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!!! 

Another New Video - Cutting Raspberry Mimosa

Ok, perhaps I'm enjoying this video making lark now.  I still won't show my face though... I'm shy!!!

I made a new soap on Sunday morning - I woke early and decided to make soap (what else?!).  I had a blend in mind of juicy raspberry and crisp green apple but, when we all sniffed it, we thought it was a little too sweet.  So I had thought that morning to add May Chang essential oil - this is a wonderfully sherberty lemony essential oil (possibly one of my top three) and it's worked really well.  It's cut through that sweetness and given a lovely citrusy note that has worked so well with the crisp apple and sweet juicy raspberry.  I am loving this fragrance!

I've used my usual blends of skin loving oils (sweet almond, golden olive and avocado) along with lots of cocoa butter and, of course, pure wild silk (I LOVE that .. talk about luxury!).  This was a beauty to make and a beauty to look at.  I love love love the colours too - reminds me of the best ice cream sundaes and smells like the nicest cocktail ever!

Hope you like the video - my hubby was the director and cameraman and walking comedian ... you'll see what I mean!!!

BTW I've noticed that the You Tube video doesn't show up on the subscription emails so I'm including the link here so you can just click into it - http://youtu.be/66gRnKiVUuc

This soap will be stocked in our online store at http://www.soaperstar.com/ from 11 October onwards - as ever, if you'd like to pre-order, just drop me a line at info@soaperstar.com and we'll talk!

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!



Lavender Lime Vetiver

First I have to say sorry for my silence on here for the last few weeks - my full time job has been utterly hectic lately and I just haven't had the energy in the evenings to get into the soaping mojo space in my head!

However, this Saturday was different - I felt inspired by a new fragrance I ordered recently, Lavender Lime & Vetiver.  It's a really lovely fragrance and the lavender and lime are perfectly balanced against each other.  I don't get a note of vetiver (the one I know from the essential oil which, I have to admit, I'm not a huge fan of) but there is a deeper musky type background to this which helps ground the lighter fragrances.  It really is just a wonderful scent. 

This soap has Golden Olive Oil, Cocoa Butter and Silk and is coloured with POP mica and a blend of yellow and green liquid soap colour.  I dusted the top with some new glitter that just adore (the type that changes colour depending on the light - cool!). 

The colour is bright, the fragrance is beautiful and I just love love love this funky soap! I hope you do too!

Side view - I used the same techique as my Adam & Eve soap

Tops of the soap, dusted with glitter (hubs did the swirling on this, he's very proud of himself!)

Soap in light & shadow

Glitter! I just love the lighter tops with the deeper coloured sides

A stack of soap!

More swirls!

Hope you enjoy - if you're interested in buying some, this will be fully cured by 4 July.

Fresh Lemon

Those who follow me on Facebook will have seen that I've decided not to offer the Lemon Cream (previous post) for sale - why? Because I said, at the outstart of all this, that I'd never sell anything I wasn't in love with and I wasn't in love with that soap; in fact, if anything, I began to dislike it more and more.  It wasn't what I was going for and it just didn't say Lemon to me.  So I decided to do a re-do of the re-do and came up with this .. which also has a new name, Fresh Lemon.

Fresh Lemon is a cold process soap made with Golden Olive Oil, Pure Silk & Cocoa Butter and is fragranced with a fresh zesty lemon fragrance oil (those in the know, know that whilst Lemon essential oil is just beautiful, it just doesn't stick in cold process soap making and I wanted a fragrance that would zing for you). 

So, here is my new Fresh Lemon:

Glittery tops (of course!)

Top & Side Views

Lots of soap

Lovely swirls

All stacked up

Swirly tops

I really hope you like these - I FAR prefer them and I am in LOVE with these ones! If you're interested in purchasing they'll be online from Monday 23 May at http://www.soaperstar.com/ - check out our other fabulous soaps, available now.

Fresh Orange

I made this just today - the sun was shining and I wanted to make something summery and bright! I had bought a fantastic orange fragrance oil which smells so much like freshly squeezed orange juice and I wanted to make a really juicy orange-y summery soap. 

