Blog - Page 12 of 14 - The Soap Mine

Posted on November 13, 2015 by Vicki — 17 Comments

The ‘Tall & Skinny Shimmy’ Challenge Soap

November’s challenge over on Amy Warden’s Great Cakes Soapworks was to (attempt to) recreate what Amy named the ‘Tall & Skinny Shimmy’. This technique is also called the wall pour or segment filling, and has been perfected by Tatiana Serko, an amazing soaper who created the tutorial video for the challenge. I’ve seen this design before and always wondered how it was done, SO there was no doubt in my mind as to whether I’d be giving it a go this month. Here’s the design she created for the tutorial:

Tatiana's Tall & Skinny Shimmy — Tatiana’s Tall & Skinny Shimmy

I recently bought a shiny new tall & skinny mould, and this challenge marked it’s first outing. This was the first problem. Turned out the mould holds more soap than my regular mold. I kind of thought it would, but checked on the website where I bought it to make sure. Unfortunately, in my haste, I looked at the wrong listing, and so had the wrong volume in my head. Luckily I’d had a sneaking suspicion that that figure might be incorrect (just by looking at the mould – which is LONG), so I prepped two batches of my masterbatched oils, just in case.

I decided (once again) to use a fragrance I’d not used before. Not as crazy as it sounds – I used a blend of Patchouli & Sweet Orange essential oils, both of which I’ve used separately many times without any problems.

I added the fragrance blend to the oils, then added the lye and mixed gently with a whisk until the soap was fully emulsified, but no more. In her tutorial, Tatiana said that she doesn’t use a stick blender, and simply lightly hand mixes her soap. With some trepidation, I decided to do the same, and split the soap into seven, colouring each portion a different shade, and mixing thoroughly by hand.

I then set up my mould as per Tatiana’s instruction. I placed two pencils parallel to each other on my work table, on either side of my mould. I put one side of the mould onto one of the pencils, so that there was a tilt to the mould, and then poured the first colour down and along the side of mould that was NOT on the pencil. I then moved the mould so that the other edge was sitting on the other pencil (and the mould was therefore tilted lengthways the other way) and poured down and along the opposite side. I did this with all seven colours, alternating the side each time. The soap was very thin, and had barely reached trace – I think it perhaps could have been just the tiniest bit thicker – note to self for next time…

Anyway, of course, it turned out I didn’t have enough soap made up to fill the mould, so I quickly separated out another three portions of the second batch, added colour, and continued to pour. The pouring was fast and fraught, and I didn’t get the opportunity to take any photographs – sorry!

Once the pour was complete, and the mould was full, I swirled to the top and put it to one side to harden up.

As it was poured at such a light trace, it took a while to harden up sufficiently, but three days later I felt confident enough to take it out of the mould:

I was REALLY apprehensive about cutting this one, I didn’t have the time (or the ingredients) to make another one, so I was hoping it wasn’t a complete disaster. As it was, it’s not too bad. I did get a little bit of a shimmy, but there’s no doubt that the pouring left a lot to be desired!!

I think had I had the correct volume of soap from the beginning, and just had the seven colours to pour, I may have had more luck – it’s clear that my scrabbling for more soap towards the end caused issues with the design at the top.

Another issue I had was that the silicone liner was so tall and long, it didn’t stay flush to the sides of the mould – the sides bent into the middle, and so while pouring down one side, I had to use my other hand to hold the other side of the silicone mold away from the middle, which was a bit awkward.

I’m really happy to have been able to give this one a go, and will probably try it again at some point in the future – thanks Amy!

Thanks for reading – I’ll be back soon with a post on my holiday soaps.

Posted on November 8, 2015 by Vicki — 6 Comments

International Soap Swap Part 3 – USA & Canada

My apologies, this post has been much longer coming than I’d hoped (or planned!). Things got very busy preparing for the festive season, but I finally got it finished. Thank you for your patience 🙂

Six of the participants in this summer’s soap swap were from USA or Canada, and this last post will focus on the lovely soaps that came all the way over the Atlantic into my eager little hands.

Just as in the last post, the following are in no particular order… apart from this first one. Once the soap swap had been set up, and we had decided the date by which all soaps should be with me, all there was for me to do was sit back and wait for the soapy parcels to arrive. I can’t tell you how excited I was the first time the postman knocked on the door with a soap filled parcel. That parcel was from Pam Leis of By The Sea Soap.

Pam was extraordinarily generous and sent me not only the full sized bar that each participant received but also FOUR extra treats. You can see three of them in the picture below – a sample of her Newport Beach Sand soap, a flower shaped Sweetpea & Rhubarb soap, which has some natural sponge embedded in the bottom AND a ‘Black Bamboo – Detox bar, with some amazing white piping on the top.

