After many days of difficult work it looks like we have finally completed the newest versions of the monastery’s online blog and online store. It is possible that there may still be a few bugs to work out, but glory be to God that the main part of the work seems to be in place and was ready to go on the feast of Mid Pentecost!

Glory be to God for all things!

As mentioned before we have slowly been expanding our online store with some hand-made products of the monks themselves. The previous post showed some of the production of one of our new soaps (kaleido-soap) and today we are pleased to announce that four new soaps are now available!

These soaps include the aforementioned kaleido-soap, gardenia, cook’s coffee soap (a limited time offer specially intended for the kitchen) and tea tree bubble.

Kaleido-soap	Gardenia
Cook’s Coffee	Tea Tree Bubble

We have expanded and further categorized our soap offerings as well, including the General Soap Page where all our offerings can be found, and the three different categories of Nature’s Soaps, Swirl Soaps and Bubble Soaps.

You will also find other limited time offers of books from our on-site monastery bookstore stock as well as a few other new offerings – the bookstore is slowly expanding, feel free to come back from time to time for new things!

We announced earlier that we were adding All-Natural Soaps to our bookstore, both ONLINE and here at the monastery. Week by week, we are adding new varieties of scents and colors and designs.

New soap: Kaleido–Soap!

Yesterday and today we have been making our Kaleido-soap. The scent is “Juicy Pear” which is light and fresh — a great match for the colors.

Kaleido-soap is made with a special “column swirl” method, which originates with Venetian art painting methods.

First step is to arrange the pigments used in this soap. We have everything from spirulina for green to “Electric Bubblegum” Pink with Magnesium violet. Here Fr. Martin is checking the temperature of the oils.

The soap batter is mixed with pigments and lined up to be poured over the star-shaped column. At this stage we have to race against time as the soap is already thickening.

And down goes the soap into the mold. The various colors are slowed down by the column and pool into discrete bands of color, shaped by the column into a large floral pattern.

Gradually the mold is filled up with enough batter to make about 30 bars of soap.

Swirling a bit with a chopstick helps to add shape to the colors.

Now it is ready to cover and allow chemistry to turn oils and lye water into soap. All our soaps are made from 100% vegetable oils. They are “super-fatted” which ensures that no lye remains. All has been transformed into soap with extra oil emulsified in it to add to the moisturizing effect. Our soaps are also full of free glycerin. Glycerin is a natural humectant (it draws moisture to the skin). Sadly, in most commercial soap, it is extracted and sold as a much sought-after commodity.

Cut and ready to cure. After 30 days, the soap will harden up, the pH will be perfect and it will be ready for sale.

Look for these soaps in our store around Mid-March!