Blog - Page 13 of 14 - The Soap Mine

Posted on August 8, 2014 by Vicki — 6 Comments

And The Winner Is…

A MASSIVE thank you to everyone who came up with suggestions for a name for my poor nameless orange & ylang ylang soap (as posted here) Facebook in particular turned out to be a particularly fertile creative arena and I do appreciate everyone who took the time to have a ponder and post something.

It wasn’t an easy decision – ‘Pheonix’ & ‘Desert Sands’ were serious contenders, but in the end I plumped for something a little more descriptive of the fragrance. And so, without further delay, I give you, ‘Orange Bliss’:

Orange & Ylang Ylang EOs — Orange Bliss – fragranced with Orange & Ylang Ylang Essential Oils

Orange Bliss was the suggestion of Candice Bond, who posted on our Facebook page here. Thank you and congratulations Candice – please message the FB page with your address and a bar will be winging its way to you!

Posted on August 2, 2014 by Vicki — 4 Comments

Name That Soap…

Right folks, I need your help.

This recent addition to the range will be ready for sale in a very short while but remains nameless. It’s vegan friendly, palm free, is coloured with micas, fragranced with a blend of Ylang Ylang and x5 fold Orange Essential Oils and is made using the Drop Swirl technique.

If you’d like to try a bar for free, simply suggest a great name for it, and I’ll post a bar out to the person who comes up with the name I decide to go with. (Oh and I’ll be really, really grateful too – totally mental block on this one :-D)

It’s open to anyone worldwide, so don’t be shy – get those ideas in (either here or on the Soap Mine FB page where I’ll post this as well) by 8pm GMT on Friday 8th August and I’ll announce the winner later on that evening.

Thanks – I’m excited to see what you creative lot come up with!

Posted on July 17, 2014 by Vicki — 6 Comments

My Soap Mountain is Growing

Well, I said I wouldn’t leave it so long next time and I’ve been as good as my word – only a month has passed since I last posted and I’ve awarded myself an end of term grade of C- for consistency. I think that’s usually considered a ‘Must Do Better’ grade 😀

I’ve not been idle though. The Soap Mine soaps are now being stocked in THREE retail outlets, and I’ve got my eye on another. I’ve also been accepted to sell at a local monthly craft fair – the first of which is in just over 2 weeks time. Soooo, I’ve been soaping like a demon. Originally it was to make sure I had enough for the launch of the website (and before you ask – nope!) but now I also need to make sure I’ve got enough for the three shops and the market – eeek! I’m finding it quite hard to plan how many bars to make, given that I always work with a 6 week cure time, and I have no idea when, or how much, the retailers will reorder. I suppose it’s not ‘Best Practice’ business-wise to work in such a way, but all three retailers are quite small concerns, and it would be difficult to get them to commit to taking, say, a set number of bars a month, until they’ve at least got some idea of how well (or otherwise!) they sell.

So, as the title says, my Soap Mountain is growing! My poor mum’s dining room (nope, we’ve not moved either!) has become a soapy storage area, and I’m constantly on the lookout for more storage crates, boxes and anything suitable I can get my hands on.

Anyway, these are some I made a few weeks back – I’ve got a lot more to share once I get round to photographing them!

Blackjack:

Chocolate:

Orange & Ylang Ylang EOs:

(I’m struggling to come up with a name for the one so if anyone has any ideas I’d appreciate suggestions)

Serenity:

Notice the similarity between this one and Blackjack above? My mistake – I didn’t expect the darker blue in this one to be quite so dark, so the two bars are more alike than I wanted them to be.

Bergamot, Patchouli, Red Mandarin and Ylang Ylang EOs

Finally, just because I love it – a mica swirl on the top of my last batch of Luscious Lavender. Cut pictures to follow – eventually 😀

In the mould Lavender Mica Swirl — Lavender Mica Swirl

Thanks for checking in – especially those of you whose blogs I’ve not had the chance to catch up on for what feels the longest time – I’ll get back to you soon I promise!

Posted on June 15, 2014 by Vicki — 11 Comments

A Quick Catch Up

So my poor blog has been sorely neglected again – six whole weeks since my last post!! I think that’s probably the longest I’ve ever gone without posting, so I’ve had a word with myself, am suitably chastened, and will not be leaving it so long again 😀

Ok, lets get the inevitable out of the way. No, we’ve still not moved into our new home, and no, the website isn’t ready yet. Both still trundling along though, so I should be able to share good news on both fronts at some point 😉

The great news is that two local retail outlets have now agreed to sell The Soap Mine soaps. Woop! They’ve each taken a dozen soaps to display in their shops, and if they sell, they’ll take more. Fingers crossed!!

