Le Mint

Another new soap! This is made with my own blend of Peppermint, May Chang and Eucalyptus essential oils and it's just beautiful - fresh and lemony and delicious.

I coloured it with two greens and white and I think it really shows off the faux funnel technique really well.  This is my own blend of soap oils including Sweet Almond, Avocado & Golden Olive with lashings of Cocoa Butter and, of course, wild silk (soap is just sooooooooooo much better with real silk in it).

I hope you like it!

This will be available online from http://www.iamhandmade.com by late February.

Another New Video - Cutting Raspberry Mimosa

Ok, perhaps I'm enjoying this video making lark now.  I still won't show my face though... I'm shy!!!

I made a new soap on Sunday morning - I woke early and decided to make soap (what else?!).  I had a blend in mind of juicy raspberry and crisp green apple but, when we all sniffed it, we thought it was a little too sweet.  So I had thought that morning to add May Chang essential oil - this is a wonderfully sherberty lemony essential oil (possibly one of my top three) and it's worked really well.  It's cut through that sweetness and given a lovely citrusy note that has worked so well with the crisp apple and sweet juicy raspberry.  I am loving this fragrance!

I've used my usual blends of skin loving oils (sweet almond, golden olive and avocado) along with lots of cocoa butter and, of course, pure wild silk (I LOVE that .. talk about luxury!).  This was a beauty to make and a beauty to look at.  I love love love the colours too - reminds me of the best ice cream sundaes and smells like the nicest cocktail ever!

Hope you like the video - my hubby was the director and cameraman and walking comedian ... you'll see what I mean!!!

BTW I've noticed that the You Tube video doesn't show up on the subscription emails so I'm including the link here so you can just click into it - http://youtu.be/66gRnKiVUuc

This soap will be stocked in our online store at http://www.soaperstar.com/ from 11 October onwards - as ever, if you'd like to pre-order, just drop me a line at info@soaperstar.com and we'll talk!

Autumn Rose & Winter Orange Spice

I've been a little busy lately (though not as busy soaping as I was on my holidays but that's what happens when you've a full-time job, I guess!) and have made two new soaps and thought I'd show you. 

First up is Autumn Rose - she was born because a customer wanted samples of handmade luxury soap to give as small gifts to her clients and asked if I could design a soap for her.  She kindly allowed me free reign with the design, choice of colours and fragrance.  Initially, we'd thought a wedding-y type soap (as she is a bridal jewellery designer) and I worked with some colours I thought would appeal across the board.  But, as we know with soap at times, it can decide to do it's own thing colour wise!

I used a new red coloured mica and wanted a deep reddish pink colour as the base... actually it turned out more of a terracotta colour.  The pinks, greens and yellows which I wanted to keep light and almost pastel, were lighter than I'd expected.  All in all, the soap started out one way and became something else entirely.  However, when I unmoulded it, I thought "Autumn!" and, as it the fragrance was rose based, the name "Autumn Rose" just popped into my head.  It seemed to fit so well.  I showed my customer the soap and she loved it, she thought the autumnal colours looked just like a landscape.  So I went ahead and cut it into lovely little sample bars and, I must say, they did look so lovely all lined up, looking cute as buttons. 

The fragrance is described as a soft floral fragrance with top notes of cassis, bergamot and lemon with a floral heart of rose otto, softened by sweet violet on a soothing base is composed of soft woods, amber and musk.  It's a soft, delicate fragrance but one that so matches the soaps colours.

As you can see, it was also my first opportunity to use my new soap stamp which I love!! I need to leave the soap for about 2 - 3 days after cutting and before stamping though, I think, otherwise it'll be too soft and might take some of the soap with it.  This was my first attempt!

My second soap is an Autumn/Winter version and is called Winter Orange Spice - I wanted to create something extra orangey with a light spice background.  It's not a Christmas soap only but one for both seasons at least... but it's so lovely, I'd be happy to use it all year round!

It has a blend of Sweet Orange, May Chang (which is a fantastic lemony sherbert essential oil, so fresh and bright and gives a nice background to so many citrus oils) and a little Clove essential oil along with a dash of Cinnamon fragrance oil .  It also has fresh orange zest from two HUGE oranges mixed into the orange soap.. this will keep on giving blasts of orange as you use it. 

Both soaps are made with Sweet Almond, Golden Olive and Avocado Oil and lots of Cocoa Butter (amongst other oils) and, as always, I used pure wild silk ... I just cannot say enough about what this brings to the final product, it's so lovely, and so luxurious!

Both soaps will be available in early October - as Autumn Rose was primarily a custom order, there are only a few of these bars left but, if they're not pre-ordered by the time they're cured, then I'll put them on the site.  There are, at the moment, 10 bars of the Winter Orange Spice.

