Soaping Saturday ... and Monday!

This weekend was a Bank Holiday here and well needed for me as my full time job has been so exhausting lately.  The thing I most wanted to do this weekend was soap! I find it relaxing and therapeutic which is exactly what I needed after my hective last month. 

So, I'm going to treat you with pics of not one but two soaps! Both of these are remakes of other ones I've done but I wanted to design something new for them.  Both fragrances are particular favourites and I knew I wanted to use them both again so the plan was to make a re-do of Cashmere Silk & Lemongrass Verbena. 

Lemongrass Verbena:
The previous soap was pretty but it didn't turn out, design wise, the exact way I wanted.  Here is the original image:

It's a very nice soap and it smells amazing and it was soooo lovely on your skin but, looks wise, I wanted something else for it. 

I've developed a new soap recipe because I wanted to include more Sweet Almond Oil into my recipe because it's such a lovely skin loving oil.  So my new soap includes Sweet Almond Oil, Olive Oil & Avocado Oil with Cocoa Butter & Pure Silk ... an incredible combo for your skin.  I wanted to oooomph the fragrance up too so I included Lemongrass essential oil and May Chang essential oil (which is incredibly citrusy in a fizzy sort of a way) with Lemon Verbena fragrance oil.  It is now a zesty citrusy mega lemony ooooomph of a soap! I used the original colours again (because when you think Lemongrass, you do think yellow/green and white don't you?).  So, this is what I came up with:

Side and Top View

Lots of citrusy swirls

In this shot you can see the lightly swirled tops

Had to have glitter didn't it?!

Lemongrass Verbena, mega zest in a bar

I far prefer this design and I think it matches the zingy fragrance much more!

Cashmere:
The second soap I worked on this weekend was also a re-do of one I'd already made before but the design was definitely not sufficient enough for my tastes.  I also changed the name from Cashmere Silk to Cashmere ... all my soaps have silk added to them so why put it in the name too? Sort of guilding the lily really isn't it?

Here is the soap as was:

It's lovely and it was an incredible soap but, again, the design was a little lacking (plus the size has increased).  I've kept the fragrance the exact same though as it's just so lovely; it's described as having essences of Moroccan jasmine, lily of the valley and bergamot with warm undertones of sandalwood, amber and musk - it smells like a very top end perfume, not too floral with a warm basenote.  I adore it and it's soooo good in a body butter too - a real lingerer (which I love!). 

I wondered what sort of colours to remake this one as so I Googled the word "Cashmere" and found a lovely image of a row of cashmere scarves in the colours I used below.. they just said luxury to me and I knew I had to use them.  I used the same recipe as the Lemongrass Verbena because it works so well and is just so nice on your skin.  So, here is the new, improved Cashmere:

Side & Top View with glitter!

Top view .. I swirled the tops lightly

Yes, glitter ... of course!

Swirly layers of creamy goodness

Top & Side View

Lots of soap - the yellow colour is Gold Mica and you can see

the glisten in the slices when you hold them up close

Cashmere - an incredibly scented soap

So, you can see I had a busy weekend .. but a relaxing one that I just loved so so so much.  I adore designing new looks and thinking of something different - I guess I just love the experimental side too much!!!

If you're interested in any of these soaps (one is on pre-order already, without the buyer even seeing it!) they'll be fully cured by mid July.