Soap Archives

Posted on February 19, 2017 by Vicki — 1 Comment

The Week in Soap: 19th Feb ’17

I have at least 6 draft posts half written, but somehow it’s got round to Sunday again and I’ve not managed to even think about finishing any of them…

It has, however, been a busy week… I’ve been busy wrapping and labelling the bars for the shop in Didsbury, all 150 of them. It’s a big order for me, but I’ve got a week or two to get it all together.

On Thursday I agreed to supply a local guest house with soap on an ongoing basis. It’s self catering accommodation, and they want to leave both full sized and mini bars for their guests. The first lot of regular bars has been delivered, and this coming week will see me cutting and wrapping the mini sized bars for delivery before the weekend.

I’ve made another five batches this week, three on Monday – First Kiss, Love Spell & Peace:

That little heart was added for Instagram as a nod to Valentine’s Day, as I didn’t get around to making any Valentine’s specials this year.

And two batches of Tutti Frutti on Friday – I’ve been waiting on more fragrance oil for this one for quite a while, and I’m nearly sold out, so I got a couple of batches done at once.

The colours on the top of the finished batches look a little muddy, but I’m hopeful it’ll be fine inside *crosses fingers*

And tonight I made more bathbombs – I literally finished cleaning up 10 minutes ago, so these are very rough and ready photos, but you get the first peek:

Bewitched:

I’ve not managed to take many soapy photos this week, but here’s the Blodau (Flowers) bar from last week:

The kids are off school for half term this coming week, so it’ll be interesting to see how much I get done (especially as we go away on Friday for a couple of nights) but hopefully I’ll get an update out on Sunday at the very least :-/

Posted on February 12, 2017 by Vicki — Leave a comment

The Week in Soap: 12th Feb ’17

I’m tired tonight. It feels like it’s been a long and busy week, and now, not even 9pm on Sunday night, I feel ready for bed. So I’m going to make this brief, and then tackle the ironing pile before bed. Oh, the glamour!!

I made four batches of soap this week, all restocks again. I’m struggling to get my stock back up to a level where I’m not anxious about whether I have enough, but I wasn’t able to make any for most of the week as my Shea Butter didn’t arrive until Thursday – arrgghhh! So Friday night saw me soaping all evening, and I made, from top to bottom, Blodau (Flowers), Luscious Lavender, Botanica & Clarity:

Ordinarily I would have cut them this evening, but it’ll have to wait until tomorrow, so I’ll share some photos in next Sunday’s update. But here’s some close-ups to mitigate your disappointment 😀

I also made some more bathbombs – these are blue (although they don’t look so blue here) and fragranced with the same essential oil blend as I use for Serenity soap. A few people now have said that the Serenity blend smells like being at a spa, so the name is apt I think. (The scale here isn’t quite right, the bombs aren’t as big as they appear to be compared to the bars of soap – I need to keep that in mind the next time I take photos!)

I also spent a bit of time working on the packaging and labels for the bombs. I think I have a solution, though I’m not quite ready to share photos yet. Maybe next week.

I’m very happy to announce that as of March I’ll be supplying a brand new retailer, Sunnah Skincare who have a store at 88 School Lane, Didsbury, Manchester. This Skincare Co-operative was set up, and is run, by women in the local community, and their aim is to trade as fairly, responsibly and ethically as possible. Check out their Facebook and Instagram accounts.

Oh, more exciting news – I entered a competition on LJ Naturals’ Facebook page to win some of her gorgeous skincare products, and won! The prize was four items – a full sized bottle of OMG Facial Serum, and three mini products – Organic Scratchy Balm, Balancing Organic Moisturiser & Organic Deep Cleansing Balm. They’ve arrived already and they feel wonderful on the skin and smell truly amazing. I’ll be writing a review soon, once I’ve been using them for a little while, but here’s a quick peek at what they look like:

The weather’s not been the best for most of the week, but Tuesday dawned clear and sunny, so a little local walk was in order and I managed to snap this photo. This is Hebog. I suppose you’d call it the village mountain 😀 The path up to the top starts in the village, and I’ve been up to the summit many times, but not this week. Not, in fact, since before we had the children. Soon, soon…

Wednesday found me making Teisen Gri (or Welsh Cakes). They’re a bit like a flattened scone, cooked on a griddle on the hob. They’re utterly delicious, and there’ll be a blog post with the recipe coming soon:

Well, that was longer than I’d planned for it to be. If you got this far, thanks for reading. Back soon!

