Just loading up the curing shelves!

I had a great day last Saturday. I hid myself in my soaping room for 8 solid hours and just made soap. Don't remember the last time I soaped for that long in one day. Here are some of the results from that day. 

GARDENER'S SOAP

 

This bar is made with lots of scrubbies for those 'diggin it the dirt' kind of days. From the bottom up: finely ground coffee, poppyseed, apricot seed, raspberry seed and finely ground pumice. Scented with citrus essential oils - lemon, orange and lime. 

CHAMPAGNE PEAR

 My sister has been asking for this one since I sold out in December, so this one's for her.

RASPBERRY LEMONADE

With Fresh Raspberry fragrance oil, Lemon and Litsea Cubeba essential oils.

COCONUT LIME VERBENA

 With coconut milk. 

STRAWBERRIES & CREAM

 Also with coconut milk.

LEMON PEPPERMINT LOOFA BARS

I've been out of this one for a while, and the heels of my feet have noticed! Can't wait for this finish curing.

Fourth and Final Challenge Soap

I had never heard of Leopard Spots soap technique until Amy put out her challenge on her blog, but it sure was intriguing! Cee's looked really cool; I especially loved her colours! And Amy made it look so easy on her video. I found that it was harder than it looked, though. First, my colours were not co-operating - how could I have forgotten that orange essential oil would alter my mauve coloured soap?? Then my black (activated charcoal) set up quicker than the rest of the soap. But I got 'er done! It overheated a bit, as evidenced by a few small cracks on top and some clouding on the cut surfaces. And then there's the dreaded Ash! I know, "embrace the ash". I don't like Ash! Just sayin'...

This soap is fragranced with sweet orange and lavender essential oils. Can't wait to check out the other participants creations; you can too at Amy's Greatcakes Soapworks blog. Thanks so much for the challenges again Amy! It was so much fun!!

A Mothers' Day soap made with Love

Have you ever noticed that once you become a mom you appreciate your own mom so much more? My mom grew up in the Netherlands in the 1930s and '40s and her childhood experiences were nowhere close to my own; I have been richly blessed. In 2006 my 5 siblings and I, along with our mom went to see the land of our forefathers. We toured the area my mom grew up in, and then we went to see where my dad came from. We saw childhood homes, met relatives and enjoyed the history and architecture of the land. The day that would have been my parents 50th wedding anniversary, had my dad not passed away almost 3 years prior, we spent at the famous spring garden, the Keukenhof. It was a beautiful day and the flowers, particularly the tulips, were breathtaking!

The tulip fields along the way

Along the riverbank at the Keukenhof

I have such fond memories of that trip. And when I came across a 'Tulip' fragrance oil on the Natures Garden website 2 thoughts came to mind:

• I didn't know that tulips had much of a scent
• I gotta get that for my mom!

And so I did! I've been dreaming up this soap for months. Determined to come up with a design that would remind my mom of the tulips from her native country, I started by pulling out the plastic chocolate holders I had saved from a box of wooden shoe chocolates that a friend had given to mom and made some wooden shoe embeds. To represent the tulips I made a whole lotta soap curls. Then I went to it. And now that Mom has her early Mothers' Day gift of the entire first loaf, I present to you "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" Shea Butter Bar.

"Tiptoe Through the Tulips" Shea Butter Bar

"Happy Mothers' Day, Mom!"

Mica Swirled Top

Week 3 of the Greatcakes Soapworks Challenge - Mica Swirled Top. I had a hard time figuring out what to do for this challenge. The only sparkly mica I have on hand is 24 karat gold. I knew it needed a dark soap, and I wanted to keep it really simple so that the top would be the star. But I had soapers block. And then my package of essential oils arrived from Victoria! And inside was a beautiful bottle of Vanilla 20x essential oil!! I knew what to do!

I added some cocoa powder to this batch, hoping for a bit of a chocolate 'flavour' as well. And then I added just a titch of patchouli essential oil. Once in the mold I used a pipette to add the gold mica mixed in olive oil.

Then came the swirls!

And here is a close-up. Isn't she pretty??

