Silicone Mould Liner

Just a note about Silicone Mould Liners... I love them!

Ok, I'll explain why ... no lining.  There ya go, one reason but a BIG reason! Think about this.. you've melted all your oils, made your lye, prepped your colours, everything's ready to go and ... DAMN, you forgot to line your mould! And you're just itching to soap and what do you need to do ... go line the mould.  And sometimes it goes really quickly but lots of times it gets all crinkly and you're annoyed cos you forgot to line the mould and cos now you know that you'll have kinky crinkly sides and you just want to soap!!!!
 
The answer is a silicone mould liner! My best advice is buy the mould and then get the box support for it.  I bought mine and then got a friend of mine to make the boxes to support them.  With the liners, all you need to do is pop them in the box, and pour your soap.  Yay!!! No crinkles, easy demoulding, nice crisp corners.  Honestly, these things are worth their weight in gold.  Yes they cost at first but you use them over and over and over again, saving you time and money (because even if lining paper is cheap, everything adds up).

I bought my liner from http://www.themouldsshop.co.uk and it was a fantastic price and delivery wasn't too expensive.  Anne is great and happy to help with advice... one of the great things about them is that she's made soap in all of these moulds, and has totally tested them so you can be sure that they work for all types of soap making.

And, even better news, they have added dividers for the moulds so that you can do Mantra Swirls! 

And...they sell fantastic fragrance oils, not to mention glitters and mica and candle supplies.  Honestly, this is a store worth checking out!

And no, I don't work for them but I do like their products and have used them and loved them so I'm just spreading the good news!

Check out http://www.themouldsshop.co.uk and say that Celine sent you via her blog ... Anne will be delighted to help.

(All photos courtesy of The Moulds Shop)

It's been too long!

Oh wow... well I thought I hadn't written anything here in a while but I didn't realise it was last January! Goodness me... that is an awfully long time to say nothing on there.  I'm sure everyone's forgotten about me by now, in Blogland. 

I have to hold my hands up and I'm Sorry!

I found there was only enough hours in the day and the business, instead of slowing down for the usual post Christmas slump, sped up even more than pre Christmas.  To say I was shocked is an understatement.  But it does mean that I had less time to write on here.  Which is actually a rather feeble excuse because how long does a blog post take? Well sometimes an age but sometimes a fantastic image is enough so no excuse Celine, get to the back of the class.

After Debbie from Nature's Garden Candles Blog contacted me to say that I'd been named in their very recent Top 50 Soapmaking Blogs, did I think that I needed to work more on the blog and bring it back into the social media fold. 

So... to whet your appetites, here's an image of my very recent launch of our Christmas Pure Silk Irish Handmade soaps range ... in the next few posts, I'll put some images in of the finished articles plus links for the Making Of... and Cutting Of... videos. 

Please, forgive me?

Sunday Soaping!

Lemongrass Verbena

Jasmine & Green Tea

This does look grey and green but it's actually green and white! The lighting was really bad here, sorry! But still, fab photos too.

Saturday Soaping Sneaky Peeks!

Sandalwood Vanilla - smells sooooooooooooo good!!!

Spellbound Lovers - dupe of Love Spell, very lovely fruity floral

Enjoy!!!

More Sneaky Peeks!

Ciao Bella

Zest for Life

 

Lavender Song

 Velvet Kiss

Lotus Blossom & Water Lily

Another soap ... loving it! Smells divine and I'm hoping cuts well too... sneaky peeky!

Lotus Blossom & Water Lily is a luxury handmade soap with Sweet Almond & Golden Olive Oils, Goatsmilk, Buttermilk, Yogurt, White Clay, Colloidal Oatmeal, Cocoa Butter & Pure Silk ... the soap is fragranced with a fresh, vibrant Lily scent with top notes of Bergamot, Tangerine & dewy green notes, supported by a heart of Lotus, Freesia & Rose smoothed by a musky Floral base.. very lovely indeed! The soap will be fully cured by 5 February 2013 and will be available to pre-order once it's cut and had it's photo taken!

Christmas Soaping

I've not soaped in months (hence the silence on this blog - a multitude of apologies for that) but today, Christmas Day, the bug hit me and I really wanted to soap so hubs said... go for it!!! So I did!

This is Baby Doll ... I'll show more pics when it's cut .. oh and I tried to make a video but the battery was dead as was the spare one (ask Titch, she used it last!).

Merry Christmas!

Candle Tests

Sales of our Soy Wax Melts are going so well that most of our Christmas stock is already sold out! I need to take note for next year and up my production and supplies!

Anyway, this made me think about making candles too and so I set out testing some fragrances ... and here is my first tester, Jasmine coloured with a wonderful lime green colour.

These are pics just taken with my phone, nothing fancy.  I really like the glass jars too, I asked a question on our Facebook page if people would rather glass jars for candles despite additional postage because of weight or candle tins and the result was heavily weighed towards glass.  So glass it shall be - which is excellent because I have a local supplier for these.. for once I'll be able to drive and get supplies! That almost never happens! Plus I've found out another supplier is selling soy wax too which is just great.  So I'm going to be testing more fragrances in the next few weeks.

Busy Day

We spent the day packing orders, some just came in and some were pre-orders for our Couture Cupcake Christmas soaps... this is less than half way through the day, once everything was labelled, the table was covered! Plus I had to get some bigger boxes that I didn't have because of the amount going out!

We also packed some gift boxes today but we just didn't have time to take pics but we loved them... honestly, we so need to take pics of them cos they looked so good! 

Fancy some goodies yourself.. check out http://www.iamhandmade.com and see what catches your eye x