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

Nippy Cut Bars

Quick update on the cut bars. I'm really pleased with how they came out. I'm planning on making another loaf of this soon and thinking about leaving it whole because it's just so pretty and cutting off a slice as needed. This fragrance and well the whole soap and process has been by far the most fun and my favourite. I will definitely be doing HP again!

Take care all :) xxx

Hot Process

I reckon there's a lot of other soapers out there like me, that were/are a little wary of trying hot process soap making because of the texture. Having seen some not-so-great photos of HP when I began soaping in December I'd decided this was not a branch of soaping I wish to go down. Since then I have learnt so much and have an ever-growing unquenchable thirst for soaping. I frequently find myself on youtube clicking through the recommendations and the other night I found some videos on HP. Watching in awe at the beautiful, rustic, simple bars I couldn't believe that I had dismissed it so readily before. I wish I had researched more on HP back then but now I take it as an opportunity to submerge myself in soapy, hot processing fun ^_^

And here it is. Today I was having fun in the kitchen creating this batch that I'm calling 'Nippy'. I will be giving bars of this in a gift set for christmas to all the people that have supported me during this journey. I can't wait to cut into this and see how my swirl came out. I love the smell of this batch too, it's a crisp, mint and menthol with a background of vanilla and then you have the cool spice of the star anise embeds. I keep sniffing it as it cools in the mold, I really hope it comes out well because I love it so much already hehe.I had a little too much soap batter for my crock pot so I decided to practice my piping on a scrap of greaseproof. As well as many soapy videos there are many cake decorating videos and I've been excited to try out some piping too. I think the little gem star piping is so cute, I would love to try a soap cake with those one day. Ahhh dreaming, dreaming. This feeling is great and I'm sure a lot of soapers feel this too, where you suddenly get a million ideas at once and are just itching to try them all right now, this very second, hehe.

Anyway hopefully my HP loaf will be ready to cut tomorrow morning, take care all :) xxx

First attempt: Framed soap

Yesterday I was busy trying my hand at framed soap, and today I got to cut it. Above are the photos I took. I did do a cutting video but didn't like it because I had my arm in the way most of the time - silly billy. I named this soap Autumn Grace. The photos of it in the mold are just after pouring, so the colours are a little more vibrant. I tried to do a copper and green autumnal feel but my copper was more orangey than I'd have liked it to be. I'm still proud of my top swirl and it's scented with a Chanel no. 5 type which is heavenly. I'm pretty pleased with the frame, even though it's uneven I still think it's good for a first try ^_^

This soap is completely cold process, vegan and palm free. This palm-free recipe is what I'm keeping now, I am ridiculously pleased with it hehe. I smile every time I think about my lather. I did do a lather test video today which I'll try to edit and post tonight if I'm not too tired.

Take care all :) xx

Two videos today

I was quite inhibited about making a how-to video because I don't like telling people what to do. I don't give out a lot of advice, apart from to family, because I get too worried that I'll tell someone something that's wrong and that I'll ruin their life and they'll hate me forever lol. Anyway, I took the plunge and made a semi how-to video because I hadn't seen anyone else do it yet and thought it would be quite useful for some fellow soap makers that are maybe wary of using citric acid in liquid soap. Here it is:

Earlier today I cut my CP soap from yesterday and I was so surprised. It was actually quite lovely soap, so I'm really happy with it. I don't think I'll manage to get the colours again, they seem so unique, but I'll definitely try. I might use the scent mix again though. I don't usually like the scent of coconut but after I mixed it with the pear fragrance it smelled delicious. It added just a little bit of a creamy, tropical scent to the crisp, refreshing pear fragrance. I decided to post the vid of the cutting after all, here:

So that's what I was up to yesterday, posts will slow down for a bit now because I need to restock supplies but I'll be back soon (week or two?).

Take care all, thanks for reading/watching :) xxx

I made a web browser?!