Posted on February 8, 2017 by Vicki — 9 Comments

The Whats and The Whys…

…that is, what goes into my soap, and why. I’m often asked what my soaps are made from. Well, the ingredients in my soaps are no secret – they’re clearly labelled on each and every bar that’s sold, so here goes 😀

Fact is, you only need THREE ingredients to make soap. A vegetable or animal fat of some kind, sodium hydroxide (NaOH) (aka Lye) and water. The sodium hydroxide is combined with the water to create a lye solution, which is then mixed with the oils or butters. The sodium hydroxide combines and reacts with the fatty acids in the oils and/or butters and hey presto, you get soap, (plus, by the way, glycerine. I’ll come to that later).

Take, for example, a bar of my Clarity essential oil soap (above). The ingredients, as they appear on the label, are as follows:

Sodium Olivate, Sodium Cocoate, Sodium Shea Butterate, Sodium Avocadoate, Sodium Cocoa Butterate, Sodium Castorate, Glycerine, Aqua, Salvia sclarea (Clary) Oil (Sage essential oil), Cymbopogon schoenanthus Oil (Lemongrass essential oil), Activated Charcoal, Titanium Dioxide (Ci 77891) & Micas *linalool *citral (*naturally present in essential oils).

Let me clarify:

All my bars contain six different oils and butters: Olive Oil, Coconut Oil, Shea Butter, Avocado Oil, Cocoa Butter and Castor Oil. Bear with me here – small chemistry lesson coming up. If the soap is made properly, there will never ever be any sodium hydroxide present in the final bar, and so it isn’t necessary to put it on the ingredients label. However, the sodium hydroxide has caused the oils and butters to change – into soap – or, chemically speaking, into ‘salts’. This is why the first six items on the ingredients list are all ‘Sodium (insert name of oil)ate’ ie, they are all salts formed from the original six oils/butters combined with sodium hydroxide.

So why those particular six oils and butters? I use coconut for it’s ability to give soap a great, abundant lather, but it can be drying to some people’s skins and so I temper it with plenty of olive oil which produces a mild, gentle soap. Cocoa butter contributes to the hardness of the bar, whilst also being moisturising. Avocado oil and shea butter are considered to be luxury additives – they don’t contribute to the lather or the hardness of the bar, but they are extremely moisturing. They’re probably the reason my customers say they don’t need hand cream after washing with my soap!

I decided long ago not to use animal fats in my soap. I don’t have a problem with animal fats per se – I’m not vegetarian, and I know from my early days of soapmaking and experimentation that lard makes wonderful soap. It was just a decision I made early on in my recipe development, and I’ve stuck with it. Similarly with palm oil, I used it in my early soapmaking, but haven’t done for years. I have no problem with other producers using palm oil – each to their own – but it’s not for me.

Next on the list you’ll see glycerine. Glycerine is a by-product of that chemical reaction between the NaOH and the oils/butters. It’s often extracted during the commercial soapmaking process, as it’s a valuable commodity and can be sold on to other manufacturers. In handmade soaps though, it goes nowhere. It stays within the soap and acts as a humectant, drawing moisture to the skin and helping skin retain moisture. (Note, it is NOT a moisturiser, as I’ve seen claimed elsewhere)

Next comes Aqua (water). Water is needed to create a solution of the NaOH. That’s its only purpose. Once the soap is made, we soapmakers leave the soap to cure for weeks on end, drying out the soap and trying to get rid of as much of the moisture as possible.

The next two items on the list are simply the fragrance – Sage essential oil and Lemongrass essential oil. Some soapmakers claim that essential oils added to soaps have therapeutic properties above and beyond the fragrance, but there is some doubt as to where these properties survive the chemical process. Anyway, without extensive and expensive laboratory testing, making such claims is misleading.

The next three ingredients – Activated Charcoal, Titanium Dioxide (Ci 77891) & Micas – are colourants. The first two are natural, the mica has colour added to it in a lab, so can’t be considered natural.

Finally we come to the last two starred items: *linalool *citral (*naturally present in essential oils). The EU Cosmetic Regulation 1223/2009 lists the 26 most allergenic (ie most likely to cause an allergic reaction) substances and states that if your soap (or other wash off product) contains more than 0.01% of that substance then it needs to be declared. Many essential oils contain one or more of these substances, and it’s very rare that they cause any problem whatsoever. But rules is rules :-)!

