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.

Ohh... I'm in a video!!

I sent some of my soaps to Julia from http://soapartists.blogspot.com during the summer and she wrote a wonderful review of them, I was more than happy with it (thanks Julia!).

Yesterday, I found she'd made a whole video with all the soaps and soapers she's reviewed and mine are in there .. and, guess what? She called me the Queen of Swirl! How cool is that?!

Check out the video below (for those who receive the blog posts by email, you won't be able to see the video but you can check it out on her blog, right here http://soapartists.blogspot.com/2011/11/video-1-soap-artists.html.

Julia, thanks SO much, you made my day! And to be included with so other fabulous soapers, well it's a pleasure and an honour.

Silence, Sadness & Retail Therapy

I have to say a huge sorry for being so quiet on the blog lately... I've not been soaping for a while, I seem to be going through some sort of soaping block at the moment, plus I've been trying to get things made for Christmas but not fairing very well on that front at present.

Also, if you are a reader on our Facebook page, you may know that, last week, my Mother in Law passed away very suddenly.  I don't think the shock has worn off yet and we're travelling to London for the funeral later this week.  It's knocked us for six I have to say, and hubby has been back to London to make arrangements.

Due to all of this, I felt the need to cheer myself up a little and did a small bit of retail therapy this evening... I can't spring for a Kitchen Aid or a Kenwood mixer but got the next best thing which is...

It's 400 watts of power with nice long mixer whisky things ... and it's red, me loves it!! 

So I'm going to try and get back to posting but we need to move through this week and start to heal.  

Spring has Sprung ... Hawaiian Blossom is here!

The sun is shining and the evenings are getting longer - yes, I still have to scrape the ice off the car windscreen every morning before I go anywhere but still, the sun is shining! We have sun! It does exist after all!!! So, in celebration of the fantastic feeling of Spring in the air, I made a fabulous new soap - bright yellow sunshine with a fantastic glisten of natural mica!

We have taken the purest, highest quality goatsmilk and clear glycerine soaps (which are natural humectants - they attract moisture from the air into your skin) and added exotic Mango Butter which is rich in beta carotene and Vitamins A & E. It is highly moisturising and has excellent softening and regenerative properties, with the added bonus that it is thought be protective against UV rays. It is claimed that mango butter can help to reduce the degeneration of the skin’s cells and help to restore elasticity, so would make an excellent ingredient in products for mature skins.

To this we have added our special additional skin hydrating element which provides your skin with increased hydration and provies excellent moisturisation.

Hawaiian Blossom soap is wonderfully fragranced with the sweet exotic tropical fragrance of frangipani - this flower can be found in areas of Asia and is native to Hawaii is a stunningly beautiful white and yellow flower, with a beautiful floral fragrance. Reflecting the natural yellow and white of the Frangipani flower, we have coloured this luxury soap with tones of yellow glycerine and white goatsmilk soaps - we've also added natural mica to give a glittery sheen, reminiscent of the sun shining on moisture drops on the flowers.

This is really a luxury soap - perfect for all skin types, deeply moisturising with added ingredients to treat your skin to the quality it deserves, wonderfully coloured and deeply fragranced with an exotic floral scent .. a perfect gift to anyone you love.

If you'd like to purchase this fabulous new soap, click here to go direct to our online store!

Hawaiian Blossom handcrafted luxury goatsmilk & glycerine soap - from Soaperstar

Everyone needs a holiday!

Sorry I've been so quiet this last week - I had some time off and my hubby and I decided to take a min-break to a place we love dearly with all our hearts.  West Cork is in the very South West tip of Ireland and it is an utterly magical place - right by the sea, you can go for miles without meeting another soul.  It's so beautiful, peaceful and quiet and the people are really lovely.  We've been travelling down there there for the last 8 years - in fact, it's where we went for our first holiday together (when we only knew each other for a month!) and it was absolutely the first choice for our honeymoon too! Our long term plan is to move there at some point - we can't at the moment due to family committments but moving there is absolutely our biggest life plan.  Below are some of the pictures from our trip ... I hope you enjoy them!!

Inchydoney Beach. Clonakilty on a quiet February Tuesday afternoon

A tired me, by the fire, in the local - hubby's pint of Murphy's can also be seen!

