#stede bonnet's theoretical self care extravagances

[triflesandparsnips]

Live from the workshop, trying another batch of soap of neroly, and GUESS WHAT FOLKS

WE GOT

GOO

[triflesandparsnips]

IT MADE IT THROUGH HOLY GUACAMOLE

Recommendation: stick the pearl pomatum in the refrigerator and it'll calm the fuck down scent-wise. Future iterations, though, may use orange-blossom water (or... maybe rosemary water if I can get it, I SHALL HAVE TO DO MORE HUMORAL VIBE RESEARCH).

Aaaaaaa, though, I'm so glad it survived, ENJOY.

For anybody else who wants in on this-- behold:

here I sit peacefully doing my little crafts, having finally reached an understanding with my sewing machine as the doorbell rings

who could it be at this time of day?

(the postman asking me if I will take my neighbour's teleshopping packages. or bringing me my buttinette order, if I'm lucky)

it IS the postman but he doesn't hand me anything. Instead, in an unexpected turn of events, he asks me for money.

oh? OH!

International package! for me!! Let's see what's inside 😁

a box! And in that box

oh my god

it's the Actual 18th Centruy Cosmetics from our resident self-proclaimed funky little alchemist @triflesandparsnips!!

They're so pretty :')

I open this and it suddenly smells like a whole rose garden in here. And it's shimmery! A little bit.

I kind of wish I had opened this first. It has a very nice, subtle scent (that I can't appreciate properly because ROSES) and it feels very nice and moisturizing on the lips

noted

*immediately puts on mouth*

Thank you trifles!! What a wonderful surprise I can't thank you enough 💜💜💜💜

[triflesandparsnips]

And finally, I have started a new experiment for a new Stede Bonnet extravagance that is too fucking extra for goddamn words.

BEHOLD MY MYSTERIOUS PROGRESS PHOTOS

Figure 1. A strange, poorly measured powder (because I had neither teaspoons nor fucking drams at my disposal)

Figure 2. Oh no.

Figure 3. Oh no.

(It isn't powdered orrisroot and yet I am sure it is somehow to blame.)

Tomorrow I must return to it and see what time, and my own Terrible Choices, has wrought.

[triflesandparsnips]

Still in the workshop because I'm doing ALL THE THINGS apparently, so time for

The Wash-Balls of Neroly

Version 3.0

Step 1: Fill wee pan with dried Nablus soap

Step 2: Glug glug the orange-blossom water yum

Step 3: Fill to top hooray!

Step 4: Put on a little hat and soak up, pretty bb

(but do not associate with the lavender washballs beside you, they are up to no good)

I shall come back and stir you daily, little soap goo, until you are ready for THE NEW VARIATION that maybe won't make me fucking salt you all to hell. Again.

Sleep tight, little fucko. *kiss kiss*

[triflesandparsnips]

The thing about trying to Frankenstein a fictional lavender soap out of bits and pieces of a bunch of historical recipes--

--recipes that were already missing several crucial steps (or iNGREDIENTS)--

--because the authors just assumed you already knew them, so why repeat themselves, everyone already knows ALL THAT--

The thing about this whole apothecary gig is... is that I actually am getting comfortable working with these ingredients and these processes and these scents and these tactile sensations under the curved press of my pestle, just like all the books say, the living skills of practice and experimentation and experience cut down to a simple shorthand, just "ex Arte," just "according to Art"...

which means I could FUCKING SENSE from the

SECOND

GODDAMN

P H O T O G R A P H

THAT THIS MOTHERFUCKER ISN'T GOING TO DRY PROPERLY

[triflesandparsnips]

!! YAY I'M SO GLAD THEY MADE IT THROUGH.

tbh every day that international customs doesn't destroy my weird packages entirely is another great day

also:

The lip balm is honestly such a good entry point to Shenanigans, I absolutely recommend it.

