Adam & Eve

Following on from the recent poll I held on Facebook, the Vanilla Anise fragrance I had delivered about two weeks ago was the second favourite for me to soap.  I simple adore this scent - it's light and dark at the same time, very grown up, very unisex.  I haven't met anyone yet who didn't like it.  It's described as a blend of vanilla orchid against a spicy accent of anise and the warmth of vetiver, amber and clove.  For people who don't like vanilla, you'll still love this - and I know that Dennise of Briny Bar Soap has given it a total thumbs up .. she even took it on a road trip across the States with her and uses it as a shampoo bar!

It's had a revamp since I made it last (it was one of my tester fragrances, I wanted to see how it'd behave and how well the fragrance would last - I was very happy with both tests!).  I wanted something more dramatic though - I thought the original look just didn't do the fragrance justice. 

For this version, I've used Golden Olive Oil, Cocoa Butter, organic Palm Oil (of course, from a sustainable source), Coconut Oil and Castor Oil (gotta love them bubbles!).  As ever, I added Pure Silk - this really adds a luxurious element to the soap, I just wouldn't be without it (we deserve it people!).  It's coloured with titanium dioxide and black mica that I bought from the US. 

I'm dying to hear what you think of this - I was inspired by a fellow soaper, Ka fée from Soap Session who made a similar soap and I just had to try it out.  I hope she is impressed with it!

Oh and I'm calling it Adam & Eve, because my hubs had to help me with the design; once I'd preppred everything and got the mix into one jug of raw black soap and one of raw white soap, I needed to get it into the mould as soon as I could so hubs helped about half way through and worked with the white as I worked with the black.  Adam & Eve is named for us but it helps that it's a very unisex fragrance too!

So.. I present you Adam & Eve:

Black & White swirls

Soap Tops - Look Ma, NO glitter!!

I adore this look

A big ol' stack of soap

Group Photo

Close of up the swirl

Adam & Eve - basking in the sunshine

I really hope you enjoyed these pictures - if you're interested in buying Adam & Eve, it will be fully cured on 30 May and will be available in our online store. 

Fiore Rustico Pure Castille Soap

I was totally inspired by the lovely Amanda of Lovin Soap who recently showed pictures of her castille soap - I asked if she would think of doing a tutorial on this and, by the end of the day, there was one and dedicated to me! Speedy Gonzales!

So, what else could I do but go and make one myself.  Castille soap is a soap made from 100% Olive Oil - no other oils are added, it's pure olive all the way.  It's excellent for all skin types but especially good for sensitive and dry skin.  The only drawback to castille is that it can take anywhere up to a full year to cure to an amazingly good bar of soap.  No matter, I thought, I'll work on my patience levels and just find a place to hide it and forget about it for at least 6 months.

The only olive oil I had in the house were my big 3 litre bottles of Olive Pomace - as soapmakers know, pomace can speed trace which isn't always what you'd like so, hence I had some left as I've not used it recently. 

Amanda suggested a steep water discount - she uses equal quantities of lye to water and this is unusual but helps the batter come to trace far sooner than normal (castille is notorious for taken a long time to trace).  The only other additions I made was Silk (as ever, you know what I'm like) and an essential oil blend of Sweet Orange, May Chang, Lavender, Patchouli, Geranium & Ylang Ylang ... it is divine! I added a little titanium dioxide because my pomace olive oil is a rather vile green and I wanted to at least get a creamy pale green.

So I weighed out my lye and water, equal quantities and mixed - this solution is more caustic than when full water is used (due to the lesser amount of water) so I was extremely careful not to splash it when stirring and to wear my safety specs.

I weighed out my oil and mixed my titanium dioxide and blended it into my olive oil.  I then weighed out my essential oil blend and poured that into the oil also. 

I took some time to line the mould and then I was ready to mix.  I poured my lye into my oils and it didn't take too long to reach trace - actually, I erred too much on the side of caution and I stick blended a little too much I think as I have some air bubbles in the final soap.  The pomace certainly speeded up trace as did the water discount and both certainly helped the soap to heat in the mould (the TD will have worked towards this too).  I managed to get it all in the mould and texture the top but I'd rather I had stopped stick blending a little earlier. 

The soap heated HUGELY - I have to say it was the hottest soap I've ever made and I had to put it in my soaping fridge overnight.  I took it out this morning and left it in the curing room for the full day to come back to room temperature til I cut it. 

I cut it this evening - it was hugely solid, almost felt like a very well cured soap in fact.  It took some effort to cut it and the bottoms of it are rather crumbly too.  I probably should have cut this this morning but I couldn't have, no time sadly. 