I put this loaf to bed for the night, and look what I came to the next day.

Now how disappointing is that?! If this vanilla didn't do what every vanilla, essential or fragrance or otherwise, does to me every time I would not be happy, I could promise you that!

And much to my pleasure it did darken, and it ashed, but I think I can live with it! :-))

Chocolate Vanilla Cocoa Butter Bar

There will be no new challenge for this coming week; the final challenge in this series will be the following week, and it involves leopard spots! Should be interesting. Be sure to check out Amy's blog to see all the other challenge-takers creations!

Challenge Week #2 - Elemental Swirls

Amy's challenge (Greatcakes Soapworks) for this week is the Elemental Swirl. Using the same recipe as last week, I chose to make 2 smaller batches simultaneously - I just felt that it would give me more time to play. For my first layer I swirled Fizzy Lemonade, Tangerine and Sunset Orange into my base and poured it into my mold. For the pencil line I used copper mica; think I could have used a bit more but I only had a smidge left to begin with. For my second layer I swirled Ultramarine Blue and Chromium Green into the base and layered it on top of the mica. I had some lemonade and tangerine soap curls from my Mother's Day soap left so I added those too.

Elements Cocoa Butter Bar

This soap is scented with White Tea and Ginger fragrance oil. I'll leave these for a few days before cleaning the edges and stamping them. I really enjoyed this challenge. Can't wait to check out all of the others on Saturday!

A New Challenge!

Amy from Greatcakes Soapworks has done it again - she's issued a challenge to soapmakers around the globe to try new soap making techniques. How can I resist? First up: Tiger Stripes. I had been hoping to try the Tiger Stripes for a while and this was the perfect opportunity. And although it may lack some creativity, I embraced the whole 'tiger' theme. Why?

• Tigers are beautiful animals
• I love the colour orange
• My favorite childhood ice cream was (and still is) Tiger ice cream
• I love using natural colourants and I had some paprika infusing in olive oil.

So I present to you my Tiger Tails handmade soap.

Tiger Tail Cocoa Butter Bar

This bar is made with olive, coconut, avocado, palm kernel and castor oils with a healthy addition of cocoa butter. It's coloured with paprika infused olive oil and activated charcoal, and it's scented with aniseed and orange essential oils. And for added luxury it contains tussah silk.

Wet soap in the mold

 I started pouring a little too thin, but it didn't take long for the soap to thicken up. I was afraid the orange would fade, but it seems the opposite happened, much to my delight. Taking pictures throughout the process wasn't going to happen though, as I needed to work quickly. One whiff of this bar and I can almost taste that yummy licorice and orange ice cream of my childhood days!

Be sure to check out the other participants soaps - they are all amazing! Thanks Amy for the challenges, I love taking part in them!

Gotta love the simplicity of 'All Natural'

Sometimes I am so torn between the 'Fun 'n Fragrant' and the 'All Natural' soaps. On the one hand I love the fun designs and wonderful fragrances that we soapers add to our hand held works of art; on the other hand there is something so comforting to a bar that uses no synthetic colours or fragrances. I don't know if I will one day choose to go one way or the other exclusively; for now I will just enjoy the process of creating. These soaps contain only natural clay for colour and essential oil for fragrance.

Clays and botanical infusions with pure essential oils create simple elegance and skin loving goodness.

 

Goatmilk Castile
I infused my olive oil with calendula and chamomile, strained the oil and just before straining a second time in a fine mesh strainer decided to leave the tiny particles in the soap for some contrast. I like it!

Pink Grapefruit and Ylang Ylang
essential oils with white and pink kaolin clays.

Mojito Anyone?
Who can resist the simplicity of a creamy white bar? White kaolin clay lightens the colour of this bar and the lime and spearmint essential oil combination smells divine!

Goatmilk
with peppermint and lemon essential oils

Goatmilk Citrus
Some essential oils contribute colour to the batch and I was experimenting with this one. I added litsea cubeba to one part of this batch, sweet orange essential oil and some orange peel to another part and swirled them together to see if the colours would hold. I topped it with unscented soap.