One of these days I'm actually going to put together some zines or chapbooks of my processes (with... maybe fully accurate modern instructions) so others can follow in my alchemical footsteps, and it's going to be an amazing disaster.

And for anyone else out there who wants to experience questionable packaging and Stede Bonnet's soft, sweet, and often-cookie-scented vibe, you too can play Russian roulette with homemade goods through my shop here:

...where there is currently historical cold cream and lip balm labeled for normies who don't know about the Gentleman Pirate, and where I soon hope to have:

variant labels for OFMD fans (where, for instance, the cold cream is absolutely going to be relabeled as, ahem, The Seaman's Friend), and

MY MISTAKES (by which I mean the ugly soaps, the weird soaps, the unfortunate soaps, and whatever other mid-process things end up coming out of my workshop, at a steep discount for your horrified enjoyment)

WOO

aaaa my @triflesandparsnips lip balm and cold cream came in the post!!! with excellent timing, as i was just digging in the bowels of my last chapstick to finish it off

everything smells so SWEET oh my god??? 😍😍 I'M SO EXCITED TO TRY THEM OUT sdlgjaldhfkjgadfh

also fun fact, the australian border force clearly thought something was terribly suspicious about the package, because they opened it for inspection, lol. nothing was removed, but they left a note and everything. huh.

[triflesandparsnips]

....I think I

may have spoken too soon

about the latest soap experiment

[triflesandparsnips]

Meanwhile, shoutout to my apprentice Young Thomas, who may finally have taken an Injury trying to chomp up the almond

but digging himself from the grave I perhaps too hastily laid him came... A HERO

FREDERIK IS BACK

[triflesandparsnips]

Meanwhile, a pictorial journey for

The Lavender Wash Balls

Version 4.0

Figure 1. Partial goo-boy, extremely sus

Tragically I did not take a photo of it stirred up, but it would perhaps not be inaccurate to say it looked, a bit, like ropey intestines.

...if that's something you care to picture, anyway. Um.

ANYWAY.

On the same day as my recent soap of neroly betrayal, I decided to stir the guts goo again.

Figure 2, 3, and 4. The only reasonable conclusion to be made is that gremlins are generating micro-climates around my experiments

...welp.

In any case, I went ahead and put together a new, hopefully Less Evil scent mix for it:

1 gram (instead of 1 ounce) of cloves,

1 tablespoon of orris root (my nemesis),

1 tablespoon of benjamin (aka benzoin), and

a scant handful of dried lavender.

Figure 5. Get scented, fool.

The resulting mix was... well, very reminiscent, in consistency, with the very first ugly batch that eventually dried into the shit-soap variant, which is not ideal. The base goo was also slightly too dry to throughly mix with the spices, such that there is also an unintentional marbling that could get... weird.

Figure 6. Several suspicious lavender balls and one neroly ball just trying its best

...I will check on them again soon. Maybe rerolling them, like I did the Pretty batch of neroly soaps, will lead to something reasonable.

...Maybe.

[triflesandparsnips]

Ahahahaha whaaaaat @gardenharuspex? Me? Researching and recreating household and medicinal recipes within the very narrow timeframe of the Western Scientific Revolution with a hard cutoff of 1718 purely because that's apparently my very niche way of engaging with my current gay pirate fandom?

...it's been a little under 1 and a half years since I made Stede Bonnet's lip balm, cmon now, I am the definition of reasonable.

[triflesandparsnips]

Oh shit oh shit oh shit--

I THINK I'VE FIGURED OUT ANOTHER SOAP MYSTERY

[triflesandparsnips]

I have spent a non-zero amount of time drafting an update about Stede's historically plausible 1700s skin cream and tragically I'm still not done.

is there a short video surprise yes there is

[triflesandparsnips]

Would you mind me asking What kind of soap recipy uses a morter and pestle? It looks super nice and fluffy and fun tho. My wife and I mostly make regular cold process soap.