I’ve been busy building up stock levels again – sticking to the plan of ITP Swirls for FO soaps and Drop Swirls for EO soaps I wrote about last time:

Welsh Rose is actually made with an FO called English Rose, but living in Wales, what else could I call it?! Coloured with TD and pink mica.

Oatmeal, Milk & Honey ITP Swirl — OMH (ITP Swirl)

OMH (or Oatmeal, Milk & Honey) FO is so popular in the soaping community, but this is the first time I’ve used it. To me it smells very sweet, almost like marzipan, and I LOVE it. Coloured with TD and three different brown micas.

This is a restock of my very popular Wake Up! soap. Fragranced with Rosemary and Peppermint EOs and coloured with TD and green / blue micas

Another redesign / restock. Parisian Flora proved very popular in its last incarnation, so although the fragrance is exactly the same (a blend of Lavender, Rose Geranium and Ylang Ylang EOs), as are the colours (TD and three pink micas), it’s now made using the drop swirl technique

Luscious Lavender, simply fragranced wth Lavender EO, is by far my biggest seller. It really surprises me to be honest, but there’s no doubt about it, when I look back over my records, Lavender is definitely the one that I’ve made the most often over the years. This one thickened up on me a little quicker than normal, so the drops aren’t quite as delicate as I would have liked.

I also have a Marshmallow FO soap that was cut this morning, and isn’t yet ready to meet its public 😀 and tonight I made Black Jack – a blend of Aniseed and Spearmint EOs. That one’s still in the mould, so pics to follow sometime soon.

Posted on May 4, 2014 by Vicki — 16 Comments

A Range? Really…?

So, as work continues on my website (I know, I know, that’s another thing I’ve been banging on about for ever) my Web Designer and trusty assistant (aka my husband) has informed me that I need to develop ‘A Range’. Apparently I can’t keep making random batches of whatever I want to, with whatever ingredients / fragrances / colours I fancy trying and using a near infinite variety of design techniques. Nope, I need ‘A Range’…

Now I’ve read enough on Soap Business Best Practice over the last couple of years to know that this is true. The main reason I guess is that I’ll lose business if I don’t have a range of bestsellers which are always in stock. I also think the website’s going to look a little crazy if there’s too much choice (and of course keeping a website up to date with an unlimited number of different products will be (I was told, sternly) a ‘nightmare’).

So, despite my misgivings, I’ve had to narrow things down a little and make some decisions. I’m still going to make both Essential Oil soaps and Fragrance Oil soaps, though they’ll have their own separate categories, with no more than eight in each category to begin with.

To simplify things even further, Essential Oil soaps will all be made using the ‘Drop Swirl’ technique:

Enigma - Clary Sage, Rose Geranium and Lemon essential oils — Enigma – Clary Sage, Rose Geranium and Lemon Essential Oils

Spice Island - Aniseed and Orange Essential Oils — Spice Island – Aniseed and Orange Essential Oils

And Fragrance Oil soaps will be made using the ‘In The Pot’ (ITP) Swirl technique: (this first one is the soap that was in the mould in my last post – my first ‘post-move’ soap!)

Delicious - a dupe of the popular DKNY Be Delicious fragrance — Delicious – a dupe of the popular DKNY Be Delicious fragrance

Lemon Meringue - An intensely lemony yet sweet fragrance. — Lemon Meringue – An intensely lemony yet sweet fragrance.

The two techniques can sometimes look quite similar, and I might decide in time that that’s not such a good idea, but I’ll wait and see.

I’ll should still be able to indulge my creative streak as I’m hoping to make more seasonal soaps – I’ve missed a trick in the past by not making specific (for example) Christmas, Summer or Valentines Day soaps so that’s where I think I’ll be able to try out different fragrances and designs.

What do you think of my plan?

Posted on April 23, 2014 by Vicki — Leave a comment

…and two months later…

Wow, I realised on Monday that it was exactly two months since I last posted on here. TWO MONTHS!! I knew I’d take a bit of time out while we packed up our home and made the move to Wales, but I didn’t realise I would neglect the blog so thoroughly – so sorry!