I decided to play around with Visual Basics Express 2010 last night and it was so much fun. I stayed up way too late making my own web browser. Of course it's not fantastically full of features, this is my first attempt at software development but it works! Hehe I was so amazed that I managed to get it working, I found it took a lot of concentration but overall it wasn't so hard. Anyway enough boasting from me but if you want to try my browser you can it's available here. Maybe you can give me some tips on making it better decent :-D

Right now I have a new formula of liquid soap paste cooking in the crock pot. I was very pleased that I had a 9 minute 53 second trace (yup I timed it with a stopwatch :-P) and that I wasn't standing around with the blender going for 40 minutes which, I guess, is the least fun part of liquid soap making for many.

I felt the need to do a liquid soap this afternoon because my attempt at a bar soap earlier seems to have failed. Well not failed. I'm pretty sure it will be good soap, I'm just equally sure that it will be a very ugly soap hehe. I won't know for sure until I cut it tomorrow. I'll get a video of the cutting but whether I post it or not is another matter. The monitor might explode in disgust, naw I'm kidding. Anyway the liquid soap should be a lot more bubbly than my last batch, I'm looking forward to trying it ^_^

I need to go check on it now, so take care all :) xxx

Baby Pink Body Butters

Made my body butters today and really enjoyed making them. They're scented with baby powder fragrance oil and I think they smell gorgeous, I love the soft scent. I'm surprised at how light but moisturising they are, I thought they would feel really heavy and greasy but they didn't. I'll be back soon with more liquid soap posts as I tweak my recipe. I'm looking for more bubbles in my liquid soap so I might up my coconut and castor oils a little bit. The bubble bar experiments will continue in 1-2 weeks. Take care all :) xxx

Bubble Bar Experiments

Here's my first attempt at bubble bars and I'm pleased, they turned out better than I expected. I will be tweaking my recipe for some bigger bubbles, more foam and hopefully some moisturising qualities. I really enjoyed playing with the clear up after hehe, smelled so pretty and the foam was so soft and gentle. I'll keep you updated on my progress with the bubble bars and hopefully you'll see them getting better.

Like I said in the video some body butters should be coming soon, that will be a first attempt also. I hope to do them tomorrow but I might be too busy with decorating; I hope to get the living room finished soon. In the meantime take care all :) xxx

Finished Tropicana Liquid Soap

Here is the finished liquid soap. I used a green colourant and added Tropicana fragrance oil, it smells really fresh and fruity hehe. It smells a lot like lemon, which is why I chose green. Very summery but sadly summer's almost over. Not too sad though because I love autumn ^_^

I'm so proud and happy with the clarity, I poured some into this lotion bottle to use in the shower because I just can't wait to try it. It's in a lotion bottle because it's too thick for the foamer bottle hehe. Getting it that thick without a thickener took a lot of patience but it was worth it. The rest is sequestering and should hopefully get even clearer.

I've already tried some on my hands and they feel so soft now, I'm quite surprised it seems a lot milder than my bar soaps. Which makes me ponder on the thought that it really matters which oils you use and not so much how much you superfat. I will be remembering that when I formulate a new bar soap recipe. More shea and olive maybe? I really wish sunflower oil soaps weren't so prone to rancidity because I'm starting to really love that little oil.

On another note I spent some time today making some vegan chickpea curry, I used this recipe from the Vegetarian Society. There are lots of other recipes around though with a few variations , I decided to leave out the almonds because I'm not a fan of nuts. Had some for dinner today and it was beautiful! If you like spice but not too hot and fresh flavours I suggest you try this. I made the whole 12 portions and am freezing the other 11. I think I will make this a regular because it was just so tasty ^_^

More coming next week, hope you had a good weekend! Take care all :) xxx

Et Voila! *happy success dance*

Just a small update today, thought I would share my immense happiness at finally getting my liquid soap clear. As I write this it's happily diluting in the crockpot, a beautiful deep amber. The picture above is my clarity test. For the oils I used castor, coconut and sunflower, can't wait to try it tomorrow, I might even do a lather test vid ^_^ Take care all :) xxx

Kitchen Update

Here is the kitchen update, I wanted a fondant fancy/cupcake theme for my kitchen and I'm really pleased with how it turned out. It's already my favourite room in the flat hehe.

