Final images - Raspberry Mimosa and Jasmine & Green Tea

Well, you've seen the cutting videos for both the Raspberry Mimosa and the Jasmine & Green Tea but they still needed stills photography so that I can upload them to the website when they're fully cured.  Thankfully, Titch was home from her gallivanting around the Irish countryside and took these images yesterday evening.  There's something about the evening sunshine that gives such a lovely warm light ... sadly, I do wonder how long we're going to have the pleasure of that because I can feel Autumn coming in right now, the air is far cooler and the leaves are turning shades of red and gold.  As much as I love the Autumn/Winter seasons, I do so miss the sunshine. 

Anyway, whilst we still have the sun, we took advantage of the light and Titch took the following images ... and I hope you'll agree with me that she did, yet another, amazing job. 

So here are the images, hope you like them.

Raspberry Mimosa (fragrance reminder - a cocktail of juicy raspberry, crisp green apple and citrusy/sherbery May Chang essential oil) - available from 11 October:

Jasmine & Green Tea (fragrance reminder - heady, exotic Jasmine florals blended with calmy, citrusy Green Tea) - available from 10 October:

Really hope you enjoy the images - thanks to Titch at http://www.facebook.com/takenbytitch for her fabulous work; if you want to Like her Facebook page, you'll see more of her fantastic images. 

If you'd like to pre-order either of these soaps, please don't hesitate to drop me a line at info@soaperstar.com and I'll keep one by for you. 

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. 

Rum Runner

I haven't made many soaps for men in the past and I bought a really lovely fragrance oil months ago that I'd used for a cream for my husband and I realised just how damn sexy it smelt... it is described as a clean, warm sexy blend of Patchouli, Pine, Cloves, Cinnamon & Orange.  It basically smells like the sexiest man alive! No kidding you... when hubs wear the cream I made him, I could cuddle up to him and sniff him all day!

This is made with my usual blend of skin adoring oils including Sweet Almond Oil, Olive Oil and Avocado Oil (which I just reordered because I couldn't bear to not use it) and lashing of pure Cocoa Butter.  The colours are my own blend of micas in order to capture the rum idea. 

Here is Rum Runner, a soap made for men but will be loved by women too:

I really adore this scent - so warm, so clean, so mmmmmmmmmmmmmm hmmmmmmmmmm (you know what I mean girls!).  This will be fully cured by early September. 

Peony Sorbet

One of my recent fragrance deliveries was an incredible Peony - I just love it; it's rosey yes but not as "old lady" as some rose fragrances can be.. to my nose, there's a greenness behind it that really adds a little something else.  It's just so beautiful and I wanted to make a soap that would do it justice. 

I used my latest formulation because it feels so amazing on your skin plus I know it behaves really well for my spoon swirl - admittedly, I was a little afraid of using the Peony for that technique because, as most soapers know, floral fragrances can go a bit mental and speed up the whole process (I have had soap on a stick from one before!).  But I thought oh well, go for it and see and one way or the other, either it'll be pretty looking or not, but it'll still smell wonderful!

So, I weighed out my palm (sustainable source of course), coconut and cocoa butter and melted them as I weighed out the Sweet Almond, Olive, Avocado and Castor oils.  Once the hard butters were melted I mixed them in with the fluid oils.  I made up my lye water and added, as always, my generous portion of silk (I so love what it does to the feel of the soap). 

Everything was left to cool down to approximately 90 degrees F as I went ahead and mixed my colours.  For this soap, I wanted to have a four colour swirl (which I seem to be favouring at the moment, even if it is more work for me - it seems to give me a depth of colour shades that I really like).  I used Colorona Bordeaux mica for the darkest pink (but not as much as I used for my Black Raspberry Vanilla soap where it was a redder colour), Raspberry POP mica for the mid pink shade and a liquid red soap colour for the pale shade and just added enough so it was lightly pink.  The final colour was white and I used TD for this. 

One thing I've started doing which is really helping me with space and cleaning up after is tidying away everything as I use it.  So, once oils are used they are put back, then I take the butters out and put away before the next batch of ingredients comes out.  So when it comes to mixing my colours, I have a free and clear and tidy workspace which I find really helps with my concentration levels.  I cover this with tissue paper so that I don't ruin the kitchen worktop. 

I mixed my oils and lye and it was lovely, no adverse reactions, nothing went crazy.  I only mix to a light trace so the batter is very fluid still and then mixed a quarter into each of the colours (which I have in matching sized jugs which helps me to eyeball that I have the correct quantity in each jug, give or take a little).  I mixed everything carefully (nobody wants spots of colours) and then went ahead with my spoon swirl - this took me approximately 30 minutes which is pretty time consuming I guess but I do love it. 

And here are the pictures of Peony Sorbet:

As you can see, I swirled the top of the soap which I really love and decided, as with my previous soap, to swirl the body of the soap too but I think I prefer the spoon swirl look by itself so I'm not going to do that anymore.  The swirl on top is different enough to stand out from the body spoon swirl.  Again no glitter as I do believe it is, somewhat, contributing to colour change on the tops of the soaps which I just don't want.

I hope you like the new soap - if you're interested in these, they will be fully cured by the end of August. 

Wild Blueberry

When I came back from holidays, I was lucky enough to still be able to have another two weeks off - I also haven't soaped for at least 6 weeks so the soaping urge was beginning to shout at me!

Just before I went on holidays, I ordered some new fragrance oils that I just wanted to try out.  One of these was Blueberry - I had tried this in a sample previously and used it in a sugar scrub and just loved it, it smells just like the best blueberry muffin ever.  So I had to use this first, I was just dying to ... my mouth watered just smelling it. 

