Japanese Plum - Limited Edition

I bought my Japanese Plum fragrance oil about two months ago and used it in a body butter that I took on holidays with me.  It was one of those fragrances that I wasn't so sure of when sniffed directly out of the bottle but, as any soapers who read this will know, smelling a fragrance directly out of the bottle (or OOB in soaper talk) really doesn't give it a chance to bloom sufficiently well and it's often a case that you need to try it in a product to really know how it smells. 

When I made the body butter, I found out what a beautiful fragrance it was - it's described as a warm spicy Oriental scent with top notes of fresh lemon and tangerine, a spiced heart of clove, cinnamon, ripe plum and tuberose resting on a base of rich incense, patchouli, soft moss, amber, caramelised sugar and vanilla - it is an utter delight, deep warm and totally sexy! 

When I soaped it on Saturday, using my usual recipe of Sweet Almond, Golden Olive, Avocado, Coconut, Palm and Castor oils along with some beautiful creamy Cocoa Butter, the fragrance oil made my soap batter turn a bright yellow (instead of it's usual pale cream), turning my prepared colours of plum and violet into a very dark plum and a khaki green. The white was yellower yesterday but seems to be recovering somewhat. Also it gelled even in the fridge plus it seems to overheat and the tops turned a browny colour.  This fragrance was a heater for sure!

I showed some just cut pictures to some soapy friends who loved it and gave me the thumbs up on it so I've decided to issue it as a Limited Edition.  I'll reserve it for other products as it is really fabulous.

We went out to a lovely place today, Mount Usher Gardens - it's a courtyard with fantastic gardens, a coffee shop and some other stores including a stunning furniture store, Strawbridge Country Furnishings .. David, the owner, kindly allowed me to take images in his store as I felt it would give a lovely background to the soaps.  The furniture there is so fantastic, I would happily buy up the whole place! And, even better, it's all handmade and Irish too!

So, here are the images, I hope you like them - the soap will be available online from 21 September; remember it's a Limited Edition soap and there are on 10 bars available so if you'd like to pre-order one, please do make sure to drop me a line at info@soaperstar.com or write me a note on our Facebook page. 

Amber Honey Oat

This is the final soap from my soaping marathon last week (the last week of my holidays) and is actually the one I made first. 

Amber Honey Oat uses Sweet Almond, Golden Olive, Avocado & Castor Oils alongside Palm (sustainable source), Coconut and lots of pure Virgin Cream Organic Cocoa Butter.  I blended in lots of Manuka Honey into my oils along with lots of finely ground organic Irish oats.  My lye water was actually made with milk - goatsmilk, as it is so excellent for the skin.  With all these goodies, this soap is going to be a dream on the skin!

After much debate, I decided to use a fragrance with this and chose an Amber and Vanilla blend .. I felt it would work really well with the other natural fragrances in this soap plus it's a very warm, slightly spicy and comforting fragrance.  It reminds me of my holidays in Turkey last year too as I used a lot of this fragrance there ... the smell just makes me smile and gives me a lot of good memories. 

I did get some partial gelling on some of the soaps but I don't think it really matters, it's a beauty anyway.

So, here is ... Amber Honey Oat.. hope you like her!

She will be ready in early September, if you would like to possess her!

Vintage Patchouli Handmade Artisan Silk Soap

More soap pics! As promised, this is my new Vintage Patchouli soap - made with my normal blend of Sweet Almond, Golden Olive, Avocado, Coconut, Palm (sustainable source of course) and Castor Oil with lots of Cocoa Butter.  As always, I added wild silk to the mix - I just love what this brings to the party, such silky smoothness.

The fragrance is described as a sensual blend of patchouli, bergamot & white flowers on an intense base of woody incense - to this, I added additional Patchouli essential oil as I love love love it.  The fragrance smells clean yet deep and dark, perfumed and mysterious, a fragrance that makes you think of long held secrets

The style, as I said in a previous post, comes from my spending probably far too much time looking at vintage styled decor photographs... when I sniffed the fragrance, those images just popped into my head and the colours just felt so right to me.  I loved the muted colours, soft but there's something mysterious to them too.  Or maybe that's just me?!

So, here are images of my Vintage Patchouli Handmade Artisan Silk Soap...

Peony Sorbet

One of my recent fragrance deliveries was an incredible Peony - I just love it; it's rosey yes but not as "old lady" as some rose fragrances can be.. to my nose, there's a greenness behind it that really adds a little something else.  It's just so beautiful and I wanted to make a soap that would do it justice. 

I used my latest formulation because it feels so amazing on your skin plus I know it behaves really well for my spoon swirl - admittedly, I was a little afraid of using the Peony for that technique because, as most soapers know, floral fragrances can go a bit mental and speed up the whole process (I have had soap on a stick from one before!).  But I thought oh well, go for it and see and one way or the other, either it'll be pretty looking or not, but it'll still smell wonderful!