A secret place just beyond Mizen Head, West Cork - we've spent a lot of time here, the sound is magical as the waves crash against the rocks

Proof that the sun does shine in February in West Cork!

Crookhaven, West Cork - a perfect day out!

It looked warm enough to paddle but look at his face! He was shouting "It's soooooooo coooooolllllllllllddddddd"

Gorse burning, Crookhaven

Well, that's all the photos - hope you enjoyed them... it was such a fantastic trip and one sorely needed too.  Sometimes it's important for us to remember what's important in this life - for me, it's family, my lovely hubby and spending quality time together.  With the hustle and bustle of life, a new business and other issues, it can be hard to get time out to just breathe the air and remember what's important in life. 

Soaperstar Blog Posts via Email - Subscribe now!

I just wanted to noted to you that you can now receive our Soaperstar blog posts via email! On the left hand side, there's a box for you to insert your email address so that you can subscribe... that way you can receive our latest blog posts straight into your mailbox! I subscribe to a couple of blogs that way and it is so handy! We all know live can get very busy at times and we don't always get the chance to check out all our favourite websites, so it's handy to get updates delivered straight to you - that way you miss nothing. 

So, if you fancy signing up for our subscription service, please feel free to include your email address. 

A Facebook and Twitter Tip for businesses

Firstly, can I say a quick "sorry" for not having posted in a while? I've been under the weather and, in the main, under the radar.  I''ve been working away quietly and slowly making some soaps and experimenting with lip balms and bath bombs too.  I'll post about this tomorrow as I've to work on some photos beforehand.

 

So... the real point of this blog post to give you a tip about Facebook and Twitter.  Lots of small businesses are focusing on social media to get their message out - it's a hugely powerful tool and it's free! You can reach millions of people via what is called "viral marketing".  What is that I hear you say? Basically, it's marketing through networks.  Let me give you a scenario - before I started Soaperstar I knew that I had to get a presence online and build up interest for the product and company before I could start selling.. otherwise who will buy something they don't know exists? Ok. So what did I do? I set up a blog firstly (you're reading it!) that just told of what I was doing - plain and simple English, just to say "hey folks, this is my stuff and this is what I'm working on now".  Then I decided to set up a Facebook Fan Page.  Lots of people already have personal pages on Facebook but you can also set up a business page too to promote your products to your network... who are they? Your friends and family that you've sent a link to and said "come and join us on our new business page". 

Ok, so now my friends and family have joined but I'm not going to take over the soaping universe through them am I? Well, yes in a way.  You ask your friends and family to send an invite to your Facebook Fan Page to their friends and family.  So .. how you've reached two layers of people.  Then on your Facebook Page, say to everyone please feel free to invite your network to join.. so now how many people can you reach? Plenty! Loads more than the number of people you ever know.  They invite their network, who invites their network, who invites their network.. see how it works? Ok, not everyone is going to be interested or join or even click the link - but imagine if even 10% do!

I've just done a forum post on some tips arising from the use of Facebook and Twitter and thought I'd do a blog post on it also; it may be of some interest to people so I thought I'd share it. 

 

Vanity URL's with Facebook:  When you've built up at least 25 fans, you can change your facebook fan page to what they call a "Vanity URL". When you first create your Facebook fan page, pretty much just a string of letters and numbers and long and not very attractive.  To make it more like your own site link, that contains the name of your company this is what you should do:

Click http://facebook.com/username.  At the bottom of the page, you'll see a link called "set a username for your pages".  Click on it and then you'll see a drop down - click on this and you should see your "business fan page".  At that point, you should put in the name of your company/fan page, ie Soaperstar.  Word of warning, at this stage you have to make committment to using that name - you can't go back and change it later so make sure you've clicked the right thing!!!

After doing all this, you'll have a nice simple Facebook Fan Page address ... example http://www.facebook.com/soaperstar - instead of a mass of jumbled up letters and numbers after the dot com.  This is handy to quote on your business cards, the end of your emails, on Twitter, your blog, the end of forum signatures etc.  

Twitter and how to manage your messages:  If you're using Twitter regularly, download Tweetdeck, click http://www.tweetdeck.com; it's free and it manages the process far easier.  You can set up columns for your friends or for specific people you want to keep a track on.  If you want to use hastags (which are used for subjects of interest to people - if lots of people use it for the same subject, it's called trending) then add the hashtags #soap and/or #handmade to your Tweet.  Then people can search for all the #soap tweets if they want.  Also it makes it a more trending topic. 