Thanks for reading, I’ll be back soon! If you have any questions about my ingredients, or anything else for that matter, please comment below.

Posted on February 6, 2017 by Vicki — 5 Comments

The Week in Soap: 5th Feb ’17

Happy Sunday everyone! It’s been a busy week, so I’ll crack right on…

More Luscious Lavender and Welsh Rose were made this week. They’re very popular, and I always like to have plenty in stock:

Both were cut, but I only got round to photographing the Lavender:

I also photographed the two custom batches I made last week. This pic, of Potters’ Soap, proved to be my most liked ever on Instagram – so far! 😀

And this one is called Ar Lan y Môr (By the Sea):

I’ve spent quite a bit of time this week bevelling, packaging and labelling soap. It’s almost half term and before I know it the tourist season will be upon us, so I’m getting ahead of the game:

This evening I had planned to masterbatch a load of oils for the next couple weeks of soapmaking but discovered at the last minute that I’d run out of Shea Butter. Arrghhh!! I’m usually really careful to reorder as soon as I’m getting low of something so crucial. I didn’t because I was sure I had more, but nope, it’s nowhere to be found. So, first off I ordered more Shea, and then changed tack and made some Bath Bombs (or Bath Fizzies, or whatever it is I’m eventually going to call them – decisions decisions!!)

Before Christmas I got my assessment documentation through for 8 varieties of Bath Bomb (in the UK/EU it’s illegal to sell any bath & body product without first paying to get your recipe assessed and approved by a qualified chemist), and tonight I made three of them – Welsh Rose, Clarity & First Kiss:

Welsh Rose, Clarity & First Kiss Bath Bombs

They’re not ‘perfect’ looking, but they do what they’re supposed to – gorgeously!!

Eventually I want to be able to provide matching Bath Bombs for each soap in my core range, but at the moment I can only sell the three above, plus Boho Baby (patchouli & orange), Lavender, Bewitched (was Love Spell), Serenity and Oatmeal Milk & Honey. I’m waiting on more colourants to arrive then I’ll be making more (woo hoo!)

I had a bit of an interesting experience with Facebook this week. I’ve neglected my page somewhat recently as, if I’m honest, it sometimes feels like a waste of time. The Facebook algorithm means that very few of my ‘likers’ actually see my posts, and consequently there is very little engagement. Regardless, I decided that I should give it a go again, and wrote a post explaining why I hadn’t posted for a while and that I would be grateful if people could occasionally like, comment or even (gasp!) share a post. Then I added the photo that had been so popular on Instagram Well my friends, that post has gone bonkers! 165 likes, 54 comments and, and 47 shares at time of writing…

Soo…. I wonder if the same thing would work here? May I ask you to click that little like button below? Would you be amenable to writing a word or two to let me know you’ve been here? Lol, I can but ask, hey??! Thanks for reading, back soon.

Posted on January 22, 2017 by Vicki — 1 Comment

The Week in Soap: 22nd Jan ’17

The holiday period is well and truly over, and things are starting to pick up again business-wise. I’ve started receiving orders for Valentine’s themed bars, and the first one was delivered to a local retailer yesterday. Here in Wales we also celebrate Dydd Santes Dwynwen (St Dwynwen’s Day, considered to be the Welsh St Valentine’s Day) on the 25th January, so there’s a double whammy of love related promotions at this time of year 😀

On the making front I’ve only made two batches this week – a restock of Welsh Rose and an as yet unnamed project for a swap I’m participating in soon. Can’t say too much about that one yet, but all will be revealed eventually 🙂

Welsh Rose & 'No Name' in the mould — Welsh Rose & ‘No Name’ in the mould

So basically I’ve only made one batch for general sale this week – I think I’m going to have to increase the production rate PDQ!

I also cut last week’s Castile soap. Having read so much about how long it can be before it’s hard enough to be unmoulded, I left it a full eight days before unmoulding and cutting, and I was really surprised at how hard it already was. I had to be very careful and cut slowly, I was so concerned that the wire on my Bud Cutter would snap, but all was well. This was the finished bar:

It’s a lot whiter than I expected it to be when it was first poured, though I’m not too happy about the streaks in it – we’ll see how it looks as it cures.

