More Soap Swaps ...Great Cakes Soapworks!

The second of my recent soap swaps was with Amy Warden of Great Cakes Soapworks.  Amy is based in Olathe, Kansas.  Now, as a girl who's never been to the US, my only experience of Kansas is through the Wizard of Oz but I don't imagine that it's really all tornadoes and witches on bicycles ... at least I hope it's not, for Amy's sake!

Amy's blog is one of my top 3 go-to blogs ever, she's incredibly talented, and has a huge level of experience having been soaping since 2002. I adore her images, her soaps, her tips and hints....and she is so sharing with her information, it's just incredible.

Amy suggested a soap swap, or a swaop if you will, when I raved, publicly, on her blog about her fabulous Cranberry Yuzu soap.  Its colours, its design, its "pick me up, smell me, touch me .. you know you want to" good looks - I just had to have it.  So we did a deal, she asked for my Wild Blueberry and I asked for Cranberry Yuzu ... a vertiable fruit salad swap!

She sent her soaps first (I was waiting for the Blueberry to finish curing) and they were magnificent.  One huge Cranberry Yuzu and two lovely samples of Cinnamon Apple Peach and Candied Currants. 

I have a confession ... I have to admit I'm a terrible swapper *hangs head in shame*.  We opened the Candied Currants immediately and used it all up.  NO pics! Imagine! What was I thinking?! I'm sorry Amy, I didn't mean it.  It was just calling to me, its beautiful colours (green, black and red if you're asking) and its incredible fragrance - juicy, sweet, delicious, the kind of soap you want to bite! And it was fabulous - creamy lather, loads of bubbles, it made all our skin so soft and it lingered ... I LOVE a soap who's scent lingers.  It was just sooo good.  It made me want more.  Just as well that I have more!

So, tonight the Cranberry Yuzu goes into the shower - tomorrow is our first go with this juicy deliciously fragranced soap, I have to say that I cannot wait.  But I was good, I ordered ... ooops, ahem, asked Titch nicely to take some pics before the sun went in so I could show you.  Just imagine you can see the Candied Currants one there too!

So here you go - these are the Cranberry Yuzu and the Cinnamon Apple Peach (check out the oh so amazingly cute golden apple stamp!) ..my mouth is watering just thinking about them!

You cannot not love these... look at them? They are simply stunning! Can you fall in love with a soap? If so, I'm there already.

Thanks Amy, for encouraging my unending addiction to stunningly beautiful wonderful soap ... you might hear me singing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" in the shower tomorrow morning!

Thanks Emily - Shieh Design Studio

Recently, I've been lucky enough to be involved in a couple of soap swaps with some other soap bloggers from around the world.  The first one was with the lovely Emily from Shieh Desigh Studio who sent me two of her fabulous soaps - Lavender Milk and Arabian Nights along with a sample of her Dark Star. 

I adore her packaging - the white paper she uses is lovely, it gives the soap a very natural look.  The labels are elegant and the ribbon is just plain cute (and it reminded me of my ribbons too.. great minds think alike!).  The soaps are a generous size (4.5 oz or approximately 130g) and are a great shape and size to use in the shower.  Once they wear down, which takes some time because they're very well cured and nice and hard, they are perfect for handsoap. 

With regard to how the soaps feels in use, they stay nice and hard unlike some handmade soaps I've used in the past which have melted into nothing in a short time.  Emily sent these to me about 3 weeks ago and there's still tons left.  The soaps all bubbled beautifully, lots of lather, big bubbles at first and then the thick creamy bubbles that I love love love.  What I really liked the most about these soaps is that they left our skin feeling soft and beautiful - I have a thing about handcream, I used to use it a LOT, since I found good handmade soaps, that doesn't happen so often.. with this soap, there is no need for a handcream afterwards, my skin felt soft, scented and really lovely. 

My husband loves using handmade soaps but is VERY particular about them.. he'll give a soap a chance for maybe one or two uses, but no more if he doesn't like them (a harsh reviewer to be honest).  Suffice it to say, he's still using Emily's soaps every single day! He loves the feel of the his skin afterwards.  The one thing he did note was that, due to the fragrance and it's lingering nature, he wouldn't use either in the kitchen in case it scented food as he was cooking (given he's the cook in the family).  I would give the soap a 10/10 for performance and skin feel.. just lovely!

Lavender Milk is a beautiful swirled light purple and white soap, fragranced with a beautiful floral Lavender.  I liked it a lot, the fragrance lingers after use which I loved.  Hubs wasn't so crazy about it but lavender really isn't a guys fragrance is it?

Arabian Nights was a lighter scent for me, a slightly spicy, ambery fragrance that had a lot of powdery tones ... for me, it was too light and I'm not crazy about powdery notes in fragrances (just a personal thing for me) but my husband liked it a lot.  This soap has some glycerine soap embedded in it and I liked the idea of that ... it works nicely with the colour of the cold process soap.  Hubs thought it was a little more drying to his hands than the Lavender Milk and we guessed it could be down to the glycerine soap? I'm not sure, I know I didn't find it drying at all.  Titch (honorary daughter) loves this one and chooses it over the Lavender Milk every time.  She really likes the fragrance of this one - she tends to like more spicy, unisex fragrances in general so I can see why she'd prefer this one. 