I hope this information proves useful to someone - I am a big fan of social media and I think, for small businesses who don't have marketing budgets the size of the big guys (or any marketing budget at all!), then the social media route is so important to check out.  Don't underestimate the power of a network!!!

New February Special Offer!

We've decided to continue with our New Year resolution of offering our valued customers a free gift with their orders! In January, we offered a mystery soap with every order for 4 or more soaps and it proved hugely successful!

This February we've decided to offer our customers a free, 100% cotton washcloth with every order of 2 or more soaps - no need to add them to your order, we'll pack them along with your soaps.  The cloths are made of the softest, white cotton and would be perfect to use in the shower with your Soaperstar soap! It will come tied in a beautiful purple bow!

Just a little "Thank You" to our valued customers - we hope you love this offer and we're working on ideas for continuing offers for the months to come.

Don't forget to order your Limited Edition Valentine soaps online soon! A perfect piece of practical art for the love of your life!

Check out all our products online at http://www.soaperstar.com/.  See you there!!!!

Soaperstar gets a mention!

I just wanted to say a big THANK YOU to Babs at http://www.soapstuffdaily.com/ for featuring Soaperstar soaps on her wonderful blog.  It's great to get a mention from anyone but from a fellow soaper, it's great to be recognised for my work.  She featured my two new Valentine Limited Edition soaps - Velvet Heart and Midas Touch.. I'm so delighted. 

You can read her post here - thank you again Babs, I really appreciate it!

Happy New Year!

I just want to say Happy New Year to all my blog followers and readers - I really hope that 2010 brings us all joy, happiness, health and, who knows, maybe a bit of wealth too?

I hope Soaperstar goes from strength to strength - I am planning on introducing several new products in the coming months, things I'm working on at present - I like to fully test all my recipes and send out samples for people to use; there's nothing like honest feedback on performance from your human guinea pigs!

And don't forget that all Soaperstar products are suitable for use by vegetarians, nothing at all is tested on animals (other than the human kind!), all products are fully safety assessed and I ensure that all my raw ingredients are purchased from the highest quality suppliers ... this is how I can ensure that all Soaperstar products are the very best I can supply!

Have a great New Year everyone - I honestly hope that this year will bring us all our dreams come true!

Don't forget to check out our website at http://www.soaperstar.com/ for info on all our products!

Good and bad - soaps are therapeutic!

Well.. today has been bad and good.  We went out yesterday afternoon to have a Christmas drink with my Father and we also ate out... lovely evening, lovely meal.  However, when we got home we found that some ***** had broken into our house.  According to our neighbours CCTV, he was only in the house for exactly 2 minutes and yet he managed to ransack most of the rooms and walk away with money and jewellery.  Quite sick making and very upsetting indeed - it is one of the most awful thing to come home to. 

Anyway, despite taking to my bed for most of the day (as is my usual habit when upset), I decided at about 4.00 pm to make use of the rest of the day and cut and wrapped the soaps I'd made on Saturday.  I decided that soaping is therapeutic for the mind and soul and so, on to soaping!

Here are images and descriptions of the four soaps - the first are restocked favourites and one new one:

Aqua Haven is a handcrafted luxury goatsmilk & glycerine soap with added Golden Jojoba Oil, an extra skin hydrating factor and our Aqua Haven Fragrance Oil - a heady mix of marine scents with a soft woody, citrus & sea salt background.

This just smells so oceanic and the swirls are so reminiscent of sitting by the sea - very calming and refreshing at the same time.

Orange Blush - a handcrafted luxury Goatsmilk & Glycerine soap, deeply coloured with bronze orange natural mica with added Apricot Kernel Oil, skin hydration factor and our Orange Blush Fragrance Oil - a fresh cologne blending bergamot and orange blossom with delicate cottony florals with a base of precious powdery musks.

This soap is deeply orange due to the huge amount of glittering bronze mica used to create the swirls.