They are all stunning, but my absolute favourite fragrance is that of the Newport Beach Sand soap. It’s called Sea Moss by BrambleBerry, and I NEED to find something similar in the UK. It’s described as ‘a unique blend of Bergamot, Orchid, Jasmine and Violet with supporting notes of Ozone (air), Sandalwood, Musk and of course, Moss. This fragrance could be described as fresh, green and almost a little kelp-y’. It’s reminiscent of something I’ve come across before, but I just can’t recall it. If anyone has any ideas – please let me know!

Pam also sent me some beautiful dried rosebuds, and I’ll be using them on something special soon!

Here is Pam’s swap soap, and a closeup of the sparkly top. It’s called ‘A Pink Philosophy’ and I’m afraid the photos don’t do justice to this beautiful bar, but I can assure you it’s lovely!

A Pink Philosopy - Top — A Pink Philosophy – Top

You can find more of Pam’s soaps on her Face Book page

If you’re a fan of soapmaking videos, you’re probably familiar with Emily of Shieh Design Studio. She has her own You Tube channel, and I am only one of a great many people who enjoy watching her make soap. Emily makes her own soap boxes, and they’re a testament to her perfectionism:

Handmade soap box by Shieh Design Studio

It seemed a shame to have to break it open, but, I admit, I didn’t hesitate for long 🙂

The soap I received was called Mayan Gold, and it’s a beautiful riot of colour. The fragrance is a blend of oriental notes and chocolate / vanilla.

The top is decorated with golden chunks of soap

Mayan Gold - top of bar — Mayan Gold – top of bar

Isn’t that just beautiful?

You can read Emily’s blog here or catch up with Shieh Design Studio on Facebook, You Tube, Instagram and Etsy.

Next up was Louise of SoGa Artisan Soaperie in Canada. Louise’s bar was fragranced with the ever popular (and delicious!) Black Raspberry Vanilla fragrance, and featured berry colours and a hanger swirl design. Here it is packaged:

Black Raspberry Vanilla by SoGa Artisan Soaperie

And here it is in all its glory. I love the hanger swirls and the overall design really suits the fragrance I think.

The top of the bar also features some lovely shimmery swirls. I tried and tried to take a good enough picture of this top which adequately showed the beauty of the top but this is the best I could do. I can assure you that it looks much better in real life:

Louise can be found on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and also has her own website. Do check them out!

Next up was Barbara of Moon Goddess Garden. She sent this lovely flower shaped bar. It came shrink wrapped which kept it in pristine condition during its travels, and all the company info was on a label on the back:

Here it is unwrapped. The petals are decorated with mica and the centre is created from poppy seeds which give a nice bit of exfoliation. It’s called ‘Summertime Taffy’ and the fragrance really is summery – bright and a bit fruity and JUST what I need at this time of year as the rain lashes down outside!!

Do have a look at Barbara’s Facebook to see more of her beautiful soaps.

Melinda, of Melinda’s Naturals, sent us each a bar of ‘Juliet’s Heart’:

Juliet's Heart by Melinda's Naturals — Juliet’s Heart by Melinda’s Naturals

Here it is unwrapped and you can see the fine swirls that adorn the inside and the top of the bar:

This soap was a special edition, created just for us, and is scented with a soft, warm floral essential oil blend. It features jojoba oil and illipe butter, and feels very luxurious to use.

You can find Melinda on Facebook, Instagram and on her own website

Finally we have Zahida of Handmade in Florida. Zahida’s beautiful and hugely popular soaps invariably sell out within hours of their release, and she has a massive following on social media.

Allow me to deviate a little here because the box in which the soaps arrived was so exquisitely packaged I had to take a photograph of every step:

Now, given how difficult it is to get your hands on a bar of Zahida’s soap, imagine my delight when I learnt that Zahida had sent me (by way of a thank you for hosting) not one but TWO bars of her soap to try – Amber and Sensual Oudh. Let me tell you, they both smell wonderful, but my favourite is the Sensual Oudh, described as ‘a deep and complex blending of oudh, sandalwood, cedarwood, leather, patchouli, vetiver, amber, tonka, and vanilla’ – amazing!

Amber & Sensual Oudh by Handmade in Florida

And unboxed:

How beautiful are those swirls? In case you don’t know, Zahida is the original creator of the oft imitated butterfly swirl – check out her creations on You Tube, Instagram, Facebook, Website and Blog

And THAT, my friends, brings to an end this year’s International Soap Swap. Of course, it’s not the end for those of us who participated, as we each have a rather large box of lovely soap to keep us going well into the New Year. Mind you, I have a funny feeling it may well happen again at some time in the future, so watch this space!

Thanks for reading, I’ll be back soon!

Posted on October 4, 2015 by Vicki — 9 Comments

The first step

Continue reading The first step

Posted on September 30, 2015 by Vicki — 1 Comment

International Soap Swap Part 2 – Europe

In my last post I gave a little hint of what was to come in the two subsequent posts, so here, without further ado, is (the first half of) what was shared in the 2015 International Soap Swap.