This has some major goodies in it - Pure Silk, Golden Olive Oil, Shea Butter & Cocoa Butter, all of which are absolutely fantastic for your skin.  It is coloured with a bright tangerine coloured mica with some paler swirls - I'm hoping that they are throughout the soap too, but we'll see if the swirls show up when it's cut.  And, of course, a light dusting of glitter - you know me and glitter, right?!

It smells just incredible - like freshly squeezed orange juice on a bright Summers morning! I cannot wait to cut this but it'll be a couple of days.  I'll be using my new cutter, imported from the US.  I'll take pictures of that too. 

Hope you like this!

Uncut soap loaf (cut pictures in a couple of days)

Soaping Fairies and Saving the Day

I haven't been too well lately, suffering from extreme tiredness - I've had a few days off work to rest and relax and decided I'd make a soap to help me de-stress.  I had in mind a nice swirl maybe (I always have this in mind, it rarely actually works that way ... is this going to be any different?!) and wanted to work with the Pomegranate Noir fragrance oil I've used many times before in body butters and my glycerine soaps.  It's a lovely fragrance, deep but beautifully scented.  It's also really popular with men and women. 

So I decided to make a nice cold process soap with Sweet Almond Oil and Cocoa Butter plus add my favourite pure silk to it as well ... then maybe a dark pinky swirl (thinking of the pomegranate element) and a deep dark blue swirl (to illustrate the depth of fragrance) alongside pure white soap.  So I weighed and checked everything, double checked in fact.  Weighed out my water and my lye (I was tempted to reduce the water level a little but then thought best not to since I was going to try and swirl).  Did everything the way I've done it before and it's all worked fine.  The only variable was the fragrance oil which I'd not used in cold process soaps before.

Everything went fine ... I mixed the fragrance oil with the now liquid oils and butters and mixed it all thoroughly in; then added the lye and wham bam thank you Ma'am, it was seize city! I mean whoooooo hoooooo.... ricing too, lumpy bumpy.  I beat that thing, beat all the ricing out of it and thought, to hell with it, I'm going to do my damn colours anyway, so I poured my prepped titanium dioxide in the batter, stick blended it as much as I could, then poured (or glopped in reality) some of the batter into my pink and some into my blue colours.  Then beat it again because it was starting to rice and sieze and then glopped the white into the mould, then glopped the blue, more white and then the pink and the last tiny bit of white on top.  Banged any air bubbles out of it and hoped for the best.  It looked like creamy semolina at this stage.  Hubs was around and helped out by carrying it upstairs to the spare room which is a sort of soap airing room now. 

So I tidied up (I was literally in a sweat now cos I did all that in milliseconds, rushing like a crazy thing - isn't soaping meant to be relaxing??) and sat down - I have to say it didn't help my exhaustion! Then I decided I'd have a peek and take a photo anyway.  Oh my Lord, this is what I saw:

See the granulation and the pools of oils on top?

This picture shows the pool of oil on the right hand side of the mould

This isn't what it should have looked like at all - I wasn't happy! Fearing it was incorrectly mixed lye (but thinking it couldn't have been either because I stick blended that thing to within an inch of it's life) I checked and found it was definitely oil but didn't want to find out if it was fragrance oil (by tasting) because I'm not that brave.

I went online to my soaping buddies and was advised to hot process it in order to able to save it.  As I put it in the crock pot, I had to scoop it out of the mould and found it had seperated inside also so it was definitely a goner unless I HP'd it. 

As it was cooking, we discussed it online and the consensus was that the fragrance oil heated up the batter so much that was already gelling in the bowl and that it was seperating or leeching out oils - this one is obviously one to HP from scratch.

So I HP'd it and, though it ruined my nice layered effect (which, as I dug it out of the mould to put in the crockpot, I was happy to see that it actually looked really nice), and blended all the colours into one, it certainly made for a nicely smooth soap.  I was pretty happy with the end result and it does smell pretty good. 

In the mould, just at the end of cooking

Cut pics, it was only after that I thought I should have dusted the tops with some mica

Pretty smooth side for HP soap (which can look rather rustic at times)

Finished article

So the moral of this story is that, when something goes wrong and you're sure you've done everything right, HP your soap in order to save any waste ... plus maybe test new fragrance oils on a smaller batch first!

If I had a stamp, I think a stamp and some mica would really bring some life into this soap - I don't though! It does smell really good though and I'm growing to like HP more and more!