So, I weighed out my palm (sustainable source of course), coconut and cocoa butter and melted them as I weighed out the Sweet Almond, Olive, Avocado and Castor oils.  Once the hard butters were melted I mixed them in with the fluid oils.  I made up my lye water and added, as always, my generous portion of silk (I so love what it does to the feel of the soap). 

Everything was left to cool down to approximately 90 degrees F as I went ahead and mixed my colours.  For this soap, I wanted to have a four colour swirl (which I seem to be favouring at the moment, even if it is more work for me - it seems to give me a depth of colour shades that I really like).  I used Colorona Bordeaux mica for the darkest pink (but not as much as I used for my Black Raspberry Vanilla soap where it was a redder colour), Raspberry POP mica for the mid pink shade and a liquid red soap colour for the pale shade and just added enough so it was lightly pink.  The final colour was white and I used TD for this. 

One thing I've started doing which is really helping me with space and cleaning up after is tidying away everything as I use it.  So, once oils are used they are put back, then I take the butters out and put away before the next batch of ingredients comes out.  So when it comes to mixing my colours, I have a free and clear and tidy workspace which I find really helps with my concentration levels.  I cover this with tissue paper so that I don't ruin the kitchen worktop. 

I mixed my oils and lye and it was lovely, no adverse reactions, nothing went crazy.  I only mix to a light trace so the batter is very fluid still and then mixed a quarter into each of the colours (which I have in matching sized jugs which helps me to eyeball that I have the correct quantity in each jug, give or take a little).  I mixed everything carefully (nobody wants spots of colours) and then went ahead with my spoon swirl - this took me approximately 30 minutes which is pretty time consuming I guess but I do love it. 

And here are the pictures of Peony Sorbet:

As you can see, I swirled the top of the soap which I really love and decided, as with my previous soap, to swirl the body of the soap too but I think I prefer the spoon swirl look by itself so I'm not going to do that anymore.  The swirl on top is different enough to stand out from the body spoon swirl.  Again no glitter as I do believe it is, somewhat, contributing to colour change on the tops of the soaps which I just don't want.

I hope you like the new soap - if you're interested in these, they will be fully cured by the end of August. 

Wild Blueberry

When I came back from holidays, I was lucky enough to still be able to have another two weeks off - I also haven't soaped for at least 6 weeks so the soaping urge was beginning to shout at me!

Just before I went on holidays, I ordered some new fragrance oils that I just wanted to try out.  One of these was Blueberry - I had tried this in a sample previously and used it in a sugar scrub and just loved it, it smells just like the best blueberry muffin ever.  So I had to use this first, I was just dying to ... my mouth watered just smelling it. 

So I lined up all my ingredients, all perfectly weighed out and mixed carefully.  Then prepped my colours - I used Blueberry POP mica (yeah, blueberry, what else could I have used really?! It was just asking for it!).  I mixed some with oil in one jug, a little less in another with a tinch of TD to give a paler blue, in a third jug I mixed more of the Blueberry and then added some Grape POP mica to make a really deep bluey/purpley sort of colour.  In my final jug, I mixed TD to give a really white soap.  So all was good.. the oils were ready, the lye with dissolved silk was ready, the colours were ready, the mould was lined and all my worktops cleared to give me space for my favourite spoon swirl. 

I mixed my fragrance oil into the oils before adding the lye water, as always and gave it a little stick blend to make sure it was fully mixed.  Then I added my lye and mixed everything together - I wanted to make a spoon swirl which is my favourite technique and you have to have the soap at a very light trace so I needed to make sure I didn't stick blend too much.  Then it happened .. the FO turned my soap batter into a VERY yellow colour; like neon yellow, I kid you not!!! Ok, not good when I'm using blues as my colours!

So what to do but to go ahead and make my soap... so I mixed the now amazingly yellow coloured batter into my blues and everything went a pretty green! Yep, my green blueberry soap! The colours were fab though so I just went for it ... I did my spoon swirl and it took about 30 minutes.  Fortunately I got the soap at the right trace level so I had the time to work with it.  Everything was in the mould and I decided to swirl not just the top of the soap, as I normally do, but the body too.  I put my wooden chopstick into the soap and swirled the whole depth of the soap, banged the mould on the worktop a few times to release any bubbles and then sprinkled the glitter on top and popped everything into the fridge. 

I made this on Monday and it stayed in the fridge til Tuesday morning, then I took it out of the fridge, brought it to room temperature and then took it out of the mould and allowed it to sit, uncut, til this afternoon.  And so, here you go, pictures of my Wild Blueberry soap ... it certainly was a wild ride!