Six out of the twelve participants are based in Europe, and they are the ones I’m showcasing in this post. We had one soapmaker from Ireland, one from Austria, one from Germany and three (including myself) from the UK.

First up were these bars from Celine of i am handmade If you’re a soapmaker, or a fan of handmade soaps, you may well be familiar with her gorgeous work. I was incredibly lucky that Celine sent an extra bar as a little thank you to me for hosting, and these were the two that I ended up with:

And here they are unboxed:

I chose not to use a single bar until I knew all the participants had received their soapy packages, but as soon as that happy moment arrived, the first one I opened was Celine’s Love + Kisses:

I didn’t think I was making a conscious decision when I picked up one of Celine’s first, but I’ve been a fan of hers for a long time – more or less since I first started to make soap – so perhaps subconsciously I was draw to them.

Love + Kisses is divine to use. It’s super hard, creates a lusciously abundant lather, and the fruity fragrance lingers softly on the skin. I can’t wait to start the second bar 😀

You can buy Celine’s via her website or checkout her FB page If you enjoy watching soapmaking videos (and there are an awful lot of us that do :-)) then you should definitely check out Celine’s Youtube channel.

Next up is this beauty from Vinvela, of Dandelion Seifee:

Vinvela really is an absolute master of swirls, and creates beautiful, fine patterns that I can only dream of. This bar is scented with a blend of amber and lemon which give a deep and complex fragrance which is also refreshing and bright. It’s SO lovely.

She also creates her own packaging – how cute is this? The soap nestles perfectly within the box, and the box is surrounded by the colourful outer band which details the fragrance, ingredients etc.

If you’d like to see more of Vinvela’s skillful soapmaking, just take a look at her blog here

The third soap I received from my European colleagues was ‘Bite Me’ from Wendy of Heavenly Bubbles in the UK.

I just love this packaging. There’s often a compromise between protecting the soap while ensuring that the design can be seen and the fragrance experienced, but Wendy appears to have achieved the perfect balance here.

Bite Me - Heavenly Bubbles — Bite Me – Heavenly Bubbles

Bite Me is part of the Heavenly Bubbles luxury silk collection, and the fragrance is delicious. It’s described as citrus, berries and cherries on a vanilla base and to me it’s a sophisticated, grown up twist on cherryade. Finding a true red colour for soap is a bit of a holy grail for soapmakers, but Wendy has cracked it in this bar. Topped with a fine sprinkling of glitter and a perfect little cherry on each bar, it’s clear that a lot of thought has gone into the design of Bite Me. I love it!

Take a look at Wendy’s website here or follow Heavenly Bubbles on Facebook, on Twitter and on Instagram

Coincidentally, our second British soapmaker is also a Wendy. Wendy Jones runs Soapy Jones, a handmade soap company based in the Midlands. She created this fabulously appropriate packaging for our international soap swap:

It’s just perfect, even down to that postage stamp on there!

The soap inside continued the theme – take a look at this amazing landscape (or, more correctly I think, seascape soap)

I LOVE the creativity that’s gone into the design. Unless you’ve ever tried to create a landscape soap you probably don’t know how difficult it is to do, and how much skill is involved it getting it just right like this. The fragrance, a fresh green scent called Earl Grey & Cucumber, is the perfect complement to the design.

You can find Soapy Jones on Facebook, follow her on Twitter and Instagram, and take a peek at more of her beautiful creations on her website

The fifth European participant was Zacil of Soap & Soap based in Germany. Zacil doesn’t currently sell her bars so I consider myself very lucky to have had this opportunity to try her soap. And not just one bar. Oh no. Zacil was incredibly generous and sent me FOUR to try. This was the bar that all participants received:

Each bar’s packaging was handcrafted and personalised with each participant’s name, and was really well designed to protect the soap whilst allowing a tantalising glimpse of what was within. Here it is unwrapped:

Just look at those amazing colours and swirls! This bar was made with some really interesting ingredients including Babassu, Argan and Cottonseed oils which I’ve not used in soapmaking. There were also one ingredient of which I’ve never even HEARD before – Konjak flour. Turns out it’s a starchy flour popular in Asia. I can’t wait to try this bar out for myself!

The three other bars which Zacil sent me are pictured below, named, from left to right, Midori cocktail, a fruity melony fragrance (with a dinky little soap fruit on top), Juicy Hearts (the colours are amazing) and Century, which has white wine listed as an additive.