About stearic streaks: I wanted to clarify the stearic streaks I mentioned in my video. Palm oil contains stearic acid and this settles to the bottom of your oil. This can cause the streaks you see in my soap (purely aesthetic) and/or acceleration when making your soap. Because I was making an unscented batch of soap the acceleration didn't matter so much to me. However it is best to melt down your palm oil and stir it before using it otherwise you will have not much stearic acid at the top and too much at the bottom. For example your first batch will be much softer than your last batch.

So there will be a liquid soap update soon and hopefully bubble bars sometime next week. Take care :) xxx

Shopping, Sims and Oblivion

My order has been shipped, was nothing fancy just some coconut and castor oils for my liquid soap but I did also order some surfactants. Thinking of giving bubble bars a go, might be fun ^_^ I didn't order any fragrance oils because I've got a few that I still need to use up. Tropicana being one of them, it's not my favourite because it's overpowered by a melon scent and I was hoping for more of a tropical fruit medley but it's not unpleasant.

On another note, Sims Social has just been released and it's quite addictive. I'm usually not a facebook games fan, preferring mmos over any other type of game, but this has been quite fun. The thing that I think is appealing about it would be that you just play for about 10 minutes every now and then throughout the day. Meaning it's very easy to keep the game going with little effort. The reason I didn't enjoy any previous Sims games is because they got tired very quickly, I felt that my little sims were just too high maintenance.

Another game I've been playing attempting to play is Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. I wanted to play this after seeing the trailer for Skyrim, then saw Oblivion and was really excited to try it. I need something to play to fill in the gap before Star Wars comes out hehe. So I played for about half an hour and just felt so terrible, I think this is the motion sickness I've heard other people talk about. It felt like my head was filled with cotton wool..ewww. I think this is because I'm used to mainly moving in games with my WASD keys, in this game you move forward with your W key and swing yourself around with the mouse. It was just so uncomfortable for me. So I don't know if I'll be able to play Oblivion or not, if anyone reading this knows of a mod where I can use the WASD keys for total movement (long shot) do let me know :)

Anyway I'll be updating soon, take care :) xxx

Long time no see, eh?

It's been over a month since I updated, it has been a very long, busy, warm month but now the flat is starting to shape up into my sweet little home. The kitchen is almost finished and I'll be uploading a video of it soon to my youtube channel. The living room is coming along slowly but surely, this week it's had a break so I could finally clean out the closets. My clothes have been in bags for this entire time hehe.

I think my soap withdrawal is reaching a frenzied peak so tomorrow I think I'll order some nice supplies, yay! I'm thinking of continuing my work on liquid soap for the meantime, to perfect it and work out the kinks with the clarity.

Check back soon for soap and decorating updates, take care in the meanwhile :) xxx

New Flat

Finally got the keys to my new flat yesterday. The picture above is the surprise I got the first time I opened the door, my family had already sent those cards to me. It really touched me and they're sitting in my new kitchen now. This blog is going to be on hold for a bit longer while I decorate and settle in but as soon as I have I'll be able to make soap again, yay!

Cherub

I finally got to use my new big mould. I made an unscented batch because I've never worked with such a large amount of soap before. Even though there's no fragrance I really enjoyed making this. It was going to be plain white/cream coloured but I added some pink and silver glitter at the last minute. I cut it as soon as I woke up this morning so no cutting video today but I took lots of pictures ^_^ I thought I'd name this Cherub and use this design in the future not sure which fragrance I'd use for this though. Any suggestions? :)

Custom Moulds!

Here they are, my new custom made moulds! Wow I am so happy hehe :D They took a long time to make, almost a whole day, the daylight was almost gone by the time they were finished. Although I think most of the time it was just us planning, calculating and perfecting them ^_^ A family friend made them for me and made them to my exact requirements, I feel so lucky to have someone so talented to do this for me. The large one holds a little over 6lbs and the small one holds a little over 2lbs. I asked for them to be a little over so that I'd have the exact amount of bars I wanted with the two end bars as extras. I'm planning on painting these moulds to really make them my own and have been working on some designs this evening. These are sort of prototypes if these work well I'll get 2 more made exactly the same, if not we'll tweak the design a little bit and have 2 different ones. I'm planning on making my first large batch of CP soap in the big mould tomorrow if I get the time. It will also be my first try at a beer soap ^_^


I know I promised liquid soap but I made my 3rd batch of it today and it has still turned out cloudy. I'm at the end of my tether with perfecting this liquid soap hehe. It soaps beautifully I just wish I could get the aesthetics right. I also promised body butters but I had some very unexpected news (good news) on Wednesday so things are quite far behind as priorities have all jumped places.