HELLO FRIEND

Not to get overly excited about this, but you have ACCIDENTALLY STUMBLED upon my NOT-SO-SECRET LAIR of HYPERFIXATION GLORY.

...which is to say, for about a year now I've been fucking around with turn-of-the-18th-century (pre-1718 being my arbitrary Our Flag Means Death cutoff) household and pharmacological manuals for the purpose of experimental archaeology.

With regard to soap in particular, the very very short version is that Nice, Scented, Solid Soaps, during this very particular time period, were basically dried/grated Middle Eastern (hot process) olive oil soap that was then reconstituted in Western kitchens/stillrooms/apothecaries. Mortars and pestles were the basic go-to for it, though bain-marie's were also on occasion utilized.

(For the longer, more fun version, see my link list below or click here.)

While the majority of my shit can now be found under my #funky little alchemist with funky little interests and #trifles the amateur history enthusiast strikes again tags, we all know that tumblr is nonsense, so here's a brief link list:

It started with "a pomatum for the lips" -- i.e., lip balm, from the 1711 English translation of Nicolas Lémery's Arcana Curiosa

I then went on to the significantly more complicated and in-depth matter of SOAP --

     -- My long post regarding a great deal of research and first attempts (encompassing: "Update 1: Let's Talk about SOAP", "Update 2: Cursed Once Again with a TERRIBLE DISCOVERY", and "Update 3: Sometimes Science Gets Ugly")      --My still-ongoing follow-up post (encompassing: "Update 4: Return of the Soap King")      --Several mini-updates that take place between those two posts

     --Aaaaand this post answering someone who asked about infused oil versus essential oil in these soap recipes, which eventually turned into a whole thing about HUMORALISM

And I've just started poking at the matter of "another fine pomatum for the face" -- i.e., a pearl-powder face cream, which is still early days with "Update 1: A Brief History of PUTTING PEARLS IN THINGS (IN EUROPE) (AND MY KITCHEN)"

...With regard to soap in particular, I am super aware that I'm playing around from the opposite end of most modern soapmakers -- there may be very obvious ways to accomplish the stuff I'm trying, or there may be very known reasons for why the stuff I'm doing is or isn't coming out right. But since my entire vibe is """What If: Shenanigans,""" I'm trying to suss my way through all this via just the manuals and receipts I can find, and seeing what happens based on that.

If you want to play along, soap-wise, I do link to several recipes as I go, but here's what I've referenced so far:

"Balles of fope for barbers of diuerfe fortes and favours" (Balls of soap for barbers of diverse sorts and savors), The secrets of the reverend Maister Alexis of Piemont (1595)

"A delicate wafhing ball." (A delicate washing ball), Delightes for Ladies (1609)

"Of Soaps that Beautifie", Cosmeticks or, the beautifying part of physick (1660)

"CHAP. XVIII. Of perfuming Soaps", Polygraphice (1685)

"A delicate washing-ball", The Accomplish'd ladies delight (1686)

"To make excellent Washballs", Pharmacopaeia Bateana (1694)

"Of Wash-balls", The French Perfumer (1696)

✨ ENJOY ✨

[triflesandparsnips]

Not an ask, but I made your orange blossom lip balm! While I was at it, I made the face pomatum too. The lip balm seems great, although I couldn't get it to colour at all and it smells more like coconut than anything else. Oh well. The pomatum is, uhm... trickier. It's way more waxy so harder to apply, I can't imagine using it on my face. But I did my elbows and it seemed fine for that. Anyway, thank you for the happy little piratey lunacy!

YESSSSS

So the lip balm:

With regard to color, the only experiment I really tried with that was adding colored mica, and I only did it the once. I've never tried alkanet (because Potential Liver Problems), and while I've considered trying tumeric or similar I've largely shrugged and backburnered that aspect for now. However, you can see a bit in this photo the color differences between the first batch (with the mica) and subsequent:

Figure 1. The first three versions of the lip balm. Bottom left (v.1.1) has the mica, and is slightly more orange-ish than the other two.

