Autumn Rose & Winter Orange Spice

I've been a little busy lately (though not as busy soaping as I was on my holidays but that's what happens when you've a full-time job, I guess!) and have made two new soaps and thought I'd show you. 

First up is Autumn Rose - she was born because a customer wanted samples of handmade luxury soap to give as small gifts to her clients and asked if I could design a soap for her.  She kindly allowed me free reign with the design, choice of colours and fragrance.  Initially, we'd thought a wedding-y type soap (as she is a bridal jewellery designer) and I worked with some colours I thought would appeal across the board.  But, as we know with soap at times, it can decide to do it's own thing colour wise!

I used a new red coloured mica and wanted a deep reddish pink colour as the base... actually it turned out more of a terracotta colour.  The pinks, greens and yellows which I wanted to keep light and almost pastel, were lighter than I'd expected.  All in all, the soap started out one way and became something else entirely.  However, when I unmoulded it, I thought "Autumn!" and, as it the fragrance was rose based, the name "Autumn Rose" just popped into my head.  It seemed to fit so well.  I showed my customer the soap and she loved it, she thought the autumnal colours looked just like a landscape.  So I went ahead and cut it into lovely little sample bars and, I must say, they did look so lovely all lined up, looking cute as buttons. 

The fragrance is described as a soft floral fragrance with top notes of cassis, bergamot and lemon with a floral heart of rose otto, softened by sweet violet on a soothing base is composed of soft woods, amber and musk.  It's a soft, delicate fragrance but one that so matches the soaps colours.

As you can see, it was also my first opportunity to use my new soap stamp which I love!! I need to leave the soap for about 2 - 3 days after cutting and before stamping though, I think, otherwise it'll be too soft and might take some of the soap with it.  This was my first attempt!

My second soap is an Autumn/Winter version and is called Winter Orange Spice - I wanted to create something extra orangey with a light spice background.  It's not a Christmas soap only but one for both seasons at least... but it's so lovely, I'd be happy to use it all year round!

It has a blend of Sweet Orange, May Chang (which is a fantastic lemony sherbert essential oil, so fresh and bright and gives a nice background to so many citrus oils) and a little Clove essential oil along with a dash of Cinnamon fragrance oil .  It also has fresh orange zest from two HUGE oranges mixed into the orange soap.. this will keep on giving blasts of orange as you use it. 

Both soaps are made with Sweet Almond, Golden Olive and Avocado Oil and lots of Cocoa Butter (amongst other oils) and, as always, I used pure wild silk ... I just cannot say enough about what this brings to the final product, it's so lovely, and so luxurious!

Both soaps will be available in early October - as Autumn Rose was primarily a custom order, there are only a few of these bars left but, if they're not pre-ordered by the time they're cured, then I'll put them on the site.  There are, at the moment, 10 bars of the Winter Orange Spice.

I really hope you like these soaps - if you'd like to pre-order either, please do email me at info@soaperstar.com and put one aside for you. 

Orange Spice - more cold process experiments!

Yet another cold process soap experiment - this used possibly the simplest recipe yet but with fabulous skin loving oils such as a Sweet Almond Oil and Olive Oil.  It also has my favourite pure silk as this gives such a incredible feel to the final soap and it's sooooooo luxurious too! This could be one of my final "loving it" recipes!

I present ... Orange Spice! Ok, I will admit that this is how it was supposed to look.  I wanted soomething along the lines of Winter Wonderland.  Like any good soaper, I decided to do some research and asked what does Winter Wonderland to you... mostly I got the answer blue/silver/white or red/green/gold.  So I thought.. hey, lets mix it up and go with white and gold. 

Now, what fragrance would go with this? I took the suggestions of spice and warmth and made this with two blends - one of Sweet Orange and May Chang essential oils added to a second blend of Ginger and Cinnamon fragrance oils.  This have given me a sweet orangey warm spicy fragrance - totally perfect to match the wonderful golden shimmery orange colour. 

Ok, some pics .. I'll talk you through them.

Here is the soap in the mould still.  You can see the I gently swirled the top layer - then I dusted it with gold cosmetic glitter plus shimmer mica plus gold mica, this is a heavy metal soap baby!

Out of the mould but not yet cut - you can see that the base is a creamy white colour (actually slightly more yellow than the photo shows; this is because of the golden olive oil I used)

Some cuts slices - you can see the depth of colour in the topping, this comes from the mix of silver and gold mica with extra silver and gold plus gold glitter on top (if any of you saw my post on Facebook that I was covered in glitter, you'll understand it now!)  I love the sheen of this, I could look at this picture all day.

Ok two cut pics, face on - you can see the gentle swirl I tried.  I like this but I know I didn't colour enough soap in the golden colour to make a full swirl.  Next time, colour more! I love the smiley on the left hand soap - so cute!

On these two pictures, you can see the glittery, sheeny topping with the gentle swirl - I am loving this soap so much. 

I have to say that the soap smells so good - is it a Winter Wonderland? Nope, it definitely isn't but you know what, it's totally Awesome Autumn! I adore the pumpkiny colour and the sweet spicy citrus fragrance is just divine and totally matches the colours of the soap.

So, welcome to Autumn - next try will be Winter Wonderland! Please feel free to leave a comment.