So hopefully beer soap and body butters tomorrow, liquid soap if I am uber efficient with my time hehe :-P

Ickle Update

I've been real quiet while I've been experimenting with my liquid soap mainly because there hasn't been much success hehe. Tomorrow I will be making another batch of liquid soap and a batch of body butters and hopefully posting with some photos.

My good friend came to see me and I gave her a bag with a selection of my products and she seems to be really pleased, yay! ^_^ Also someone who I had given some soaps to before has asked to buy my soaps which was totally out of the blue. I won't take any money but will give them the soaps they asked for as a gift. It was totally out of the blue and I'm so happy to know that someone thinks my soaps are worth paying for. I want to thank them and my friend for being so supportive on my soaping venture!

One last piece of news, this Saturday I will be having some custom soap molds made for me and I am so excited and can't wait. So hopefully quite a few updates over the next weeks, hope you're doing well too fellow soap lovers.

Frankenstein!

Woooohhh seeeee myyyy creaaaation! :-o Hehe I'm kidding, here's my new soap. I thought I'd try out the soap ball embeds. The balls are made from a batch that almost failed but I saved it and made balls from it ^_^ Click on the picture above to watch the youtube video of me cutting it. In the video I use my brand new soap cutter (read dough scraper) to slice my nice even slices. I'm so happy with it, it really makes a difference to the look of the soap. I hated my wonkey slices hehe. The embeds are scented with a creamy floral fragrance while the main part of the soap is a mixture of fragrances I put together. Overall it's a clean, refreshing unisex scent with a bit of spice that I adore and can't wait to make again.

I'm sorry I've been slow on the posting but I blame it on the mail as my supplies seemed to take forever to arrive. I'm still waiting on my potassium hydroxide at the moment but I'm sure that will arrive early next week and the posts can start rolling again, yay ^_^ So I'll say bye for now and I'll be back soon with more, enjoy the video :D

New Massage Bars

Busy weekend for me and haven't had time to do much soaping at all. I did get time to make these new massage bars though. I am really happy with my recipe now and think I'll be using these instead of my lotion at night time, for some really deep moisturising. I've added some olive oil this time. They are scented with an orchid fragrance, it has such a deep scent, it reminds me of hot summer. Of course there is my clumsy gold glitter as usual hehe ^_^ I am really pleased with the colour, I was playing around with it for ages not sure of where I was going with it and I ended up with this dusky rose colour.

I'm off to write down my batch notes so I don't forget how to get this gorgeous colour. Before I go a quick note on what's coming soon. I've got a gift of supplies heading it's way to me and some other new bits and bobs. So soon I will be doing a few posts on liquid soaps, I have a new bar soap idea I want to try out and I'll be trying some body butters and creams! Lots to do as soon as I get my parcels, can't wait ^_^

Cutting Video

Here is my first cutting video ^_^ I feel quite nervous putting it out there but I see so many and I wanted to try it too hehe. I really do need to get a better camera, I promise my kitchen isn't that yellow.

I did decide to make the bay rum soap and lotion and here is the soap. I didn't realise how much I would love this fragrance when I smelled the bottle but in the soap and lotion it's even better. In the video I just cut my soap but I do talk about my lotion too a little bit. I'm pleasantly surprised at my swirl, I didn't think it would reach that deep or that rich a colour. I did get a tiny bit of ash on the top :( but not too bad. I was prepared for this to seize up but I had a lot more time to work with than I anticipated. I could have done an in the pot swirl but now I'm glad I didn't because I've really impressed myself with this one hehe.