One of my goals for January was to research facial bar recipes with a view to hopefully making some in February. During my research I came across a blog/website, Lather Lass, which collects and collates soap recipes from all over the web – it’s worth having a browse if you’re looking for something in particular.

On a personal note, did I mention that I’ve started going to a kickboxing class? Every Wednesday evening, 6-7pm, and it’s amazing. Seriously hard work but I’m hoping it will do wonders for my fitness levels and be a good complement to the running (another of those goals!)

Anyway, talking of goals, it’s time to start thinking about what I want to get done in February, it’ll soon come round! Thanks for reading – back soon!

Posted on January 20, 2017 by Vicki — 7 Comments

Making Castile Soap

Traditional castile soap is made of nothing more than olive oils and a sodium hydroxide solution, and its origins lie in the soap that has been made for many centuries in Aleppo (Syria), from local olive & laurel berry oils. When the recipe was brought to Europe (specifically the Castile area of Spain, with its abundance of olive trees) it would appear that laurel berry oil was hard to come by, leading to it being dropped completely, becoming the 100% olive oil soap that we know today. It’s considered to be the gentlest of soaps – kind to sensitive skin often used as a baby soap (though personally I don’t think very small babies need any soap at all!)

At the beginning of the year I decided to make it one of my goals for January, and hey presto, last week I made my first ever batch of castile. I don’t always bother with test batches, and I didn’t think an awful lot could go wrong with this one, so dove right in with a full sized batch. The recipe was simply:

1500g Olive Oil
570g Water
193g Sodium Hydroxide (NaOH)

I used my usual method – made up the lye solution and left it to cool down to room temperature. For my regular bars I melt together the hard oils/butters, then add the liquid oils and let it cool down to room temperature, but there was none of that faffing about with this one – I just measured my olive oil out of the bottle and into my mixing bowl.

Then added the NaOH and whisked until it was emulsified:

Gave it a bit of a mix with the handblender until it traced:

And poured it into the mould:

I knew from my reading that I probably wouldn’t be able to unmould / cut after my usual 48 day wait, so I left it a little longer, then kind of forgot about it for a couple of days (oops) and eventually unmoulded it 8 days after it was poured. I was happy to note that it was a lot whiter than it originally appeared to be:

Perhaps I’ll only leave it three or four days next time as it was the hardest batch I’ve ever cut, and I feared for the wire on my poor Bud soap cutter. I took it slowly, and the end result was this:

The usual recommendation is to allow castile soap to cure for a good six months, if not more, as it’s notoriously slow to harden. I’m not convinced though, and will be testing it often in the next few months to see how it’s developing.

By the way, I’ve never actually used castile soap myself. The things I’ve heard haven’t always been particularly positive – the lather has even been described as ‘slimy’, so I’m going to (try to) put the opinions of others out of my head and be as objective as possible. Stay tuned and I’ll keep you updated 🙂

Posted on January 15, 2017 by Vicki — 5 Comments

The Week in Soap: 15th Jan ’17

It’s been another fairly quiet week in the soapmaking cave this week. I cut the bars that I made last Sunday, and I made another three batches, one of which was the Castile that I’ve been promising myself that I’ll make for many months. (It would seem that this monthly goals malarkey is working!) I also did a full stock check and tidied up the soap store. I haven’t yet found a fool-proof stock control method, and I don’t always keep proper track of what’s been sold (*red face*) but I’m back on track now and have a good handle on what needs making next.

Of last Sunday’s three batches I only photographed two immediately after cutting. I didn’t bother with the Clarity that got a little too thick to make pretty drops – still great soap but not worth sharing lol. First up is the soap made with a new-to-me fragrance oil called ‘Flora’. It still doesn’t have a name, though I’m leaning towards Daisy or something… Despite the fast acceleration it’s not as ‘ploppy’ (apologies, but it’s as descriptive a word as I can come up with for this effect :-D) as I expected it to be – this is a good thing!

And the First Kiss:

Due to the high levels of vanillin in the fragrance oil the white drops will discolour to tan, and the brown drops will discolour to dark brown, but the pink should stay pink as I didn’t add any fragrance to that portion. I’ll post it again in a few weeks time to show you the full effect.

On Thursday evening I made another three batches, Boho Baby, the aforementioned Castile, and Delicious:

And a close up of Delicious, because I love it so much – this FO always behaves itself so well…

Oh and guess what?! Halfway through the month and I’ve already run 50km – I’m rocking those goals!!

Thanks for reading – back soon!

