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

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!