About the lotion, on the soap making forum I expressed my skepticism about pouring it into the bottle instead of piping. I'm glad I'm not stubborn enough to not test things because now I love pouring instead of piping. It was so much easier and faster, plus I didn't waste as much product. I actually got a fifth bottle out of my batch instead of the normal four! I would now definitely recommend pouring. The only thing you need to watch out for is your temperature, most preservatives don't handle temperatures above 50°C. In the video I mention Optiphen which can be used at or below 60°C.

White Tea

Yesterday I was working on using fragrance oils that accelerate. I used a white tea fragrance, that is supposed to cause light acceleration. This scent is beautiful! It's such a delicate feminine fragrance, it's floral with some fruity notes, I love it. I made two batches of this, the first one I messed up and I poured it back into the pot and put on the stove to cook it, it came out lovely but not what I was aiming for. So I made a second batch and worked a lot faster. I poured into my flower silicone molds and I was surprised at how hot they got. They started to sweat a little about an hour after pouring so I popped them in the freezer. Unmolded today and I'm happy with them :D

I think you might be wondering what is that orange stuff? Hehe that's the gold glitter I sprinkled inside the molds, when I popped the soaps out the glitter had stained the soaps orange :(

I think when I make these again I will put them in the fridge after I pour to keep the temperatures down. The photo is taken with the soaps half sitting in the mold because they're still a little damp, I want them to dry out a bit.

Apart from the minor sweating and they glitter gloom I think I did pretty well. I used to add the fragrance to the oils before the lye and had a few problems this way, with ricing and separation. This time I added at a really light trace and preferred this, I felt that I had more control over the fragrance. Also I didn't have to worry so much about tracing and lye mixing, because you deal with the lye and fragrance separately. By the time it comes to adding fragrance you know your lye is thoroughly mixed and you're happy with your trace. Then hand stir in the fragrance quickly and pour ^_^

I think I will be trying bay rum fragrance next, some friends have asked for a masculine scent for their lotion; I thought I'd do a bay rum soap and lotion bundle for them. So maybe some bay rum pictures next or maybe something else, I'm not sure yet :-P

Captivating Cupcakes :o

So I'm late with the posting of these but at least these are better photos than the last ones hehe :D I thought these were going to be a fail batch as I had a disaster moment with the bases but I really like them now. I had put the bases into the oven to gel and left them in too long. When I took them out they had a skin on the top, I scooped that off and underneath was a lovely gel-y middle. When I unmolded the soaps the bases had lots of tiny bubbles throughout them and I was so disappointed but looking at them now, they really do look like mini cupcakes with the bubbles, just like cake sponge. A little different to the usual smooth bases but it's growing on me. The whipped soap frosting isn't amazing hehe, but it does make each of them really individual. I have been practicing with the piping though, here's a photo:

Yep it does look like a walnut whip (politest way to put it) but it's kind of getting there... I used a sandwich bag like I use for my lotions for this. Still haven't got a good piping bag yet. I can't wait to get one though and really get creative with the frosting. I'm also on the lookout for some embed molds for my soaps. I sprinkled these with glitter too, I'm getting so trigger happy with my glitters hehe.

About the fragrance, these were scented with Captivate, hence the title ^_^ It's description: Captivate - Imagine the perfect blend of vanilla, amber, sandalwood and amyris with a cologne-like heart of light jasmine and soft musk . I think that it smells very nutty though, I don't think I'll be soaping with it again, also it made my purple bases brown :( It's definitely not an unpleasant scent, just not my favourite.

Anywho today I was busy soaping and when those are unmolded I'll get a picture right away this time :D and I'll post those tomorrow at some point, hopefully not as late as today. Oh dear it's getting light out now, toodle pip! ^_^

New Pear Palm Free

Yesterday I tried a new base recipe using no palm oil and here is the result. I might try to do a lather test clip with this one once it's cured a bit. I have of course already tried it hehe but my camerawoman isn't here today :P For this recipe I used coconut, olive, castor and peach kernel oils with some cocoa butter ^_^ I'm hoping this is going to be a nice conditioning bar and I hope I don't lose too many bubbles. It's scented with pear and it smells so fresh, very summery.

