Happy New Year!

Happy new year, hope you enjoyed your holidays. As soon as I could I got into the kitchen and got soaping my first milk soap- coconut milk. I wanted a very mild soap so this has a high level of olive oil with a little coconut and castor for bubbles. I also wanted a small amount of exfoliation so i added tea leaves to one of the layers. I have to say I'm very pleased with it and the scent of coconut from the milk is beautiful much more pleasant than a fragrance oil. I'm also pleased with the purple I got, I've never had much luck with purple previously and the swirls made me smile too ^_^ Next time I think I would make this soap with maybe lavender fragrance or essential oil, typical purple scent hehe.

Rug Making

It has been a long time since I posted, because I don't really like to post a pointless post. I haven't been well for the past few weeks and I don't soap when I'm not well just to stay in good habit for when I sell. So with not a lot  to do and spending time mostly in bed and a few hours at the pc I wandered into the realm of rug making. This has taken my interest and I thought I'd like to try it. So I did! The small amount of time I've spent on my rug has been fun and I'm pleased with it so far. 

I haven't bought any design, just canvas, hook and wool. Of course I had to have some pink, don't worry the pink is not as garish as in the photo. I think this stripe will be the background with a simple design in the middle or maybe I'll just do lots of different coloured stripes, who knows ^_^

I'd like to say thank you very much to Amanda for linking me on her blog: Tiki Lounge it's very much appreciated! I love all of her soaps, and the latest black tea and cola looks wonderful, I so wish I could smell it.

Anywho that's all from me, I hope to post soon but not making any promises as I'm still not feeling tip top :(

Take care all :) xxx

Cheap Laundry Soap and Melt and Pour Update

Wowee my posts have been few and far between, eh? This post is just a quick update on the things I talked about in my previous post. I was very very happy with my laundry soap, I used a mixture of sunflower and castor oils. There are much fewer bubbles than with coconut oil, but I feel that's a good thing because I always get worried about too many bubbles in my washing machine. It also turned out very cheap, I got 1.6L for 83p of materials. Which for me turns out to be 32 normal washes for less than a pound. My clothes come out very clean, even ones that are stained which I was very surprised at, as my soap is not high cleansing like a coconut oil soap.


I'm still experimenting with my Melt and Pour and it's not perfect yet, though I think I have a great oil formula going on, the lather I'm getting is gorgeous and the feel is much better than my first batch. I think I need to be a little more adventurous with my sugar to get better clarity. The melting and pouring and setting is fine though, just working on clarity and feel. If/when those kinks are worked out or I'm happy with the look and feel I'll be posting more about it hehe.


At the moment I'm getting ready for Christmas time and preparing for my safety assessment. Trying to decide what to cook for Christmas dinner always fun ^_^ I've also been enjoying picking out presents for everyone and everyone that's helped me on my soapy journey is going to get an extra gift box of Christmas-y soaps and I'm so excited about those.


Anywho this short post turned into a long post. Take care all, xxx :)

Long time, no see

Time has just seemed to have flown by this last month and I haven't had any time to soap. I'm hoping to get some soaping done today. I'm thinking of some liquid laundry soap because I don't have a lot left and I'd really like to carry on experimenting with melt and pour. I know that coconut oil is the most popular for laundry soap because of it's high cleansing properties but today I've been thinking of sunflower oil instead. It costs less than coconut and doesn't seem to make a lot of bubbles which is useful in the washing machine. Sunflower oil is used less because it turns rancid quickly but with doing at least one wash a day lately I have a feeling it won't sit on the shelf long enough to get rancid. Not sure if I'm right I haven't researched this I only thought of it this morning but I think I'll give it a go and see how it washes.


Another thing I've been wanting to post about it my framed soap, now that it's fully cured I've been using it at the kitchen sink and it truly is a beautiful bar of soap to wash with, the high cocoa butter percentage really makes a difference on my skin. During washing it feels so luxurious and soft and afterwards my hands feel really pampered. But that's not my point hehe, I have noticed that the swirl becomes much more pronounced and pretty the more I use the soap. When I first cut the batch I was disappointed with the inner swirl, thinking that it wasn't defined enough and looked more like a solid green. Now that I have used it I don't know why but the swirl gets bolder and bolder and more like what I wanted when I made it. I'll try and get a picture of it so you know what I'm talking about hehe. 