So I lined up all my ingredients, all perfectly weighed out and mixed carefully.  Then prepped my colours - I used Blueberry POP mica (yeah, blueberry, what else could I have used really?! It was just asking for it!).  I mixed some with oil in one jug, a little less in another with a tinch of TD to give a paler blue, in a third jug I mixed more of the Blueberry and then added some Grape POP mica to make a really deep bluey/purpley sort of colour.  In my final jug, I mixed TD to give a really white soap.  So all was good.. the oils were ready, the lye with dissolved silk was ready, the colours were ready, the mould was lined and all my worktops cleared to give me space for my favourite spoon swirl. 

I mixed my fragrance oil into the oils before adding the lye water, as always and gave it a little stick blend to make sure it was fully mixed.  Then I added my lye and mixed everything together - I wanted to make a spoon swirl which is my favourite technique and you have to have the soap at a very light trace so I needed to make sure I didn't stick blend too much.  Then it happened .. the FO turned my soap batter into a VERY yellow colour; like neon yellow, I kid you not!!! Ok, not good when I'm using blues as my colours!

So what to do but to go ahead and make my soap... so I mixed the now amazingly yellow coloured batter into my blues and everything went a pretty green! Yep, my green blueberry soap! The colours were fab though so I just went for it ... I did my spoon swirl and it took about 30 minutes.  Fortunately I got the soap at the right trace level so I had the time to work with it.  Everything was in the mould and I decided to swirl not just the top of the soap, as I normally do, but the body too.  I put my wooden chopstick into the soap and swirled the whole depth of the soap, banged the mould on the worktop a few times to release any bubbles and then sprinkled the glitter on top and popped everything into the fridge. 

I made this on Monday and it stayed in the fridge til Tuesday morning, then I took it out of the fridge, brought it to room temperature and then took it out of the mould and allowed it to sit, uncut, til this afternoon.  And so, here you go, pictures of my Wild Blueberry soap ... it certainly was a wild ride!

I really like it and, actually, it has stayed pretty blue for me which I'm happy about.  Not sure the swirl on the body of the soap has worked that well though - what do you think? Also I've decided not to use glitter for a while... I've noticed that the tops of the soaps become a different colour from the body and I'm convinced that it's glitter related.  It's a pity but I think I'll lay off it for a while and see if it's makes a difference. 

Hope you like this - if you're interested in having one in your own bathroom, it'll be cured by the end of August. 

More Big Thanks to Jo from The Soap Bar

More huge thanks to Jo from The Soap Bar (and Product Body) for her awesome mention of my Cashmere handmade silk soap on her recent blog post, Eye Candy Soap Friday. 

This is the image she choose (excellent choice, in my humblest of opinions!) and I'm so happy because it's one of my favourite pcitures too!

Cashmere - handmade silk soap

The soap is made from a blend of Sweet Almond Oil, Olive Oil, Avocado Oil, Coconut Oil, Palm Oil (from a sustainable source, of course) and some Castor Oil (for added bubbleification... what? That's a word, I'm sure of it!). As always, I've used pure Tussah (or Wild) Silk because I just love what it adds to the mix.

The fragrance is a stunner - one that lingers on the skin (my favourite type) and one that is sure to have people say "what is the fragrance you're wearing?" (it's happened to me!).  It's described as a blend of essences of Moroccan jasmine, lily of the valley and bergamot with warm undertones of sandalwood, amber and musk - it smells like a very top end perfume, not too floral with a warm basenote.  It is, possibly, one of my favourite fragrances to date.

If you are interested in purchasing a bar, this will be fully cured and on the site after 18 July (right after I get back from my holidays, yay!).

Thanks again Jo, I'm so chuffed to be mentioned and it's an honour to stand alongside the other incredible soapers' work.  

Black Raspberry Vanilla

I've had this fragrance awaiting a new design for an age - it's just such a lovely blend of blackberries, raspberries and vanilla and smells like the most incredible raspberry & vanilla ice cream.  I just adore raspberries, they are the epitome of summer fruits to me and this fragrance is just so lovely that it just deserved a really beautiful design.

I've been working with the spoon swirl for a while now and the more I do it, the more I love it! I made this soap early on Saturday morning when everyone was still in bed.  By the time I'd reached the top of the mould, hubs made an appearance and together we made the sort of spotty design on top.  Awwhh families that soap together, stay together .. right?!!

Anyway, this soap also features a new formula because I wanted to incorporate Sweet Almond Oil into my recipe more - this has Sweet Almond Oil, Olive Oil, Avocado Oil and Cocoa Butter plus pure silk! What a skin loving combo if I ever saw one! It's coloured with a mix of mica and liquid soap colours as well as some titanium dioxide to whiten the soap more.  It has, as ever, a tiny sprinkling of glitter too (and why not I say!).

I am in love with this soap, cut this evening and photographed freshly cut because it just looked soooo pretty.  I present to you, Black Raspberry Vanilla cold process soap:

Soap on it's side .. I so love the swirls

Swirl close up

See the sort of spotty top with glitter? Courtesy of hubs!

Three beautiful soaps together

Glitter tops

A soap stack

Close up of the stunning swirls

I cannot tell you how much in love I am with this soap - it smells DIVINE and I could stare at it's wonderful colours all days.  Seriously I so want to take a bite, it looks like the most luxurious raspberry ripple ice cream (not a good idea though!). 

If you're interested in possessing one of these (it's the sort of soap you need to possess I think!), they'll be fully cured by 11 July!