I really hope you like these soaps - if you'd like to pre-order either, please do email me at info@soaperstar.com and put one aside for you. 

Lemon Cream - a re-do

I've sold out of one batch of my new cold process soaps - yay!! The Lemon Cream was really popular it seems (but I've found that with citrus, everyone always loves them so much).  For the previous Lemon Cream, I'd not added any "cream" element so I wanted to do it this time.  And, because I'm greedy and always want more, more, more, I didn't just use single cream but double cream for this soap - the thinking being, one is good but double has to be twice as good, right?? (I think it could be called heavy cream in the US? The single cream might be called pouring cream?). 

I used the same recipe I used for my Fresh Orange soap - Golden Olive Oil, Shea Butter, Cocoa Butter and lots of pure tussah silk.  I blended Lemon fragrance oil with May Chang (or Litsea Cubeba) essential oil to give a good, strong, sherberty lemon fragrance that sticks (as we all know that Lemon essential oil sadly tends to disappear in cold process soaps). 

I weighed the water portion out (subtracted my double cream amount) and added in my silk and then my lye.  It was only a small amount of water so it was a rather strong lye solution.  I allowed it to cool as I weighed out the oils and butters and allowed them to melt.  I mixed my titanium dioxide with a little oil and kept that close by me (so I didn't forget it, we all know what that feels like!).  And then I added some Lemon Mica to another container, mixed with a tinch of oil, ready for the traced soap. 

I added my fragrance to my oils/butter mix and then added the lye (after checking the temps of course) and stick blended.  I then added the titanium dioxide mix and stirred again.  I had put my double cream in the freezer whilst I was working on the soap and then mixed it in.  Hmmmm good idea or not? In hindsight, maybe not because my soap turned to soap in a bucket in seconds.  I don't know if it was because of the level of fats in the cream or the fact that the cream was so cold compared to the rest of the mix that this happened? I have made this before and it kept nicely fluid so I'm still not sure.  Any thoughts are very welcome!

So, I had to choose... keep it as a new look, soap in a bucket or hot process it.  Whilst soap in a bucket might be an interesting design, I can't see it catching on so I decided to HP it .. out came the crockpot.  I was a little annoyed, it wasn't what I wanted but I think it turned out really nicely.  It smells lovely, a nicely tangy lemon and it feels great on the skin (double cream may not be the best thing to eat but by God, it's a great addition to a soap!). 

So... here we go... Lemon Cream with fabulous oils and butters and real Irish dairy double cream in a zingy lemon fragrance ... ohhhh and I forget, it's all topped with my signature dusting of glitter:

Glittery tops

Rustic but beautiful

Top & Sides ... pretty!

A lovely wall of lemon soap

Side on view

More glistening tops

Lots of soap!

I really hope you've liked looking at this .. if you're interested in trying one out, they'll be available from 24 April on http://www.soaperstar.com/.



Fiore Rustico Pure Castille Soap

I was totally inspired by the lovely Amanda of Lovin Soap who recently showed pictures of her castille soap - I asked if she would think of doing a tutorial on this and, by the end of the day, there was one and dedicated to me! Speedy Gonzales!

So, what else could I do but go and make one myself.  Castille soap is a soap made from 100% Olive Oil - no other oils are added, it's pure olive all the way.  It's excellent for all skin types but especially good for sensitive and dry skin.  The only drawback to castille is that it can take anywhere up to a full year to cure to an amazingly good bar of soap.  No matter, I thought, I'll work on my patience levels and just find a place to hide it and forget about it for at least 6 months.

The only olive oil I had in the house were my big 3 litre bottles of Olive Pomace - as soapmakers know, pomace can speed trace which isn't always what you'd like so, hence I had some left as I've not used it recently. 

Amanda suggested a steep water discount - she uses equal quantities of lye to water and this is unusual but helps the batter come to trace far sooner than normal (castille is notorious for taken a long time to trace).  The only other additions I made was Silk (as ever, you know what I'm like) and an essential oil blend of Sweet Orange, May Chang, Lavender, Patchouli, Geranium & Ylang Ylang ... it is divine! I added a little titanium dioxide because my pomace olive oil is a rather vile green and I wanted to at least get a creamy pale green.

So I weighed out my lye and water, equal quantities and mixed - this solution is more caustic than when full water is used (due to the lesser amount of water) so I was extremely careful not to splash it when stirring and to wear my safety specs.

I weighed out my oil and mixed my titanium dioxide and blended it into my olive oil.  I then weighed out my essential oil blend and poured that into the oil also. 

