The leaves are turning... and my thoughts are moving to Autumn

I have to say that I love Summer... I love the longer, brighter days, I love the sun, I love that everything feels warmer, happier, shinier even.  But, you know what, I love the change of seasons, feeling the colder mornings nip at your toes even though I'm still wearing my Birkenstocks.  And my thoughts move to Autumn and then on to Christmas.  Yep I said it, Christmas!!!

People have raged at me (tongue in cheek of course) on Facebook when I mentioned it ... but, you know what, soapers have to work a season ahead of where they are.  Like fashion designers or even educationalists, you have to work right now but you have to plan for the next season too.  I cure my soaps for a minimum of 6 weeks at a time which means that I have to work at least that far ahead of myself if I want to reach my targets.  So yes, in August, I began to think of the Autumn/Winter collection for this year.

Whilst on holidays, I had a fabulous jam (I am a big fan of toast and jam, it's an addiction)... this was Apricot & Vanilla and I immediately said that I just had to make a soap in this combination, it just screamed Autumn at me.

Below are videos of my Spiced Apricot Vanilla soap ... I made it using skin loving Sweet Almond & Golden Olive Oils with lashings of creamy Cocoa Butter. To this, I added Yogurt and Goatsmilk as they are natural sources of AHA's, vitamins and minerals and are so good for your skin. Then added White Kaolin clay which is one of the best clays for sensitive skin (but works really well with all skin types) and it helps to gently clarify and cleanse your skin. Finally I added Colloidal Oatmeal & Pure Silk to give that extra luxury touch!

The jam gave me the idea of the fragrance and I blended fresh luscious apricots and sweet juicy orange essential oil, gently spiced with cinnamon & nutmeg and drizzled with pure Tahitian vanilla .. its a warm, spicy, divine fragrance blend!

The colours were chosen to reflect to the fragrance and are also very Autumnal. I hope you like it!

Making Spiced Apricot Vanilla Handmade Pure Silk Soap:

http://youtu.be/LnJKx6nQcsQ

Cutting Spiced Apricot Vanilla Handmade Pure Silk Soap:

http://youtu.be/M6PalVf0Mp4

Here are the final shots of the cut soap courtesy of Titch Holland of http://www.facebook.com/takenbytitch

I really hope you enjoy the soapy goodness... Spiced Apricot Vanilla is available now to pre-order on http://www.iamhandmade.com/ourshop/prod_2203786-Spiced-Apricot-Vanilla-PreOrder-Cure-Date-1-October.html

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.

Featured Tutorial on the Soap Bar Blog

For all those who want to learn new techniques, I wrote a tutorial on How to Use the Hanger Swirl and it's been featured on the Soap Bar blog, there's even a video! Make sure to check it out.  And I so want links to see your photos of your finished soaps!

Thanks so much Jo for featuring the tutorial and for giving me an opportunity to show others a new technique!

Ultra Violet - New Soap & New Style

I've had this Ultra Violet fragrance for a while and it was sort of in the back of my mind that I wanted to do a really funky, mega purple soap.  I thought it'd look really good against a really white soap, it'd help to accentuate the swirls and colours.  Of course, Ultra Violet couldn't be any other colour than purple really could it? Well, yes violet but that's purple!

Ultra Violet is made using our new Triple Milk formula of Buttermilk, Goatsmilk & Coconut Milk (regular readers will know how much I love to use milks in my soaps and why use one when you can use three?!) along with Aloe Vera, White Clay, Colloidal Oatmeal & my absolute favourite Wild Silk.

The fragrance is described as a rich and enticing, exotic floral accord where cool notes of summer orange and tingling lemon made slightly cooler by and hint of fresh ozone and dewy summer fruits. The heart of this fragrance is vibrant and floral with warm notes of lily, ginger and nutmeg, alongside geranium blooms and sweet summer rose. The base continues in this rich and complex theme with warming notes of vetivert, musks, amber and patchouli.  It smells divine and is very unisex, both my hubs and Titch love it! My hubs even said "it smells purple" LOL.  It's just really really lovely and I'm so happy how well it worked out.

This soap was made with what I'm laughingly calling The Celine Swirl.. as I explained in another post, I just thought it was really funny to call it this but I'm quite sure that it actually has another name or something, I can't imagine I just invented it by myself?!

Check out our Making Of video to check out how we made this and The Celine Swirl in action:





And here is our Cutting video which shows you the reveal of how the soap swirl worked out:




Here are the still photos for the soap, I really adore it! Photos are courtesy of Titch Holland of Taken By Titch (make sure to check out her Facebook page):

I really hope you like the videos and photos of this fantastic soap ... it really is a stunner.  Check out the website for details of this soap and all our other products.

Enjoy!!

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!!

Nominated - Blog Awards Ireland 2012!

I'm just back from my holidays (or vacation if you like) and just found out that this blog has been nominated for the Blog Awards Ireland Awards in the Best Craft Blog category!! Yay... I'm so chuffed, what brilliant news and thanks so much to those who nominated me.



The long list for this category can be viewed at http://www.blogawardsireland.com/best-craft-blog-long-list/ .. the short list will be published on 8 September so fingers crossed we reach that. Yay, what brilliant news!!!