellow gel colours for the paw pad and then brown oxide for the rest of the paw.  No fragrance. Plain. 

These were so perfect. Then we made the soap. I save my Little Ceasars dog food containers and sanitize them to make this soap. They are perfect soap molds. Especially for a pet shampoo. 

We use organic ingredients too! Found this at the Bulk Zone. Love that store. We freeze it before hand for this soap. Because of the acid in the tomato, if you freeze it when you add your lye to it, and do this slowly, it keeps the lye from burning the tomato and keeps it a beautiful red. Here's my frozen tomato.  

I measure before freezing the amount needed for this recipe so I don't have to worry later. This is 16.75 ounces pre measured.  Pour the lye little at a time let it sit and let it begin melting.  Stir. While it's melting you have time to do other things like purée your tomatoes 

Fresh tomatoes.  I freeze these too. Perfect for when you have tomatoes left over, I freeze for spaghetti sauces too. So after tending slowly to your freezer tomato and lye, and getting your oils ready.  You can mix and make your soap. Here's my oils that I prepared earlier that have been cooling down. The red palm oil is beautiful this will give your soap a beautiful yellow colour. So natural for doggy! Love it!

Gorgeous, just gorgeous.!!! I love making this soap. 

Mix your tomato lye and your oils add the purée tomatoes and stick blend to emulsify.  Pour into your mold.  Little Ceasars:). Spray with rubbing alcohol and place the embeds on top.  Let it saponify overnight. Mix you don't have the embeds just make the soap.  For this fundraiser, I'm pretty darned stoked at the final result. Love love love these.  I'm sure these will be a huge successful donation. And this may put me on the map! They had to be perfect.  Ill post the unmolding.  Oh and before I poured, I sprayed these with cooking spray so they will easily pop out. If you forget you can pop them in the freezer, I've done that before just freeze enough so you can push them out.  I hope you enjoyed reading my post, and that I have inspired you to maybe try your hand at these. Thanks for looking. Bye now 

Lotion bars

I've been wanting to do these for awhile now.  I've made a lotion bar before but found the recipe melted too quick.  I found one that I liked and thought I'd give it a go once again. Shea butter, coconut oil, beeswax.  The recipe also called for a teaspoon or so of oil but I left that out. I thought with extra bit of oil these would be quick to melt. So I omitted it. 

I've been working on this brick of natural beeswax it's looking like a dog bone.  I found the best way to use it is to grate with a vegetable peeler. Way to hard to cut with a knife. I found this perfect silicone mold at my local thrift shop.  Love that people give to these places for me to find. Yay!

So simple this recipe, you melt everything and pour it in. Let them cool, pop them out. That's it.  

I put them into a small mini cupcake and then wrapped them with a tinfoil so when you go to use them you can wrap the lotion bar into the tinfoil to protect it in your makeup bag or wherever. And then I shrink wrapped them to look like a candy. 

Fun!  I gave some away at Christmas and so far I've heard that it's holding up and working great! Love that they are natural too. As always thanks for stopping by.  Bye now. 

Pineapple Soaps

We have been busy In our soap kitchen these past few weeks. There been no time to really sit and blog.  So it's time to catch up.  We wanted to use up a fragrance that our shop just loves.  So pondering what to do with the rest of our Jungle Love fragrance from Natures Garden we decided on a Pineapple soap. Nodding some research on pineapple it has a lot of great skin and health benefits.  It's a natural anti inflammatory fruit and can act similar to ibuprofen.  Wow, who knew! It removes dead skin cells and brightens your skin. Great for the winter.  It's aids with bruises and sprains.  So drink it up and use it on your skin. 

Fresh purée pineapple 

after emulsion we added the pineapple to the soap. It's sparkling in here. Beautiful. 

we used a white TD for half the batch of soap. Green and yellow for the other half. 

Love the colours 

We poured the white first then poured high to get a deep pour into the mold with the yellow and green. 

Used the rest of the colours to decorate the top and used a skewer to swirl design.  We dropped the left over micas to add extra detail. 

Beautiful!

After we cut it open here is the result.  Gorgeous I think! Our standard recipe of olive, coconut, palm, castor,distill water, sodium hydroxide. Micas from TKB trading.  Their colours stay true in cp soap.  

Valentines Soaps

We are calling these Chocolate Explosion! A soap seize that we had to quickly work on to get it into the mole.  Chocolate and Strawberry Fragranced.  They smell delish! What we originally wanted to do was to pour the brown soap into the molds and then pour red and black melt and pour into the cp.  that didn't happen.  So after the seize, we poured it over the tops of each of the two molds we had ready. Hoping that the mp would fill any gaps inside.  To our surprise they turned out pretty Kool.  Although we couldn't get our brown oxide to thoughly mix, it still looks OK! We think it kind of looks like a fudge with almonds or walnuts in it.  I've had some say it looks like meatloaf.  Either way it's still soap! 

These ones look like granite a bit.  I'm liking them more and more as I keep looking and smelling them.  For Valentine's Day a neat little gift for a guy perhaps.  

These ones have both red and black melt and pour and look like a Big Turk chocolate bar.  Our recipe is olive, coconut, palm, castor, sweet almond oil.  After cleaning them up and packaging they turned a soaping disaster into a good thing! Thanks for always stopping in.