Blue Belle

Another new cold process soap... I cannot get to do enough soaping!

This is fragranced with the scent of Bluebell and Wildflower woods, dappled in the sunlight, after the rain.  It's a beautiful floral with a lovely green background.  I looked up images of bluebell woods and tried to recreate them in this soap.

I used my usual blend of Sweet Almond & Golden Olive oils along with lashings of creamy Cocoa Butter and also added Goatsmilk, Kaolin Clay and Pure Silk... a sheer treat for your skin.

This is available for pre-order on http://www.iamhandmade.com/ourshop/prod_1981933-Blue-Belle-PreOrder-Cure-Date-21-May.html.  The soap will be posted ASAP after the cure date (21 May).  Enjoy!!

 

Bath Tub Bon Bons

I've not really shown a pic of these before but I had to make some last night for a couple of orders and took some pics!

These are luxury gently fizzing bath melts made with lashings of Cocoa & Shea butters; pop one in a warm bath, lie back and enjoy their skin loving goodness!

The top ones are Oriental Opium and the bottom ones Japanese Plum.  Available from http://www.iamhandmade.com/ourshop/prod_1732590-Bath-Tub-Bon-Bons.html ... these are all made fresh for every order!

Cut Soaps - New Photos

I am SO very lucky to have my very own soapographer in house! Soapographer? That's a soap photographer, see?! Titch took over taking photos of my soaps last Summer and I'm so glad she did, one less job for me and what a joy to find a talent so close to home (well, at home in fact!).

So I've noticed that I've posted a lot of videos of cut soaps but not the final images so here is a catch up of soaps I've made recently.  Not all are on the site yet as they're still curing but I'll note where they are on site as we go along.  Ready??? Let's go.....

Lime Basil Mandarin

(available from 27 February)

Asian Pear & Lily

(available from 5 March)

 Paradise Found

(available from 12 March)

Intrigue

(available from 19 March)

Buttered Maple Pecan

(available from 26 March)

Perfect Storm

(available from 26 March)

Seduction

(available from 26 March)

That's all for now... but, of course, I'm planning more... hope you enjoy everything! Make sure to check them out online at www.iamhandmade.com and check out the curing dates above.

All images courtesy of Titch Holland, www.facebook.com/takenbytitch - thanks so much hon!!! 

Pink Sugar

I thought you would like to see my Pink Sugar soap - you might have already seen the You Tube video that showed the browning of this from the time I made it to about 4 days into the process.  Here you'll see the soap with almost it's full browning ... this, as you may know, is due to the natural vanillin in the fragrance which turns the soap a very dark brown.  For this soap, to keep the pink, I didn't put fragrance in this portion - so I have a pink part with no fragrance, a dark brown with fragrance and the third part is the browny cream which does have fragrance but also has titanium dioxide to help whiten up the soap.

I can't tell you how GOOD this soap smells, I just adore it ... sweet yes (and I'm not overly fond of too sweet fragrances) but it's such a complex blend of fragrances.  It's described as having base notes of candy floss, caramel, toffee, and vanilla mingling with middle notes of fig, strawberry jam and violet musk. The fragrance is rounded off with top notes of lemon drops and sweet brown sugar... it is just simply divine!!!

The soap will be fully cured as of early February 2012 and will be available online at http://www.iamhandmade.com.

If you haven't seen the browning video, here's the You Tube link http://youtu.be/ZZ9Y9njpOS8.

And here's the final soap:

Cherry Blossom

I thought I'd show you my new Cherry Blossom soap ... I made this last week and you might have already seen it on one of my recent videos.  It's made with Sweet Almond, Avocado & Golden Olive oils with tons of Cocoa Butter and, of course, wild silk (can't be without it, as you know!).

Cherry Blossom's have huge significance for me ... they were my Mother's favourite trees and, when she passed, we planted one in the garden in her memory.  We used to have a huge one in the garden of our old house and, when I was a kid, I used to play "wedding" in the shower of petals from it!

Anyway, here are the pictures of Cherry Blossom... I really hope you like it.  The soap will be fully cured and available on www.iamhandmade.com from 13 February.

Snow Angel

I just wanted to show you the last of my Christmas themed soaps - well, actually they're more Autumn/Winter because I didn't want to do any Christmas specific soaps (the ones you might be left with once 25 December is history, you know what I mean?). 

So here is Snow Angel ... she was a real pain to make to be honest.  This fragrance acted up big time on me and riced and heated up so I managed to stick blend it into submission.  I had plopped some into my pre mixed titanium dioxide so that ended up in it and I stick blended the life out of it (or into it, maybe?) and poured it quickly into my waiting mould.

For the first time, I put a soap into the freezer - I just knew the fridge wasn't going to be cold enough to cool it sufficiently to stop it gelling.  I left it in the freezer for the full day, popped it into the fridge overnight and then left it out, demoulded for 24 hours before cutting. 

She actually worked out really well and I love her! She's got a love dusting of icy glistening glitter and she smells just wonderful.  The fragrance is  is a warm Winters blend of Mistletoe, Pink Pepper, Cardamom, Frankincense, Clove, Patchouli & Amber - it's beautiful, simple and yet complex at the same time.

So, here is my Snow Angel .. enjoy!

Hope you enjoy the images - this will be online from mid November at http://www.iamhandmade.com/. 

Winters Day

As some of you will know, I've been showing off my new Christmas soaps on Facebook.  The last post showed you our Very Merry Berry which has been a huge hit with almost half the batch now on pre-order lists!

Today I'm featuring Winters Day - this is a polar white and ice blue soap, made with our own blend of Sweet Almond, Golden Olive and Avocado Oils with lashings of creamy Cocoa Butter.  It's coloured with titanium dioxide for the white and a small amount of pearl blue mica.  It's all dusted with an icy glisten of cosmetic glitter.

The fragrance is described as a crisp Winter blend of mild Menthol, Pine, Spruce, Eucalyptus, Lavender & Cedarwood ... it's a really lovely fragrance, clean and clear.  With the menthol and eucalyptus, I thought it might smell somewhat like a flu fighter but nope, it's smoothe and fresh and just so lovely. 

So, for your viewing pleasure, here is our Winters Day soap - it will be fully cured by mid November and on the site then.

Really hope you like this soap - drop me a line if you have any comments or queries and don't forget to check out our new website at http://www.iamhandmade.com/.