Lemon’s the scent of the day. August 23, 2012

Well, last night I made a TON of soap. I made 5 disks of bay rum shaving soap (one is for my husband; the other four are for sale). I made a little bit of black soap to make the seeds for my watermelon soap. I made a wonderful creamy sweet meyer lemon soap (it looks like butter in the picture, doesn’t it?) Finally, I made the loofah soap, using blackberry sage and sweet meyer lemon fragrance. I am so excited about how it turned out! Loofah soap is a bit more expensive than regular soap– $4 a bar, 3 bars for $10. But it is totally worth it. Ask to see some so you can smell and feel it. It is incredible!!

 

Tropical Vacation Soap August 20, 2012

Last night I made tropical vacation soap. The fragrance is a mixture of “Tropical Vacation” and “Coconut” fragrance oils from brambleberry.com. I also used a mixture of clear and goat’s milk melt and pour soap bases.

As you can see, it looks quite different. Here’s how I did it.

The soap as you see it in these pictures is actually upside-down from how it’s built in the mold.

I first poured the clear soap base into the mold, using two different glass measuring cups, one with yellow, and one with orange coloring. I used 2 pounds of this clear soap base. Then, I used a plastic dropper to inject the white coloring into the soap. As you can see, most of it dripped to the bottom, but you can see the columns of white soap throughout the orange and yellow soap. In the future, I will do this one layer at a time so the white is spread more evenly throughout. After letting this layer of soap get pretty hard, I poured the remaining white on top.

Cute, isn’t it? It’s ready to cut for this afternoon, so it’ll be ready for purchase tonight or tomorrow. Let me know how many bars I can put aside for you!

 

Looking for a Party! August 16, 2012

Hey all! I’m looking for some interested fellow entrepreneur who is interested in hosting a party with me! If you sell products such as Mary Kay, Gold Canyon Candles, or Pampered Chef, and you’re interested in doing a joint party with your products and my soap, let me know!

In other news, I’ve placed another order with Brambleberry.com… stay tuned for new products such as

Gardener’s Soap

Watermelon Soap

Vanilla Pomegranate Soap

White Tea & Ginger Soap

Loofah Soap

and

Bay Rum Shaving Soap!

 

Get excited! New soaps are almost here!

Fun with Layers June 29, 2012

I have been busy making soap, as you can see. I had some fun with layering and other cool techniques with my loaf mold. The yellow-green soap is coconut lemongrass, and the purple soap is violet.

 

 

Soaps Currently Available

Just a brief update on the soaps I currently have made:

 

Oatmeal, Milk, & Honey

Lemon Verbena

Ginger Lime

Cucumber Melon

Coconut Lemongrass

White Ginger & Amber

Violet (Will be ready this afternoon/evening)

 

I will make Coconut Papaya, Beach Breezes, and Sage & Lemongrass this weekend.

 

Later today I’ll post some more pictures of the fun I have been having with my new loaf mold.

 

 

Making Soap June 27, 2012

I have been working on making batches of the all-new soap fragrances! The following fragrances will be available for purchase by the end of today:

Oatmeal, Milk, & Honey

Cucumber Melon

Lemon Verbena

Ginger Lime

 

Tonight I will make a batch of Coconut Lemongrass, and I will make some White Ginger and Amber square soap. The White Ginger & Amber came as a sample of 1/2 ounce, which is not enough to scent an entire loaf. I will be making it in the square molds and cutting it into 2-oz samples, which I will make available for $1 each.

 

Below is a picture of the ginger lime loaf, right after I poured it into the mold. It came out a bit darker than I intended, and it is darker than the sample I made. Sometimes you have to play around with the colorants for a while to be satisfied with the outcome–but don’t worry, it smells great, and it will feel great on your skin!

 

 

I’ve had inquiries about making body wash. The short answer is, yes, I can probably make some batches of body wash in various fragrances. I am also planning to make some shampoo, conditioner, hand and body lotion, and liquid hand soap. More later as this develops!

New Fragrances June 26, 2012

My order from Brambleberry.com came in yesterday, so I spent several hours yesterday working on my new fragrances.

The first thing to do was to make my very first soap in the 9″ loaf mold I bought. I used Oatmeal, Milk, & Honey fragrance oil, honey clear soap, and goat’s milk white soap. I didn’t use any colorants, but I did use some steel cut oats for texture.

I layered these ingredients together in the loaf mold. Some layers I allowed to harden completely, and some I allowed to co-mingle a bit with the other layers.

Next, I made one bar of each of my new fragrances (excluding the oatmeal milk and honey) to use as samples. I am going to be making the tradition from the square-shaped bars to the rectangular bars that come out of the loaf mold (they’re really more trapezoidal than rectangular), because the rectangular shapes are easier to package in shrink wrap, and that means they’ll stay in better shape for a longer period of time. No pictures of the sample sizes as of yet, because I am working on getting the color just right for the real batches. To refresh your memory, the new scents are:

Oatmeal Milk and Honey

Lemon Verbena

Coconut Lemongrass

Ginger Lime

White Ginger and Amber

Cucumber Melon

Coconut Papaya

Beach Breezes

Lemongrass Sage

Violet

 

Let me know what you’re interested in!

Guest Soap Molds June 19, 2012

While I’m waiting for my soap supplies to arrive (it looks as though it could be as late as next Monday), I’d like to discuss a different design option for your soaps: guest soaps.

Guest soaps are smaller bars (usually around 2 oz) that can be crafted in the form of either plain shapes or specialty designs.

I’d love to make some guest soaps for you to use in your guest bathroom, or to use in gift baskets to house guests or hosts! Contact me today about making some guest soaps for you.

Here are a few of my favorite designs from Brambleberry.com. There are tons more where these came from… go take a look and let me know which is your favorite!

An Experiment

Last night, I decided to experiment. I had a little bit of soap base left (about 10 oz). I melted it down and added about 0.3 oz of   Arabian Spice  fragrance from brambleberry.com, then I added about 1.5 tablespoons of coffee beans, ground up. The result was a rich brown soap that will exfoliate away dead skin and any lingering oils or scents from cooking.

If I did this again, I’d add some Arabian Spice soap to the bottom of the mold first and let it almost harden, then add some soap with the coffee grounds in it. That way the bottom of the soap would have a translucent amber coloring to it that contrasted with the deep brown of the coffee-bean soap. As it is, the entire soap is colored by the coffee beans, as you can see below.

At any rate, I have two of these bars available for purchase– $3 each or both for $5. Let me know if you’re interested!

Extra Fragrances! June 15, 2012

When I totaled up my order in preparation to process it today, I realized that I had some extra money left in the budget, which translates to additional fragrances for you! I found some on sale on Brambleberry, and I added them to my cart.

The Extra fragrances are:

Beach Breezes
Coconut Lemongrass
and
Papaya Coconut

Very clean summery fragrances that I hope you will love!
I also ordered a tray mold, which will enable me to cut out shapes and make lots of fun new projects. It will also enable me to make smaller batches of soap and give them away as “guest” soaps or sample sizes! Let me know if you are interested in a sample!