Soap & Soap Sample Bars — Soap & Soap Extra bars

You can see more of Zacil’s work on here on her Facebook page

The last participant from Europe was of course myself. Now, I’ve wittered on enough on this blog about my own soaps, so I’ll keep it very brief here – these were the two bars that I sent out for the swap – each participant received one or the other of these:

You can see more of my soaps on Facebook or follow me on Instagram and Twitter

Thanks for reading. I’ll be back to share the north American participants soon!

Posted on September 22, 2015 by Vicki — 4 Comments

International Soap Swap Part 1

This Summer I was lucky enough to host an international soap swap between myself and eleven amazingly talented soaping friends from Europe, America & Canada. There was only rule: Each participant was to send me eleven full sized bar of their soap by 31st July, together with their postal address for the return package.

Once I had received all eleven packages (and boy was that like Christmas!!) I created twelve piles of soap – one for each participant including myself – consisting of one soap from each package (omitting each participants OWN soap of course) and one of mine. I then boxed up all the piles of soapy goodness and sent them back out to their rightful owners.

Given all the things that could have gone wrong, it all went remarkably smoothly. We had a bit of a delay as one box was a few weeks late arriving (despite being posted in PLENTY of time by the participant – it took almost 8 weeks to get from North America to the UK!) but the return packages all (bar one) arrived at their various destinations in good time, and even the last one arrived within 10 days.

The only down side really was the postage costs. The parcels weighed approximately 1.7kg each, so international postage both ways was never going to be cheap. Once I’d packaged up the individual boxes I weighed them at home, and used the Royal Mail website to try to ascertain what the cost was going to be to send out each parcel. Each participant then paid me via Paypal what I had estimated the cost to be. As it turned out, each and every parcel turned out to be marginally cheaper to post than the website quoted, but it was a simple task to refund each participant the difference.

And now to the fun bit. There were 6 participants from Europe (including myself) and 6 from the USA and Canada. Rather than have one crazy long post, I’m going to post a few pictures here of MY Christmas in July – when the soapy packages arrived. In Post 2 I’ll share my European haul in much more detail, and in Post 3 I’ll do the same with the loveliness from our friends over the pond.

In case you missed my earlier teaser, here’s the full line up in all its glory:

International Soap Swap Soap Haul — International Soap Swap 2015

If you are remotely a fan of handmade soap, or even just like surprises, you’ll have some idea of the excitement I felt each time the postman handed me one of these parcels. Do bear in mind these are just teasers for the main events coming in the next two posts!

First to arrive was this package from Pam of By The Sea Soaps in the US:

http://bytheseasoap.com/ — By The Sea Soaps

and she was so kind to put together a special goody bag for me as a thank you for hosting the swap:

After that I’ve kind of lost track of what arrived when, so these next nine packages are in no particular order:

From Vinvela Ebony of dandelion SeiFee in Austria:

From Wendy of Soapy Jones, UK:

From Barbara of Moon Goddess Garden, US:

From Melinda of Melinda’s Naturals, US:

From Celine of i am handmade, Ireland:

From Wendy of Heavenly Bubbles, UK:

From Zacil of Soap & Soap in Germany:

From Emily of Shieh Design Studio, US:

From Zahida of Handmade in Florida, US:

And finally, an admission and apology – there was one parcel that, in my HUGE excitement, I forgot to photograph whilst still in its outer box. So, even more of a tease here from Louise, of Soga Artisan Soaperie, in Canada: (There will, of course, be pictures when I cover them individually in Post 3, and you can find them here if you can’t wait that long)

Don’t, whatever you do, miss the next two posts. There will be naked bars 😀

Thanks for reading, back soon!

Posted on September 15, 2015 by Vicki — 25 Comments

The ‘Clyde Slide’ Challenge Soap

This month’s challenge for Amy Warden’s monthly Soap Challenge Club over at Great Cakes Soapworks is to create a soap using the ‘Clyde Slide’ technique. The Clyde Slide is named after Clyde of Vibrant Soaps, who uses this technique to create beautiful (and exquisitely coloured) soaps – do check out his videos on YouTube if you get the opportunity.

As I’ve just started production of this year’s Christmas soaps, I decided to design my challenge soap around a fragrance oil called ‘Yule Log’. It’s a chocolately, almondy, cakey fragrance, with notes of cinnamon, ginger, vanilla and musk and is delicious out of the bottle. How does it smell in soap? I’d love to tell you but, um, well, I forgot to add it. Oh well, sensitive noses deserve pretty soap too don’t they?

I used a light brown mica as the base colour, to represent the sponge, and dark brown mica, titanium dioxide (white) and red liquid colourant for the cream, chocolate and holly berries elements. I did consider using a little green too for the holly leaves, but in the end I’m glad I didn’t.

I prepped the soap batter and added the colours, making sure I kept the batter at a light trace:

Then I poured the white, red and dark brown soap batters into the bowl containing the lighter brown soap. I completely forgot to take a photo of this stage, but I used exactly this pattern (this was my second attempt):

Usually, when I use the ‘In the Pot’ technique, I would now give the pot a quick stir, just once or twice, but I always stir before pouring. For a Clyde Slide, you DO NOT stir. I can’t tell you how much I wanted to stir!!

