Saturday, March 30, 2013

My Tiger Stripe Attempt

This was not my best of batches. Let me just tell you that up front! I scented this batch in Black Raspberry Vanilla which is such an easy fragrance to work with. First off, I think I took advantage of an easy fragrance and compensated by over-blending my batter. It ended up being quite thick. From there, it felt a bit warm so I decided to put it on the heating pad and gel the loaf. Then I overheated it! HA! *sigh* It was just one of those batches. I'm still happy with the design, but the soap has a mottled texture that I am not used to having since I don't gel mostly and don't have to worry about overheating.

I present to you my Tiger Swirl for Amy's Soap Challenge - Week 1!




So as it turns out, I am very low on supplies, especially fun fragrances to work with, so I hope I'm still able to continue with the challenges.


Make sure to check out Amy's blog to see more entries!

Sunday, March 24, 2013

Green Apple & Rose

One never knows when inspiration will hit. I was just laying in bed the other night, wiggly because I couldn't get to sleep, and then just boom there it was. I pictured this exact soap...color, shape, size...everything. Usually, I ponder the different parts of a soap for a while (sometimes a LONG while) before I come up with what I want to do. I had to make this soap immediately! So into the soap kitchen I went...well, I did wait until the next afternoon. :-)

This soap has a beautiful scent blend of tart and juicy granny smith apples, combined with delicate rose blossoms. I'm not much of a person for rose, but this fragrance totally works. There is something about the tartness of the apple that just makes it all come together.

This soap also features my new 'swirl in a swirl' method. A soap maker and friend watched the video and suggested I call it the Holly Swirl. I like the sound of that! The method consists of swirling two (or more of course) colors together and then using that swirl to swirl with another color. I love it! So fun! You know my brain is just running in overdrive now with all the new ideas that I have.






We received another heavy blanket of snow overnight and for some reason, the bright white beauty of it all always makes me want to make soap. I think it is because it makes my soaping area so nice and bright. I need to clean the house today but I may squeeze in some soap making first. :-D

Thursday, March 21, 2013

Shame, Shame, Shame! :-)

Shame on me for neglecting my blog so much! I really do love my blog but it seems I've only had time for tidbits here and there, which makes Facebook and Twitter so much easier to post on. But I will try to be better I promise!

My most recent soap is my new batch of Rainbow soap. It is scented in a fresh, juicy pear scent. This is about my 6th batch of rainbow soap now. It is really quite a lot of work and so it is best to do it in a really big batch. I was still just a bit off on my batch size this time (I knew what I needed to do for it to be just right but got distracted, ha!) and so the bars are super huge again!











I have made several more soaps since I last posted. I've made a Lemongrass Avocado soap, a new one to my Nearly Natural line of soaps. I also remade Patchouli Rain. It is such a well loved fragrance. I should rename it as Patchouli can be a turn-off to some and this scent is just way more than patchouli. I don't have pictures of either of those two yet but I do have videos of those two if you want to see what they look like. My YouTube Channel

Here are some of the others:

A new batch of Princess Kisses - disks on the top instead of chunks - scented in a blend of fresh dew, exotic herbs, green grass, sparkling rain drops, and floral gardens - it's a very lovely tart scent and comparable to Herbal Essences shampoo





Fallen Leaves - a classy and acceptable year round scent blend of maple wood, new dawn blossoms, laurel, sweet clove, balsam, patchouli, and sandalwood -





Summer Love - a beautiful scent blend of raspberries, peaches, magnolias, lilies, cyclamen, and white musk -





Chocolate Oatmeal Cream - an unscented bar for my Nearly Natural line, loaded with cocoa butter, cream, colloidal oatmeal, with a cocoa powder swirl - also a remake -





J'Adore - compare to J'Adore by Dior - I've decided to keep this batch just for my daughter and I since we are big fans of this scent -





Beach by Bobbie Brown Type - A blend of sand, sea spray, salt, jasmine, and mandarin -





Finally, I made a few batches of Camo soap -





So there you have it! Some of these are already for sale at my Big Cartel and Etsy stores. Thank you so much for stopping by! I do hope you are having a wonderful day!