I took some time to line the mould and then I was ready to mix.  I poured my lye into my oils and it didn't take too long to reach trace - actually, I erred too much on the side of caution and I stick blended a little too much I think as I have some air bubbles in the final soap.  The pomace certainly speeded up trace as did the water discount and both certainly helped the soap to heat in the mould (the TD will have worked towards this too).  I managed to get it all in the mould and texture the top but I'd rather I had stopped stick blending a little earlier. 

The soap heated HUGELY - I have to say it was the hottest soap I've ever made and I had to put it in my soaping fridge overnight.  I took it out this morning and left it in the curing room for the full day to come back to room temperature til I cut it. 

I cut it this evening - it was hugely solid, almost felt like a very well cured soap in fact.  It took some effort to cut it and the bottoms of it are rather crumbly too.  I probably should have cut this this morning but I couldn't have, no time sadly. 

I can see in some of the pictures that it did gel in part but you'd have to look carefully at it - I HATE the crumbly bum but I do love the smoothness of it and I am rather partial to the creamy look of it.  I ADORE the top though! I washed my hands with an offcut and it bubbles like mad - what was that about slimey castille soap?

So I'm thinking, next time not quite a steep discount, and soap cooler, I'll probably still use pomace but I'll stick blend a tinch less.  Otherwise, I'm really happy with this.

Oh .. the name? Fiore Rustico is Italian (the olive oil connection) for Rustic Flowers ... the rustic for the way it's cut and flowers to try and illustrate the essential oil blend. 

So.. here is Fiore Rustico Pure Castille Soap... enjoy!

Beautifully textured tops

Rustic cut soap!

Ever so smooth soap - you can just vaugely see the gelling in the centre 

Beautiful creamy fragranced rustic soaps for sensitive skin

Huge thanks to Amanda for giving me inspiration - I do wonder if this really needs the 6 month cure time as it feels so hard already ... any thoughts and comments would be welcomed!

Happy New Year, Burns & Soaping

Oh I've been so lax in posting here - I notice my last post was Happy Christmas... well now, isn't that all very 2010 of me, get with the programme Celine!

So Happy New Year to you all - I sincerely hope that 2011 brings you all the happiness and health (and hey, wealth too, might as well go the whole hog here) that you wish for. 

People are talking about setting goals and plans for the year and, to be honest, I'm in such a brain fog right now that it's as much as I can do to decide what I want for dinner.  Oh yep, I've been VERY lazy indeed over the Christmas period.  We had a friend stay for a few days and we all did very little, watched lots of DVD's and had lots of laughs.  I'm not excusing any of that at all because I obviously needed it.  I keep finding that, by the time my holidays hit, I've worked myself up into a state of tension and exhaustion and I obviously need to unwind and just veg out for a while.  Plus, with visitors coming and going, it's not always possible to get time to work on anything, even if my brain had allowed it.

Yesterday, 1.1.11 (what an auspicious date!), I decide to do "something".  What that something was took the form of a facial cleansing/conditioning soap - I had worked on a formula that I wanted to be extra conditioning but didn't lack a bubble factor and didn't fall apart in my hands either (when you up the conditioning factor, you often lose out on the hardness factor and I didn't want a slimey ball of goo to clean my face with, no matter how good it might have felt). 

I had a window of opportunity where there was no-one around and set to it.  I thought a very conditioning bar with silk (naturally, I can't do without this because I really believe it brings something magical to soap), I wanted to use pink clay because it has a ton of lovely goodies for the .. ahem... more mature skin and I wanted to try sodium lactate too in order to help counteract the reduced hardness factor (plus it is a natural humectant). 

So I got everything ready - I decided to hot process this soap as I wanted to see the results sooner than 6 weeks from now (because I leave my cold process soaps at least 6 weeks before testing).  I weighed out my oils and butters, got them melting in the crockpot.  I weighed out my water & lye, adding silk, sodium lactate at 2% of the oil weight (though I've been told 3% of the oil weight works well too) and I included a teaspoon of sugar to help with the bubble factor [again, when you up the conditioning, bubbling can so bye bye too so I've read that a little bit of sugar helps restore that] - so I included 1 teaspoon for 300g oil weight). 

I kept back some of my liquid oils for the superfat (7%) and mixed that with the pink clay, a dash of pink mica and essential oils.  I decided to use Lavender, Mandarin and May Chang - sort of a summer meadow vibe and God knows we need something to counteract the dank winter we have going on here. 