Here it is mid-pour:

Then I swirled the top:

And two days later, Ta Da!! My unscented Yule Log Clyde Slide:

And here’s a close up to show the trademark ‘Clyde Slide’ feathering – it’s not a blurred photo, honest :-D:

Many thanks to Amy for her major feat of organisation (apparently there are over 180 entrants this month!), I’m really looking forward to seeing all the other entries. Good luck if you’ve entered!

Posted on August 30, 2015 by Vicki — 4 Comments

Two months later…

Yep, it really has been almost 2 months since my last post. The summer season has been incredibly busy, and it’s been as much as I can do to keep up with demand on the soaping front. Days have been spent keeping the children occupied during what seems to have been the wettest summer on record, and evenings have been spent making, wrapping and labelling soaps to supply the eleven local retailers that now stock The Soap Mine soaps. Since April I’ve also been doing twice monthly soapy talks for a local holiday company, and have done a couple of soapmaking demonstrations for the Women’s Institute – something I’d really like to do more of.

Needless to say there isn’t much innovation or new designs to share from the last couple of months, but I do have one new one to share. Now I do love my colours and swirls, but my mum has long expressed a preference for a plain, white, citrussy bar, and I finally got round to making one for her. The only colourant is a touch of titanium dioxide, and it’s fragranced with a smidgen of lemon & grapefruit essential oils. (The prototype was fragranced with lemon & lime, but I much prefer lemon & grapefruit combo).

I’ve named it ‘Peace’ and it’s proved a hit with customers as well as mum, so I’ve added it to the regular line-up.

There was one other exciting soap related event over the summer. I was honoured to be able to host an international soap swap between myself and 11 other amazing soapmakers from the US, Canada and Europe. I’ve got a couple of posts coming up soon just about the soap swap, but here, to whet your appetite, is a little teaser of my haul, If you’re a fan of handmade artisan soaps you may well recognise some of these brands…

Thanks for reading, I’ll be back soon 🙂

Posted on July 2, 2015 by Vicki — 11 Comments

Taming the Vanilla

I’m going to quickly gloss over how long it’s been since I last posted and share a soapy pic – ‘cos that’s what you’re here for right? 😉

Soap fragrance oils containing vanilla are often considered tiresome because of their propensity to discolour and potentially ruin a carefully designed soap. But they smell so good! I absolutely love the smell of ‘Pink Kisses’ from Gracefruit, but my first attempt at using it was a complete disaster. It was early on in my soaping career, and discolouration wasn’t even on my radar. I used a selection of pretty pink colours and was so excited to see what it would look like, so imagine my disappointment…

Looks ain't everything! — Looks ain’t everything!

Every failure’s a learning opportunity eh? 😀

Four (!!) years on and I decided to give it another go – this time I was a little more careful with my design. Splitting the batter into two, I coloured one half with Orchid Pink Mica, and added the fragrance oil to the other other portion only, adding a little Titanium Dioxide to mitigate the effect of the vanilla. This was the result:

First Kiss Cold Process Soap — First Kiss

Needless to say I’m so much happier with this one. I think the browning effect of the vanilla actually improves the look of the bar and gives it some depth and interest.

I hope you’ll agree that my photography skills have improved a little too 😀 😀 😀

Posted on April 17, 2015 by Vicki — 33 Comments

Spinning Swirl Challenge Soap

Despite signing up for them at every opportunity, it’s been an awfully long time since I’ve managed to get round to make a soap for Amy Warden’s monthly Soap Challenge Club over at Great Cakes Soapworks. This month’s challenge really piqued my interest though, and I was determined to give it a go. The challenge was to create a soap using the Spinning Swirl technique (which I hadn’t come across before) and, after months of making nothing but restocks, I was keen to try something a bit different. This technique involves pouring very fluid soap batter into a slab mould and then spinning the mould itself. Amy provided a great video tutorial, and this one of the soaps that she made to illustrate the technique:

Amy's Spinning Swirl Soap — Amy’s Spinning Swirl Soap

One of the stipulations of the challenge was that the soap had to made in a slab mould, which I don’t own. So my first challenge was to improvise a slab mold. A shoe box did the trick:

I prepared my colourants. The fragrance oil is described as a creamy, powdery, honey fragrance, and I wanted warm colours to reflect that. I used Radiant Gold mica, Sicilian Orange mica and Red iron oxide and mixed them with a little of the oils (to which I’d already added the fragrance).