I tried to do some textured 'Lyn Tops', her blog and here's her tutorial vid. It was very kind of her to share this on the soapmaking forums. I have learned so much from everybody there so thank you to all of them ^_^ It's a great place to learn and share anything to do with soap making and bath/body products :D

I'm having a real hard time getting good pictures, by good pictures I mean that they actually look like what I'm photographing, at the moment due to having two quite bad cameras. I think I'll be investing in a better camera soon so please bare with me and the rubbish photos hehe. I put some tissue paper underneath and around the soap so I could get as true a colour of the soap as possible.

Today I'm kind of halfway through making some more cupcake soaps, and I will be posting pics of them tomorrow, hopefully they come out nice ^_^

Rebatching

Just thought I'd share a picture of my first successful rebatch. In the past I had an awful time rebatching, I added too much water. This time I wasn't so trigger happy with the water and I'm actually quite pleased with how this came out. I really like that some chunks of soap stayed white and the texture is very smooth inside. It's scented with a fragrance oil I was really excited about but it accelerated really quickly and I was so sad I decided to save it because it smells sooo good :D It's description on Gracefruit: "...top notes of black orchid and cinnamon, a heart of Mysore sandalwood and clove on a base of amber, Tahitian vanilla, and Egyptian musk." It's kind of luxurious and feminine, I love it.

This is what it looked like halfway through the rebatch, I think it probably was a little too dry on hindsight but it turned out good so no matter :D Looks like mashed potatoes hehe.

Honey for my Honey

Yesterday was a very busy day for me, five batches of soap! This batch is a special batch though :D My boyfriend requested spa bars, I made them for him before and now it's the only soap he'll use for his face ^_^ I used a honey scent for these, it's a very creamy, comforting fragrance. The salt I use for my spa bars is a marine salt from Israel, it's naturally evaporated by the sun and then washed in purified salt water. This recipe is a little different to my previous bars; these are made with a much higher superfat and less salt, to make them kinder on his skin and a little more bubbly. I wonder if he'll like these ones better?

Busy Bee!

Again I have been uber busy but I finally found time to write a little something here. I mainly wanted to post some pretty pictures but wanted to let people know about me selling my soaps. First off I do intend to sell...eventually. I don't want to sell anything that isn't absolutely fabulous ^_^ Because I do intend to sell in the future I've already begun to put in place the foundations I'm going to need when the time is right, all the paper stuff really. I was very excited yesterday when the letter box clacked with my certificate of incorporation dropping in (halfway through lotion making). Araseth's Apothecary is an incorporated company and ready to trade from now on, yay :D I still have tons to do, insurance, forms, safety assessments. But most of the paperwork can be done while I'm perfecting my products. Will save me a lot of time in the future. So I won't be trading until soonest next year. For now this blog is just about my learning experience and having fun :D

Onto the pictures ^_^ Yesterday I was busying myself with the Honeysuckle lotion and some Lavender massage bars. I am very pleased with them, scent, colour, texture and I've been levelling up my piping skills hehe.



You'll probably be seeing me soon, I'll be soaping Monday as soon as my new fragrances arrive :D

Queen of Hearts Massage Bars

My new molds arrived today and so I just had to try my new massage bar recipe. Here they are my queen of hearts massage bars, named so because of the red and gold, the colours seem royal hehe. I am one of those people that love love love glitter ^_^I think glitter's a bit like marmite; you either love it or hate it. I'm not so pleased with the fragrance though, again I tried to blend my own but this time I don't like it. That's ok though this was more of a test batch. Tonight I'll be ordering some new fragrances and I'll keep my cheeky hands from trying to blend them :D Adding the shea butter really made a difference, they melt a lot faster and feel less like a lotion bar and more 'massagey'. I think I'll be playing with the oils part of the recipe next. By the way these are vegan, like all the products I make. They are made with almond wax, not beeswax. Almond wax is great for your nails, an awesome two way treat; your loved one gets a massage and you get a treat for your kind hands ^_^

