Black Raspberry Vanilla

I've had this fragrance awaiting a new design for an age - it's just such a lovely blend of blackberries, raspberries and vanilla and smells like the most incredible raspberry & vanilla ice cream.  I just adore raspberries, they are the epitome of summer fruits to me and this fragrance is just so lovely that it just deserved a really beautiful design.

I've been working with the spoon swirl for a while now and the more I do it, the more I love it! I made this soap early on Saturday morning when everyone was still in bed.  By the time I'd reached the top of the mould, hubs made an appearance and together we made the sort of spotty design on top.  Awwhh families that soap together, stay together .. right?!!

Anyway, this soap also features a new formula because I wanted to incorporate Sweet Almond Oil into my recipe more - this has Sweet Almond Oil, Olive Oil, Avocado Oil and Cocoa Butter plus pure silk! What a skin loving combo if I ever saw one! It's coloured with a mix of mica and liquid soap colours as well as some titanium dioxide to whiten the soap more.  It has, as ever, a tiny sprinkling of glitter too (and why not I say!).

I am in love with this soap, cut this evening and photographed freshly cut because it just looked soooo pretty.  I present to you, Black Raspberry Vanilla cold process soap:

Soap on it's side .. I so love the swirls

Swirl close up

See the sort of spotty top with glitter? Courtesy of hubs!

Three beautiful soaps together

Glitter tops

A soap stack

Close up of the stunning swirls

I cannot tell you how much in love I am with this soap - it smells DIVINE and I could stare at it's wonderful colours all days.  Seriously I so want to take a bite, it looks like the most luxurious raspberry ripple ice cream (not a good idea though!). 

If you're interested in possessing one of these (it's the sort of soap you need to possess I think!), they'll be fully cured by 11 July!



Soapers are such Generous People AKA I got my Prize!!!

Ohhh I had a tough day today ... but yay! I got pressies! Well, a prize really .. my lovely prize came all the way from the US from the lovely Dennise Cupp at Briny Bar Soap.  She recently held a competition on her blog and I won! I figured it'd take some time to send the prize but it arrived much faster than I expected but, oh boy, the postage seemed very high (and then I felt guilty!).  Seems the postage costs from the US are far higher than here and I thought it was expensive here. 

Anyways, I was so happy with my prize that I took pics!

The whole kit and kaboodle! Dennise's delicious smelling Chocolate Mint cold process soap, Peppermint fragranced bath bomb which is really clever because it's embedded with soap for your bathtime, and a wonderfully creamy Butter Creme Lip Balm

Close up of her Peppermint Bath Shell - great idea to include a small soap for your bath time - this smells so divine and it rather huge (yay!)

Close up of the wonderful soap curls in the Chocolate Mint soap plus the Butter Cream Lip Balm (which is mega vanilla-y and so creamy, feels great on the lips too)

All my goodies in one go (should have moved the chair before I took the pic of course!)

Chocolate Mint soap plus the Butter Cream Lip Balm ... yummmmm!

The soap has a deep dark chocolately fragrance with a hint of mint - it smells like a really expensive mint choc chip ice cream.  The peppermint bath shell is so lovely .. soft fresh peppermint, such a clean fragrance.  I'm going to have such a relaxing bath with this! And, last but in no way least, the lip balm is creamy and delicious and it stays on the lips whilst softening them slowly but surely.  A definite winner!

Dennise, I just want to say a huge thank you - couldn't believe the price of the postage but I'm so happy with my prizes.  I've decided I'm going to take the Chocolate Mint on holidays with me (in early July) and it's going to go on it's own tour of Ireland .. specifically West Cork (which, in my humble opinion, is the most stunning part of Ireland and we love it so much, it's actually where we want to move to when we can afford to).  Thank you Dennise, you're a total doll!!!

Lavender Lime Vetiver

First I have to say sorry for my silence on here for the last few weeks - my full time job has been utterly hectic lately and I just haven't had the energy in the evenings to get into the soaping mojo space in my head!