With regard to the coconut smell, I've found that I have to be very generous with the orange-blossom water at several stages of cooking in order to keep it present as a scent. While my initial recipe calls for only two "spoonfuls" (which I decided meant a soup spoon of some kind), as of version 3.0, I now specifically use 2+ tablespoons (2 in the original mix, enough extra for the arrowroot, and then... idk, a bit more to Vibe as needed, so it really comes out to more like 3 Tbs). I have notes for 3.1 to up the count to 4-5 Tbs, though we'll see what that does to the consistency.

I also pretty much always make two variants these days: one with coconut oil, and one with sweet almond oil (as described in the original French recipe!). So that might be a fun avenue to try in future.

ON TO THE FACE POMATUM:

I am deeply interested in what your consistency ended up being -- version 1.0 (which I have completed THIS VERY EVENING, and for which I must write up proper notes, because GOSH) is what I'd call a Ye Olde Cold Cream rather than a more modern facial lotion (which tend to be moisturizing without being heavy, as opposed to this, which is easy to use, deeeeefinitely moisturizing, but, uh, will definitely get that moisturizing goodness on anything it touches, goddamn).

Anyway, mine came out buttery af, and seems to still be so, but somewhere between removing it from the water and adding the borax, the fucker got itty bitty granules in it-- just enough to be annoying. Bah. Further research is required.

Figure 2. A smooth(ish) operator pomatum; aka, a sneak peek into later apothecary revelations.

ANYWAY. Thank you @ivoryfeathers for joining in the gay pirate mad scientist experimental fun!

[triflesandparsnips]

Update 1: A brief history of PUTTING PEARLS IN THINGS (IN EUROPE)(AND ALSO MY KITCHEN)

I've held back on this information for some time, but at last the moment has arrived.

Some time ago I found two related recipes, both of which are nearly identical and so are probably just the same recipe edited across a decade. The first is from the 1696 English translation of Barbe's The French Perfumer:

Another sort of Pomatum, very fine for the Face. TAKE two Ounces of Oyl of Sweet-Almonds, half an Ounce of Virgin-Wax[,] four Penny-worth of Sperma-Ceti; melt the whole together in an Earthen Dish, over a Chafing-dish full of burning Ashes; stir gently the Wax with a wooden Spatula, that the whole be well mingled and incorporated: Then take off the Fire your Composition, and pour to it by degrees some fair Water, beating it in the mean while with the Spatula. Continue so doing till your dish is full, and your Pomatum congealed in the Water, for it must swim in the Water: Having so beat it a long while in the first Water, pour the Water out, and put some fresh, still working your Pomatum till 'tis white, then it will swim upon the Water; take it out with the Spatula, and work it without Water, till it is very white. All the Water being strained out of your Pomatum, mix in it Borax beaten very fine, of the bigness of a small Nut, and some Essence of Pearl beaten very fine; mingle it all together very well, and 'tis done.

The second is from the 1711 English translation of our lip-balm lad Lémery's Arcana Curiosa:

Another very fine Pomatum for the Face Take Two Ounces of Oil of Sweet Almonds cool-drawn, half an Ounce of Virgin's Wax, set 'em over a gentle Fire to melt together, after this fine [?] 'em in Spring-water again and again till the Pomatum comes to a pure Whiteness, then add a little Borax and Seed-pearl in fine Pouder, and beat up again to the Consistence of a Delicate Unguent.

I really love having these two recipes to compare against one another -- Barbe has more detail, but also wants me to add a little over 8 grams of whale goo to the mix, which I am disinclined to do. Meanwhile, Lémery's recipe is considerably shorter and in more modern English (hooray for a decade of development!), but it's a recipe that clearly relies on some shorthand terms -- which, fortunately, are described by the earlier Barbe text.