Anyway, we’ve left the big city and are now settling into a much more rural way of life. This is the amazing view from my bedroom window:

Not bad eh? We’re still staying with my mum, who has kindly allowed her peaceful home to be invaded by our family of four (thanks mum!) but we’re in the process of buying our new home – in the same village – yippee!

Needless to say the majority of our belongings are still boxed up and in storage and I’ve not been able to make soap BUT I decided last night that enough was enough – I had to get back to it. Mainly because a) I miss it, hugely and b)The Soap Mine is getting seriously low on stock…

So, I dug out all my soaping gear, whisked up a simple 3 colour ITP (in the pot) swirl (and oh oh oh loved every minute of it :-D):

Delicious is scented with a dupe of DKNY’s Be Delicious fragrance, and smells utterly gorgeous. Coloured with two shades of green mica and titanium dioxide. Cut pics to follow soon.

Posted on February 21, 2014 by Vicki — 32 Comments

Anyone for Embeds?

This month’s challenge over at Amy Warden’s Great Cakes Soapworks was to make a soap with embeds, ie soap with different shaped/coloured soap embedded within in it. One of the examples Amy used in her tutorial was this beauty:

Isn’t it gorgeous?

I wasn’t going to enter the challenge this month as we move next week (are you bored of hearing about it yet? 😉 ) but I do like getting involved so decided to whip up something simple at the last minute, just so that I could take part. I’ve already taken a peek at some of the other entries and there are some absolutely stunning creations, I’m a little embarrassed to post my little simple soap, but hey ho – I might win the booby prize :0)

Back in 2012 I made a soap that was really popular, called Bubblicious:

and I thought it would be a quick and easy one to replicate for this challenge.

So I made up two small batches of soap and coloured one pink and one lilac. After about 24 hours I unmoulded them and started to roll different sized balls out of both colours:

This soon became ridiculously laborious and I realised I could probably get exactly the same effect if I rolled lengths of soap like these:

I then made up a larger batch of soap and added titanium dioxide to make it nice and white. I fragranced it with a lovely floral blend of Rosewood and Ylang Ylang essential oils.

I then simply poured a small amount of soap into the bottom of the mould, laid some balls in and covered them with the white batter, then repeated until the mould was full, making sure I kept enough balls back to decorate the top of the soap. Voila:

And here are the cut bars:

Very simple, but a nice effect nevertheless. There are so many ways to play about with this technique, I’ll definitely be making many more embed soaps in the future.

Thanks, as always, go to Amy Warden for organising the challenge and giving us all an opportunity to drool over each other’s creations :0)

Posted on January 27, 2014 by Vicki — 28 Comments

I missed one…

I don’t know about you, but I go daft for reading Soapy blogs. I use bloglovin, which I love because even though I don’t always get to read posts as soon, and as often, as I would like, it keeps me up to date with all my fellow soapy bloggers and I never miss a thing. In fact, it was fellow soaper’s blog that reminded me last week that I had actually missed something – I’d forgotten to post about my most recent Lavender soap.

Ruth Esteves over at The Sirona Springs Blog posted a great tutorial on creating Mica Oil Swirls on the top of soaps, and invited readers to link their own attempts in the comments section. So I though I would. Only I didn’t have anything to link to, ‘cos I’ve not blogged about it. <Ahem…>

So here it is – a reincarnation of Luscious Lavender, but with a mica oil swirl. The soap itself is coloured with violet ultramarine, but the closest mica I had was ‘Patagonian Purple’, and it’s not really a good match colour-wise (at all, lol). Never mind – I love the effect anyway (and I’ve just placed an order for ‘Grape’ mica which I’m hoping will be closer to the ultramarine colour and more ‘lavender-like’ for future soaps 🙂

I didn’t take any photos of the process, but all I did was mix about half a teaspoon of mica in a small container with about a teaspoonful of olive oil, and then used a disposable pipette to drop the mixture all over the soap once it was in the mould. I then used a wooden skewer to create the swirls. Easy peasy 😀

If you have a soapy blog please feel free to share it in the comments below. If I don’t already follow you – I will!

Posted on January 17, 2014 by Vicki — 34 Comments

Taiwan Swirl

I’ve been on a bit of a self imposed soaping break recently, in preparation for ‘The Big Move’, and it feels like ages since I last made soap. When Amy of Great Cakes Soapworks posted this month’s soaping challenge – the beautiful Taiwan Swirl – I decided to sign up just to watch the tutorial and see how it’s done. Anyhow, watching the video got me itching to make soap again, so, at the eleventh hour, I unpacked all the soaping gear (to raised eyebrows from my other half :-D) and gave it a shot.