However, this Saturday was different - I felt inspired by a new fragrance I ordered recently, Lavender Lime & Vetiver.  It's a really lovely fragrance and the lavender and lime are perfectly balanced against each other.  I don't get a note of vetiver (the one I know from the essential oil which, I have to admit, I'm not a huge fan of) but there is a deeper musky type background to this which helps ground the lighter fragrances.  It really is just a wonderful scent. 

This soap has Golden Olive Oil, Cocoa Butter and Silk and is coloured with POP mica and a blend of yellow and green liquid soap colour.  I dusted the top with some new glitter that just adore (the type that changes colour depending on the light - cool!). 

The colour is bright, the fragrance is beautiful and I just love love love this funky soap! I hope you do too!

Side view - I used the same techique as my Adam & Eve soap

Tops of the soap, dusted with glitter (hubs did the swirling on this, he's very proud of himself!)

Soap in light & shadow

Glitter! I just love the lighter tops with the deeper coloured sides

A stack of soap!

More swirls!

Hope you enjoy - if you're interested in buying some, this will be fully cured by 4 July.

Yet more Soapy Giveaways!

The soaping community seems to have gone giveaway crazy lately - maybe it's the first sight of summer or something.  I just saw another wonderful soaper who's announced her own soapy giveaway on her blog.  You might remember Dennise Cupp from her fabulous Briny Bar Soap blog and her trip with my Vanilla Anise soap on her US road trip. 

Check out her blog and enter her competition - you never know, you could get lucky! Plus her blog is a great read, she has a wonderful way of writing that just makes me laugh every time I read.  I always look forward to her new posts. 

Here's a pic of what you can win:

Chocolate Mint Soap, Peppermint Bath Shell, and a Butter Creme Lip Balm

Soapy Competition Giveaway - Winner Announced

Well, I've been keeping a close eye on all the responses for the blog competition and it's just so lovely to see how many entered and how many lovely comments I got - Thank You all SO much!!!

Sadly there can only be one winner (this time round anyway) and that winner is .......

Drum roll..............

Comment No. 1 which was from Shirley Dixon! (Mine was actually comment No. 1 but I'm ignoring that one!). 

I did the draw by Random Number Generator and it came up with No. 1 as you can see

Congratulations Shirley - you are now the proud owner of a Summer Honeysuckle soap, an Aloe & Cucumber Soap and a Pure Peppermint Lip Butter! I'll be in touch to get your contact details and it'll sent off this week to you.

Thanks to every one who participated - this was such fun!!!

Soapy Competition Giveaway!

I've just noticed that this blog has reached 15,000 hits which I'm just so pretty happy about, to say the least.  So I think it's time that I had a blog giveway!!!

I'm going to send two fabulous Summer soaps to the lucky winner along with one of our extraordinary lip butters.

Aloe & Cucumber is made with Sweet Almond Oil, Cocoa Butter, Pure Silk, & Aloe Vera Juice and is fragranced with a green cool fresh fragrance reminiscent of summer cucumber

 

Summer Honeysuckle is made with Golden Olive Oil, & Pure Silk and is fragranced with 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 ylang

Our Pure Peppermint Lip Butter (not pictured) is made with lashings of Cocoa Butter, Kokum Butter, Golden Jojoba Oil & Meadowfoam Oil and contains a fresh and delicious pure Peppermint Essential Oil. 

How do you enter?

Drop over to our Facebook Page and Like it, then come back and leave a comment here, on this blog post - simple!

If you fancy an extra entry or two, tweet, blog or promote the giveway on your own Facebook page (remember to come back here and state how many promotions you've made so that I can include you in the draw - only those comments here will be counted (ohhh and paste the link up so I can say thanks!) so make sure to comment any extras here. 

I'll select the winner on Saturday 7 May (every comment will be given a number and I'll use a random number selector to choose the winner, from the comments below).  This competition is open to everyone, international entrants included.

Best of luck!

Blog Competition from Inner Earth Soaps

Erin from Inner Earth Soaps has started a blog competition I thought you'd like to hear about .. check out her post at http://innerearthsoaps.blogspot.com/2011/04/giveaway-time.html.  You could win these wonderful soaps & perfume!

Aren't they just stunning?

