April’s weather is so changeable isn’t it? One minute the sun’s out, lulling us into a false sense of security and tempting us towards sandal wearing and planning barbeques, then next it’s absolutely pouring down. Like today…
Ah well, it’s undoubtedly warmer, and the days are definitely getting longer, so I can safely declare it’s SPRING, and time to talk about this year’s spring specials. This year I made four bars and each one is the return of an old favourite from a few years back, albeit with different names and designs. In an ideal world I would prefer to have at least a couple of new scents for each season release, but the run up to Christmas was so busy I didn’t manage to do any fragrance testing, so old faves it had to be, this time round…
Sakura
First up is Sakura. Sakura is the Japanese term for Cherry Blossom, so you won’t win any prizes for guess what this one smells like. It’s a sophisticated floral blend of cherry blossom with jasmine, rose, lily of the valley and freesia on a base of musk, precious woods and crystal amber.
This one has proven to be the bestseller so far, with one happy reviewer saying:
“So pleased to find this one has returned….the scent is just like walking through an orchard in full blossom. Can’t beat it on a spring day!”
But don’t take my word for it, check out all the five star reviews for Sakura HERE
Persephone
Next up is Persephone. This one was simply Pear & Freesia last time it made an appearance, but I wanted all the spring bars to have a seasonal name this time round, and as the Greek goddess of spring, she seemed like a great source of inspiration. (Let’s just gloss over the fact that she also later became the wife of Hades and queen of the underworld – that wasn’t her choice to be fair!)
Persephone is scented with a sparkling fruity/floral scent, reminiscent of the Jo Malone fragrance English Pear & Freesia. Click HERE for reviews.
Aloysia
The third bar is fragranced with a scent I’m pretty sure I once swore never to use again. It’s a gorgeous lemon verbena scent, a crisp and sparkly herbacious/citrus fragrance that smells amazing. As one customer says:
“Tangy, fresh and a wonderful soap for the morning to get you up and out enjoying the springtime”
But BOY does it misbehave in soap! This means that as soon as the fragrance is added to the soap batter, it almost immediately starts getting thick. Then, VERY quickly, it becomes too hard to do anything with. Soapmakers have a phrase – ‘soap on a stick’ – for when this happens, and it’s extremely frustrating when you’re trying to make pretty soap. That’s why this one looks quite different to the other three. The first bars I made looked, quite frankly, like a dog’s dinner so I grated them up and very quickly mixed them into some plain white soap batter. I do really like the ways these bars look, but they’re definitely the odd ones out 😀
Oh and the name? Aloysia is simply the latin name for Verbena. Click HERE for reviews
Zephyr
The lasf of the spring specials for 2023 is Zephyr. Zephyr was the Greek god of the warm west wind, considered to be the gentlestof the winds and the harbinger of spring. Whilst it’s not necessarily a masculine scent, it definitely leans more towards typical ‘male’ scents than the other three. A warm, woody, unisex scent beginning with top notes of fresh citrus and forest herbs. The heart is a spicy blend of black pepper and maple, rounded off with base notes of cedar and sandalwood.
Click HERE to see reviews for Zephyr
Click on any of the photos above to take you directly through to the listing on the website, or click HERE to take you to the spring specials category where you’ll see the full range on one page.