I can see in some of the pictures that it did gel in part but you'd have to look carefully at it - I HATE the crumbly bum but I do love the smoothness of it and I am rather partial to the creamy look of it.  I ADORE the top though! I washed my hands with an offcut and it bubbles like mad - what was that about slimey castille soap?

So I'm thinking, next time not quite a steep discount, and soap cooler, I'll probably still use pomace but I'll stick blend a tinch less.  Otherwise, I'm really happy with this.

Oh .. the name? Fiore Rustico is Italian (the olive oil connection) for Rustic Flowers ... the rustic for the way it's cut and flowers to try and illustrate the essential oil blend. 

So.. here is Fiore Rustico Pure Castille Soap... enjoy!

Beautifully textured tops

Rustic cut soap!

Ever so smooth soap - you can just vaugely see the gelling in the centre 

Beautiful creamy fragranced rustic soaps for sensitive skin

Huge thanks to Amanda for giving me inspiration - I do wonder if this really needs the 6 month cure time as it feels so hard already ... any thoughts and comments would be welcomed!

Vanilla Anise

Yet another adventure in cold process soapmaking.  This one is Vanilla Anise which is described as a blend of rare vanilla orchid blossom with the spicy accent of anise and the warmth of vetiver, amber and clove, creating an unexpected, modern vanilla story. To my nose, the aniseed comes out first and foremost, which is a very good thing as far as I'm concerned, as I love, love, LOVE it!

This soap is made with Sweet Almond Oil, Cocoa Butter and Shea Butter with added pure tussah silk.. a totally divine combination! It is coloured using titanium dioxide for the base to whiten it (for the vanilla aspect) and Blackstar Blue mica to give it a dark, midnight feel to match the aniseed fragrance. 

In the mould, full of lovely swirlies!

First cut - cut too early, not quite ready (but how beautiful is that top?!!)

 Lovely swirls but not cut on it's side so the dark colour is dragging through the white

  

This one has a tinch of titanium dioxide not quite fully mixed in

Ohhh this one is just beautiful - cut on the side and just lovely

A group shot!

Hope you liked these pictures, I really enjoyed making this - it should be cured by mid to late November and I cannot wait to try it out; really hoping the fragrance will have stayed because the whole curing room smells of it now and it's divine!!

New cold process soap experiment

So, I had a day off and decided that I'd make a new cold process soap - I'm still experimenting to get a perfect recipe but used one I'd already tried out because I wanted to practise with some additions too.

I was sent some tussah silk and some titanium dioxide along with a gold mica, by a fabulous soaper friend of mine.  Silk adds a huge luxury factor and makes the soap feels so smooth and luxurious (check out some of the really high level brands of cosmetics, they often have some form of silk in them).  Titanium dioxide is a natural white powdered pigment that helps you achieve a white white white soap - it can create more heat though so it can be tricky to work with.  Finally the gold mica ... ahhhh, what can I say? I must have been a magpie in an earlier life because I do love the glistening shiny things!

I choose a recipe with Cocoa Butter and Apricot Kernel Oil - both fabulous for your skin and both light coloured oils to help keep the colour of the final base oil whiter too. 

I decided to use a Vanilla fragrance oil - vanilla based oils can be problematic as they often make the soap turn brown but I used a specifically designed non-discolouring version so my soap will stay as white as it is supposed to be.

Not the best picture in the world, I will admit that but you can see how creamy the colour on top is... why is this, I hear you say, when you wanted white soap? Well, here's the thing.... the gold mica was calling me and I thought why not do a lovely sprinkle on top of the final soap.  Great idea! Yes, good idea when it sprinkles but not when it clumps! So I decided to swirl it and colour the very very top layer of the soap - it created this delicious creamy looking top, I love it.  I'm hoping some of the glisten may show but I'm doubting it.  You can see from the blob on the bottom edge of the mould how white that base soap is.  Now, one of the problems with using Titanium Dioxide (or TD) is that it can produce a crackle effect - this can be due to overheating issues and TD can be the cause of that at times.  We'll see when it's cut!

Now, here's a problem ... a tiny crack.  I am showing a close up on this but it's not huge, if you were to cut the soap, it'd be the width of one bar.  The crack can be possibly caused by a little bit of overheating - the soap was kept in the fridge for a few hours to help keep the temperature down.  As I said, the TD may produce a crackle effect and the heat produced could mean that I won't have the perfect white soap either. 

Tune in for cut pics in the next few days.  I will say, it smells damn fine!!!