Cashmere

If you're a regular reader, you might have seen this before but I love this soap so much I'm showing off pictures of it again! 


This is Cashmere, it's one of our best selling fragrances, it is described as a blend of essences of Moroccan jasmine, lily of the valley and bergamot with warm undertones of sandalwood, amber and musk. It is such a beautiful, elegant fragrance that is not too floral with a warm basenote. 


We've used chocolate brown swirled with soft vintage pink and golden soap to recreate the luxurious feel of cashmere silk against your skin. This will be cured in February 2012 and will be available online at http://www.iamhandmade.com.

 

Lavender Song

Purple has always, always, always been my favourite colour - it's so rich and expressive somehow, and I've always had a love affair with it.  However, lavender, as a fragrance, hasn't been top of my list ... for some reason, I've always associated it with old lady Yardley soaps my Great Aunt used to get for Christmas.  But, since I've started soaping, I've ventured into the world of essential oils and lavender, being one of the most popular, was one of my first purchases.  To this day, I'm not a huge fan of it on it's own but I do like what it can bring to a blend.  I'm also a fan of blending fragrance oils with essential oils... somehow, it can bring the best to the blend and breathe a new dimension into the fragrance.  So, for this soap, I've used a fragrance oil blend of White Lavender, Sicilian Lemon, Basil, Neroli, Vanilla & Amber along with lots of French Lavender Essential Oil.  

I had recently bought some new soap colours from Gracefruit - liquid cold process ones ... as anyone who reads this regularly will know, I'm a huge fan of micas in general and usually use them.  I've not really worked with a lot of liquid colours and wasn't 100% how well they'd colour, how much to use etc.  I mixed up my oils and lye (with silk in, of course!) and wanted a base colour which was to be darker than the rest.  I put in some violet and a little of the plum colour and it was a sort of grey.  Hmmmm... not what I wanted.  I decided the colour wasn't what I wanted, so added a little more.  Then I stick blended it all because I wanted to be the base layer that could hold the swirl on top.  Well I had a grey soap when I started blending, but oh my... the soap went BRIGHT purple on me when I stick blended it.  So, in future, I think I have to stick blend these colours into the soap to make sure I have the right colour depth.  I was afraid the purple would be too bright but I actually think it really matches the rest of the soap. 

I am loving the purple with the pale lavendery/lilac and white on top.. this is exactly the soap I wanted and, oh my Lord, does it smell sooooo good!!! The fragrance oil takes away the "old lady" element that I still associate with lavender but the lavender essential oil adds a floral/herbal scent to the fragrance oil blend... a perfect match. 

So, here is Lavender Song...

If you like Lavender Song, she'll be available from 26 September - if you'd like me to put one on pre-order, just drop me an email to info@soaperstar.com with your name and your PayPal email address.

Amber Honey Oat

This is the final soap from my soaping marathon last week (the last week of my holidays) and is actually the one I made first. 

Amber Honey Oat uses Sweet Almond, Golden Olive, Avocado & Castor Oils alongside Palm (sustainable source), Coconut and lots of pure Virgin Cream Organic Cocoa Butter.  I blended in lots of Manuka Honey into my oils along with lots of finely ground organic Irish oats.  My lye water was actually made with milk - goatsmilk, as it is so excellent for the skin.  With all these goodies, this soap is going to be a dream on the skin!

After much debate, I decided to use a fragrance with this and chose an Amber and Vanilla blend .. I felt it would work really well with the other natural fragrances in this soap plus it's a very warm, slightly spicy and comforting fragrance.  It reminds me of my holidays in Turkey last year too as I used a lot of this fragrance there ... the smell just makes me smile and gives me a lot of good memories. 

I did get some partial gelling on some of the soaps but I don't think it really matters, it's a beauty anyway.

So, here is ... Amber Honey Oat.. hope you like her!

She will be ready in early September, if you would like to possess her!