Skip to main content
Hi everyone!  Yep, I haven't shared any photos for quite some time - but I'm getting back into the swing.  I've been spending alot of time latley restocking my basic bars - Miracle Mud, Natural Oatmeal, Shaving and Naked.  These are popular and wonderful, but soapers know that experimenting and playing with new ideas is always how we want to spend our time.  Don't get me wrong - I'm thrilled that I'm developing a little customer base that I've got coming back for more - but you gotta let the creativity out sometimes, too.

I'm really, really trying not to purchase more fragrance oils (no really - I swear!), so I'm attempting to salvage some of those bottles with just a smidge of oil left and blending them into something new.  I also ran out of coconut oil so I tried some babassau and decided attempt changing my water ratio " aka discounting the water".  I basically raided my soap pantry and jumped right in.

So here are the results!  
Fragrances:  WSP Barber Shop + MMS Elements of Bamboo.  I added the fragrance combo to the oils first just in case it might speed up.  It didn't until I got all the colors blended (by hand - which accounts for some of the color specs in the blue).

Colorants: Gulf Stream Lab Color from Brambleberry,  Satin Grey Pillowcase mica from Mad Oils, and Zion Views mica from TKB Trading Co.

Told you I was mixing it up!  I love the babassau oil!  I've been using it in my lotion bars and it's perfect for that. Unfortunately it's a bit pricey so I may not soap much with it from now on.

Colorants sometimes give me trouble - seems like I either use too much or too little every time. Plus, the gulf stream always fools me because it looks green when you blend it in and stays that way until after the gel phase. Just when you think it's going to stay murky and green, the blue is revealed!  I must say I have loved experimenting with lots of different micas the past few months - there are so many fun ones out there now.   And best of all, this soap smells wonderful! Just enough masculine kick rounded out with the clean and slightly sweet bamboo.  It's so nice, I'm tempted to try and reproduce it.  You know what that means, right?? Buying more fragrance oils!   Sigh


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Balancing the Possibilities

Many soapers like myself aren't living the dream of operating a full time soap business.  We have other types of work and careers that must remain top priority to pay the bills and keep our families going.  Those of us who are taking a shot at soaping as a side business have to squeeze out the extra time for it in rather creative ways. We can't be profitable if we aren't working at it several hours a week.  I'd venture to say many of us are in that same boat. I've done alot of thinking this weekend about moving forward in a new marketplace this season, and had another wonderful opportunity offered out of the blue.  Lots of exciting things are happening, but this also brings with it a degree of fear and anxiety for me.  I have a wonderfully supportive husband, but why do I immediately worry about failing?  I swear I have a dozen batches of soap curing right now and lots more already packaged and waiting, but still I fear I "won't have enough"!  When I
7 comments
Read more

Still Learning

Guess what I learned to do today?  Yes, I made myself a light box for photo taking!  I've been pretty slow in studying up on picture taking, but now am making up for lost time.  These are my very first attempts and I'm pretty pleased.  And it was easy - even for me.  YouTube is amazing and I so appreciate all you smarties who are willing to take time to show some of us slower models how to do things! This is a custom order of Honey Soap that's now curing.  I love my logo stamp, but I tend to try it too soon after cutting.  These were cut about four days ago, and I stamped them yesterday.  I should have stopped at one or two...sigh.  I'm pretty sure my customer will be ok with it, though.   On a technical note, this batch was put in the fridge after pouring.  I wanted to prevent gel, due to the honey I was afraid it would get too hot and crack or creep up in the mold.  I kept it refrigerated for 24 hours, but as you can see, it looks like it still gelled partial
4 comments
Read more

Lots of experiments

Today I got the chance to indulge in soaping for most of the day.  I did four batches today, using a technique I've never tried before, courtesy of a great   Youtube tutorial from SophiasNaturals .  She demonstrates an interesting form of thermal transfer that I haven't seen, immediately mixing the lye water into the hard oils until melted.  The liquid oils are added after.  I used this method for all my soaping today and it seemed to work well.  I didn't need to use the stick blender very much at all, which helped me tremendously as I often tend to overmix.  I wanted to attempt the "Holly Swirl", which is basically an in the pot swirl done twice.  Sorta..  I had a lot of half bottles of fragrances, so I did some custom scent blending, too. It was a day of experimenting. Top:  Small batch trying  Sweet Cakes "Aria" .  I used a some ruby mica for a cute little swirl.  It smells so good right now. Middle:  This was my attempt at Holly Swirl.  I have
6 comments
Read more