#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]

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]

....I think I

may have spoken too soon

about the latest soap experiment

[triflesandparsnips]

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]

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]

SOAP MINI-UPDATE:

I'm going to go check on the version 2.0 lavender wash balls.

Will they have undergone a metamorphosis?

Or will they have succumbed to t̶͔̤̪͔̊̐̓͜ẖ̷̒̉̓̎̽̊e̸̪͈͎̓̒̚ ̸̬̖̹̥͜͝b̴̨̡͈͂͛͑̽̓͊ŗ̸̬̹̯̳̠́̏̚ò̸̡̼̼̟͎̑͌͑̑͘w̶̘͕̱͇̒͋͝n̶̹̟͊̉̓̄̓̕ ̴̧̮̘̼̖̳͐̃̚͝ḧ̸͇̩̹̣͖́o̶̖̳̭͔̐́̉ŗ̵̲̉͋̾̄͂͌r̵̨̛̳͚͓̮̐̇̆̉̚ô̴̯̟̹͇̾͒͝͝r̸͓̩̳̉̑͒̒̉̒ ?

I am filled with a terrible foreboding.

[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.

[triflesandparsnips]

Speaking of that historically possible Stede Bonnet lip balm-- I'm up to version 3.0 and I want to start experimenting with 3.1 (aka MOAR ORANGE-FLOWER Edition).

From the 3.0 version, I've still got eleven sweet almond oil balms and one coconut oil balm sitting lonely in my fridge, and the makings for a shitload more of both.

Figure 1. The Boys (only one variant of which exists because I think I'm funny).

Figure 2. Look at this dolled up queen, I love him.

Figure 3. Behold Le Ingredients List.