One week of Blogtober successfully completed – woop! Today is day 8, the first day of a new blogging week as far as this challenge goes, and the first day I’ve come down in the morning and had nothing prepared to post. This is primarily because I’ve been spending the last couple of days wrapping and labelling every chance I get for a couple of large orders going out soon, so it makes sense to show you my soap packaging.
These are the full sized bars, wrapped and labelled. I place each bar into an individual cellophane bag with the ingredient label tied on with natural raffia.
Full Size wrapped bars
Behind each soap I place an insert with all other mandatory information – contact details, weight of bar, batch number and best before date:
Insert Card
I also offer guest sized bars, which are one third of the size of regular bars. These have proved popular with guest houses and holiday rental properties, but I don’t sell them individually – they’re far too much work:
Guest Bars
Have a great Saturday, whatever you have planned. Back tomorrow 🙂
Did you know Wet Soap Wednesday is a thing? Certainly on Facebook and Instagram it is anyway. Today’s post is a quickie – the fruits of last night’s soaping session.
From left to right: Three Kings, Luscious Lavender & Christmas Tree
I posted last year about the first bar of soap I ever made and I’ve shared the ‘how’ post again below. But WHY did I make that first batch of soap? It’s a question I’ve been asked many times and the answer is quite simple. Curiosity. A friend came to visit, and proudly showed me some soap that she’d made. I was intrigued. How on earth did one make soap at home? Up until that point I’d assumed that it was some kind of highly technical laboratory process and I don’t think I’d even wondered whether it was possible to make it at home. It was just there. Soap. From the shop.
Had I ever suffered from sensitive skin, or had problems using soap I may have looked into it earlier. It’s more likely however that I would have gone and bought soap ‘for sensitive skin’ and left it at that. Nor did I try soapmaking because of ecological or environmental concerns *blush* (yep, I know a whole lot more about that side of things now!) No, it was pure curiosity. I did a bit of internet research, and became more and more excited. There was a whole big soapmaking world out that and it was fascinating.
My very first attempt was with a soapmaking kit. With hindsight I could easily have bought what I needed separately and just got on with it, but if I’m honest I wanted to MAKE SOAP NOW and the kit sped things up for me a little. I made soap, and I loved it. So what next?
I bought some books. Okay, I’ve bought a lot of books. One of my first was Smart Soapmaking by Anne Watson. A great book, though I did find that I had to tweak the recipes slightly when I ran them through Soapcalc. In those early days I also bought The Everything Soapmaking Book by Alicia Grasso, The Natural Soap Book by Susan Miller Cavitch and The Handmade Soap Book by Melinda Coss. Since then I’ve bought many more – I’ll have to gather them together and write a round up of soaping books I think.
I also did a lot of internet research. I don’t recall too many forums or Facebook groups back then, but there were an awful lot of Internet articles offering their soapmaking advice.
So having made that first batch of soap out of pure curiosity, and doing a LOT of reading on the subject, I was hooked, and I’ve never looked back. (Well, apart from when I was pregnant with my second child. The smell of all fragrance oils made me feel so violently sick that I had to have all my soapmaking stuff – including ALL handmade soap – put away where there was no chance I’d catch smell of it – for months… They were dark days :-D)
I’ve been using a partial drop swirl for all my essential oil soaps for a long time but for my fragrance oil bars I’ve been using a mix of styles – In the Pot, Tiger stripe, Drop – whatever took my fancy at the time of making. As I’m now selling more wholesale soap than I am retail, I’ve slowly come to the realisation that my FO bars need to be of a uniform design too.
It took me a little while to settle into the idea. Soapmaking is such a creative process and half the fun is coming up with new designs and trying out new techniques. I reluctantly came to accept that I needed to choose a style and stick with it, making it synonymous with The Soap Mine brand and making my soaps (hopefully!) instantly recognisable.
I wanted to retain a link between my EO soaps and my FO soaps, while ensuring it was easy to tell them apart, so the obvious choice was to make my FO soaps using a full bar drop swirl.
I’ve been making soap with this technique for a long time – this was the first one I ever made (years ago!), fragranced with coconut FO.
Black & White Drop Swirl
And these are some more recent makes – this is what my FO soap bars will look like for the foreseeable future.