Dark Star, for me, was the winner .. I adored the fragrance, lots of Star Anise EO in it which I ADORE and a blend of Cedarwood, Vanilla, Patchouli, Clary Sage, Cassia & Clove - a very complex blend that I couldn't even begin to attempt so I'm very impressed with this.  I loved it ... it's spicy, strong, dark, has a slight medicinal undertone which I loved too.  Hubs said it reminded him of mouthwash in the dentist but I'm guessing this is the clove (thank God he's not a perfumer is all I can say!).  I just loved loved loved it... I loved the muted dark colours and, again, it was a lovely soap to use (it's the first one in the image below).  Actually, for me, scent wise, it was head and shoulders above the others... more complex, more unique.  I just loved it.

Thanks Emily, for swapping your soaps with me.. I'm not the greatest at reviews and can only talk about my own impressions (and those of hubs and the Titch).  But it's a great big thumbs up for us for the soap in use and different reviews on the fragrances which are enitrely bases on our own tastes.  None of us could agree on what was the "best" fragrance - maybe this just proves the point that what one person chooses as the best, others don't.  All I know is that Dark Star is a beauty, Titch and hubs would choose Arabian Nights and I loved the Lavender Milk in the shower. 

If you would like to try out any of Emily's fab soaps, you can shop online on her Etsy store at http://www.etsy.com/shop/ShiehDesignStudio (it's closed at the moment, she's currently on holidays but she'll be back in the next couple of days); you can check out her Facebook Page at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Shieh-Design-Studio/231445363549113?ref=ts and read her blog at http://soapandrestless.blogspot.com/.  Emily, you are a sweetheart and thank you SO much for giving me an opportunity to use and enjoy your beautiful soap xx

Busy, Busy, Busy .. Working on Custom Orders

Hey all, sorry it's been a bit quiet here lately - I'm back in my full-time, other life, job and it's just mental; for those in the know, I work in as the administrator in a film/media/art/design college and, as you can imagine, the start of the academic year is bedlam.  I'm run off my feet and the students aren't even back til next week!

Added to this, I'm working on a custom order too which is pretty cool - I specifically got it because the customer was so in love with my swirls plus she tried out the soap beforehand and just loved how it feels on the skin, how conditioning it is and how much it bubbles, even though she lives in a hard water area. 

And, finally, I'm working on my reformulated body butters, which will be called Double Whipped Body Butters (cos they are!) and slowly (very slowly!) working on building up a stock of the butters to put on the website.  I plan to have the butters available in some of the soap fragrances but not all. 

Next on my to-do list is start building up stock of my reformulated scrubs which will be called Sugar Cream Body Polish.  These will be available in the same fragrances as the body butters. 

And then working on a formulation for either bubble bars or bubbling bath bombs (not sure which yet but I think I'm veering towards the bubbly bath bombs) .. I've the recipe almost right but not quite finished as yet.

Oh yes, and then I need to work on lip butters too.... ok, I'm just exhausted reading all that!!!

So bear with me if it gets a little quiet round here for a while ... I promise to show pics as and when I have them!

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. 

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!

New Video - Cutting of Jasmine & Green Tea

My second venture into the world of soap video making ... this is me, cutting my latest soap, Jasmine & Green Tea. 

Check out this baby!  She is a beauty - a blend of jasmine & green tea fragrance oils, the jasmine adding a heady exotic floral note and the citrusy green tea a wonderfully refreshing note.  All made with our usual blend of sweet almond, golden olive and avocado oils with lots of cooca butter and, of course, pure wild silk.  Sheer luxury!!!

This will be fully cured by 10 October - drop me a line at info@soaperstar.com if you're interested in pre-ordinerg some. 

Laundry Day - Cut Pictures

Well, you've seen the picture and small video of the making of this, the cutting video and now, here are the cut pictures.  This is the most photographed soap I've ever made... a total movie star!

Laundry Day - a clean, fresh, comforting fragrance that reminds me of freshly washed laundry blowing in a summer's breeze or the fragrance when you snuggle up into a freshly changed bed.  I love it, it's soft and clean and just wonderful.

Hope you like the pics!

If you're interested in pre-ordering one of these, just drop me a line at info@soaperstar.com - they'll be fully cured by 5 October. 

All images copyright @ Soaperstar and Taken By Titch, 2011. 

Cute Little Programme

On trawling through Facebook this morning, I saw that Emily from Shieh Design Studio flagged up a very cute little programme called Wordle.  You put in a your blog or website address and it comes up with the words most frequently used, in a cool graphic format.

So, of course, I had to try the blog out... only natural of course... and here's my image (no prizes for guessing the most used word!)

Cutting a new soap & my first Talkie!

My last post showed how I made my new Laundry Day soap which was mostly photos but a tiny little video too.  Everyone who saw it said "but why didn't you talk on it?".  Apparently, everyone wants to hear my accent!! Now I don't think I have much of an Irish accent but you can be the judge of that because we made another video today showing me cutting the soap. 