Posted on January 9, 2017 by Vicki — 2 Comments

The Week in Soap: 8th Jan ’17

Where did the week go? The first week of January has come and gone, and it’s time for me to get back into the habit of weekly updates – it’s been a whole month since I last did one of these!

It’s been a fairly quiet week, but I have managed to make a start on restocking the shelves – last Monday saw me making the first two batches of the year, Oatmeal Milk & Honey (OMH) and Serenity:

I had this crazy idea that I’d try the Thermal Transfer method for the OMH, and as I could have predicted had I thought about it for longer than a couple of seconds, it didn’t go so well (keep an eye out for another post on that little adventure very soon). These have now been cut but I’ve not got round to taking any photographs yet (and to be honest, I’m not sure I want to take photographs of the OMH – seriously, it’s a bit of a hot mess…) but there’ll be some up on my Instagram (@thesoapmine) account soon enough.

Tonight I made another three batches. The left hand one is a brand new (to me) Fragrance Oil called Flora, which I’ve done in white, yellow and green (thoughts of spring already…), then we have restocks of First Kiss and Clarity.

The soaping gremlins were well and truly out to play tonight. The only one to behave properly was First Kiss. Clarity really surprised me by thickening up super-quick. Not sure why – same recipe, same colours and same ratio of eo’s, although the lye water was possibly cooler than usual so it’s likely that was the cause. Anyway, I can usually get wispy drops in this one, but tonight it was a bit, hmmmm, ‘ploppy’. And Flora…well, it’s a floral fragrance, notoriously bad for acceleration, so I wasn’t entirely unprepared. I used extra water with the lye, and tried not to over mix but it was still thicker than I would have liked, so my dropswirl was a bit, well, ploppy again. Ho hum, these two won’t be perfect but they WILL smell flippin’ gorgeous!!! 😀

In other news I’ve confirmed a new customer with a sizeable order for my mini guest bars, and I’ve taken a booking to do one of my soap talks in a few months time, so all in all it’s been a productive week.

Hope you’ve all had a great week. Thanks for reading – back soon!

Posted on November 29, 2016 by Vicki — 1 Comment

Luscious Lavender Restocked – with a Twist

I found that photograph that I thought I’d deleted yesterday. Actually, I had deleted it, but discovered that my phone keeps a copy of recently deleted photos – who knew? (Many people, clearly, but not me 😉

So, just popping in and out quickly to finally share the third of last weeks batches:

Here it is in the mould:

And here it is freshly cut (and a little rough and ready). The twist (such as it is) is a slightly different shade of the darker purple – I’d run out of the regular mica so had to improvise:

That’s all for today folks!

Posted on November 28, 2016 by Vicki — 3 Comments

The Week in Soap: 27th Nov ’16

Last week was a pretty quiet one on the making front. On Tuesday evening I made three batches – Luscious Lavender, Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon) & Blodau (Flowers):

The Lavender restock has a slight twist as I’d run out of one of my micas and had to improvise. I’ll share a picture very soon – I did take one of the cut but I seem to have deleted it – gah!

I shared the cut and the story behind Yr Wyddfa in this post last week.

And this is the cut of ‘Blodau’. Blodau is Welsh for ‘flowers’, and the fragrance is a lovely blend of lavender and ylang ylang essential oils, balanced with a touch of rosewood to give depth. Please forgive the rough and ready appearance – this was taken five minutes after it was cut:

Blodau - freshly cut — Blodau – freshly cut

Much of the week was spent preparing for the Porthmadog craft fair on Saturday. This is the only regular market/fair that I do. I could easily do more – I’m often asked – but to be honest I started this business to be able to work from home, and spend more time with the family, so I’m really not inclined to spend every weekend away from them. Nevertheless I do happily join my crafty family on the last Saturday of every month, and I get a lot of pleasure from catching up with my fellow stallholders and regular (and new!) customers.

The Dinosoaps proved to be very popular (this was the basket I transported them in by the way, they weren’t displayed like that!)

The other soapy highlight of the week was a fabulous mica delivery from the awesome U-MakeitUp in Spain:

This was the second lot I’ve ordered from them, and I’m so impressed with their range of colours and great customer service. This was the first selection I received, a few months back:

Lots and LOTS of colours to play with!

In other news, this week the children wrote their letters to Santa, and I made a start on the Christmas shopping. This coming weekend we head down to south Wales for the weekend to visit my husband’s family, so we need to have all their Christmas gifts wrapped and ready to take with us.