Delicious (Similar in scent to the DKNY designer fragrance Be Delicious)
Delicious
Oatmeal Milk & Honey:
Oatmeal, Milk & Honey
Welsh Rose:
Welsh Rose
Blue Belle (Similar in scent to Jo Malone’s ‘Wild Bluebell’ designer fragrance)
Blue Belle
I guess the next thing to focus on is standardising the photography :-O
I promised weeks ago to update on my 2106 business goals, but I’ve found it so difficult to decide what my priorities should be. The days have passed and I’ve pondered and prevaricated, mainly because the next 12 months could, hopefully, bring some serious disruption to my soaping. When we bought our home 18 months ago, we knew we wanted to build an extension at the back, and within that extension would be a dedicated soaping area (woop!). We’ve finally had the planning permission through, and are hoping that the extension will be built this year.
All great stuff, BUT it does mean I’m unwilling to plan for expansion, or an increase in the number of retail outlets that carry my stock, for fear of being unable to keep up with demand if, as is likely, my current soaping area is out of action for a period of time. It’s difficult to plan for, as it’s by no means certain that it will go ahead as planned, or if it does, how long it will take. So my goals for this year are modest and *crosses both fingers* easily achievable:
Generate at least as much income as I did in 2015. If it’s more – happy days!
Finalise my recipe for bath bombs / fizzes, organise – and pay for – the safety assessment (a legal requirement in the UK), and start selling them.
Lip balms – as above
FINALLY get the website up and running. This one shouldn’t be a problem, but given that it’s been ‘in production’ for over 2 years it’s going to take more focus than I’ve had thus far to get it done.
There, four goals. Nothing too taxing there is there? We’ll see…
And a quick soapy pic – here’s a stack of a recent batch of ‘Delicious’, with a lovely upside down depiction of the island of Cyprus in the middle 😀
New Year is generally a time for looking forward for me (I’m still working on those 2016 business goals I touched on in my last post) but last week I was browsing and sorting (supposedly – I’m easily distracted 😉 ) through my HUGE collection of soapy photographs and I came across some from the early days. I can remember being SO proud of this one – my first every straight lavender essential oil soap:
Luscious Lavender #1
Note the rounded corners – I hadn’t yet discovered the joys of silicone liners lol… You can also see the signs of a partial gel here too.
It wasn’t long before I began standardising (and simplifying) the swirls, and this was the next incarnation – an In The Pot (ITP) swirl:
Luscious Lavender #2
I went through a phase of experimenting with mica in oil swirls on the top of the bars – though I’m not sure why I thought this was a complementary colour for the top-swirl…
Luscious Lavender #3
When it came to developing a cohesive range I decided to make all my essential oil soaps with a drop swirl, and so came up with this two colour lavender drop in a white base:
Luscious Lavender #4
The colours have remained the same ever since – I use titanium dioxide for the base and two micas called ‘grape’ and ‘lilac beauty’ for the drops:
Luscious Lavender #5Luscious Lavender #6
Thanks for checking in – I really do hope to be back soon with those 2016 goals!
One of my best sellers is, quite literally, ‘Delicious’. It’s fragranced with a dupe of the DKNY fragrance ‘Be Delicious’ which has the fresh scent of apples blended with floral / woody fragrances. To date I’ve always made it with a simple ITP swirl (with apologies for the lighting on the bottom bar):
Delicious – ITP Swirl
When I’m against the clock and frantically trying to get my stock levels back up, an ITP swirl is mercifully quick to execute. But, for me at least, they are unpredictable, and the colour distribution isn’t always as I would like. So I decided to try using the same colours but with a drop swirl, and this is how it came out:
Delicious – Drop Swirl
I LOVE it! So that’s me with one less ‘quickie’ during busy stocking-up soapmaking sessions, but I reckon it’s worth it 🙂
It has though brought to mind an ongoing dilemma I have about what’s most important when it comes to the soaps that I create. I put a lot of thought into what oils and butters go into my bars to give them skin-loving, super-lathering properties, but then I hear people say that they look too pretty to use. It’s a phrase I’ve heard at every single craft fair / Christmas market I’ve ever sold at. I know people are being complimentary but – Noooooooooooo! Use them! Use them, then buy more 😀
Last year I made just one batch of soap specifically for the holiday season. I swapped the usual raffia for a seasonal ribbon, and it sold out within a couple of days. I posted at the time that it was a case of bad planning, but by then it was too late to do anything about it, and I vowed to do better this year.
