Kismet

Another new soap ... Kismet is described as a blend of Patchouli, orange, lemongrass, lavendin, pine, gardenia, sandalwood and musk.  It's a really lovely fragrance with a citrus zing and a deep base of patchouli.. I just love it!

I coloured it in purple and orange but the orange wasn't as bright as I wanted it.  No matter, I still love it!  This set up really quickly on me so I had to work fast.. that's why there are a few air bubbles but c'est la vie ... lets just say they help the soap breathe!

Hope you enjoy Kismet ....

These will be cured in February and will be available from www.iamhandmade.com.

Cherry Blossom & Kismet

I managed to get into the kitchen for long enough yesterday evening to cut the two loaves of soap you will have seen in the last video ... and then I made a video about them! So here are Cherry Blossom (a floral bouquet of cherry blossom, regal iris, jasmine, rose, lily of the valley & soft freesia on a base of musk & deep amber) coloured with pale pink, pale green and white and Kismet (a blend of patchouli, orange, lemongrass, lavendin, pine, gardenia, sandalwood and musk).

If you watched my other videos, you'll know I was worried that Kismet would be full of mega air holes as the soap set up so quickly on me - this one's a mover (and I didn't use any water discount or anything, full water, cool temperatures etc), but it worked out really well .. a couple of air holes here and there, but hey, don't they help the soap to breathe right?

For the cherry blossom, I wanted to make something that reminded me of my Mother ... not old fashioned or anything but as cherry blossoms were her favourite tree, I just wanted to make something that brought me the feelings I have when I remember her.. hope that doesn't sound to sappy!

Anyway, enough writing... here is the new video.. enjoy!



If you can't view the video directly here, the direct link is http://youtu.be/42Z5psWn2t4. 

Very Merry Berry

Here's a look at my new Christmas soap (added to Fig & Brown Sugar and Winter Orange Spice) .. she's called Very Merry Berry and she's made with Sweet Almond Oil, Golden Olive Oil, Avocado Oil and lashings of Cocoa Butter.  She's coloured with vibrant berry colours - purple and reddish pink, alongside polar white and she has a generous dusting of icy glistening glitter on top.

Her fragrance is a juicy blend of Raspberry, Cranberry and Orange and oh my goodness, does she smell good!! Sooo delicious!

She's off to cure for the next 6 weeks and will be ready by mid November... if you'd like to pre-order, you can drop me an email at info@iamhandmade.com and I'll put one by for you; be quick though, because there are pre-orders already in for her (and that's without any pictures!). 

So, I invite you to ogle her, Very Merry Berry:

Hope you like them!

Celine @ http://www.iamhandmade.com/

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. 

Cream Bee - New Soap

I had a very very good friend of mine stay for the last 5 days and I'd promised for ages that we'd soap together and so we did, this Monday just gone.  She was very nervous of the lye aspect which probably means she's been listening to my warnings that you HAVE to be careful using it (good thing!) so she watched more than did but was very happy to do that. 

I had cooked and pureed some carrots earlier in the week and my hubs had kindly bought a large carton of fresh Irish dairy cream because I've really wanted to use both in a soap for ages.  I decided to make a citrus based soap and chose a new allergen free fragrance oil that I'd purchased from Fresholi earlier in the month.  This is a fragrant and zesty blend of grapefruit, lemon, orange and yuzu (an oriental citrus fruit) and is very fresh and citrusy. 

I wanted to use pure Golden Olive Oil and, as ever, had to have some tussah silk in there (love what this brings to a soap).  Hubs also picked me up a nice big jar of Manuka honey and I wanted to incorporate this too. 

I was aware of the level of sugars in the carrots and cream and how easily these can over-caramelise and burn with the addition of the lye, so, after weighing them out (and adding approximately 100g of deionised water and my silk) I very slowly added a small amount of the caustic soda to the mix and blended, added a small amount and blended again and so on til all the caustic soda was fully mixed in and the carrots and cream hadn't changed much in colour.  I was happy it would produce a really excellent orange colour. 