I’ll leave you with this view from my office window last Saturday morning, 8am, just after loading up the car for the fair – gorgeously clear and crisp.

Posted on November 23, 2016 by Vicki — 7 Comments

Designing, designing…

As winter inexorably approaches, the tourist season here has more or less come to an end for the year. The only visitors we’ll see for the next few months will be hardy, well wrapped walker and mountain climbers, and many of the gift shops have closed or drastically reduced their opening hours while the owners take a well earned rest. A good time, then, for me to take stock and consider what sold well during this last year. It’s clear to me (and it’s no real surprise) that the bars which sold the best here in the village were those with a Welsh element to their name (eg Welsh Rose and Blodau (Flowers)) or a link to the local area (eg Black Rock Sands and Traeth Criccieth (Criccieth Beach)).

I’ve decided that there needs to be a few additions to the regular range – soaps which reference the local area – and the first of those will be Yr Wyddfa, our name for Snowdon, the highest mountain in England & Wales. Yr Wyddfa has always been close to my heart. As I child I lived literally at the foot of this majestic mountain, and now I live just 10 minutes away from the bottom of 4 different routes up (depending on which direction I drive). I’ve walked (and run, with a team of women, carrying (an occupied!) wheelchair – but that’s another story :-D) to the top many times, but I’ve never taken the train up… Anyway, I digress…

On Tuesday night I made my first attempt. Even while it was still in the mould I knew that there were things I would do differently next time:

See that blue on the top? That’s supposed to represent the sky, but sadly it’s the wrong shade of blue. Easily fixed – next time…

And the cut:

Clearly I’ve not gone with one of my regular drop swirls here – I’ve gone a little more literal, with greenery (two colours of green), rock, snowy mountain top and sky. I need to alter the colours of the rock and the sky, and perhaps have a little more greenery than rock, but I’m really happy with it as a first attempt.

Posted on November 20, 2016 by Vicki — 8 Comments

The Week in Soap: 20th Nov ’16

Despite the enforced slow down recently (update on the building work coming soon), there’s still plenty of great stuff going on.

1. The third and final stockist of our Christmas bars will receive their order tomorrow. They can be found in:

Glosters, Bank Place, Porthmadog
Lotti & Wren, Palace Street, Caernarfon
Woodcraft, Beddgelert

Christmas Soaps — Christmas Tree, Three Kings, Candy Cane

I have a limited number available for my local / Facebook customers – I’ll be posting them on the page this week.

2. I’ve finally got my bath bomb assessment – woo hoo! This means that I can now officially (and more to the point, legally!) make and sell handmade bath bombs. That’s one of my goals for the year ticked off too 🙂

3. The Dinosoaps are cured and will be posted for sale over the next couple of days. I’ve already received a few pre-orders and I’m confident they’ll sell pretty quickly.

4. I managed to make a few restocks this week. These are Boho Baby, Delicious & Botanica:

5. This week, I hit the 5K followers mark on Instagram. I know I bang on about it but I do luurve Instagram, and this week I was lucky enough to be featured by HandmadeintheUK. They reposted one of my photos, and if it received more than 125 likes (which it did), then I go forward to the grand final on Sunday (tonight!) At time of writing I’ve not idea how that will work, but I’m excited to see what happens this evening.

6. And finally, you should notice a few more posts coming through from me in future as I’ve committed to post at least twice a week (see this afternoon’s post here), probably on a Sunday and a Wednesday. Having successfully completed Blogtober I rested on my laurels for a little too long, but I’m back 🙂

Posted on November 3, 2016 by Vicki — 1 Comment

We Have a Winner!

For those who haven’t seen the Facebook post, we have a winner of the soap naming competition. The new lavender, lemon & lime bar will henceforth be known as (drum roll and long pause…………….)

Botanica

as put forward on the blog by Dylan. I really like this name as it alludes to the ‘from nature’ aspects of both the fragrances and colours, and it’s also a really good fit with other bars in the essential oils range – Serenity, Clarity etc…

Thank you Dylan – let me know how I can get your soap to you and it’ll be on its way very soon.

A massive thank you to everyone who gave it a go – every comment is always hugely appreciated :-D.