Micas mixed with a little oil from the main batch — Colourants mixed with a little oil from the main batch

I added the lye to my usual oils and butters, and then poured the batter equally into the three jugs, stirred well then stick blended very VERY briefly (as I needed it to stay fluid for as long as possible):

I poured the soap into the mould, alternating colours in a faux-funnel type pour:

Once the soap was all poured, I gritted my teeth, gripped the mould with both hands, and started to rotate the mould as quickly and as firmly as I dared while praying that it wouldn’t all slosh out onto my table. After making probably about 20 full rotations, I swirled the top with a skewer and put it aside to firm up. A couple of days later I unmolded and found this left behind in the diy mould:

THAT is why I love my silicone moulds so much 😀 Anyway – the unmolded soap didn’t look too promising:

Not only do I not have a slab mould, I also don’t have a cutter that can cope with a big ole slab of soap, so I had to make the first cuts with a Very Big Knife. Needless to say, I wasn’t particularly accurate:

First cuts - spinning swirl — First cuts – Spinning Swirl

And THAT is why I love my single wire Bud cutter 😀 Anyway, I was able to use my beloved cutter for the rest of the cuts:

Final cuts - Spinning Swirl — Final cuts – Spinning Swirl

And, after a little love and attention, I’m really happy with the result:

Many thanks Amy for organising the challenge! It was a real pleasure to try something new and I’m looking forward to seeing what the other entrants come up with.

Posted on April 6, 2015 by Vicki — 5 Comments

And the winner is….

Thank you so much to everyone who came up with wonderfully inventive names for my new soap, both here and on my Facebook page. It’s taken me a couple of hours of deliberation, but we have a winner. Now this is a little convoluted, so bear with me!

I was looking for a name that reflected both the fragrance (pink grapefruit, kumquat, orange and cranberry mingled with gardenia, jasmine, and freesia) AND the design, and I wasn’t entirely sure that any of the suggested names quite hit the mark. However, three people made suggestions that led me to come up with the name I’ve finally gone with. Firstly, two people (Soap N’ Stilettos & Ewenique) suggested names that included the word ‘Sunrise’ which I think nicely reflects the design. I also wanted to convey something of the fragrance, albeit indirectly, and Gunilla Stoll (who suggested Tuscan Summergarden) gave me the idea of including a place known the world over for growing citrus fruit (especially grapefruit and kumquat – happy days!) Florida.

I used Random.org to choose a winner from the three entrants above – numbering them 1 – 3 in the order in which they posted on the blog post, and the winner was… *drumroll* Soaps ‘N Stilettos! Congratulations!! DM your postal address to my FB page here and I’ll send your soap out asap!

And finally, introducing: Florida Sunrise. Available now!

Thank you once again to everyone who took the time to enter – I really do appreciate it! Keep an eye out for more giveaways coming soon.

Posted on March 29, 2015 by Vicki — 10 Comments

Name that Soap! (Competition time)

In my last post (so much longer ago than I realised – life is busy :-D) I shared a picture of an as yet unnamed soap in the mould. Well, here it is, cut, fully cured, and STILL nameless – please help me name it!

Citrussy unnamed soap — Name me – please!!

The fragrance is described as pink grapefruit, kumquat, orange and cranberry mingled with gardenia, jasmine, and freesia. To me it’s mostly citrussy – there’s a hint of background florals but the citrus notes are definitely dominant. It’s coloured with titanium dioxide and yellow and tangerine micas.

I’m offering a free bar to the person who comes up with the name that I eventually choose, and you can either enter below in the comments field or on the competition post on my facebook page here. It’s open to anyone, wherever you are in the world – I’ll cover postage costs too. So don’t be shy – I know you’re a creative lot!!

PS – the winning name will be chosen on Easter Monday, 6th April, after 9pm UK time.

Posted on March 10, 2015 by Vicki — 10 Comments

Soap in the Mould

Freshly made soap, in the mould, has such a vibrancy and gloss about it, I can’t help but take a photograph every. Single. Time. Here are some of my recent favourites:

‘Delicious’ is fragranced with a dupe of a DKNY fragrance and is described as ‘A fresh, green floral fragrance of crisp green apple, watermelon, cassis and a hint of cucumber’ and underneath those green waves is an In The Pot swirl.

'Delicious' Handmade Soap in the Mould'Delicious' Handmade Soap in the Mould — ‘Delicious’ Handmade Soap in the Mould

I wrote about the redesign of Tutti Frutti in my last post here. It’s scented with a very fruity Jellybeans fragrance oil, and this time I’ve kept the same design but have tried to intensify the colours somewhat so that they’re brighter in the finished bars. The soap batter was very slow to trace this time (not sure why – same recipe, same fragrance :-s) so rather than attempt to texture the top I just swirled the colours together, and I love the effect it gives.