All perfect so far - yay the soaping fairies are off bugging someone else.  Well now, why the hell did I think that for God's sake??!!! Talk about inviting them in! So, I got my oils all melted and put in my stick blender and whizzed just to see and then realised I didn't have enough of the liquid to stop it from splashing all over the damn place.  The bell part of my stick blender has holes in it and, if the liquid level isn't enough to cover them, whatever your blending splashes everywhere.  Greattttt.... not.  So ok, all is not lost... I poured in the lye water plus goodies and covered the bowl with a cloth leaving just the arm of the stick blender out and blended, all splashes container by the cloth.  Of course, somehow the wire of the stick blender knocked against the spoon in my superfat & essential oil mix and knocked it all over! So now I have a pink oil slick on the worktop.  ARGGGHHH! So okay don't panic, I leaned over to get my spatula to scoop it all back into the bowl and OUUUUCCCHHHHH I burn my arm on the side of the hot crockpot.

Close up of my poor burnt arm!

So ok, stop screaming & swearing cos I still have a pink oil slick to worry about and I'm damned if I'm going to lose all those lovely essential oils anyway.  So I spatula up all the oils (basically by manoevering it all to the edge of the worktop and catching it all in the bowl).  Even though I wiped down all the worktops before I started, now I'm sure there's some random toast crumb in there too! Oh well, this is just for me and it'll add exfoliation right?!

So, the bowl with the half stick blended lye is still sitting there and, despite the burning sensation on my arm, I finish blending it, brave solider that I am.  I like that it's produced a very liquid batter but suspect that's because I have a higher level of liquid oils than usual plus the sodium lactate is probably doing it's thang too.  So I pop the bowl back on the crockpot and cover it and allow it to cook away whilst I go about cleaning up the mess everywhere. 

It didn't take too long as it was a small batch (too small in hindsight, next time I'm going to do a batch of at least 500g oil weight) and it was cooking nicely.  I kept checking for zap and zing which I got but then checked again and again til I had no zing and took it off the heat, adding in my superfat oil/clay/essential oil/random toast crumb mixture and mixed.  Once off the heat it sets up rather quickly (I have no clue how people do HP in those intricate moulds because my mix is never liquid enough to show off the detail - anyone has an idea on that, I'd be glad to hear) so I poured it into my awaiting silicone mould. 

So here it is in it's mould:

Apologies for a rubbish picture, it is actually pink and not some random pinky yellow and I will admit I do NOT like the tops of HP soap (if anyone has a remedy for that other than cutting them off, help me out here!)

And here it is cut about 6 hours later (I could do this so quickly because it was a very small batch, a normal sized batch I wouldn't have thought to cut til the next day at least but, in hindsight, I was probably better waiting):

The tops are all crumbly, I didn't like this - could be that I cut too early.  This would look far better if the tops were planed off but, again, this is just for me as a tester so I didn't bother in this case.   

This pic shows the bottom and the top - definitely need to shave off the lumpy top on this one I think. 

So I tried it when I cut it and it really felt good on my face, it has a bubbly lather that quickly goes into a very creamy lather and that washed away beautifully but left the skin very soft.  I applied my tester facial oil serum afterwards and, for a first go, I was very impressed because they seemed to work really well together and my face felt really smooth and sort of polished feeling - this is pretty impressive for me as I've rather mature, dry and sensitive skin so it can react oddly [when it hates something, I get little eczema patches].  I've left it now to cure a little and will use my small amount I cut off one of these bars on my face for the next few days.  I often think you need to use something for several weeks to see it's cumulative effect. 

So, that was my adventure for the first day of 2011 - a new year, a new scar and a new soap!

Happy New Year everyone and happy soaping!!!

Orange Spice - more cold process experiments!

Yet another cold process soap experiment - this used possibly the simplest recipe yet but with fabulous skin loving oils such as a Sweet Almond Oil and Olive Oil.  It also has my favourite pure silk as this gives such a incredible feel to the final soap and it's sooooooo luxurious too! This could be one of my final "loving it" recipes!

I present ... Orange Spice! Ok, I will admit that this is how it was supposed to look.  I wanted soomething along the lines of Winter Wonderland.  Like any good soaper, I decided to do some research and asked what does Winter Wonderland to you... mostly I got the answer blue/silver/white or red/green/gold.  So I thought.. hey, lets mix it up and go with white and gold. 

Now, what fragrance would go with this? I took the suggestions of spice and warmth and made this with two blends - one of Sweet Orange and May Chang essential oils added to a second blend of Ginger and Cinnamon fragrance oils.  This have given me a sweet orangey warm spicy fragrance - totally perfect to match the wonderful golden shimmery orange colour. 

Ok, some pics .. I'll talk you through them.

Here is the soap in the mould still.  You can see the I gently swirled the top layer - then I dusted it with gold cosmetic glitter plus shimmer mica plus gold mica, this is a heavy metal soap baby!