The Taiwan Swirl calls for a really really thin soap batter, which I knew would be my first challenge. My usual recipe traces fairly quickly and wouldn’t be any good for this design. Amy suggested 80% Olive oil to 20% Coconut oil, so I ran that through SoapCalc and decided I’d like the final soap to be a bit more bubbly. I plumped for 70% Olive oil, 20% Coconut oil and 10% Castor oil. Some of you will have spotted the obvious mistake already – guess who totally forgot that Castor oil can speed up trace?

I mixed up a blend of Lemon, Clary Sage and Ginger essential oils to fragrance the soap, and chose what I hoped would be complementary green and orange micas for the colours. I dispersed the micas in about 15ml of Olive oil:

I had already made up the lye solution and melted/mixed the oils earlier in the day, so I had both at room temperature. I added the lye to the oils and briefly mixed with the stick blender to the point of a very VERY light trace. Amy, in her video, suggested stopping as soon as the batter was emulsified and just before it traced, but I missed that window and definitely hit trace 🙂 I poured a very small amount (just over 100ml from a 750g batch) of batter into each jug of mica and poured the remaining batter into the mould. I knew I was running out of time as the batter in the mould was thickening so I quickly poured the coloured mixes into the base (from high, to get the colour down through the batter to the base – one down one side, lengthways, and the other down the other side). Both were poured at the same time, which proved challenging!

Then I swirled, using a skewer. The swirling is a bit difficult to explain without a diagram but here goes: Put the skewer into the mould, right down to the base, in one corner of the mould then make tight ‘s’ shapes from one short end of the mould, side to side down the length of the mould to the other short end. Then, keeping the skewer in the mould, make long ‘s’ shapes along the length of the mould – at 90 degrees to the first ‘s’ shapes. I hope that makes sense but if not there are some great YouTube tutorials on my Pinterest board here.

Anyone spot the next obvious mistake? Yup, I forgot to add the essential oil blend. Ah well, too late to do anything about it :-s

At this stage I was a little bit disappointed with what was in the mould – the swirls weren’t as fine as I’d hoped, and the green colour wasn’t very defined, but by the next morning it was looking better, and by the time I cut it I was pretty happy with the result….

It’s still pretty soft – I’ve never made a soap with such a high percentage of liquid oils before – and I think it’s going to need a good long cure time to get nice and hard. I really should have left it for at least 48 hours before cutting, rather than my normal 24 hours, but I was in a hurry to get this post finished, and a picture uploaded onto to Amy’s challenge web page before the deadline, so that’s what I’m off to do now 😀

Thanks Amy for another great challenge!

Posted on December 18, 2013 by Vicki — 12 Comments

Ooops…

I made this soap a couple of months ago and it’s been a surprisingly good seller, despite its rather ‘plain jane’ looks:

Ordinarily I love my colours and swirls, and in my head this one was going to be a beautiful drop swirl design in shades of blue, a bit like this green one I made not so long ago…

but it wasn’t to be…

I usually soap at room temperature. To that end I generally mix up my lye solution and melt my hard oils and butters during the baby’s midday nap, so that they’ve cooled down nicely by the time both kids are asleep in the evening. I also weigh out my liquid oils and add them to the melted oils as well – this starts the cooling process and also makes the ‘hard’ oils and butters less likely to re-solidify as they cool.

So on this occasion I prepped everything as normal, and once the bedtime routine was finished I eagerly set to work. I combined the oils with the lye, added the essential oils (a blend of Bergamot, Patchouli, Orange and Ylang Ylang) then portioned out the batter and mixed in the colours (titanium dioxide, denim blue mica and ultramarine blue pigment). It was only after I’d poured all of the white portion into the mould that I realised that, even when I dropped in the two blues, I wouldn’t have anywhere near enough soap to fill the mould.

It only took a second or two for the penny to drop. For some reason I had skipped a step at lunchtime, and hadn’t added the liquid oils to the melted oils. My measured out liquid oils were still in a jug, put away safely to one side. Arrrgghhhhh! I couldn’t bear to waste a 3lb batch of soap, so did the only thing I could think of. All the mixed batter went back into a big bowl (oh the colours looked so pretty as I poured them in!) along with the liquid oils and I stick blended like crazy. The batter had originally behaved very well and traced beautifully (I’d had no indication that anything was amiss) so I had no idea whether it would work or not. I fully expected ricing, seizing or something equally frustrating but no, it all combined really well and I was able to pour my (by this stage) very plain, unicolour soap.