'Tutti Frutti' handmade Soap in the Mould — ‘Tutti Frutti’ Handmade Soap in the Mould

And last (for now!) is a batch made with a new-to-me fragrance – a zingy, citrussy scent with pink grapefruit, kumquat, orange, and cranberry – I’ll soon be running a little competition to come up with a fitting name so get your thinking caps on…

Cold Process Soap in the Mould — Soap in the Mould – name yet to be decided!

Cut pictures to follow just as soon as I get round to taking them 😀

Posted on March 6, 2015 by Vicki — 11 Comments

Makeovers (3: Tutti Frutti)

Tutti Frutti is one of the soaps from my fragrance oil range and is particularly popular with children and young people Scented with a fruity fragrance oil, it has both berry and citrus notes on a sweet vanilla base and is reminiscent of jelly beans. When I first started using it in soap, I wanted a design that reflected the complex fruity gragrance, and came up with this four colour bar:

When I decided to standardise my designs last year, I chose the In The Pot (ITP) swirl from my fragrance oil soaps. I wanted to keep the multicoloured idea, and so this is what happened:

It sold ok, but to me it looked messy, and not particularly appealing, so I had to think again. This is the current Tutti Frutti design. I’m much happier with it, despite it being a little more time consuming to make, and doesn’t really fit, design-wise, with the rest of the range (but rules are made to be broken eh?!).

Posted on February 23, 2015 by Vicki — 9 Comments

Sneaky Peeks

Believe it or not I’m STILL restocking and wrapping at the moment. The first craft fair of the year is coming up this Saturday, and I’m really looking forward to getting back to face to face selling again.

Here are a few in-the-mould teasers of what what I’ve been up to recently.

Clarity
Fragranced with Lemongrass & Clary Sage Essential Oils

Serenity
Fragranced with Bergamot, Patchouli, Orange & Ylang Ylang Essential Oils

Enigma
Fragranced with Rose Geranium, Rosewood and Palmarosa Essential Oils

Enigma Essential OIl Soap — Enigma Essential Oil Soap

Posted on February 13, 2015 by Vicki — 5 Comments

Parisian Flora

The last few weeks have been full-on soapmaking to restock the shelves depleted by the pre-Christmas rush. I only have two loaf moulds, and can only soap in the evenings once the little Miners are asleep, so it’s a fairly long drawn out process involving nightly soapmaking (what a shame :-D!) but I’m getting there.

This is Parisian Flora. A drop swirl fragranced with a blend of Lavender, Ylang Ylang and Rose Geranium essential oils, and coloured with titanium dioxide and micas.

Posted on January 24, 2015 by Vicki — 15 Comments

Makeovers (2: Wake Up!)

Wake Up! was the first soap that I ever made using a blend of essential oils, way back in early 2010. Up until then I’d used fragrance oils in soap but, despite having an interest in aromatherapy, I’d never tried blending oils myself. Oh how things change! It’s a simple but refreshing mix of Peppermint and Rosemary essential oils – perfect for waking up the senses in the morning shower. While the fragrance blend has stayed the same since that time, it was a couple of years before it got its true name. Up until some point in 2012 it went by the predictable, if uninspiring, ‘Peppermint & Rosemary’.

This is the very first :

1st Incarnation of Peppermint & Rosemary - now known as Wake Up! — 1st incarnation of Peppermint & Rosemary – now known as Wake Up!

I quite like the sprig of mint used there as a prop, but the least said about the background the better!

It wasn’t long after the above photo above was taken that I acquired my very first loaf mould (from The Moulds Shop – highly recommended btw), and my soaps became a more uniform shape and size. For a while I was obsessed with the Tiger Swirl, and Wake Up! looked like this:

Interestingly, it’s only now that I realise that I hadn’t started bevelling the edges at this point – something I always do these days.

These days Wake Up! looks something like this:

Wake Up! from The Soap Mine — 3rd incarnation of Wake Up!

Currently all my essential oil soaps are made using the Drop Swirl technique, as I wrote about here. Sometimes they have textured tops, sometimes mica swirls, but they are always (for now!) Drop Swirls.

I’m really enjoying looking back over old designs, so please bear with me in the short term while I indulge myself with these makeover posts – I will try to intersperse them with some other stuff as well 😀 Thanks for popping by!

Posted on January 17, 2015 by Vicki — 14 Comments

Makeovers (1: Serenity)

Quite a few of my soaps have had a makeover recently. No matter that I have (more or less) a set range of fragrances & designs, there’s always room to improve and to flex those creative muscles.