I really like it and, actually, it has stayed pretty blue for me which I'm happy about.  Not sure the swirl on the body of the soap has worked that well though - what do you think? Also I've decided not to use glitter for a while... I've noticed that the tops of the soaps become a different colour from the body and I'm convinced that it's glitter related.  It's a pity but I think I'll lay off it for a while and see if it's makes a difference. 

Hope you like this - if you're interested in having one in your own bathroom, it'll be cured by the end of August. 

Lemongrass Verbena

I've teased you for far too long, I'm a horror!

I showed you a pic the other day of a green and yellow swirled soap - it was only just poured and I was waiting to cut it which I couldn't get round to doing it til this evening. 

I used to sell this fragrance in my glycerine soap and I found it to be my biggest seller - the amount of people who adore Lemongrass is huge; it is such a bright warm exotic citrus fragrance and so suitable for both men and women.

I made this soap using Golden Olive Oil, Palm Oil (from a sustainable source), Coconut Oil and Castor Oil (always, because it helps make beautiful bubbles!).  It is coloured using specially imported US micas in green and lemon and has a sprinkling of glittery mica on top.  The white is coloured using Titanium Dioxide as the olive oil I can get here is very yellow and I wanted to get a very white soap. 

As ever with all my soaps, I've added pure silk because I love the feel of it in a soap plus it adds a real luxury element.  And, to play with the Lemongrass/Thai theme, I used full fat Coconut Milk as the water portion - this was lovely to use and it adds a real creaminess to the final soap. 

I will admit I did want straighter layers but I banged the mould a lot (to try and get rid of any air bubbles) and I guess layers and banging don't make happy bedfellows!!!

So ... here is my Lemongrass Verbena - a bright, sparkling exotic citrus fragranced soap to wake up to every morning!

In the mould, just poured

A big ol' stack of soap

I love the tops of this soap

More soap!

Arty side view

A wall of Lemongrass!

More soap

So tell me what you think, I'd love to hear! If you're interested in buying this soap, it'll be fully cured by 25 April (I should warn you that 6 have been sold on pre-order already based on these pictures! Only 4 left)

Summer Honeysuckle

I'm still thinking about Summertime, I can't seem to stop focusing on it! The last week here has been really sunny but very cold but still, there's a definite hint in the air that Spring is on the way and the sunny weather just cheers the soul.

So,with my mind firmly set to Summer, I decided to make another soap - this one is Summer Honeysuckle.  I tried a new range of allergen free fragrance oils from Fresholi and, having already sampled the Cucumber, I decided I wanted to try my hand at the Honeysuckle.  As with all florals, I was aware that it might speed trace - oh boy was I right! But, I'm getting ahead of myself.

So I started off with my recipe which I wanted to keep to Olive Oil, sustainably sourced Palm Oil, Coconut Oil and Castor Oil for bubbles.  I usually use some Cocoa Butter but I'm running low and haven't done an olive oil soap in a while so I thought, why not.  I mixed my lye with water and my silk (always with the silk, I love that baby) and mixed really carefully, so as not to splash myself plus I wore my safety specs (I've seen the pics of eyes that were burnt with lye, NOT pretty - always wear your safety specs).

I weighed and melted my hard oils and weighed out my fluid oils - took a little of the fluid oil and mixed up my titanium dioxide with this (using one of those tiny latte whisks, best way ever of mixing TD to make sure it's lump free).  I poured all this into the oils & butters and allowed them to cool.  I weighed out my fragrance oil and poured this into the oils too - I find this the most useful way of managing it (and especially if you have a tendancy to forget your fragrances!). As I waited for the oils and lye to cool, I lined my mould. 

So, the mixes came to 87 degrees F for the lye, and 88 degrees F for the oils/butters - pretty good, double checked that every thing that was to go in, went in.  Oh and I mixed a little Lemon Drop POP mica with a tinch of the oil to add later. So I got everything ready, everything in the right place so that I could move fast if needed. 

I poured the lye water into the oil/butter mix and began to stick blend - for about 10 seconds it looked good and then... uh oh... ricing! So I beat it and beat it, it was accelerating like a Forumla 1 driver! I thought "Oh hell, this is crazy", I felt the outside of the bowl and it was so hot! I decided that this was going to be a big problem soap if I didn't manage it and so turned around to get my crock pot out and heat turned on and, by the time I turned back, the most time was about 20 seconds, I had to rescue the stick blender out of the now bowl shaped soap!

