Tea For Four

Last Wednesday my baby and I drove down to Southport to meet with a potential wholesale customer and to deliver some soap samples to her. While we were there, we took the time to walk around and visit some of the other shoppes at Olde Southport Village, a charming collection of cottage shoppes. I noticed a tea shoppe and tea room there, and thinking of a good source for Christmas presents for my tea-loving aunts, as well as a nice afternoon trip for my older daughter and me, I popped in. A few minutes with the shoppe owner, Jan, and we were talking private label tea soaps. I assured her it could be done, but it wasn't likely that the scent or color of the tea would remain in the soap, though any beneficial properties of the teas would. She gave me three teabags - green, chai and Earl Grey - to try and soap.

I went back home and immediately hopped online to see if I could find these scents and got lucky. I dared to try another supplier for some of these scents (always a little nerve-wracking), and they came today. I'd brewed the teas and chilled them, so when my fragrances came, I was ready to go. This afternoon, I whipped up four 6-ounce bars of soap, three using each of the different teas and one with water, and all four with different fragrances - green tea, chai tea, Earl Grey and white tea (the one with water). What a thrill to do a soapmaking blitz like this, and how exciting it was soaping with both a new medium (tea) and new, fantastic smelling fragrances!

These are the soaps freshly poured.

Being the oh, so typical soapmaker, I had to peek a few times during the process.  Imagine my surprise when I saw that the soap was gelling and looked like this!

Look at how dark that White Tea soap is in nearly full gel!  Unreal!  I peeked about two hours later, and the Chai Tea soap was also pretty dark.  I predict that at least three of these soaps will be cream, and one might be tan, depending on how much vanilla is in it.
 
So, that's my excitement for the day.
 
What's excited you recently?