I was super-organised, and ordered my Christmas fragrances in August (!!). I decided to make four different Christmas soaps. Four different designs made with four different fragrances. If I’m totally honest, I have mixed feelings about this lot, but judge for yourselves:
First up was Candy Cane – a mouthwatering fragrance which blends peppermint and vanilla. I liked this one so much I made a second batch, and good thing too, as it’s proving very popular and the first batch is already sold out.
Candy Cane
Next I had a plan to create a stylised Christmas Tree design, complete with baubles. My main disappointment with this one is that I somehow had a brain freeze while rolling the ‘baubles’ and I made them two small. To me they should be the same diameter as the baubles on the top of the soap. I also tried to get clever and create some variation in the colours/designs of the baubles themselves by rolling different colours together, but it didn’t work as well as I hoped. Perhaps they would have looked better had they been larger. Anyway, they may look a bit quirky, but they certainly smell like a Christmas tree – the fragrance oil has top notes of pine needles and and spicy, woodsy middle and base notes.
Christmas Tree
The third fragrance was called ‘Yule Log’ which, predictably, is a sweet chocolate scent, with notes of bitter almonds, cinnamon, ginger and vanilla. I planned to use this fragrance oil to make my ‘Clyde Slide’ entry for the September Greatcakes Soapworks challenge and used colours which are reminiscent of a Christmas Yule Log:
Yule Log
Sadly I was focusing so much on mastering the technique that I forgot to add the fragrance oil – arrrgghhhh! Never mind, I made it again and now have a scented and an unscented version 😀
My final Christmas design for 2015 is a second Clyde Slide – Moonlit Mistletoe – in grey, silver and green. It’s a true unisex fragrance, the top notes are herbal, green and fruity, balanced with spices, amber and patchouli.
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
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.
Prepped colourants
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.
Tall & Skinny Shimmy in the Mould
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:
Ready for cutting
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!!
Tall & Skinny Shimmy (kinda)
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.
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!
By The Sea Soaps
Pam also sent me some beautiful dried rosebuds, and I’ll be using them on something special soon!
Dried Rose Petals
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 Philosophy from By The Sea SoapA Pink Philosophy – Top
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.
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.
Black Raspberry Vanilla by SoGa Artisan Soaperie
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:
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:
Moon Goddess Garden
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!!
Moon Goddess Garden
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
Here it is unwrapped and you can see the fine swirls that adorn the inside and the top of the bar:
Juliet’s Heart by Melinda’s Naturals
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.
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:
Handmade in Florida Packaging
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:
Amber & Sensual Oudh by Handmade in Florida
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!
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:
I am Handmade Love + Kisses and Cottontail
And here they are unboxed:
Love + Kisses / Cottontail
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:
Love + Kisses in use
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:
Amber-Lemon by 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.
Dandelion Seifee packaging
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.
Heavenly Bubbles
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 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!
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:
Soapy Jones
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)
Soapy Jones Seascape
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:
Soap & Soap
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:
Soap & Soap
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 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:
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 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:
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:
Goody Bag from Pam
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:
dandelion SeiFee
From Wendy of Soapy Jones, UK:
Soapy Jones
From Barbara of Moon Goddess Garden, US:
Moon Goddess Garden
From Melinda of Melinda’s Naturals, US:
Melinda’s Naturals
From Celine of i am handmade, Ireland:
i am handmade
From Wendy of Heavenly Bubbles, UK:
Heavenly Bubbles
From Zacil of Soap & Soap in Germany:
Soap & Soap
From Emily of Shieh Design Studio, US:
Shieh Design Studio
From Zahida of Handmade in Florida, US:
Handmade in Florida
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)
Soga Artisan Soaperie
Don’t, whatever you do, miss the next two posts. There will be naked bars 😀
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!
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
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 😀 😀 😀
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
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:
Improvised Shoe Box Mould
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).
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):
Soap ready to pour
I poured the soap into the mould, alternating colours in a faux-funnel type pour:
Soap mid-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:
Leaked soap!
THAT is why I love my silicone moulds so much 😀 Anyway – the unmolded soap didn’t look too promising:
Unmoulded Spinning Swirl
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
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
And, after a little love and attention, I’m really happy with the result:
Spinning Swirl Soap
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.
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!
Florida Sunrise
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.
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
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
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…
Soap in the Mould – name yet to be decided!
Cut pictures to follow just as soon as I get round to taking them 😀
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:
1st Incarnation of Tutti Frutti
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:
2nd Incarnation of Tutti Frutti
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?!).
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
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