Soap!

I'm going to make soap today. I keep thinking I want to make something really rich and decadent and lush and whatnot, and my thoughts immediately begin with patchouli because to me, patchouli, especially the aged ones, best represent that idea. But geesh, how many patchouli soaps can I make? So, rethinking the scent combo, maybe something else, maybe some vetyver with rose and some jasmine sambac, a bit of blood orange and something spicy, a touch of cloves perhaps -- ooh, no, nutmeg! Yes, nutmeg, vetyver, rose, jasmine sambac, and blood orange. A year or so ago I made a patchouli soap with a thick ribbon of powdered patchouli leaf running through it -- a layer between the bottom half of the patchouli scented soap, and the top half, which was patchouli and santal and other deliciously scented aromatics. When I first made it, it wasn't all that impressive, I mean, it was nice -- really nice -- but it wasn't spectacular as I'd imagined it would be, BUT -- now a year later, I found an end cut of that soap and man, oh, man, was I wrong. Age turned that little hunk o' soap into this musky, dank, dark, sweet, honied patchouli balm. So I'm wondering if a new line of soaps aren't in order, an overly scented and aged soap, aged like six months, to really set the scent and get that ph balanced out just right.

 Still gathering yellow day lilies for distillation. I have two gallon sized bags full of flowers in the freezer. I suppose that's something else I could work on today. Idle hands and all that.