(NOTE: Regarding whale goo, artificial spermaceti exists! It's called cetyl esters wax, and it's made from coconuts. But also, apparently the previously-a-mystery-to-me jojoba oil is considered a reasonable replacement -- so if you ever want to gross out people, here you go, just start talking about how the jojoba oil in your friend's homemade whatever is there to replace the skull wax from sperm whales.)

Figures 1-3. Identical objects, apparently.

Since the spermaceti left the building recipe sometime between 1696 and 1711, I wasn't particularly concerned with getting any of its replacements (we'll see if I come to regret this later). However, I was intrigued by the change to the "pearl" ingredient thrown in at the end.

Was there, I wondered, any difference between "Essence of Pearl" and "Seed pearl in fine powder"?

The Incredibly Big Difference between Essence of Pearl and Pearl Powder

There are quite a lot of ways to prepare pearls, if you're a 1600s apothecary.

"Magistery of Pearls" is pearls dissolved in vinegar.

"Salt of Pearls" is the salt leftover from when Magistery of Pearls is distilled in an alembic.

"Aqua perlata" is pearls dissolved in lemon juice, decanted, more lemon juice added back in, and then a shitton of sugar to finish up-- essentially lemonade with Super Pearl Power (tm).

There were also Oils, Liquors, Tinctures, Arcanums, Flowers, and Spirits -- all of which, if your name is Moyse Charas and you're feeling salty about unscrupulous Authors, were "drawn forth by the help of corroding Menstruums, which are rather Destructions than Preparations."

Figure 4. Local calm-looking apothecary with fab hair nonetheless ready to throat-punch next person who suggests dissolving pearls in vinegar.

Pearls were considered a really special medical ingredient, useful for things like heart palpitations, diseases of the eye, poison resistance, healing from pestilence and malignant fevers, and crucially (for hilarious, Stede Bonnet-related reasons):

were a "great help for those who are sad or timid and in every sickness which is caused by melancholia"; and

used "to strengthen and comfort [...] the Noble parts"

(ahem. "Noble parts")

(PENISES)

Anyway--

Pearls, though, were really expensive, which tbh was probably a large part of why they were Special. So there was, let us say, an opportunity for a clever inventor to fill an otherwise empty commercial niche.

Enter M. Jacquin and his process for creating artificial pearls.

Figure 5. A handy illustration of several unnamed women just doing their best and also some guy's invention I guess.

M. Jacquin made rosaries, and he wanted pearls for them-- but he also wanted regular people to be able to afford those rosaries. Around about 1656 he figured out that if one harvested the scales of wee fishies, the natural iridescence of those scales could be extracted and then applied to stuff to make fake, but nice-looking, pearls.

That iridescence is, ta da, Essence of Pearls. Mystery solved.

Or is it

Cool, I thought. Well, let's just see if ground-up fish scales are still around--

Neat! They are! In fact, while the name "essence of pearl" isn't used so much anymore, this stuff is often referred to by the chemical structure: crystalline guanine.

(Btw you may recognize "guanine" from such fabulous places as our DNA, the related word "guano", or this list of FDA-approved colorants that are exempt from testing and are also coincidentally used frequently by very fancy cosmetic companies.)

What I discovered, though, after whole minutes of fruitless searching, is that wee little independent weirdos like me can't get crystalline guanine for love or money-- it's just not available in the consumer market.

Real pearl powder, on the other hand...

Also no

Pearl powder is both expensive and hard as hell to ensure is pure when you're just a funky little alchemist like myself. I came to the conclusion that, really, it made the MOST sense to just buy a nut grinder and a bag of seed pearls. Goodness, I thought, how has no one else conceived of this notion? I am a genius of truly astonishing proportions.

...let's fast forward a bit.

Imagine me in my workspace. I have a bag of freshwater pearls. I had boiled them the day before to clean them of ickiness, so there was nothing stopping me from taking out my new grinder apprentice, a strapping lad named Henrik who had a bit more muscle power for pearl pulverizing, and going to town on these little lads. Powdered pearls, and therefore an extremely fancy pomatum, were within my grasp.