I allowed these to cool and, meanwhile, I weighed out my hards butters/oils and melted them as I weighed out my liquid oils.  There was no need to mix any colour as I was using the carrots to colour the soap.  I blended the melted oils/butters to the liquid ones and allowed them to cool (remembering to add in my fragrance oil at this stage also as I find it the most useful time to do this) as I went about lining my mould.

All was fine, everything was nicely cooling (approximately 90 degrees F) and I decided to blend the lye with the fats.  I stick blended as I poured the lye in but, yet again, the soap acclerated like a damn Formula One driver! GAH, seriously do I have an accleration magnet stuck to me or something? My friend, Ger, couldn't believe that the mix went from liquid to a near solid within about 10 seconds!

So, off I went and plugged in the crockpot and everything got thrown in even as it was setting in my mixing bucket! I added a little more cream to account for evaporation in hot process soaping and then decided to go hell for leather and add the Manuka honey.  Now, should I have realised that adding this would change my nicely orange soap a deep amber colour? Yes I should have but I was in what fellow blogger Cocobong recently called in her blog as the "What If" mode of thinking ... what if I add this or that? My question was.. "What if I add some Manuka honey at this stage?"  Well I did, two nice big teaspoons of it too! My mix turned a very dark brown colour and, with the lighter bits that hadn't melted yet, floating in the mix.. well, it sure looked like I'd made a mistake in choosing the honey?! Or had I?

Well, we cooked it and tested it (she wouldn't test for zap, I'd scared her about lye too much but hubs kindly helped me out - I always check it myself but like a second opinion if I can) and, once the zap disappeared, we mixed thoroughly and poured it all into the mould.  As I was still in the What If mode, I thought "What if I sprinkled with some mica now?" ... and so I did.. I am not one to miss out on a big of glitter am I? Regular readers will know that I am a magpie at heart!

The name "Cream Bee" came from some wordplay Ger, hubs and I were doing in order to try and get the right name for the soap .. it's a play on words and comes from "Queen Bee".  I kinda like it but if you have any other suggestions, go for it and comment away!

So, I present to you... Cream Bee:

Top of the soap showing the delicious glitter (fav pic!)

More glitter - I love the shine on the top of the soaps

Deep orange amber coloured soap

This picture shows the lovely textured tops

Pure and wholesome Cream Bee soap

I really love this soap and want to say a huge thanks to my lovely friend Ger Holland who was a great help and was really interested (or at least pretended to be which I love her for!) in the whole soaping process.

This soap should be ready by Friday 26 March - if you're interested in purchasing, drop me a line at info@soaperstar.com and we'll talk!



Two new Soaperstar soaps - introducing Twilight Haze & Good as Gold!!

Yesterday I decided to make two new Soaperstar soaps and here they are!  The one pictured on the left is a modern, understated style soap and is called Twilight Haze.  It is made with a two clear SLS free soaps (which are not crystal clear); one coloured with two different types of dark purple/red mica (a naturally occuring mineral used for cosmetic purposes) which produced the darker purple colour - the other soap was a light purple colour and the final soap in the blend is goatsmilk which adds a high degree of moisturisation for your skin.  It is fragranced with a unisex fragrance blend of pomegranates, raspberries, plums & pink peppercorns on a base of frankincense, patchouli & dark spicy woods - dark, spicy and wonderfully fragrant which was designed as a unisex soap.

The soap pictured on the right is our Good as Gold soap and is a fabulous blend again of two clear soaps - one coloured orange and one coloured yellow but with two different gold micas added giving a fabulous golden hue, the final soap is a goatsmilk base which is so moisturisig to your skin (gentle enough for use on your face).  This is fragranced with a blend of sweet floral nectarines & juicy mandarins complimented by peach & plum on a creamy vanilla base - and I am not kidding you, it is AMAZING! I just love it, so fragrant and, if a smell can be juicy, it's juicyyyyyyy!! 

Both soaps lather fantastically well and, with the added Apricot Kernel Oil and added moisturising factors, they really are a luxury treat for your skin.  So, if you like the modern, understated elegance of our Twilight Haze Soap or the bright, glittering juicyness of our Good as Gold soap, you will not lose out! Both of these soaps will be sold via our new online soap which I hope to open in the next few weeks!

As ever, if you like these soaps, please feel free to leave me a comment - I really hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed making them.