Adam & Eve

Following on from the recent poll I held on Facebook, the Vanilla Anise fragrance I had delivered about two weeks ago was the second favourite for me to soap.  I simple adore this scent - it's light and dark at the same time, very grown up, very unisex.  I haven't met anyone yet who didn't like it.  It's described as a blend of vanilla orchid against a spicy accent of anise and the warmth of vetiver, amber and clove.  For people who don't like vanilla, you'll still love this - and I know that Dennise of Briny Bar Soap has given it a total thumbs up .. she even took it on a road trip across the States with her and uses it as a shampoo bar!

It's had a revamp since I made it last (it was one of my tester fragrances, I wanted to see how it'd behave and how well the fragrance would last - I was very happy with both tests!).  I wanted something more dramatic though - I thought the original look just didn't do the fragrance justice. 

For this version, I've used Golden Olive Oil, Cocoa Butter, organic Palm Oil (of course, from a sustainable source), Coconut Oil and Castor Oil (gotta love them bubbles!).  As ever, I added Pure Silk - this really adds a luxurious element to the soap, I just wouldn't be without it (we deserve it people!).  It's coloured with titanium dioxide and black mica that I bought from the US. 

I'm dying to hear what you think of this - I was inspired by a fellow soaper, Ka fée from Soap Session who made a similar soap and I just had to try it out.  I hope she is impressed with it!

Oh and I'm calling it Adam & Eve, because my hubs had to help me with the design; once I'd preppred everything and got the mix into one jug of raw black soap and one of raw white soap, I needed to get it into the mould as soon as I could so hubs helped about half way through and worked with the white as I worked with the black.  Adam & Eve is named for us but it helps that it's a very unisex fragrance too!

So.. I present you Adam & Eve:

Black & White swirls

Soap Tops - Look Ma, NO glitter!!

I adore this look

A big ol' stack of soap

Group Photo

Close of up the swirl

Adam & Eve - basking in the sunshine

I really hope you enjoyed these pictures - if you're interested in buying Adam & Eve, it will be fully cured on 30 May and will be available in our online store. 

Lime Basil & Mandarin

Well I haven't been able to get access to the kitchen of late but managed to get up very early on Saturday morning, when everyone else was still asleep, and I had the whole kitchen to mess around in! Yahoooo!

I ran a little poll on Facebook during last week asking what would people like to see me make next and Lime Basil and Mandarin came in with the most votes! So, never one to disappoint, I duly went ahead and soaped it. 

The fragrance is described as a delightful combination of green citrus fresh limes and zesty mandarins leading to herbal notes of basil with warm accord of precious woods and amber - it is a wonderfully fresh, zesty scent and I personally think it's very unisex (my hubby ADORES it and wanted one for himself!). 

I made this with Golden Olive Oil because of it's excellent skin loving qualities, Pure Silk & Cocoa Butter - it is highly skin conditioning and will have lovely bubbles initially leading to a very creamy lather which will feel like lotion on your skin. 

I wanted to try out an In The Pot Swirl and used an orange and green mica swirled into a white base.  The swirl worked really well I think - I just love it!

So ... I duly present to you ... Lime Basil & Mandarin Silk Soap:

Glistening Tops

A stack of soap

Soap slice showing the lovely swirl

Soap tops with lovely swirls

Soap slices all lined up

Lots of lovely swirled glisteny soap!

I really hope you liked the pictures - if you are interested in purchasing, the soap will be fully cured by Monday 30 May and will be on the site then.

Who says soap isn't good company?

I sent the wonderful Dennise Cupp from Briny Bar Soap a sample of the Vanilla Anise soap I made some months back and she promised to take it on a road trip.  I thought the idea was hilarious and wasn't 100% she was actually going to do it. But she did!

Vanilla Anise has been on a 1,000 mile road trip from Pittsburgh to Minnesota by way of Ohio, Illinois & Iowa to name but a few states! It's so funny... and crazy to think my soap has travelled further than me because I've never been to the US myself (we saved to go but you know how things go these days). 

If you'd like to read all of Dennise's post, here it is .. it's really funny and the pictures are just hilarious!