Despite everything, I’ve called it Serenity. The colour is very calming, and the fragrance blend is soothing and comforting. It’s funny how things turn out.

Posted on December 10, 2013 by Vicki — 12 Comments

Exciting News!

We recently had some very exciting news – it’s not soap related, but it will (sadly) impact on my soapmaking for the next couple of months.

Although we live in the north of England, my husband and I are both Welsh, and have always said that we would move back there eventually. The one thing preventing us from doing so was the lack of available work in rural Wales where we wanted to live, but against all odds it’s happened. My husband got a new job, and we’re going home!!

It’s all very exciting – the new job starts on the 1st March, so we have a bit of time, but once Christmas and New Year are out of the way it’ll soon come round. So the house is on the market, and we’ve just spent the weekend looking for a new home (preferably one with a dedicated soaping area – woop!)

Anyway, the upshot is there’s an awful lot to do between now and then, so I’ve decided to put the soaping on the back burner for a couple of months and focus on the big move.

In the meantime please don’t go away – I’ll be updating on relocation progress on this site, (no doubt whinging about missing making soap lol) and will also share some of the wonderful soapy blogs that I’ve grown to love over the past year.

I do however have a couple more recent makes to share with you – coming very soon 🙂

Posted on November 29, 2013 by Vicki — 8 Comments

Recent Makes

A very quick update with some recent creations.

First up is a restock of Luscious Lavender – an ‘In the Pot’ swirl fragranced with Lavender Essential Oil and coloured with Titanium Dioxide and Violet Ultramarine. It always surprises me how popular Lavender still is – this one’s already sold out!

This next one is Orange Sherbert. The batter thickened up VERY quickly but I still managed to do an ‘In the Pot’ swirl. I really like the resulting folds, but I’m not sure I would ever be brave enough to try to replicate it as I was <this> close to getting the proverbial ‘Soap on a Stick’ :0) Fragranced with Orange Sherbet FO from Gracefruit and coloured with Titanium Dioxide and Orange Mica.

Finally for today: Parisian Flowers. A deliberately uneven layered soap, fragranced with a heady blend of Ylang Ylang, Rose Geranium and Lavender Essential Oils. Coloured with Titanium Dioxide and a range of pink micas, with a mica oil swirl on the top.

Posted on November 20, 2013 by Vicki — 6 Comments

Look What I Won…

Back in August, amid all the buzz heralding the release of Soap Crafting by Anne-Marie Faiola (aka The Soap Queen), I entered a prize draw posted by the lovely Cee on her Oil & Butter blog.

A number of soapy bloggers had been asked to review the book and make a soap using one of the recipes/methods therein. They were also given an extra copy of the book to give away to one of their (US based) readers. As part of her review, Cee made a loaf of Alkanet Root & Fennel soap from the book and all we, the readers, had to do to enter the draw was to comment on the post about essential oil blends and/or natural colourants, and names would be drawn out of a hat (so to speak). Now, not being in the US, I knew I wouldn’t be getting my mits on a copy of that coveted book, but Cee wasn’t about to forget her international readers, oh no :). As well as giving away a copy of the book, Cee was generously giving away a bar of that very soap to one of her lucky international readers.

And that reader was me! Cee sent me message via Facebook to say I’d won, and I did a happy dance. On the 5th September Cee sent me another message to say it had been sent. Oooh I was excited… My husband didn’t quite get it. ‘You’ve won soap? We don’t have enough soap already?’ while pointedly looking at the boxes in the airing cupboard / attic / wardrobe / under the bed… Hahahahah… But yes, I was excited 🙂

The weeks passed, and then some more weeks passed. Finally, on 5th November (yep, two whole months in transit!!) Cee’s beautiful soap arrived, and here it is in all its gorgeousness:

It’s wonderful to use – silky smooth, abundantly bubbly and smells divine. And just look at that piping on the top *swoon*. It’s fragranced with Fennel, Lavender, Grapefruit and Patchouli essential oils and coloured with Alkanet root. A full tutorial can be found on Cee’s blog here. (Do also check out her amazing gingerbread house made of soap – stunning stuff!)