I paused to take several very cute process photos. Everything was going great.

...Until I tried to actually grind the fuckers. Whereupon my suspicions were raised as to the veracity of their nature when, rather than neatly grinding down into powder (as anything in the 2-to-4 range of the Mohs hardness scale ought), they proceeded to make a hideous cracking sound, smell like burnt hair, and beat the ever-loving shit out of poor Henrik.

Figure 6. This started the evening as a new and flawless grinder lid.

I do not relish telling young Henrik's family of what happened to him under my cruel mastery.

Just in case this turned out to be a case of my picking the wrong tools for the job, I also hauled out a metal mortar and pestle and tried whacking the pearls. Notably, this was also a colossal failure.

My hopes and dreams for outwitting the 17th century and having easily sourced pearl powder? Dashed.

Finding some real goddamn pearls in this degenerate age

This, as it turns out, was harder than it looked. So here's my hard-won wisdom, such as it is.

Some tests one can perform in public before purchasing pearls:

Check that they aren't all identical. (Machines make identical things. Weird biological processes make all sorts of things.)

Check the surface feel. (Pearls are made in layers and have a textured surface. If you rub them against each other or on your teeth, they feel gritty.)

Weight/touch/temperature. (These are apparently also ways to tell the difference between real pearls and fakes. I have no confidence in my ability to use these methods, and therefore I decline to consider them further, because fuck it that's why.)

Check the drill holes. (Because of how soft pearls are, beads made from real pearls must often have very tiny holes so as to not destroy the overall structure. Fake pearls have larger holes, and under magnification those holes look kind of funky.)

Using these methods, plus a perhaps naïve assumption that truth in advertising was a law that covered both regular companies and the peddlers of pearls, I had assumed the shiny boys I'd purchased were real. However, there are many fakes out there that are genuinely trying to fool people (such as hapless tumblrites just trying their best--), and these methods won't work against them.

(Incidentally, I'm not saying there is no purpose in this world for imitation or artificial pearls -- which are different from "fakes", in my mind, because they're not trying to fool anyone. Some common imitation pearls are bathed pearls, cotton pearls, glass and Majorica pearls, Roman pearls, etc. -- provided they're labeled as such, they're okay fellas in my book.)

Anyway. Let's look at some of the things that can be done once you have some pearls and, also, no witnesses to your crimes.

Fire Test

So for real, probably don't do this one. But if you do, be advised that:

The internet says real pearls, held in an open flame, won't smell. Whether this is true or not, I can say that fake pearls do, and it is not a smell that is easy to dissipate. So, uh, fire tests should be conducted outside. (Except don't do fire tests.)

The internet also says that real pearls won't scorch under an open flame. Or maybe they do, but it wipes off easily. Or maybe they do, and they're permanently discolored, but they're not peeling or anything. Or maybe they don't scorch, but boy howdy they can explode.

All this to say: The internet was singularly unhelpful with regard to actual consistent instructions and results for the fire test, and I am now wondering whether any of my 1600s alchemical guides provide better details on the matter.

A Big Ol' Hammer

Remember the Mohs hardness scale? And how delicate real pearls are?

Yeah.

I have, since the tragedy that befell Henrik, gone and bought some more pearls. These, again, passed that first set of "in the store" tests. But it was time for stronger measures.

(No, I will not be discussing what happened with the fire test. Which I definitely didn't do, nor did I do it indoors, nor do I regret any of the things I definitely didn't do related to holding the pearl for far too long under the flame and also what it smelled like. You can't make me, mostly because, as mentioned, it didn't happen.)

One of the fake pearls, when smashed by the hammer, did not smash. It did make a valiant attempt at destroying my hammer. One of the newer pearls, when put to the hammer, kind of smooshed and revealed a tiny sad pile of powder after just one love tap, thus suggesting that it is, in fact, real.