Success ^_^

Yay I managed to control the alien bath melts hehe. Still could be a little tamer, will be trying again tomorrow. This time I used my thermometer I have been using for lotion to check the temperature I mixed at. It was 40°C when I added the dry ingredients, that's the minimum my thermometer can measure. Tomorrow I'll try a little lower. These ones were also put into the freezer quickly, so it really is down to the temperature for these. Really happy with them ^_^ I'll be making some honeysuckle scented lotion soon so I might be posting about that. I'll also be ordering some new fragrances for soaping on Friday, getting soaping withdrawal hehe :D So not so many bath melt posts and some more soaping posts coming up. I have a nice idea of pear scented soap floating in my head ^_^

Bath Melt Fail

I have been so busy today with housework and completing my batch notes so this post is really late (3 am~). Quite tired but really wanted to post about my bath and body ventures ^_^

So...my bath melts turned out kind of...alien :( I'm thinking that I added the dry ingredients whilst the cocoa butter was too hot. They started separating and expanding in the molds. Now a lot of the butter has oozed out and set on the top. Not pretty. I'll try again with a cooler temperature, see if that helps. Maybe a whisk would help too. The problem with taking the temperature lower is that I don't think I can get them as smooth. I got some amazing bath melts as a gift for Christmas last year. They looked so smooth and symmetrical. I really want to get the same look for mine. I'm still going to put one of them in the bath tomorrow, to test the ingredient percentages as the only problem I see so far is aesthetic.

All was not lost though this evening as I tried to cheer myself up with my first ever batch of massage bars. I also blended my own fragrance oil for them with some of the oils I have left from soaping and I'm pretty pleased with the scent, I think I'll call it Lily Fae. I just tried one of the bars on my hands and I decided I would like to make them melt a little sooner on skin contact. So I'm thinking adding some shea butter to start with and maybe increasing my soft oil percentage a little bit. The only butter I used for this batch was cocoa so I can see what butters and oils I like best.

So all in all not a bad day and lots of ideas ready for tomorrow. Oh and being so pleased with the massage bars I've ordered some new molds especially for them hehe. Some very cute hearts and flowers. While I was at it I ordered a new 1lb~ mold for my test soap batches yay excited! :D

Lather Testing!

So I said I'd try to show the lather from my new recipe and here it is. I'm really happy with my bubbles and lather so far. My mum (the awesome camerawoman :D) said she really likes it too. But we're both a bit worried that it feels just a little bit drying. I think it might be because it was only cut yesterday (impatient hehe) and that it will be better when it has finished curing. If it still feels as drying after the cure I'll be tweaking my recipe again. Would love to know what you think about the lather though, enough bubbles? I haven't tried adding sugar yet but I might consider it. I'll be back posting tonight or tomorrow with my new bath melt recipe, running out of melts to give away ^_^

Test Bars Cut

Soon after I woke this morning I went downstairs to see if my test batch was ready for cutting and it was ^_^ Here they are, can't wait to try them.

Gifts

Last night before I went to bed I was requested to make up a gift box of my products for my mum's boyfriend and today an identical one for her friend. That's the picture above, inside it has the love spell cupcakes, pumice spa soap, tangerine poppy soap, some bath melts and sugar scrubs. I also gave away one of my lavender lotions to him. To my mum's friend I gave one of the english rose lotions I made today. I've really gotten into this lotion making, I prefer the lavender to the rose, but they're both nice. I had much less trouble with decanting today hehe. I'm hoping this is going to be a good way to get feedback I'm excited to hear what they think and maybe some customers for the future if i decide to sell^_^

I also wanted to do some experimenting with my base recipe, so today I made a 1lb test batch of unscented soap. I added some gold mica and some gold glitter because I couldn't bare to leave him without any additions hehe. Took a picture of it, I think it looks pretty ^_^ so I put it here to share. This should be much bubblier than my normal recipe. I'll keep you updated, maybe take a picture of the lather. :)

First Lotion!

Have just finished making my first lotion. It's a basic lavender and I am so pleased with it. I am very surprised at how well it went and how much fun I had doing it.

The different stages are very interesting. Starting with your oil and water separately, then seeing them swirl together in a bright white cloud. Then seeing a frothy milk like mixture in my pot. Leading to the panic when I thought it was curdling! Stick blending like crazy as it cooled and my tension dissipated leaving a smooth creamy lotion :D The lavender fragrance oil filled the room reflecting my contented pride in my first lotion.