I threw everything in the crockpot with a little extra water and went off to do something else (rant, rave, do the "why did I think I could CP florals" dance etc) until it melted down.  I kept checking for zap and, as soon as it was gone, I took out a portion and mixed with my Lemon Drop mica mix and beat it with a spatula until it was all really well mixed and then put it in the mould.  Hubs was helping me out at this stage (because the bowl in my crockpot is ceramic and it's really really really hot!) and he put some cling film on top to stop the top drying out before he took the crockpot back off the heat again - I took off the clingfilm and then poured (spooned really) the white portion on top and then banged the mould about ten times to get out any air bubbles.  I smoothed the top quickly and tidied up the sides and then did a little sprinkling of sparkling gold mica on top. 

It smelt divine - the fragrance is described as a gorgeous floral fragrance, which celebrates the sunshine aroma of honeysuckle. Delicate citrus top notes cascade to a fruity floral heart dominated by the sweet aroma of golden honeysuckle entwined with other florals of night scented jasmine, and ylang.  To my nose, it smells like a field of flowers on a warm sunny summers day, plus there's a really lovely green grass base to it. 

So .. I present to you my hot process Summer Honeysuckle soap:

Glistening Golden Top

Face-on View

  

Lots of Soap Slices

A delicious soap stack

 

Deliciously fragranced Summer soaps

I'd love to hear your comments on this new soap! If you're interested in buying, remember these are available to buy by 15 March - just drop me an email to info@soaperstar.com and we'll chat!

Two new Summertime Soaps

I got to thinking that I'm really tired of the cold and grey skies and needed something to make me look towards Summer, the sun shining, the smell of fresh cut grass and the sight of flowers blooming.  I wanted to make a soap that was fresh and zesty and that made me think of Summertime. 

So, in the last couple of days, I've managed to get some time in the kitchen (difficult these days in the middle of visitors and my Dad being in hospital [everything sorted now]) and make two new soaps, both of which define Summer for me.

The first is Pink Grapefruit - this is a divine fragrance, slightly sweet but definitely tangy & zesty, the sort of smell you'd get if you sprinkled a little brown sugar on a half a grapefruit and grilled it .. that juicy, sweet, tang? Know what I mean?

I used Sweet Almond Oil as my main oil because I am in love with this for soaping, added sustainably sourced Palm Oil, Coconut Oil, Cocoa Butter because it's simply divine and it helps with hardness and a tinch of Castor for bubbles.  I used Raspberry POP mica from the US to colour it - now this did turn a little on the peachy side but that's ok because I actually think it suits the Pink Grapefruit theme really well, it's held enough of it's pinkness whilst actually looking a tinch grapefruity too (if that makes sense?). 

The other additions were pure silk (as ever, I LOVE what this brings to the party), titanium dioxide to whiten the base, and a sprinkling of Diamond Dust mica on top because I love everything shiny and glittery and I'm a natural magpie at heart.

(favourite pic!)

You will see it did gel a little on the inside - now I prefer non-gelled soap because I adore the creamy look of them so I think I should have popped this one into the fridge for a few hours to avoid this but you live and learn I guess - it doesn't make a huge difference anyway, it certainly doesn't affect the performance of the soap.  The fragrance is incredible - this one has got to be smelt to be believed!

The second one I made was something I've wanted to do for a while now - I've been interested in using Aloe Juice as the water portion and got my husband to pic up some in the local health food store about 3 weeks ago.  I'd not managed to get space in the kitchen to soap until this week so decided to go ahead with the Aloe soap because I'd gotten my hands on a fabulous new Cucumber fragrance oil that is amazing. 

For this soap, I used the same recipe as above, with silk, titanium dioxide, two types of green mica plus a generous sprinkling of the Diamond Dust mica on top.  I don't know if it was the Aloe, the TD, the mica or the new FO but this was soap on a stick and, even though I managed to get it to submit to the mould, it began to seep oil at a rather alarming rate! I shoved it in the fridge (a small one given to me by my brother just for cosmetic making and soaping) and hoped that'd cool it's heels but, on checking it 10 minutes later, it was now seeping oil out of the mould and onto the floor of the fridge - NOT good! So, remembering my last adventure with overheating and the Deep Pomegranate soap, I decided to immediately HP it and hope for the best.  I really didn't want to lose the fragrance but I knew I'd lose my lovely green and white layers (to be honest, not so lovely really as it had set like a rock .. or so I thought).  In fact, when I scrapped it into the crockpot, it was very liquidy underneath.  So it was HP'd and this is how it turned out:

Really happy with the smoothness of these

(Favourite pic!)

I really love this one - it's held the fragrance really well (I added a touch more Aloe Vera juice to stop it from drying out and I made sure to not overcook it at all - but I did get my hubby to zap test ... love is a husband who'll let you burn his tongue!).  It's a lovely cool Summer's green and the fragrance actually makes me think of cucumber sandwiches at a picnic because I get a hint of fresh cut grass in the background somewhere. 

I hope you love these and they help you think that Summer really is only round the corner!