Lastly the reason I've been away for so long is that I can't tear myself away from this guy ^_^

He's growing so quickly he'll be twelve weeks on Wednesday. When I got him he wasn't in great shape but he's doing so much better now with good vet care some pampering and a good dollop of tlc ^_^

Take care all, xxx :)

Melt and pour from scratch ^_^

Making melt and pour from scratch went really well. Going to be tweaking the recipe for better lather, less sticky, more transparent etc. I'm very pleased with it so far and would happily use it as it is for myself, in fact I have been hehe. The stickiness has reduced overnight so it most definitely needs curing, which was expected, just surprised at the difference. When I cure my lye soaps the only difference I notice in the feel is hardness really and that's over a long time. So today when I picked up my block of melt and pour and felt that it was so different to yesterday I was intrigued. Did a short video on the results and that is here:

This batch was made with propylene glycol but is palm and surfactant free, a big chunk of the recipe being shea butter. I want to see if I can make a batch without the propylene glycol. While I'm not overly fussed about being 'all-natural' for my own personal reasons, I know many of my friends and family are so getting a soap base that uses mostly natural ingredients would be great. I don't have high hopes for removing the propylene glycol but we'll see. I also didn't use alcohol to make this soap, denatured alcohol is a hassle to get in the UK just for a hobby, and I think bypassing the alcohol detracts from the clarity but I'm guessing helps keep the soap from being too drying on the skin, but is just an honest guess I haven't researched it.

Anywho it's late, thanks for stopping by, take care all :) xxx

Waiting on supplies :)

I have two projects that I'm super duper excited about, one of which is making my own melt and pour base. I've never used melt and pour because I love making things from scratch, that way they really feel like my own. However I'm really interested in the ways melt and pour soap is used, that it is very quick, that there is a larger variety of fragrances I can use and of course the beauty and sometimes novelty of melt and pour soaps. I like the idea of having my own base on standby for when I want to jump in the kitchen and create something but don't want to get out the lye and worry about trace and fragrances behaving. I'm pretty sure some fragrances will discolour melt and pour but I won't be worrying about ricing or seizing. I think it might also be a great way to build up stock when I get round to selling soaps.

As it's coming up to a year since I started soaping and I've been asked so many times now to sell my soaps and of course because I truly love making them I've decided I will definitely start to sell. I'm planning on selling next year, hopefully around spring give or take a month- I definitely don't want to rush this. One thing I've been thinking about is Etsy, Artfire or custom website? I'm swaying to the idea of starting with Etsy where I can list soaps one by one and then once I have a good range opening a custom website. Still not sure though and it's on the backburner as I'm concentrating on safety assessments/insurance/HMRC.

It's been a while since I posted and I've only made two batches of soap, one being the second Nippy and the other being a test batch for a fragrance oil to see how it behaved in CP soap. I improved the Nippy HP soap's performance by adding some yummy skin loving goodies. I cut it today and videoed it because it's been a while since I posted on youtube too:

Adding a second superfat at the end of cooking with Extra Virgin Olive Oil and some Vegetable Glycerin gave the lather a super soft creamy feel. Anyway my first lot of supplies should be arriving tomorrow-can't wait yay! ^_^ I need to get back in the kitchen and get some things ready for tomorrow, take care all :) xxx

Cupcakes and Cream!

This is what I've been up to for the past few days. Cold Process cupcake soaps and my first cream soap. Both I'm super happy with. My cupcakes are scented with essential oils and I'm going to be calling them 'Resolution'. They'll be going in the Christmas gift baskets along with 'Nippy' :D There are some calendula petals in the base (although in the photographs the soaps are still in their molds) and some petals sprinkled on the top with a dusting of gold glitter.

I designed my own simple recipe for my first cream soap and couldn't wait for the rotting period before trying a scoop to bathe with today. Oh! How lovely cream soap is! And it should get better after the rotting period (don't like that word hehe, seems to be a word similar to curing for the cream soap world). I got a very thick, creamy, foamy lather with it that was so soft on my skin. The whole batch is tinted with a tiny but of purple and scented with waterlily fragrance oil and lavender essential oil. Strange combination I know but I was using up leftovers and the result is quite a pretty fragrance.

Anywho that's all for now, hope you had a good weekend, take care all :) xxx