NOTE: A gem/jewelry person of my acquaintance has, during the course of writing up these adventures, let me know that when grinding, drilling, or filing sea shells, one should wear a face mask because the dust is liable to make one ill (case in point -- heavy metal poisoning is No Joke). Whether that is also the case with pearls is an interesting question, but one of the ways to make fake pearls is via shells and mother-of-pearl, so, like-- masks are probably a Very Good Idea when doing any of this, or when working with dust of any kind.

Vinegar Time!

If you take a real pearl, and put it into white vinegar, it'll do two things:

Get a fine sheen of small to largeish bubbles across its surface as the calcium carbonate in the pearl and the acetic acid of the vinegar bang into one another and form carbon dioxide bubbles. It's pretty! It'll also fuck up your pearls, so only do this with test pearls or ones you intend to turn into magic medicine I guess. (No don't do that, Moyse Charas will come back from the dead to punch you in the throat, we discussed this already.)

After a few hours (think 24 or so) a very small pearl will dissolve, leaving a kind of gooey shell that you can squish and dissolve too.

You can see a video here demonstrating both the vinegar and the lemon dissolution of pearls, but with regard to my new wee pearl babes in arms, who are -- so far as I can tell and without the benefit of actual, like, gem science thingies -- actually real, here's what two of them soaking in vinegar for a few days have been reduced to:

Figures 7 and 8. Two pearls gone swirly in a vinegar bath (left) and the goo left behind (right).

...and if you think you see burned bits of pearl in that vinegar, no you don't.

Next steps for me will be to try and source a new lid for Henrik, powder the real pearls, and maybe actually try the rest of the recipe before I destroy yet another apprentice. So tune in next time for "Update 2: Maybe This Time Some Actual Pomatum? And 100% Less Fun With Fire (Probably)"

First there was my mostly historically accurate Stede Bonnet lip balm--

then there was the continuing adventure of the mostly historically accurate scented soaps wash balls--

and apparently I didn't learn my lesson, because get ready for...

The Pearl Pomatum

(which is to say, the face cream)

(...I make myself laugh, and that's what's important here.)

[triflesandparsnips]

hey hey guess what it's time for

Update 4: Return of the (Soap) King

For those who haven't been following along, I've been having a nice time doing experimental archaeology and recreating cosmetics/household goods that are historically plausible for local idiot pirate Stede Bonnet to have had around.

Figure 1. Me, addressing my kitchen appliances.

So far we've had successful lip balm, yet-to-be-completed Oil of Lavender, the terrible tragedies that have so far befallen the pearl face cream, and, finally, the unending journey of the one household item actually mentioned on the dang show: the lavender soap (with updates 1-3 and several mini-updates).

Did this all secretly derive from my researching period-appropriate medical horror? Yes. Am I still going to write about it? Of course come on now I can't just keep that enema information to myself--

But TODAY IS NOT THAT DAY.

Figure 2. One very excited ship's surgeon who will unfortunately have to bide his fuckin time.

Nope, today we're on the next iteration of the lavender soap, because we're still at the "fuck around and find out" portion of this experimental process-- and so, behold:

Version 3.0 7 oz. dried soap 4 oz. ground orrisroot 1 oz. ground whole cloves 1 oz. ground benjamin 10 drops lavender essential oil oil of lavender, q.s. rosewater, q.s.

You may notice that I have, tragically, only added enough of anything lavenderish to allow myself the honesty of still calling this "lavender" soap -- as previously discussed, lavender essential oils (as we know them today) were not really a Thing, and the Oil of Lavender (...which is not an essential oil, but rather an infusion of lavender flowers and olive oil) is not quite ready for primetime scent vibes, so I genuinely don't think these are comparable to actually just grinding up and shoving in the dried flowers.

But for the sake of Science, I needed to find out if removing the flowers would help with the browning issue of previous versions, so-- out went the lavender. For now.

Figure 3. Oh no, I-- oh man, don't cry, I'm sorry, I'll put it back omg.