I used shea butter and peach kernel oil for this. Shea because I love how soft it is on my skin and the peach kernel because I've read how nourishing it is, also I love peaches ^_^ I followed the lotion tutorial on swiftcraftymonkey's blog. I've found reading her posts so informative and helpful. Her lotion tutorial explains everything you could want to know as a beginner. I used Germall Plus Liquid as my preservative. I didn't play around with any humectants or additives because I wanted to see what it was like making a very basic lotion first. Next time maybe tweaking and adding things to meet my preferences.

I had a lot of fun trying to decant it into my bottles hehe. Very messy job, I tried to pipe it in using those 'sandwich bags'. I managed to get quite a bit of it on my gloves and the table but in the end I got the hang of it and filled the bottles :) If you're making lotion for the first time I'd say have a piping bag to hand, even the disposable ones would have made it easier for me, because of the point.

I used some purple mica to add some colour, wish I had got a slightly deeper shade on hindsight. It's a very pale lilac but I'm pleased with it. It really didn't matter about the shade when I used it. I was so surprised at how great it felt on my skin. Very soft and smells gorgeous. I called my mum and said to her I can't believe I've been buying those mass produced creams and lotions all this time hehe.

In a way this was much more fun than when I made CP soap for the first time because there were no dangerous chemicals to worry about. It really was just all about fun. So I would say if you're at all interested in making your own bath and body products but worried about starting this is a very easy inexpensive way to dip your toe in and see if it's a hobby you'd enjoy.

I still love making CP soap but this is very enjoyable too and I think I will continue to make lotions. When I make my next supply order I'll be including jars so I can try a body butter ^_^

Tomorrow I'm going to be making more lotion can't wait! :D

Waiting on Supplies

This must be the hardest part of making soap and bath/body products. From the moment you press the confirm order button to the moment you hear the knock on the door. The excitement that builds up and then the 'miniplosion' of glee when you open up your parcels. Waiting for materials to arrive sometimes feels like the longest wait, especially when you've been working on and dreaming about new recipes for a while.

I've just ordered lots of materials, for the first time some lotion ingredients. I've never tried to make lotion but have been thinking about it for a while. I'm looking at making a lavender lotion first for bedtimes. I suffer from anxiety disorder and panic attacks making it hard to sleep sometimes, so I'm hoping this helps. I also ordered some jasmine FO. We used to have huge jasmine vines climbing all over our garden wall. When summer hit they burst into bloom, filling the hot night air with such a pretty, delightful scent. We don't have them anymore and I miss the fragrance that used to drift on the breeze into our house.

All these items won't be arriving until at least Wednesday though, I will update as soon as I've made my first lotions (hopefully same day). See you soon!

Tangerine Poppy Kitchen Soap

A few days ago I wanted to make a fresh smelling scrubby soap for the kitchen and I also wanted to try in the pot swirling. I'm very pleased with it, I didn't expect such a unique swirl, it reminds me of a catherine wheel firework. I used Tangerine FO and poppy seeds to exfoliate. I want to wait until this one has completely cured before I try it and I'm so excited. I added the poppy seeds a bit too early but it didn't seem to matter, they were meant to be added at trace. In case you want to try the same I used 8tsp of blue poppy seeds in a 2lb batch.

Whipped Soap

So today I made my first attempt at whipped soap to frost my Love Spell Cupcakes. I haven't decided on a piping set yet, so it's a little more messy than I would have liked but the experience was still fun with lots of giggles. I used the method found at . I used 50/50 Palm and Coconut Oil and no fragrance or colour. The bases are scented with Love Spell FO and coloured pink. I used poppy seeds as sprinkles. Overall I'm very pleased with the results, I thought it was going to go a lot worse. Can't wait for them to set ^_^

About Me :)

Hello I'm Araseth and I love to make soap and bath/body products. I'm still very new to this and wanted to share my progress with anyone that might be interested. I started making soap in January this year and was immediately hooked. There's nothing better than working on a recipe and seeing it come out great. I'm hoping that I'll be sharing recipes in the future.



It's not just soap I love and you might hear about my other hobbies; gaming, reading, cooking and creative writing. I hope you enjoy reading my blog :)