If you missed out but would like another opportunity to win something gorgeous then follow me on Instagram where there’ll another chance to win soon(ish) As I write I have 4,761 followers, and when I hit the big 5K *crosses fingers* I’ll be doing another international giveaway.

Posted on October 30, 2016 by Vicki — 5 Comments

Banishing Soda Ash – the easy way…

I see a lot of discussion on line about how to deal with soda ash on soap tops. Freshly poured soap is so glossily glorious – it can be a disappointment when you come back to it a day later to find it dulled and marred by an ashy deposit:

The ash is formed when the lye (Sodium Hydroxide, NaOH) in the soap reacts with Carbon Dioxide CO² in the air, and is totally harmless; the soap is no less effective. Nevertheless many find it to be aesthetically displeasing, and I’ve seen many methods used, some fairly elaborate, to eradicate it. In my early soapmaking days I was advised dip each individual bar into a pan of boiling water. Yes, this removed the ash and resulted in wonderfully glossy bars, but wow, it was tedious. I then read that could simply hold each bar in the steam that came from a boiling kettle. Only kettles these days don’t boil continuously – and flicking that switch 20 times a minute was….tedious. Then I had a lightbulb moment – I could hold the soap in the steam that came from a pan of water at a rollling boil. Yes, I am FULLY aware that I could have easily missed one of those steps out… That worked too but was still pretty longwinded and let’s be honest, tedious. There was also the ever present risk of scalding myself trying to use these methods. I came perilously close, believe me.

These days my ash removing regime is simple, fast and effective. I use an ordinary steam iron, on steam setting, to remove the ash from the soap tops before I’ve even unmoulded them. Half of this loaf has already been steamed:

My old, but trusty, Morphy Richards…

Holding the iron just a couple of inches above the top of the soap, I press the steam button continuously to cover the soap in steam, moving the iron back and forth. This is the result

Easy peasy! And absolutely zero chance of scalding myself. It looks freshly poured but is actually fully set up and ready to be unmoulded. I usually leave it for about 10 minutes to dry off, and then unmould:

And cut – notice how glossy it still is:

After the cut, before the tidy up – perfectly dry and glossy:

I’ve made a video of the steaming process, but I’m struggling to upload it :-S Once I figure it all out I’ll add it to this post 😀

Posted on October 29, 2016 by Vicki — Leave a comment

Soap tops revisited

As I was putting together yesterday’s ‘Wet Soap Wednesday on a Friday’ post, I was thinking about how much I like soap tops, and remembered that I’d done a post a while back about them. When I went looking, I was surprised to find it had been almost two years ago: Soap Tops from November 2014. I was also struck by how different those tops were to the way I do things now. So today’s post is a quick round up of my favourite soap tops from more recent times.

First up is a dupe of the DKNY fragrance, Be Delicious – appley, cucumbery and absolutely….Delicious:

Then there’s a recent batch of Clarity which turned out just beautifully (last night’s batch didn’t look quite as good as this in the mould!)

The top of this Oatmeal, Milk & Honey batch swirled really nicely:

And this batch of Florida Sunrise (now discontinued) looked gorgeous as it started to gel:

Another recently discontinued fragrance – a custom blend called Enigma, looked luscious freshly swirled:

Finally I just LOVE how this batch of Serenity looked in the mould:

I’d be lying if I said every single batch looks like these, but I do tend to add a lot more texture to the tops than I used to, and I think I prefer them that way. I guess it’s about time I revised my header photo!!

Posted on October 26, 2016 by Vicki — 6 Comments

Wrapping Gift Sets – A Tutorial

Much of today has been spent putting together gift sets for Saturday’s craft fair:

For my Blogtober 2016 Day 26 post (just 5 more to go – hurrah!!) I thought I’d take photographs of the process and share it with you.

Take a (fully cured & bevelled) bar of soap, a co-ordinating facecloth and a wooden soap stand:

2. Fold the facecloth twice to create three layers:

3. Fold one third of the length over, and open up the end to create a little pocket:

4. Fold the other half of the facecloth over into the pocket:

5. Place the wooden soap stand onto the facecloth:

6. Place the soap onto the soap stand:

7. Take a longish piece of string, ribbon or raffia – I use raffia – and place it under the the facecloth (apologies for the quality of the photo here):

8. Cross the raffia over like so:

9. Turn the set over and tie the raffia securely:

10. I then slip an information card under the raffia

11. The secured set, ready for cellophane:

12. Place the set, face down, on a large square of cellophane, bring up opposing sides and roll over and secure, as if wrapping a gift:

Step 13: Fold up the other two sides – again just like wrapping a gift:

14. Cellophane wrapped gift set:

15. Take a length of co-ordinating ribbon and labels – I have two labels – one for the soap name and one for the ingredients:

16. Using sticky tape, stick the ribbon in FACE DOWN on the top right corner of the set, and thread on the labels:

17. Tie a knot in the ribbon – this makes it much easier to create a half decent bow:

18. The finished set – Ta-da!

Posted on October 23, 2016 by Vicki — 1 Comment

Makeovers (7. Love Spell / Bewitched)

The soap that I’ve long called ‘Love Spell’ is scented with a fragrance oil that is a copy of the designer perfume ‘Love Spell’ by Victoria’s Secret. Having recently applied for my bath bomb assessment, which includes bombs fragranced with the same fragrance oil, I was reminded that I can’t call them (or my soap!) Love Spell as it contravenes copyright. I knew this, and I should have changed it ages ago, but to be honest I just didn’t spend the time to come up with a replacement. As it was, when I received the message from my assessor, the new name came to me within a minute or two. Typical! Anyway, it will henceforth be known as Bewitched.

I first made it back in the summer of 2014. You can clearly see where the top portion, coloured with titanium dioxide, shrank more than the rest of the bar during the curing process. The top was simply spattered with leftover soap batter:

Soon after that I got into tiger stripe pouring, which I initially made with a flat top (and experimented with some black stripes):

And later with a textured top:

Finally I brought it in line with the rest of the range i.e. with a full bar drop swirl:

Day 23 of Blogtober 2016. I’m starting to believe I can actually do this 😀

Posted on October 20, 2016 by Vicki — Leave a comment

Chaos Reigns on Throwback Thursday

A spanner has been thrown into the Blogtober 2016 works. This week my kitchen (well, the entire interior of the back of my house) has been ripped out. Right back to the brick:

I knew it was coming, but I stuck my head in the sand and told my myself everything would be ok. Well of course it is, and it will be even better, but flipping heck it’s having a major effect on daily life!! Needless to say I’ve not had much of an opportunity over the last few days to just sit and write, so here I am, again, with just 63 minutes of the day left, determined to get Blogtober Day 20 out before midnight.

Fortunately for me, today is Thursday, so I can do a little #throwbackthursday post.

This here soap is one of the very first drop swirls that I made to sell, made on the 15th June 2014. If you know my current range, you’ll know that I’m rather partial to a drop swirl, and here, folks, is kinda where it all started. Things have changed a bit since then:

Black Jack was fragranced with Aniseed and Spearmint essential oils, and although I thought it smelled utterly amazing, sadly Joe Public didn’t and It was dropped from the lineup PDQ. Perhaps one day I’ll make it again, just for me 🙂

I’ll be back tomorrow with Blogtober Day 21. I Will. I WILL 😀

Posted on October 18, 2016 by Vicki — 5 Comments

The Christmas Specials

This year I’ve made three seasonal bars especially for the Christmas period. These are limited edition soaps – there are only 29 available of each fragrance – but they’re made with the same luxurious base recipe of highest quality, food grade oils and butters that all our bars are made of.

It still feels rather early to many to be thinking about the holiday period, but these bars need a good 6 weeks curing time, so won’t be ready to buy until mid-November – just in time to start shopping 😀

Without any further ado – here are:

Christmas Tree (Cool herbal fragrance of pine, mint, green leaf and ozone, hints of jasmine and lily and supported by notes of precious woods, amber and patchouli)

Three Kings (A resinous, woody-oriental fragrance with citrus top notes mingling with warm base of frankincense, myrrh and amber), topped with gold mica.

Candy Cane (Buttery peppermint and spearmint with hints of vanilla)

Posted on October 16, 2016 by Vicki — 1 Comment

Dinosoap!

I rarely make novelty soaps, but I spotted a great dinosaur mould and thought the kids – my kids that is – might like some dinosaur shaped soap. They were a HUGE hit so I’ve made a few more batches to sell as stocking fillers at the Christmas fairs. Made with exactly the same base recipe that I use for my regular bars, some are scented with a Christmas Tree FO and others with a Jelly Beans FO which is always popular with children.

Hopefully they’ll go down as well with my customers as they did with my children:

This was Day 16 of Blogtober – hanging on in there 😀