Other changes in this version are:

store-bought ground orrisroot (...listen, Thomas is but a wee lad, and not yet hearty enough to wreck regular orrisroot as hard as it needs);

store-bought ground benzoin (because it was cheaper to buy in bulk that the solid resin from the woo-woo shop);

increased the amount of orrisroot from 1 ounce to 4 ounces, in keeping with some other recipes, to try and bulk up the myristic acid content (i.e., the thing wot makes olive-oil based Nabulsi soap actually produce a bubbly lather)

I should at this point say that typically the scientific process recommends making only one change at a time when conducting Experiments, so that one may know what exactly affected a change in a positive, negative, or neutral manner.

Consider, however, that I have no patience. So fuck it, we ball.

Show us the soap, trifles

To get to the soap, you must first suffer through mortifying ordeal of process photos.

Figure 4. The ground orrisroot on my tiny digital scale (that actually measures grains, which itself is a holdover from apothecary measurements!)

Wait wait wait actually look at my tiny bullshit scale, I love it, look at its little one-gram calibration weight:

Figure 5. A baby.

Figures 6 and 7. An ounce of whole cloves (left) and the results of young Thomas's efforts thrown on top of the orrisroot and benjamin in the mortar (right).

I should note that rather than grinding the cloves in my granite mortar and pestle first, I put them straight into Thomas's maw-- I don't know if that led to how intensely clove-oily these grounds are, or the fact that the lavender flowers were not present to soak it up. Previously I got a grey-green powder out of grinding the both together, so this rich, wet clove-color did not bode well for my "can I stop this from being brown?" soap plans...

Figure 8. ...Or maybe it'll be fine? I added the dried soap, and now look at them all mixed together!

As a note, I had to actually use a whisk at this point rather than just rely on my pestle to do the work -- my mortar is Too Small for these shenanigans, and the four ounces' worth of orrisroot did not help matters. I won't say how much of this mix ended up outside the mortar and on my clothes, but it was... it was a non-zero amount.

Whatever, thought I. This is Science. This is me experiencing the divine art of creation across space-time with my alchemical forebears, and also this is why I should not be allowed in other people's kitchens.

Notably, the upped powder content meant that I had to add a lot more splashes of rosewater to get to a dough-y state where the soap could be hand-rolled, and I had to work significantly longer with the pestle-- while version 2.0 was, per my notes, about 8-10 minutes' worth of work, I would call this a solid 20 minutes at least of beating the ever-loving shit outta this mix until everything was incorporated.

And once it was, well--

Figure 9. Hello, brown.

As you can see, the soap mix does form up very nicely, though it still requires a spatula to clear the sides of the mortar and pestle.

At this point, remembering that the last time I hand-rolled wash balls my palms came away Very Brown, I donned some latex gloves before I commenced my rolling. However, because (and again, I cannot stress this enough) I lack patience, I threw in another change: rather than leaving them as balls, I squished them slightly between my palms to flatten them into slightly more traditional soap shapes.

Figure 10. Cookie dough or falafel: you decide.

A note regarding the scent: Whether it's the relative lack of the lavender, or the big bump to the orrisroot (or some magic alchemical combination of the two), the soaps, while still smelling strongly like spice cookies, now have an oddly-unfamiliar-but-fascinating scent profile, similar to what I found happened when I made the lip pomatum. There's no good reason why this should make me believe that I've come closer to a "real" recipe, but the feeling is there nonetheless -- and it's definitely interesting.

Finally, and because the flat sides of these soaps looked too innocent, too pure, I decided to try that octopus stamp again. For future reference, stamping immediately after making these? Not a great idea. The soap stuck to the stamp like a motherfucker, and so a lot of detail was lost. But regardless--

Figure 11. Spice cookie kraken soap cakes, holy shit.

And now, I actually do have to wait a few days before I can try them out, or they'll fall the fuck to pieces. Keep watch for mini-updates, though, as I check out how they dry and probably do more unfortunate stamp experiments on them.