Japanese Plum - Limited Edition

I bought my Japanese Plum fragrance oil about two months ago and used it in a body butter that I took on holidays with me.  It was one of those fragrances that I wasn't so sure of when sniffed directly out of the bottle but, as any soapers who read this will know, smelling a fragrance directly out of the bottle (or OOB in soaper talk) really doesn't give it a chance to bloom sufficiently well and it's often a case that you need to try it in a product to really know how it smells. 

When I made the body butter, I found out what a beautiful fragrance it was - it's described as a warm spicy Oriental scent with top notes of fresh lemon and tangerine, 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 is an utter delight, deep warm and totally sexy! 

When I soaped it on Saturday, using my usual recipe of Sweet Almond, Golden Olive, Avocado, Coconut, Palm and Castor oils along with some beautiful creamy Cocoa Butter, the fragrance oil made my soap batter turn a bright yellow (instead of it's usual pale cream), turning my prepared colours of plum and violet into a very dark plum and a khaki green. The white was yellower yesterday but seems to be recovering somewhat. Also it gelled even in the fridge plus it seems to overheat and the tops turned a browny colour.  This fragrance was a heater for sure!

I showed some just cut pictures to some soapy friends who loved it and gave me the thumbs up on it so I've decided to issue it as a Limited Edition.  I'll reserve it for other products as it is really fabulous.

We went out to a lovely place today, Mount Usher Gardens - it's a courtyard with fantastic gardens, a coffee shop and some other stores including a stunning furniture store, Strawbridge Country Furnishings .. David, the owner, kindly allowed me to take images in his store as I felt it would give a lovely background to the soaps.  The furniture there is so fantastic, I would happily buy up the whole place! And, even better, it's all handmade and Irish too!

So, here are the images, I hope you like them - the soap will be available online from 21 September; remember it's a Limited Edition soap and there are on 10 bars available so if you'd like to pre-order one, please do make sure to drop me a line at info@soaperstar.com or write me a note on our Facebook page.