Zesty Citrus Cream - a handcrafted luxury Goatsmilk & Glycerine soap with added Apricot Kernel oil, an additional skin hydrating factor and all wonderfully scented with our Zesty Citrus Cream fragrance oil - an uplifting, velvety smooth tangy lemongrass verbena citrus scent.
This is so fresh, so bright, so funky and uplifting - you can't help but feel cheerful after using this soap!

Mister Blue Genes - a handcrafted luxury Goatsmilk & Glycerine soap, laden with deeply blue natural mica, with added Golden Jojoba Oil, an additional skin hydrating factor and fragranced with our unisex Mister Blue Genes fragrance oil - a blend of apple and mandarin with a heart of exotic jasmine and violet on a deep musk base; not just a soap for the man in your life!


This is a deeply coloured soap with a very unisex fragrance - very much suitable for men and also for women to steal from them!!!

I hope you like the soaps I've made this weekend and agree that putting behind the bad news and looking to the future is the way to go.

If you are interested in purchasing any of these soaps, don't forget to check out our website http://www.soaperstar.com/ for full details!!!

We've restocked two of our most popular soaps!

On Saturday I got back to soaping (having missed it the previous week due to having to wait for materials to be delivered!).. and decided to restock two of our most popular soaps - My Sweet Love and Good as Gold.  Both soaps are made with our trademark Goatsmilk & Glycerine soap with added Golden Jojoba Oil (an amazing oil that is almost identicial to your skin's own oils and so is wonderfully moisturising), and an added hydrating skin conditioner - just to make sure that your skin is as fabulous as it should be when you use our soaps! Both soaps are coloured using only the very best natural mica, I just adore using this material to colour soaps - it adds a wonderful depth to the colour and a fantastic glisten. 

My Sweet Love, pictured on the left, is fragranced with a fresh, floral bouquet with fruity accents reminiscent of sweet raspberries based on a warm wood-musk foundation.  This is a beautiful soap - quite a delicate fragrance that is both floral and fruity at the same time but excellently balanced because neither fragrance overrides the other. 

Good as Gold is fragranced with a sweet, floral nectarine & juicy mandarin complimented by peach & plum on a creamy vanilla base - all beautifully glistening due to the natural golden mica. This fragrance is so fresh.. juicy almost! The goldenness (is that a word? It is now!) has to be seen to be believed!

Both soaps are now available on our website at http://www.soaperstar.com - please feel free to check us out.

Soaperstar Aqua Haven is featured on The Soap Bar blog!

Many many thanks to Jo at Product Body for her wonderfully generous mention of my Aqua Haven soap on her Soap Bar blog (which you can read here) - she's showing some great blue themed soaps from across the world in a post entitled "International Blues".  My soap is featured alongside some other fantastic soaps (both CP by the looks of them) and mine is the only glycerine based soap featured (which is excellent as glycerine soaps don't always get the mentions they deserve).  Thank you Jo, I really appreciate it! What a great mention, I'm really chuffed.  I read Jo's blog all the time and I just love her interest and enthusisiam for soap. 

Aqua Haven is currently out of stock at the moment (unfortunately) in the online store but I'm hoping it will be back by next week! So great timing too!

Check us out at the Soaperstar online store for details on all our soaps!

Soaperstar helps with Christmas Shopping!

I just wanted to thank the lovely @MelanieDawn for her blog post mention of Soaperstar... so glad that she enjoyed the soaps and I really hope her Mother in Law loves them too! How exciting to think that something I made will be given to someone on Christmas Day, that's just fab!! Melanie and I met on Twitter and she's a really lovely person and I was delighted that I could help her out with Christmas shopping and especially for her Mum in law (who, I know from mine, can be rather difficult to shop for!).  If you'd like to read the post, her blog can be found here.

Thanks Melanie! Remember, if you'd also like to purchase some Soaperstar soaps, please do not hesitate to check out our new online store - http://www.soaperstar.com/ - we'll be very happy to see you there!

Fabulous new soap from Soaperstar (plus a newly listed favourite)

We've just added an incredibly delicious new soap to our website - Snowberry Truffle is Cocoa Butter & Glycerine soap, with embedded mica "berries", added Apricot Kernel Oil, skin hydrating factor all wonderfully fragranced with a decadent blend of sweet, rich white chocolate and fresh, juicy raspberries! Incredibly fragrant, wonderfully good for your skin and zero calories! What more could a person want?!