Thank you once again Cee for sending it all this way – I love it!

PS – I did finally get my own copy of the book when it was released here in the UK, and it’s great – but that’s another post :0)

Posted on November 10, 2013 by Vicki — 8 Comments

Colourful Camouflage

Another recent make:

My original plan was to create a four colour version of the black and white soap in the header <up there> but it thickened up really quickly on me, and I had to work quickly to spoon it into the mould and swirl the top.

It’s scented with “Jelly Beans” fragrance oil, a sweet, fruity fragrance that has held well, and really suits the colourful design.

Posted on November 7, 2013 by Vicki — 8 Comments

Drop Swirls

We finally had a bright day today so I took the opportunity to take some photographs outside – I’ve tried and tried to get decent pictures using my lightbox and artificial lighting but each time I fail miserably so it’s natural light all the way for me from now on! (This could prove problematic in a North of England winter but I’m nothing if not an optimist 🙂 )

I recently tried something a little different – I’ve seen some beautiful drop swirl soaps on Pinterest, most notably by Tree Frog Soaps and Celine at I Am Handmade, and decided to give it a go. Celine very generously shares her methods on YouTube here so I spent a few happy hours watching soaping videos before I felt ready to make my attempts. Here are the first two:

I’ve also been experimenting with creating my own essential oil fragrance blends. Neither of these soaps have names yet, but the first one is fragranced with a lovely blend of Rose Geranium, Clary Sage and Lemon essential oils, and the second is fragranced with a totally delicious blend of Aniseed and Orange essential oils.

Posted on October 27, 2013 by Vicki — 7 Comments

Mold or Mould?

The differences between British and American English have been causing me some difficulties recently, specifically the words mold and mould.

Very soon after starting this blog I had to decide which to use. Mould is correct in British English, but American English and (so it seemed to me) the rest of the world use mold. Now, by a long shot, the majority of my readers are not British, so I went with mold. It didn’t sit well with me, and I really don’t know why I made that decision. I’m British, so why wasn’t I consistent in my use of British English? I wouldn’t dream of writing color rather than colour.

Anyway, it was my mum (not mom 🙂 ) who drew my attention to the error of my ways. She just said, almost in passing ‘How do you spell mould?’ and I knew immediately what she was talking about. Once I got over the surprise realisation that she actually reads what I write (thanks mum!), I had a bit of a ponder, and did some googling.

According to the Grammarist.com:

‘American English has no mould, and British English has no mold. In other words, the word referring to (1) the various funguses that grow on organic matter or (2) a frame for shaping something is spelled the same in both uses, and the spelling depends on the variety of English.’

This much I knew.

However, it went on to say:

‘Australian and Canadian English favor the British spelling, though mold is fairly common in Canadian publications.’

This I did not know, and I was clearly wrong in my assumption that the rest of the world uses mold.

To cut a long story short, I will be using mould from now on, and thanks mum for prompting me to think this one through!

I’d love to know where you’re from and which spelling you use – please do leave a comment and let me know.

Oh, and because I know why people really read soapy blogs 😀 here’s some recent mould action:

Parisian Flora (Lavender, Rose Geranium & Ylang Ylang EO’s):

Magic Mojito (Spearmint & Lime EO’s):

and Jellybeans (FO):

Cut pictures to follow soon.

Posted on October 16, 2013 by Vicki — 20 Comments

Dandelion Zebra Swirl

This month’s soap challenge over at Amy Warden’s Great Cakes Soapworks is the Dandelion Zebra Swirl, created by Vinvela Ebony and named after her blog Dandelion Seifee. It’s not something I’ve done before, so was keen to give it a go. It should look like this:

To create this design you need something like a flexible cutting board (which is what I used) cut to fit exactly inside the length of the soap mold. Once half the base colour is poured, you insert the thin cutting board into the middle of the mold and pour alternate thin layers of the coloured batter down the cutting board. You then carefully remove the cutting board and pour the rest of the base colour (being careful not to disturb the coloured layers)

The reason for that rather convoluted description of the process is that I was concentrating so much that I completely forgot to take any ‘during’ photos <facepalm>

I have ‘before’ pictures:

I have ‘after’ pictures:

But no ‘during’ photos. Sorry :-s

Anyway, here it is: my first attempt at a Dandelion Zebra Swirl. The green (chrome green oxide) and red (pigment) colours thickened up a little more than I would have liked, but the yellow (lemon drop mica) stayed nice and thin. It’s fragranced with Apple Pie & Custard FO.

