Not So Impressed

I unmolded my cupcakes just a bit ago and I've decided they were much prettier in the mold! I decided to keep these fairly plain for a first try but now I wished I would have colored the bottoms. Not bad for a first try at it though. I preferred the one with the pink on top.


This is my PVC challenge soap and I am most definitely not impressed with it! I knew it wasn't going to turn out but still... I do like the design and would have liked there to be more soap to fill the mold. There was to be a thin green layer at the bottom and the rest was to be navy blue. I sprinkled the top with fine silver glitter but it just soaked in or something. It's very odd and not sparkly at all. It is scented with something similar to Yankee Candles Mid Summers Night. It's a very manly scent and smells great! At least the bars will be usable. It was supposed to look like the moon over the plains and I was going to call it Summers Night.


To close this post out on a good note...I love how the butterfly and lady bug soap turned out. It was some leftover from the Princess Kisses batch. They are just so smooth and lovely!

Princess Kisses and Cupcakes

You don't even know how happy I am that my Princess Kisses soap cut well today. I am estatic! I thought I'd struggle with the difference between the chunky, more aged soap and the soft, fresh soap. Nope! It might have been the easiest soap I've cut so far. Go figure!

I named it Princess Kisses because it is such a girly soap and my daughter is in such a princess phase right now. It is scented with white tea and ginger. I just love how it turned out!


I also have been wanting to try my hand at cold process cupcake soaps and today was the day. These are also scented with white tea and ginger. They are entirely plain cold process. I did not use whipped soap to make the frosting. Even though it was time consuming, it was fun and relatively easy. I tried different ways of piping and I think I like the all over stars the best. I need a bigger tip to swirl the "frosting" all the way around. I used the little flower silicone cupcake liners made by Wilton. So cute!


I also made my pvc challenge soap but it is most definitely not worthy of a photo. The fragrance oil was very touchy, my colors didn't come out right, and somehow I managed to not have enough soap batter. I dunno...

Got My Glitter Fix

After making that super manly camo soap, I was in desperate need to make something totally girly and loaded with glitter!




I tried a new recipe today as I was out of palm. This one is loaded with cocoa butter. I forgot that my cocoa butter was natural and not refined so it did add a yellow/tan tinge to the soap that I wasn't going for exactly. I still think it's going to look great and feel even better!

Camo Soap - Revealed!

Today is the day of the big camo reveal!

Just out of the mold:


Cut:



This loaf did not want to be cut and we about had a war on our hands...the camo would have been very appropriate for that! Also, that top soap did not want to stand up so it got to be quite the messy process. This is scented with a mixture of Bay Rum and Vanilla fragrance oil. This was my first time using oxides and vanilla fiber too. It was fun and I can't wait for the next challenge.

Finally Cut My Soaps Today

Lilac:


Tangerine Vanilla:



Avocado Oil:
This one was much harder than I anticipated. It's very white too!

Two More!

I was able to fit in two more loaves of soap this weekend. Woo-hoo! I made one big batch and split it into a Lilac loaf and a Tangerine Vanilla loaf. I tried a new recipe with these and I'll be eager to see what the results are with unmolding and with use.


Tangerine Vanilla - orange soap with white swirls and white topping.


Lilac - was supposed to have the same white swirl but silly me, I forgot the FO and had to dump it back in the pot and mix in the FO but at least I had some leftover white soap for the topping.


My theory on using the freezer paper for handles did not work so well. The soap went under the paper. I kind of thought that would happen but I tried it anyway.

Camo Soap and Single Oil/Avocado Soap

So I had the most wonderful experience this afternoon. I made soap! I'm so excited that I finally got some soap made that I want to make more tomorrow. I know exactly what I want to do already. So watch out!

I am so giddy over my camo soap. It turned out exactly how I imagined it. It's a cloudy old day once again so the best picture was the one with the flash. It shows the color really well. I mixed my own fragrance (it's so manly) and sprinkled some "dirt" on top. The lighter color should turn tan or brown. I wanted to name it Capt. Awesome Camo soap but hubby informed me that was weird, odd, and lame. So Capt Awesome it is! Just kidding... :) It is kind of funny that as I was making this one that my husband was playing a hunting game on the xbox.

Edited to add: This soap is for a challenge on the best soap making forum ever! I will probably wait to show pictures of the cut soap when we have our big reveal in a couple of weeks.


I am incredibly happy that I have more of the silicone molds at this point because I do believe my single oil experiment soap is going to be occupying the mold for several days. I am trying a strip of freezer paper in my mold to help lift the soap out when it is time.

Edited to add: I seemed to have left out a couple of interesting details in this post! At this same awesome forum, I am joining in on an single oil soap experiment. We know it has been done before but we have decided to do this ourselves and share a piece of each soap with the members so that we can each test the result.

The oil I chose to use was avocado. I love to use avocado and I also have a lot of it. Kellie's post on the shelf life of oils got me to thinking that I better be using my avocado up. Last fall I bought a gallon container of avocado from WSP. I use it at only 10% in my recipes and I obviously don't soap as often as I'd like. Anyhow, the soap took a good long while - or so it seemed - to come to trace and I think it will be very soft for quite a while. I chose not to prevent gel and not to force it either. I'm going to let it do it's thing. It turned out creamier colored that I anticipated. It's quite yummy looking.