Gin n Tonic soap for Greatcakes Soapworks Challenge

As I sit on my terrace watching the sun set behind the mountains I think of nothing more than enjoying the view and relaxing with my Gin n Tonic in hand! My favourite tipple☺️

That is the first thought that came to mind when Amy released the details of this Months challenge, water replacement? Gin? Natural thought process for me, but could it be done? Well we shall try!

I scoured the Internet for details of soaps that were made with gin and tonic but could find nothing! Absolutely nada! I found gin and tonic smelling soap, and soaps that were coloured to look like a gin lovers soap but nothing about health benefits (for the outside) but found lots to say how good gin was for you on the inside, so my conclusion is, I shall be the tester of gin n tonic made soap and here are my findings😊

Firstly I had to choose my gin, and isn’t it just polite and customary to enjoy and partake in the drink whilst choosing? Ok then, I had 1.

There is so many botanicals infused into gin, juniper berry, anise, citrus fruit peel, cinnamon, angelica root, hibiscus to name just a few. All makes of gin have their own secret blend so all are different.

I sliced some limes and lemons and dried them out in the oven as part of my gin cocktail, that took about 3/4 hours to do! I could see this becoming an all day project.

The fragrance I decided on are 3 of the botanicals infused into gin, sweet orange, lime and anise.

I boiled both the gin and the tonic to boil off the alcohol and maybe some of the sugar in the tonic and then cooled them both down in an ice bath.

I was making 2 separate batches of soap for this challenge, 1 made with gin the other made with tonic. The lye solution made with gin started to bubble uncontrollably, I thought it was going to erupt like a volcano out of the jug, but it didn’t and it didn’t change colour. The lye solution made with the tonic bubbled the same and turned bright orange, this I suspect was the sugar scorching but it didn’t smell scorched just turned a funny colour. This I thought may work to my advantage by being able to swirl the 2 different batters to make a pattern.

I mixed the 2 batters at the same time and the one made with gin accelerated super quick the one with the tonic accelerated slightly but not as bad, my swirling technique was seemingly flying out the window because of how quick I had to get it in the mould. I still got to swirl it slightly with a hanger but I didnt think it was going to do much.

At least I got to decorate the top with some pretty botanicals. I bought a little pack of these that are meant to be put in your gin n tonic to enhance the flavour but mine went on top of the soap, hibiscus petals, juniper berries, pink peppercorns and to look like a straw in my gin cocktail, a cinnamon stick along with either a dried lime or lemon slice. I popped it in the oven on very low to cpop it to see if one batter saponified before the other to enhance the swirl a little.

Here is the cut pictures which I managed to do the following day, it was hard enough to cut about 12 hours after.

My conclusion is that gin n tonic soap was fun to make, is super bubbly as you can see by the pic, this was from a tiny piece cut off the edge.

Sorry Amy, I could not find anything to link because I don’t think anybody has been silly enough to try to make a gin and tonic soap, it may not be super healthy but has plenty of label appeal, for me it has anyway because I just love my favourite tipple, on the terrace, watching the sun set behind the mountains of Spain x