Aqua Haven ... holiday memories

Well I haven't posted in a while have I? Very naughty of me... but I do beg forgiveness as I've been hugely busy, as you'll see in the following post.

Well we got back from our holidays in the middle of August, the sun was still shining (sometimes!) and I still had a few days before I went back to the day job so I decided to make a tribute soap to our time in West Cork.  For regular readers, you'll know that West Cork is the place that we feel most at home.. it's in the South West of the country and where we stay is right on the coast (the cottage is literally two minutes walk to the sea, and the pub less than 3 minutes walk in the other direction!) and it's the place where we feel most at home, most comfortable, most alive.  So it had to be celebrated right?

I decided to make a new soap and called it Aqua Haven.  I used our best selling formula using Sweet Almond & Golden Olive oils with tons of creamy Cocoa Butter - to this I added our new Triple Milk formula of Buttermilk, Goatsmilk & Coconut Milk along with Kaolin Clay, Colloidal Oatmeal, Aloe Vera & Pure Silk.  A very luxurious soap indeed and how good is this going to be on your skin?

I fragranced it with blend of Grapefruit & Lemon, with hints of Blackberry & Champagne cooled with notes of Fresh Linen, Lavender & Violet on a base of Amber, Musk & Vanilla and the colours are inspired by West Cork countryside.  There is a particular flower that grows in the hedgerows there and is the brightest orange ... against the blue sky and green sea, they are just stunning.

I've used the Celine Swirl for the design and swirled the two colours together ... take a look at the videos and photos below and you'll see what I mean.

Making Aqua Haven 


http://youtu.be/7CepZH1ZWmg

http://youtu.be/HD_5qNCrNII

And here are the final shots, courtesy of Titch Holland of http://www.facebook.com/takenbytitch

Hope you enjoy the photos... the soap is available now for sale on  http://www.iamhandmade.com/ourshop/prod_2192168-Aqua-Haven-.html.

Japanese Plum Pure Silk Soap

Last time I made this soap, it went sort of nuts on me but, in hindsight, I think I soaped way too hot as it definitely gelled, and gelled hard for me. Regular readers will know that I'm a non-gelling sort of girl so I wasn't totally pleased. However, the soap ran off the shelves and was really popular. I vowed never to soap the fragrance again though ... until now!

As it was so popular and it's hugely popular in our Double Whipped Body Butters and Sugar Cream Body Polish, I decided that I'd brave it and remake it and see how it went. And how'd it go? Really really well! It behaved like a dream, no heating, no gelling, all perfectly behaved. What a silly I was to avoid it!

When I made Japanese Plum, I made it using our favourite blend of skin loving oils such as Sweet Almond & Golden Olive oils with lashings of Cocoa Butter .. to this we added our new Triple Milk formula of Buttermilk, Goatsmilk & Coconut Milk (remember, all those vitamins, proteins, natural fats, natural AHA's ... too too good!) along with Aloe Vera, White Clay, Colloidal Oatmeal & our favourite Wild Silk.

The fragrance is just to die for - it's described as a warm spicy Oriental accord with top notes of fresh lemon and tangerine, leading to 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 really is a divine fragrance! Warm and delicious and utterly sexy!

Here is our Making Of video which demonstrates the Hanger Swirl technique again:




And here is our cutting video where you can see the reveal of how the technique looked in the soap:




And here are the still photos, courtesy of Titch Holland of Taken By Titch:

I really hope you enoyed the videos and photos and please do make sure you check out our website for details on this and all our other soaps.

Enjoy!!

A Redesign, Remake & a Tutorial

In the midst of my exploration of our Pure Essential Soap range, I found out that stocks of some of our favourites and top choice soaps were running low, or in a lot of cases, were already run out! Eeek! Time to restock methinks.

So, you know, I can never just have a re-do, I have to have a whole redesign and, as ever with something different, I have to try something new.  Well not 100% new for me but a more in-depth exploration of a technique I'd only tried once before.