We've also relisted our very popular Christmas themed Cocoa Butter & Glycerine soap, Christmas Glisten.  This wonderfully skin nourishing soap has added Apricot Kernel Oil, an additional skin hydrating factor and is festivally fragranced with a blend of fruits, wine & warm sweet spices. 

Great news is that both of these soaps are completely SLS free and are completely suitable for use by vegetarians. 

Both soaps can be purchased on our new online store - check out http://www.soaperstar.com!

Soaperstar gives a Merry Christmas Special Offer to all our customers!

Ohhh Christmas is coming and the goose is getting fat! Hmmm I don't like goose that much but I LOVE LOVE LOVE Christmas!!

So we've decided to offer our customers a special Christmas offer on our new online store http://www.soaperstar.com - if you buy 9 of our wonderfully skin hydrating goatsmilk & glycerine soaps, you'll receive a special mystery soap for free!!! The mystery is that you won't know what type you'll receive until you get your package in the post!

This offer is for our fabulous customers to say Merry Christmas to you all! It will remain in place until 24 December so make sure you order soon!

Check us out at http://www.soaperstar.com/ - Yule love it!!!

Restocking of two favourites!

We have restocked two of our customers favourite soaps! As with all handcrafted products, each time you make one, it's slightly different each time.. that's the beauty of them, you get a totally unique item every time!

So, introducing (again) our Twilight Haze soap - a handcrafted luxury cocoa butter & glycerine soap with added Apricot Kernel Oil, skin hydrating factor, and our Twilight Haze Fragrance Oil - a unisex blend of pomegranates, raspberries, plums & pink peppercorns on a base of frankincense, patchouli & dark spicy woods.  This soap is totally SLS free also!

And our Chunky Choc Delite, a handcrafted luxury goatsmilk & glycerine soap with added Apricot Kernel Oil, skin hydration factor and our Chunky Choc Delite Fragrance Oil - a richly decadent milk chocolate scent on a vanilla cream base.

 

Both are now available to purchase in our online store at Soaperstar's Online Store - http://www.soaperstar.com - drop in soon!!!!

Don't forget to buy early for Christmas!

Christmas is nearer than you think! 1 month and 1 week away! So, if you'd like to treat yourself and friends or family to some handcrafted soap made in Ireland, don't forget to check out Soaperstar's new online store at http://www.soaperstar.com/ - you will find all our fantastic range to purchase right there!

So don't leave it til the last minute, check out the store and buy your favourite soaps - all sent from Ireland direct to your door!

Sorry no posts lately!

We've just come back from London on a short trip which was over the weekend, which, as regular readers will know, is my soaping time! So now I'm itching to get back into it and just wondering what type I should make next? And I'm thinking that I need to do some restocking.. so what about making some more Chunky Choc Delite, and some Twilight Haze too? And I really need to work on that soap for men ... I've been asked to think about a scrubby element in that ... hmmm I need to think about that, what would be best I wonder?

So it's restocking time for Soaperstar - which is great because it shows just how popular those soaps have been!

Now the interesting thing will be if I can make them so that they look just like this again! That's the great thing with handcrafted items, one piece never looks the same as the next so you know that you are truly buying a special item!

Check out Soaperstar's Online Store for all our soaps ... we'd love to see you there!! Soaperstar's Online Store!!!

More Soaperstar Soaps!

I spent my Saturday creating! And made two new Soaperstar soaps - both are wonderfully fragranced and have added Apricot Kernel Oil and an additional skin hydrating factor.

Firstly we have Festive Orange Spice - a beautiful blend of goatsmilk and glycerine soap, swirled with lots of glittering mica, wonderfully luxurious with added Apricot Kernel Oil and an extra skin hydrating factor and fragranced with a strong, dark, deep and spicy blend of orange and cinnamon - this just totally smells of Christmas to me!!

I also made Passionate Purple - this is a blend of goatsmilk & glycerine soap, deeply coloured with natural glittering mica and wonderfully fragranced with a deep, sensual and exotic passionflower fragrance - wonderfully perfumed, this scent will linger gently on the skin after your bath or shower so no need for an extra perfume (saving you money!).

Both soaps are now available to buy online - check out the Soaperstar Online Store for details!!! These are newly added today and are only available for a short time only (we specialise in small batches limited edition soaps!).