Spiced Chocolate Nectar Pure Beer Soap

This is the second of my Pure Beer soaps, Spiced Chocolate Nectar.

The soap is made made with Sweet Almond & Golden Olive Oils, Irish Chocolate Stout, Rhassoul Mud, Colloidal Oatmeal, Cocoa Butter & Pure Silk.

Rhassoul Mud comes from Morocco and has been used for centureies as a natural beauty treatment.  It's rich in trace minerals, is highly absorbent, attracting oil, dirt & pollutants and helping to clarify the skin.  It is very gentle and excellent for sensitive skin with its anti-inflammatory and anti-bacterial qualities.  Studies have shown that it helps to reduce sebum production, improves the texture and tone of the skin, reduces dryness, helps improve elasticity and is gently exfoliating.

Within it's dark chocolate and cream colour swirls, it's fragranced with the natural scent of the creamy Irish Chocolate Stout blended with an infusion of rich Warm Spices and Dark Patchouli, drizzled with luscious sweet Chocolate. I cannot tell you how good this smells... it's neither just warm spices or patchouli or chocolate but a combination of all three, working together to draw you in and capture you forever... utterly divine!!!

It's available for pre-order on http://www.iamhandmade.com/ourshop/prod_1993072-Spiced-Chocolate-Nectar-PreOrder-Cure-Date-30-June.html and, as the link says, will be fully cured by 30 June (so any pre-orders received, will be sent out after then).  Huge thanks to Titch, yet again, for her fab photography .. make sure to check out and like her Facebook page.

Enjoy!

Cutting Asian Pear & Lily

This is a new fragrance I bought just after Christmas, with the Spring/Summer range in mind.  When I opened the bottle, I thought "oh WOW, that's YUMMMM" and, after making it into a soap, I'm still thinking the same thought.  This is just a lovely lovely fragrance, neither too fruity nor too floral but a hugely complimentary blend of both.

The fragrance is described as a fresh, fruity floral fragrance with orange and tangerine enhanced by mouthwatering fruits including apple, pear, pineapple and peach supported by a heart of freesia, rose, jasmine, osmanthus and plum all resting on a sensual base of white musk, precious woods and dry fruits.  It is just delicious.

I worked with the faux funnel swirl again, I think I may be addicted! I wanted to get the colours of Spring/Summer in there but wanted to not use green again as I feel I've used it a lot lately.  So I chose yellow, white and pink.  The pink faded a little and turned into a peachy pink but that's ok, it's still beautiful.. actually maybe more suitable to the fragrance than a too bright pink.

I also changed up my formulation a little to include more cocoa butter (as I love it in everything) and more olive oil and take out the avocado ... I just fancied a change to be honest.  Dying to see how it works out once fully cured but the suds test I do at the end of this video shows there's no problem with the lather, that's for sure.

So here is the cutting video of Asian Pear & Lily - I really hope you enjoy it!



The soap will be fully cured by the end of February 2012 and will be available on www.iamhandmade.com.  Still photographs will be available on Facebook shortly and I'll post some here too.  Enjoy!!!

Lime Basil & Mandarin

Well I haven't been able to get access to the kitchen of late but managed to get up very early on Saturday morning, when everyone else was still asleep, and I had the whole kitchen to mess around in! Yahoooo!

I ran a little poll on Facebook during last week asking what would people like to see me make next and Lime Basil and Mandarin came in with the most votes! So, never one to disappoint, I duly went ahead and soaped it. 

The fragrance is described as a delightful combination of green citrus fresh limes and zesty mandarins leading to herbal notes of basil with warm accord of precious woods and amber - it is a wonderfully fresh, zesty scent and I personally think it's very unisex (my hubby ADORES it and wanted one for himself!). 

I made this with Golden Olive Oil because of it's excellent skin loving qualities, Pure Silk & Cocoa Butter - it is highly skin conditioning and will have lovely bubbles initially leading to a very creamy lather which will feel like lotion on your skin. 

I wanted to try out an In The Pot Swirl and used an orange and green mica swirled into a white base.  The swirl worked really well I think - I just love it!

So ... I duly present to you ... Lime Basil & Mandarin Silk Soap:

Glistening Tops

A stack of soap

Soap slice showing the lovely swirl

Soap tops with lovely swirls

Soap slices all lined up

Lots of lovely swirled glisteny soap!

I really hope you liked the pictures - if you are interested in purchasing, the soap will be fully cured by Monday 30 May and will be on the site then.

Fabulous new soap from Soaperstar (plus a newly listed favourite)

We've just added an incredibly delicious new soap to our website - Snowberry Truffle is Cocoa Butter & Glycerine soap, with embedded mica "berries", added Apricot Kernel Oil, skin hydrating factor all wonderfully fragranced with a decadent blend of sweet, rich white chocolate and fresh, juicy raspberries! Incredibly fragrant, wonderfully good for your skin and zero calories! What more could a person want?!

We've also relisted our very popular Christmas themed Cocoa Butter & Glycerine soap, Christmas Glisten.  This wonderfully skin nourishing soap has added Apricot Kernel Oil, an additional skin hydrating factor and is festivally fragranced with a blend of fruits, wine & warm sweet spices. 

Great news is that both of these soaps are completely SLS free and are completely suitable for use by vegetarians. 

Both soaps can be purchased on our new online store - check out http://www.soaperstar.com!