Peony Sorbet is one of our most popular soaps - it was the second highest ranking of soaps bought for Christmas this year and it's always in the top 3 of our most popular soaps so to let it run out is a crime.  It's a stunning fragrance, so close to the real scent of peonies, which, if you've never smelt up close and personal, you need to because they are just beautiful.  It's like a rose scent but not the old lady kind of powdery rose scent you can get (that I don't like myself), it's a more vibrant rose, with a definite raspberry hint to it.. it is just beautiful.  Even Titch loves it and she's not a floral girl at all.

So, as always, the ingredients of the soap come first so that you can experience the best possible skin loving experience ever... I made this with Sweet Almond & Golden Olive oils with lashings of creamy Cocoa Butter plus Aloe Vera, Goatsmilk, Coconut Milk, White Clay, Colloidal Oatmeal and Pure Wild Silk.  It is a joy to the skin!

Next, the redesign - I decided to investigate the hanger swirl more ... what is the hanger swirl I hear you say? Well, I can't explain it in words so much as show you, so here's our Making Of video:




Neat huh? I hope I showed you well enough what's involved. So, to see how it all comes out, here's our Cutting Of video:




And for more stills images, here are the photos taken for us specially by Titch Holland of http://www.facebook.com/takenbytitch fame:

Peony Sorbet will be fully cured on 20 August and we are taking pre-orders now at http://www.iamhandmade.com/ourshop/prod_1591945-Peony-Sorbet-PreOrder-Cure-Date-20-August.html ... hope you enjoyed the soaps and I'd love to see your photos with the hanger swirl technique.

Cut Soaps - New Photos

I am SO very lucky to have my very own soapographer in house! Soapographer? That's a soap photographer, see?! Titch took over taking photos of my soaps last Summer and I'm so glad she did, one less job for me and what a joy to find a talent so close to home (well, at home in fact!).

So I've noticed that I've posted a lot of videos of cut soaps but not the final images so here is a catch up of soaps I've made recently.  Not all are on the site yet as they're still curing but I'll note where they are on site as we go along.  Ready??? Let's go.....

Lime Basil Mandarin

(available from 27 February)

Asian Pear & Lily

(available from 5 March)

 Paradise Found

(available from 12 March)

Intrigue

(available from 19 March)

Buttered Maple Pecan

(available from 26 March)

Perfect Storm

(available from 26 March)

Seduction

(available from 26 March)

That's all for now... but, of course, I'm planning more... hope you enjoy everything! Make sure to check them out online at www.iamhandmade.com and check out the curing dates above.

All images courtesy of Titch Holland, www.facebook.com/takenbytitch - thanks so much hon!!! 

Magazine Article Published

Just a quickie - I wrote this magazine article for De-Stress 4 Life Magazine and it's just been published in their Winter Issue.  Looks great!!

Check it out here!

Open publication - Free publishing - More christy healy

If you can't view in this post, just click the link and enjoy!

Lime Basil Mandarin

I made a new soap the other day... actually a remake because I've used this fragrance again but new in that it's a redesign and I used a new technique (well, new to me) which I tried before on the Le Mint soap... the faux funnel swirl.  I'm LOVING this!

Lime Basil Mandarin is a stunning fragrance - it's described as a combination of green citrus fresh limes and zesty mandarins leading to herbal notes of basil with warm accord of precious woods and amber; this description, however, doesn't do it justice... all I can say is that it's just yum! Clean, zesty, fresh, perfume-y ... it's soooooooo good, you just have to smell this!

Titch and I made a video of me cutting the soap and here it is ... hope you like it!



If you subscribe by email, you won't see the video but you can click into the link and watch on You Tube http://youtu.be/Ta9VBaHPvv0.

Cashmere

If you're a regular reader, you might have seen this before but I love this soap so much I'm showing off pictures of it again! 


This is Cashmere, it's one of our best selling fragrances, it is described as a blend of essences of Moroccan jasmine, lily of the valley and bergamot with warm undertones of sandalwood, amber and musk. It is such a beautiful, elegant fragrance that is not too floral with a warm basenote. 


We've used chocolate brown swirled with soft vintage pink and golden soap to recreate the luxurious feel of cashmere silk against your skin. This will be cured in February 2012 and will be available online at http://www.iamhandmade.com.