There is more to celebrating an Esbat than casting a circle and lighting a candle. The moon has an amazing impact on on the human psyche, as it waxes and wanes, it has an ebb and pull effect on how we think and our emotional drives. For me today has been a matter of capturing that energy so that I can bring it with me when I need it. I will of course be working magick later.
But first order of business will be making soap! I love to make soap, hot and cold process (in fact I make a lot of my own toiletries). For this kind of quick work I'm going to use the craft store version, "melt & pour" process and making only a few bars of soap that I can use in my ritual cleansing baths... because I got a little lazy, and want to be able to use it immediately and not 6 weeks from now, we might do a cold process batch in September.
Having my purification bath elements in a single bar of soap is great for me, since I strongly prefer showers. Today I am use a glycerin base (the one linked is Vegan) and add my herbal choice or essential oils, which usually include Rosemary and Sage with a little bit of something floral like lavender, and a dash or ground cinnamon to raise energy vibrations. Though this time, as I am out of Sage oil, I used:
10 drops Lavender EO - Sleep, long life, peace, wishes, protection, love, purification, visions, attracting men, clarity of thought.
10 drops Rosemary EO - Improve memory, sleep, purification, youth, love, power, healing, protection, intellectual
10 drops Sage EO - Fertility, longevity, wishes, wisdom, protection, healing, health.
or
4 drops Pine EO (we want the energy, not essence of Pine-sol) - Attunement to nature, centering, cleansing, healing, productivity, purification .
When using Sage EO you will want the same 10 drops as used with the Lavender and Rosemary. Now some people will have you adding 15-20 drops of each however as my Dad was always extremely sensitive to perfumes so by preference I opt for a lighter scent.
Now I have been doing this for about twenty years, so I am pretty good at guessing at the amount of soap I need to fill 6 2 oz molds, so I didn't have any left over. In the pyrex it came to about a cup and a half of soap base, or a two inch slice of my block, and this time I dyed it purple, though I often omit dyes entirely. For best results use a double boiler, I use my pyrex and set it in a pan of boiling water, it can take about 20 minutes to meld down. Then add your soap dyes, I used 10 drops of red and 3 of blue for my purple. If you do have left overs and chose to add your Essential oils to the mold and not the batch then make use of an ice-cube tray and save your left overs for future use.. or if you did add the essential oils to the batch use candy molds for travel or guest soaps! The Essential oils should really be the last thing you add, you can either place drops directly into the mold and pour over it, or stir it in right before you pour. We do this, because heat will actually break down the Essential Oil.
I dyed the salt for 4 of the molds Blue, and left the other two with white salt, its about a tablespoon of coarse sea salt per mold. Followed by a dash of cinnamon. The salt will not melt into the base, because science. You know how Salt and water mix, and water and oil don't mix because of positive/negative ions? For that same reason the salt won't dissolve in the soap, because it consists primarily of oil. Which makes it a great exfoliate additive.
Once your molds are filled it takes about an hour for them to fully set up so that you can eject them. Store them in a cool dry place, and use when you need to clear the psychic sludge from your aura.
After these steps I will set up a small space on my patio to use for charging my tools tonight and consecrate my soaps by moonlight! (If it stops raining).