Busy Weekend & New Soaps

Well, I sit here at gone past 11.00 pm on a Sunday night and wonder where on earth the weekend went? Honestly, wasn't it only 5 minutes ago I was enjoying Friday night? Of course, having to spend 5 hours in the hospital on Saturday probably didn't help but what can you do? My Dad (who lives with us) was complaining of chest pains and, of course, you can't mess around with that.  So off we go, straight to A&E where he's taken in immediately (fair dues, they responded PDQ) and hubs and I sat until we had flat bottoms on the hard chairs and couldn't take any more hospital coffee.  As it turned out, my Dad has pleurisy and so is being kept in for a few days to get IV antibiotics - not great but I'm happy, it could have been a LOT worse.

So, with all this mad rushing and stress etc, I needed a day to get relaxed and back into the weekend vibe and what better way for an inverterate soaper to do to relax other than .. yep, soap! And I did, twice (go me!). 

The first is Green Tea which is fragranced with a Green Tea fragrance oil (no surprises there I guess); this fragrance is just lovely, the second I smelt it I knew I'd have to make something really lovely with it; it's a calming green tea fragrance with a lovely citrusy background - a rather perfume-y fragrance which I hope will be a big hit.  It has Sweet Almond Oil & Golden Olive Oil plus added pure silk (as ever, I do LOVE LOVE LOVE silk in soaps) plus some titanium dioxide (you'll see why when it's cut!). 

Sorry the picture isn't the best, Winter light is so dull at times ... this is the first time using this size mould and I got the capacity slightly under so next time I need to up my oil level by about 100 or 200grms I think.  I adore the swirls!

The second is called Lemon Cream and is a blend of Lemon fragrance oil and May Chang Essential oil - I decided to blend both a fragrance and essential oil because cold process soaps can tend to eat delicate citrus oils in the cure and you can end up with a soap that smells just very faintly of citrus.  Plus May Chang is a really beautiful lemon fragrance with almost a fizz to it, delightful.  The other reason I choose the FO/EO blend is that, legally, I'm restricted use to 1% for all citrus EOs so, by blending with a citrus FO, I can extend the lemonyness of this soap (yes, it's a word!). 

This is made with Sweet Almond Oil (a really beautiful oil in soaps, it creates a very conditioning bar with lots of very creamy bubbles - my favourite) and I've added silk, of course, to this soap.  I've put on a sprinkling of blue poppyseeds to give a very slight exfoliation effect but also because lemon poppyseed is such a great combo (and I'll be making a scrub to match which will include the poppyseeds also). 

If you are interested in purchasing either of these soaps, they'll be finished curing and ready for sale by 20 February.  Check out the website at http://www.soaperstar.com/ for details then. 

I'll post up pics of the cut soaps in a couple of days when they're ready to cut - I really found soaping today was a real relaxtion for me and a perfect antidote to the madness of Saturday.  In the end, all is well in the Soaperstar household and it's the start of another week very soon!

Night night everyone xx

Cashmere Silk

Well I have a little news! During the Christmas holidays, my fabulously kind safety assessor sent me my Safety Assessment for cold & hot process traditionally made soaps (if you're a regular reader, you'll know that those selling any form of cosmetics in the EU, need to hold safety assessments for all their products).  So now I can legally sell these!

I had a very lazy Christmas and did very little indeed but, in the last few days, the bug seems to have bitten again - starting with this soap, Cashmere Silk.  It contains Sweet Almond Oil and Golden Olive Oil along with a generous dose of Pure Silk (I've used this recipe before and it was recently reviewed on a forum I belong to by a very experienced soaper who raved about it... I was chuffed!). 

The soap in its mould

I've coloured the top layer with a camel coloured mica and a very light dusting of an irridescent glitter - I tried to get the impression of soft, warm cashmere. 

You can see the golden creaminess given by the Golden Olive Oil in the base colour and the glitter gently sparkles

This looks so delicious - like the best, golden, creamy fudge

I think I have captured the feel of cashmere in this soap

I just adore the gentle glisten given by the mica & glitter which really shows the gentle swirls on the top of the soap

The soap is fragranced with 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. 

The soap will need to cure for 6 weeks and so will be ready by 13 February - it's a limited edition and there will be 8 bars available for sale then.