It's About Time

This soap has determined to be super stubborn. I made it on Saturday and could just get it cut today. I should have even waited another day or two but my patience ran out. It smells so good and I can't wait to use it in the middle of winter. It's going to be so luxurious.

Crema y Cacao Soap

I made this soap yesterday afternoon and it's now out of the mold and resting until cut time. Like its name, it is made with increased amounts of cream and cocoa (butter). It's a natural, unscented soap however, it IS naturally scented by the cocoa butter. I use unrefined cocoa butter and it has that wonderful chocolate chip scent that does carry through the soap. I love to use cocoa butter in my non-fragranced soaps for that very reason. This is just an all around pure, gentle, and comforting soap. I've tucked little nibs of cocoa butter into the top and sprinkled with sugar.

Happily Ever After - CUT

This soap just totally represents my daughter and I. We love pink and purple and yellow and all things glittery and cheerful. This scent is so good it almost makes me delirious!

A Little Peek

Here is a little peek at Happily Ever After. It's out of the mold and resting comfortably. I do believe I'll try cutting it tomorrow afternoon.

Happily Ever After

My daughter is all about pretty, girly, and princesses. I made another princess type soap for her today. This is my third as I have my Princess Kisses and Fairy Tale soaps as well. My daughter loves pink, purple, and yellow and she wants to be a princess when she grows up. :) After two boys, princesses and glitter is sure refreshing!

This soap is scented in a fruity and fun fragrance. It has notes of acai berries, strawberries, lemons, peaches, raspberries, lilies, and roses. Now what's more girly than that? Of course, I colored and swirled this soap in pink, purple, and yellow. I put in a little green too for a little contrast.

It smells great and it's pretty too! Oh! I almost forgot that I embedded some cute little orange swirled teddy bears in the soap. I don't know that I'll cut into one or not but I figure it will be a fun surprise for my little sweetie.

Autumn Berry Soap - CUT

I cut this soap yesterday and it was still a bit sticky. I let it set a day and then trimmed and prettied it up some this afternoon. With this new mold, I was able to get 13 bars and about 10 soap balls. The scent doesn't 'wow' me but it is still quite pleasant.

Autumn Berry Soap

Today I made a new scent called Autumn Berry. It's a blend all my own of berries and autumnal spices. [Oh Lori... :)] I also broke in another new mold handcrafted by my super talented hubby. He cut it just this afternoon, put it together, brought it in the house to me, and I went right to work! I love it! It's my new favorite mold. I feel so old-school. I've gone back to wood molds, lining with freezer paper, and more hand cutting and trimming. The new bar size is a really fun change too!

I swirled the soap with a dusty violet, deep burgundy (well, maybe it's just going to be brown), gold, and white. I topped it off with some glitter and cranberry seeds.

The soap is in the freezer to rest until tomorrow and then I will cut it on Monday!



I'm off to work my magic in the real kitchen!

Calendula Carrot Buttermilk Soap - CUT

I haven't been this excited about making soap in quite a while. I LOVE how it turned out and I really had so much fun cutting it up! It was just lots of fun to cut into the slab and form my own bars.

I don't know what it is about this soap but it always turns out super creamy looking. I'm not picking up on any of the spicy or mint essential oils now and its scent is just like taking a big whiff in an herb garden. It's luscious!






Look at the cute little soap balls I made!


I got 24 bars, travel bars for hubby from the end cuts, and 8 soap balls.


I took some new pictures of Rice Flower and Shea while the light was much better late this afternoon.




Thank you all for your comments! I'm so happy to see so many are reading my blog. It's totally worth it and I'll keep it going. Thanks so much!

Rice Flower and Shea Soap - CUT

Presenting...Rice Flower and Shea Soap!



The pictures aren't too great and I'm realizing that as we are changing seasons that my light isn't the same as it was before. So I might need to find a new spot and new time of day to take pictures. I'm getting too much of a gray/blue hue from my picture board. Anyhoo....

Today I'll be cutting up Calendula Carrot Buttermilk Soap. I'm really excited to see how it turned out!

Question For You

I notice that comments are getting fewer and farther between. I don't know if many of my blog followers didn't make the move to this one (though it was already slowing down on Sparklebrook), if the comments section has some problems, or if my blogging has become uninteresting.

So I'm asking you to please leave a comment if you think my blog should go on. If you're having commenting problems, maybe try to let me know through other ways. Otherwise, the future of this blog could be in jeopardy.

Thanks!

Calendula Carrot Buttermilk Soap

This afternoon I tackled my huge batch of Calendula Carrot Buttermilk Soap and it definitely was not without it's hurdles. My buttermilk scorched and curdled for starters. What a pain but I think I got it all whipped into shape and solved the problem. I know now that 'slushy' will not work in the way I was trying to work it.

So like last time, this soap has pureed baby food carrots and a lighter colored swirl with poppy seeds. I made up a different EO blend this time and it's has just about all of them. :) I went through my drawer and just dumped them in for the most part. This soap is still going to be just 'lightly' scented. Some of the essential oils I used were lavender, sage, rosemary, lemon, spearmint, clove, cinnamon, and nutmeg. I must say, it does smell great. The sage is the dominant scent by far. I did not use much of the essential oils that can be considered irritating.

My new mold is huge! The batch was 100oz! I usually only do 60oz. I will cut the soap into loaves and then into bars. Wish me luck! :) I'm hoping my quilting rulers will come in handy. The soap is resting in the freezer as I write this. I'm hoping I still don't get a partial gel.

I apologize for the poor pictures, a rainstorm moved through and made things very dark but I'm thankful for the rain.




I did cut my Rice Flower and Shea soap but I will have to wait until tomorrow for pictures.

Rice Flower and Shea Soap

Too many days have gone by and I've been dying to make some new soap. I needed to make something pink and pretty so I used one of my last remaining untouched bottles of fragrance, rice flower and shea. I was blown away with how wonderful that scent is! The top shows mostly a darker pink but the soap is a swirl of baby pink and dark pink. I'm super duper excited to cut this one. Oh and guess what? I'll be cutting it with my new soap cutter, made by my handy dandy husband.




My next batch will be a HUGE batch of Calendula Carrot Buttermilk soap but I first need to sand down the new slab/double loaf mold my husband made me. Did I mention he's handy? :)

I am so eager to make that batch. Turns out I do need some more olive oil before I can make it (it's going to be a 100oz batch!) so I'm thinking a Chick-Fil-A breakfast burrito and a trip to Costco is in order for the morning.

What's everyone doing this long weekend? We're staying home!