Heart Attacks and Back To Soaping!

I've not been online much over the past few weeks, since before Christmas because I suffered a small heart attack and got diagnosed with a heart condition that pretty much wiped me out physically for awhile. I'm now mostly recovered and back in the soap alchemy lab heating up the cauldron to churn out some soapy creations. Pictured are some the recent soaps I have made both cold process and hot process. The first is called Mint Rose, and is actually a rebatch of Secret Rose Garden which was originally cold process. The lye was bad and the soap remained too soft and had to be redone. Ingredients include oils of olive, coconut, sunflower, rice bran, and castor, distilled water, soymilk, sodium hydroxide, sodium lactate, cosmetic micas and glitter, lemongrass essential oil and other fragrance oils (custom blend), titanium dioxide, sugar, rose bud petals and mint leaves.

This next one was inspired by Fairies and springtime! I call it Fairy Garden and I absolutely love this one!

And lastly is a restock of one my favorites, Lovely Lavender with oils of olive, coconut, castor, avocado, sustainable palm, water, sodium hydroxide, kaolin clay, lavender essential oil, and lavender buds.

Well, there's more to come as spring approaches. I've already got plans to restock my popular sea salt soap bars and am planning a tea soap with a southern twist! 

Delicate Lavender Soap Made Today

I've been sick with a cold and haven't made soap in almost 2 weeks, so it felt nice to don my soaping gear and get to work on a nice lavender soap! Made with olive, coconut, sustainable palm, avocado, and castor oils, scented lightly with lavender essential oil, colored with a mix of cosmetic micas, and finished off with some lavender buds on top. Smells like it's name, delicate, calming, and light.

Autumn Harvest Soap

I am in love with this fragrance oil by Mad Oils! It's called Home For The Holidays and to me smells like fallen leaves and warm, spicy apple cider, the epitome of fall. I used all micas from Mad Oils as well for the deep autumn colors, they are Redrum, Tangerine Dream, Satin Penny, and Enchanted Forest. This batch traced extremely fast on me so I didn't get to do my original design which was drop swirls, so I don't know if  it was the FO or my recipe that did it. I plan on doing a remake of this with my recipe that I tweaked to add more soft oils and no hard butters to see if it behaves the same or differently. The smell is OMG amazing and I can't get enough of it!

Made Fresh This Morning!

Black Magick scented with Witches Brew and colored with Wicked mica by Mad Oils, and Snow Queen scented with Snow Witch and colored with micas by Mad Oils. OMG smells so awesome in my house right now!!!

My New Mad Oils Goodies Are Here!

Gorgeous micas, autumn and winter fragrance oils, clays, flower petals... oh what soapy delights I will have fun making with all this swag! Stay tuned for my upcoming fall and winter soap designs using these beauties you see here. ;)

Autumn/Winter Soaps Are Coming Soon!

WOOT! I just made my fall/holiday soap supply order FINALLY! I got my much needed oils and butters that I was out of, PLUS some wonderful fragrance oils for autumn and winter/Christmas, AND some gorgeous sparkling micas for color! I ordered the micas from a new company I've been wanting to try out for a couple of months called Mad Oils who have been getting rave reviews by my fellow soapers, so I cannot wait to try them out! The 3 main soap batches I plan on making are 2 for autumn with one being a soap made with actual pumpkin puree and the 2nd with the fall colored micas and a nice fall leaves scent, and the 3rd will be a nice wintry soap made with cool blues and a sparkly white micas, scented with a fragrance oil called Snow Witch and will be topped with tiny snowflakes from a mold I also ordered. It will have a nice minty, wintry fragrance added to it. Anyways, I'm super excited to get these supplies and get cracking on my batches!!!

Recent Soaps

The first is English Ale beer soap made with Guinness Draught and the second is Grey Skies done via hot process (HP) method, scented with eucalyptus and spearmint and activated charcoal for color. Both smell amazing and I'm really happy with how they turned out!

Tonight!

Tonight's the night! The Guinness Stout is finally ready and so am I. Beer soap will be made tonight (finally)! I am really excited to be using my new Beer fragrance oil for this recipe. I will post photos when I'm done and it will of course be another late night soaping session since I have to wait until my son is fast asleep to make any. :)

Can't Wait to Try This!

I have just ordered a beautiful soap to try by the lovely Katie at Royalty Soaps! I absolutely cannot wait to give it a try. I have followed Katie and her company for many months now on Facebook, here on Blogger, and her You Tube channel. As a fellow soap maker, I look to others for inspiration, delight in their creations and technique, and love to sample what they have to offer. I'm interested in the types of ingredients they use, the fragrances and/or essential oils, how their soaps will feel on my skin. I will post an update to this after I receive my soap from Royalty Soaps and use it. :)

Here is the Butterfly Garden soap I ordered from her. <3