Oh I never mentioned about the fragrance on the video and that was really silly because it's a lovely scent - it reminds me of freshly washed laundry blowing in the breeze on a summer's day or when you just change all your bedclothes and snuggle in and feel so soft, safe and comfy.  It's sooooooooooo lovely, I adore it.  I'm definitely using this again too. 

So here is me, in my first talkie! Not sure what you'll think of it, I'm dying to hear!

Huge thanks, yet again, to Titch for being the videographer (check out her Facebook page at www.facebook.com/takenbytitch). 

Laundry Day - The Making of a New Soap

I haven't made a soap in a week (oh Lord, what a calamity!) and decided that I'd make one today; I've not made a blue soap before (bar the Wild Blueberry one which turned a hint of green because the fragrance oil turned the batter yellow!).  I wanted a nice calm, clean, cool blue and choose a cool cotton fragrance .... it smells like freshly washed laundry blowing on the clothesline on a summers day, really lovely. 

As some of you will know, Titch (my honorary daughter) has developed a strong interest in photography and decided to take pictures of the soap making process .. she even threw in a short video too.  Actually, I've never really taken a video on the camera before but it worked really well! But I'm running ahead of myself. 

So, I thought it'd be great to do a whole blog post on the making of a soap for those readers who don't know how a soap is actually made.  Beware, this is going to be MEGA pic heavy!!!

So, here we go.... we're at the point where I've melted all the butters and oils and I've prepared the water & lye and dissolved the silk so we're ready to go and MAKE SOAP!

Here are the butters & oils all melted and I've just added the fragrance oil in and I'm stick blending it a little just to make sure it's fully incorporated

The jug contains the lye water which has the silk dissolved in it and I'm carefully pouring it into the melted oils/butters, stirring with the stick blender as I go

The stick blender is just mixing the lye into the oils ... you can see vague whiter whisps in the mix, this is the start of the lye reacting with the oils - the stick blender is whirring away at this stage

Still stick blending and you can see the mix becoming more and more creamy as the mix comes to the point of emulsification

Still mixing - the oil is being mixed in more and more as I stick blend

Almost there!

Hardly any oil left now

A nice shiny pretty creamy trace! Yay, this is what I want to see, nicely liquidy still and shiny and lovely - I stop stick blending now

Here, I'm dividing the soap batter into 3 jugs - one for each colour; the spatula gets out every tiny little scrap, waste not want not!

Pre this picture, I had mixed three colours - one dark blue, one pale blue and one white; I poured the soap batter (as you saw in the previous picture) equally into three jugs, one for each colour.  This is the white titanium dioxide mix with the creamy soap batter

The titanium dioxide mix pre mixing

Here, I'm adding my ultramarine blue to which I added a little glycerine so I could mix any lumps out of it and adding it into the soap batter 

The ultramarine blue poured into the soap batter

Mixing the ultramarine blue into the soap - hmmmm, this isn't working... perhaps I should stick blend this?

Oh yeah baby, now that is a pretty stick blended blue!

Here I'm mixing my pastel blue ... again, it might need a little stick blending to encourage it!

Ah yes, stick blended pastel blue... you can see the glisten of the mica on the lip of the spatula

A nice creamy pale blue

Here's my white all mixed up, again this was stick blended to make sure there were no lumps

Very pretty ultramarine blue soap ready to use

Pretty pastel blue, ready to use

And some lovely white ... all three jugs, ready to go

Here's my lined mould, ready and waiting

So I pour the ultramarine blue on the base - I adore this colour

That's 95% of the UM blue in the base, slightly flattened out to make a straighter layer (but not very well, oh well!)

Now I begin to put the rest of the soap out - because of a mix of the stick blending and the fragrance oil, the batter is a little thick but no worries, I love the dollops of what looks like fresh cream - creamy and delicious looking

Some pastel blue and white dollops of soap

Now more white ... the soap is building up

About this time, we started making a little video - very very short but it's our first one...

A very quiet video showing me working on the soap and banging the air bubble out of it

More blue and white - see how shiny the soap is? I love that look!

I've only got a bit left ... I need to think about working on the tops I think

I kept back a little of the UM blue to put on the top ...more dollops again!

I love this picture... UM blue, pastel blue and white ... all layered up

More soap dollops

Here's me putting some of the pastel blue soap on the top of the soap using the spatula (I move to the spatula when I've only a little of the soap left)

Final colours added to the top

Last little bit of pastel blue being added

Now to begin the tops!

How cool does that look?

Look... lots of swirls baby!

More and more top work

The next few pics are of the top as I work on it... I never know when to stop!

So, that's it .. the soap then went into the fridge and it's still there now.  It's going to be called Laundry Day and it smells just divine.  We might do a demoulding and cutting video now that we know how to do them! Hope you enjoyed the picture and understand more of the process now and thank God nothing went wrong with it!!!

Huge huge thanks to Titch Holland who took all these pictures and the video - check out her Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/takenbytitch - she's gaining more experience at the moment but is very interested in working on taking product photos, especially for those who make handmade products so make sure to like her page and keep an eye on her work!

Thanks for reading and make sure to come back and see the cutting pics!