All in all I’m really happy with the way it turned out. Thanks as always to Amy for organising the challenge, and I’m looking forward to seeing all the other entries!

Posted on October 14, 2013 by Vicki — 8 Comments

Hazelnut Soap

I’ve been wanting to make a hazelnut soap for a while, so recently I ordered a small amount of hazelnut oil and spent some time on SoapCalc working out a recipe. I ended up using coconut oil, olive oil, palm oil, castor oil, shea butter and 17% hazelnut oil.

I used a Hazelnut fragrance oil, and I knew that it would darken up the soap a fair bit, so I didn’t use any colourant for the bottom half, and added some titanium dioxide to the top half. I love the simplicity of it, and it smells amazing!

Posted on October 3, 2013 by Vicki — 8 Comments

Market Set Up

September was my first month of regular markets, and it seems I’ve neglected my blog a bit – apologies!

I’m currently committed to three monthly markets – there are more out there that I could do, but I think I’ll wait until it all becomes a little easier (as it surely will when I’m more organised and the preparation becomes second nature) before I agree to do any more!

I did a bit of Pinterest research on the best way to set up my stall, but please tell me I’m not the only person to pin, pin, pin and then fail to go back and read it all, let alone implement any of the advice!! 😀 Still some work to do on that score I think…

Anyway, I thought I’d post some pictures of my set up at the last two markets.

This was my stall last Saturday. Tables were provided, and were smaller than I expected, so I was careful not to make it look too crowded. Notice the rubbish bin to the right of the picture? Arrgghhh!! I persuaded the organiser to cover it with a tablecloth soon after this photo was taken!

The following day was a different market, and I had a dedicated gazebo area and a larger table. I tried to keep my booth as uncluttered as possible with boxes and other paraphanalia out of sight (those you can see in the picture belong to my neighbours):

The display stands are simply cardboard boxes covered with random fabric, but they do the trick:

I know there’s probably a lot I could do to improve the look in general – some kind of backdrop would be good as a start. Time to get back on Pinterest I think!

Posted on September 11, 2013 by Vicki — 26 Comments

It’s challenge time again!

This month’s soaping challenge over at Amy Warden’s Soap Challenge Club is a multi-coloured gradient soap. Now I’ve made gradient soaps before, but all of my previous gradient soaps have been one colour plus white, where the base is the main colour and subsequent layers gradually get lighter by adding increasing amounts of white soap batter.For the challenge, Amy stipulated that we should use three colours (and no white, gulp!), so this was definitely stepping outside my comfort zone. I decided to go with the primary colours, blue, red and yellow (though my red turned out decidedly salmon pink, but never mind….)

First I prepared my three colours – ultramarine blue oxide, lemon drop mica, and deep red mica (hmmm!), and tragedy struck! OK, so that’s a bit of an overreaction, but my coffee frother, which I use to disperse the powdered colours, fell apart on me:

Fortunately I’d already done the yellow and red, so I finished off the blue with a spoon and hoped for the best.

I then mixed the oils and butters with the lye, added the fragrance (a zesty lemon fragrance oil) and brought the mix up to a light trace. The main difficulty for me with this one was knowing how much of each base colour to start with. I watched Amy’s video a few times, and realised that I had no idea how much a ‘cup’ was 😀 I decided just to eyeball it:Then I started the pour. A layer of just blue went in first – about a third of the ‘blue’ jug. I then added about a third of the red into the ‘blue’ jug, gave it a good mix and poured another layer. I added another third of red into the ‘blue’ jug and poured the lot into the mould to form the third layer. The aim each time was to have straight layers which didn’t break into the layer below – I was partially successful I think…

I then poured a layer of just red from the ‘red’ jug. This was the fourth, or middle, layer:

I added about a third of the yellow soap in with the red, mixed and poured a layer. Then another third of yellow into the ‘red’ jug and poured again. The seventh and final layer was pure yellow – no wastage – yey:

After 24 hours I unmoulded and cut. I’m really happy with the result:

I did find this one pretty challenging – I was working against a fast thickening batter towards the end, and wasn’t certain that I’d get all the layers done before the soap seized on me. It was a great experience, but I’m not sure I’ll be making a multi-coloured gradient soap again any time soon :0D

As always, thanks go to Amy Warden of Great Cakes Soapworks for planning and organising the whole shebang!