One of the most popular essential oil soaps that I sell is Serenity. The fragrance is a blend of Bergamot, Patchouli, Orange and Ylang Ylang essential oils. The very first time I made a full batch of this one I carefully weighed out the appropriate amount of essential oil blend for the amount of soaping oils used, then put it to one side. I then split my batter into three, coloured one white and two different shades of blue, then poured the soap into the mold, creating what I fully expected to be an awesome drop swirl. Except I’d forgotten to the add the fragrance. Argghhhh! There was nothing to do but scoop it all out, thoroughly mix in the essential oils, and put the whole lot back into the mould. Of course I ended up with a very plain, pale blue bar of soap which smelled amazing but looked nothing like my original plan:

Serenity Take 1 — First incarnation of Serenity

The next few times I made Serenity, I decided to go with a single colour drop in a paler background. Most of my drop swirls up to this point had been a white soap with coloured drops, but I wanted to try something a little different. Here I used Icelandic Blue mica for the base colour and Denim Blue mica for the drop:

The second incarnation of Serenity — Second incarnation of Serenity

I used that design for a while, and it sold well enough, but it didn’t wow me, and last year I decided it needed updating. The current Serenity has a base of Icelandic Blue mica, and drops coloured with Titanium Dioxide and Blue Dragon mica. I think it’s rather pretty and goes well with the name, so this design will be staying (for now anyway :-D)

Posted on January 6, 2015 by Vicki — 2 Comments

2014 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys kindly prepared a 2014 annual report for my blog, and it made for quite an interesting read (for me anyway :-D)

I was quite surprised at how few posts I’d written last year, though moving out of our home, into temporary accommodation for 6 months, and then into our new place did place restrictions on the amount of time I had to soap, and hence write about it, so it figures. I’m planning on posting a lot more often in 2015!

Despite the low number of posts during 2014, I’m really pleased to have had over 8,000 views, though not at all surprised at where the most traffic came from. Very nice to see a summary of the most prolific commenters too (thank you so much ladies :-D). I love getting feedback, and it’s another of my blogging goals this year to stop by, say hi, and generally comment on other people’s blogs even more often than I already do. If I’ve not already discovered your blog, please feel free to leave a link in the comments below and I’ll check you out!

Thanks for reading – back soon 😀

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 8,300 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 3 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Posted on January 1, 2015 by Vicki — 5 Comments

Happy New Year!

Just checking in quickly to wish you all a very Happy New Year, and to say thanks for reading during 2014!

I’ve got a lot of plans for 2015, not least of which is to try to blog more regularly, so I look forward to sharing more soapy adventures with you over the next 12 months.

Vicki x

Posted on December 12, 2014 by Vicki — 14 Comments

A Daffodillian Disaster

Daffolidish? Daffodilesque? Daffolidic? I don’t know, answers on a postcard please 😀 What I DO know is that I won’t be soaping with Daffodil fragrance oil again any time soon!

It’s been a while since I participated in one of Amy’s challenges over at Great Cakes Soapworks so I decided to give the December challenge a shot. ‘Cos of course I’m not really really busy with Christmas Fairs at the moment, oh no, not me…

Having decided to sign up for the challenge (which, by the way, I have done for the last goodness knows how many months but not actually managed to make anything in time) I also signed up for a new idea Amy’s organised, a Soap Swap. I really love trying other soapers’ creations, but if I’m honest I think my main motivation for signing up was to make sure that I actually entered the challenge. Once I’d commited to swap my soap with another contestant, I knew I couldn’t just ‘not get round to it’.

The challenge this month was to make a soap using the spoon swirl method. This is something I’ve done many times before, and which I knew needed no fancy equipment other than the usual, plus a spoon. And Amy’s excellent tutorial video confirmed that yes, I did indeed already know how to do this one. So far so good.

I took a moment to decide on which fragrance to use. I didn’t want to use any of my regular range, as they have fixed designs, none of which is a spoon swirl. So something different, something that could, possibly, become part of the range if it turned out fantabulous. I opted for a delicious daffodil fragrance. First mistake. Using a new-to-me fragrance for a challenge / swap soap was not one of my greatest decisions.

I melted the oils and butters that needed it, then stirred in the liquid oils, and the fragrance oil. I chose three lovely micas which I thought represented daffodils perfectly, and combined them with a little of the melted fats. I know many soapers add the powdered mica directly into the soap and stick blend it in, and it works just fine. I keep meaning to try that but I guess I’m a little stuck in my ways!

I usually soap at room temperature, so I used some pre-prepared (water discounted) lye solution, and there you have my second mistake. Knowing that floral fragrances have a tendency to accelerate, I really should have used the full recommended water amount.

Anyway, you can probably guess what’s coming. I slowly added the lye solution to the fats and immediately it started to thicken. There wasn’t a lot I could do but, knowing that I wasn’t going to get another opportunity to make a challenge soap by the deadline, I carried on, managed to get a bit of colour mixed in, and squished it into the mould. I DID then spoon swirl it. I really did! If you look closely at the pic below you can see where the spoon moved within the mould, but it’s not really that clear 🙁

Oh dear. My poor swap partner. Sam – if you’re reading this, I will send you a bar of this one (it does smell lovely!!) but I’ll also send you one of my more successful soaps!