Out of the mould but not yet cut - you can see that the base is a creamy white colour (actually slightly more yellow than the photo shows; this is because of the golden olive oil I used)

Some cuts slices - you can see the depth of colour in the topping, this comes from the mix of silver and gold mica with extra silver and gold plus gold glitter on top (if any of you saw my post on Facebook that I was covered in glitter, you'll understand it now!)  I love the sheen of this, I could look at this picture all day.

Ok two cut pics, face on - you can see the gentle swirl I tried.  I like this but I know I didn't colour enough soap in the golden colour to make a full swirl.  Next time, colour more! I love the smiley on the left hand soap - so cute!

On these two pictures, you can see the glittery, sheeny topping with the gentle swirl - I am loving this soap so much. 

I have to say that the soap smells so good - is it a Winter Wonderland? Nope, it definitely isn't but you know what, it's totally Awesome Autumn! I adore the pumpkiny colour and the sweet spicy citrus fragrance is just divine and totally matches the colours of the soap.

So, welcome to Autumn - next try will be Winter Wonderland! Please feel free to leave a comment. 

Soaperstar Launch our new Sheer Luxury Body Butters!!!

Today we are delighted to announce the launch of our new Sheer Luxury Body Butters!

Our new Body Butters are lightly whipped to create a soft and creamy butter that glides onto your skin, giving you that silky sensual feel whilst gently fragrancing your skin. 

We use a blend of the highest quality Shea Butter, Organic Coconut Oil and a mix of both Cocoa Butters - the creamy white coloured version plus the dark unrefined organic version (a chunk of which smells exactly like pure chocolate!).

We add oils and whip carefully in order to create a light, airy, creamy butter that will hydrate, soften and protect your skin. 

So what is different about Soaperstar Sheer Luxury Body Butters? They contain 100% butters/oils which give you 100% protection, hydration and softness and treat your skin to the total luxury it deserves!

There are several fragrances available including some using natural Essential Oils .. check out the images below for more details:

 Our Belgian Chocolate Sheer Luxury Body Butter blends the best quality Shea Butter and Organic Coconut Oil with a divinely decadent milk chocolate aroma, wonderfully rich and creamy and reminiscent of the deepest, smoothest Belgian Chocolate that money can buy!

The fragrance will softly linger during the day, bringing you all the pleasure of chocolate without all the calories!

 Our Citrus Sunshine Sheer Luxury Body Butter blends the best quality shea butter and organic coconut oil with a sunshine blend of essential oils including Mandarin, Tangerine and Litsea Cubeba (May Chang).

Essential Oil fragrance elements:

Mandarin - Sweet, citrus aroma with slight floral undertones

Tangerine - Citrus fresh, tangy yet sweet aroma

Litsea Cubeba (May Chang) - Fresh, slightly sweet but strong lemon aroma

This is such a warm, sunshiney, happy and uplifting fragrance, perfect to wake your morning up!

Our Rose Geranium & French Lavender Sheer Luxury Body Butter blends the best quality shea butter and organic coconut oil with a wonderfully floral blend of Rose Geranium and French Lavender Essential Oils.

Essential Oil fragrance elements:

Rose Geranium - A green, sweet fragrance that be sometimes rosy and sometimes softly minty

French Lavender - Fresh, clean and floral/herbaceous aroma with woody undertones

Rose Geranium is a particularly good choice for more mature and is soothing to dry and sensitive skin. It is also thought to stimulate sensuality!

French Lavender is a healing oil which can help to prevent scarring and is good for all skin types, in particular dry, sensitive skin. It is particularly good for sunburn.

This is very soft, floral/herbal fragrance - calming and soothing with a wonderful perfume that will softly linger on your skin throughout the day.

 Our Silky Cocoa Butter Sheer Luxury Body Butter blends the best quality shea butter, organic coconut oil and dark unrefined cocoa butter (which smells like a hunk of chocolate!) with a smooth, seductive cocoa butter fragrance, rich but light and delicately chocolate-y.

The fragrance will softly linger on your skin during the day - you'll smell so sweet and sensual!

Our Vanilla Caramel Sheer Luxury Body Butter blends the best quality shea butter, organic coconut oil and dark unrefined cocoa butter (which smells like a hunk of chocolate!) with a fragrance that is reminiscent of vanilla, rich and creamy with tiny hints of cinnamon and deep, rich, luxurious caramel.

The fragrance will softly linger on your skin during the day - you'll smell so sweet and delicious!

If you are interested in trying out our new Sheer Luxury Body Butter, check out our Soaperstar Store.