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! 

Recent Holiday Happenings and Makings

I've been busy, busy, busy gearing up for the Christmas holidays! I had a huge custom soap order for a men's soap for some pilots so came up with The Aviator hot process soap themed to represent the sky that pilots know oh-so-well. I also have been working on (and still doing) a custom order of bath bomb cupcakes for an upcoming Christmas party, and I'll hopefully have them finished by tomorrow. So with those orders, plus making gifts for my family, and shopping, I haven't been on here much lately. I've also added lotion bars to my arsenal of body care products that I will hopefully have for sale online really soon, so stay tuned for details! With all that said, below you'll see what I've been up to. Enjoy!

Making of The Aviator men's soap

Some new additions from my alchemy lab: bath teas with spa salts.

Lotion bars made with luxury butters and essential oils

The Aviator soap for men

Working in the soap alchemy lab

Custom order

Christmas is Coming... You Ready?!?

I haven't posted in awhile because of some health issues and taking care of my son who is autistic and going through a rough patch right now.  Well today after a few weeks of doing nothing in my soap alchemy lab, I decided to jump on the Christmas bandwagon and do some bath bombs cupcakes (my 1st attempt). I'm horrible at piping, but they turned out okay for my being a piping newbie.

These have added rice bran oil and shea butter for a skin loving boost for the dry winter months. They smell like a wintry pine forest with a hint of mistletoe and sweetness, and have cosmetic glitter, sugar deco pieces, and sprinkles. The "frosting" is actually whipped melt & pour soap so once the bath bomb has fizzed it's last, you're left with a lovely softening soap to get squeaky clean with! I also made a few round bath bombs from the leftover mixture. HO HO HO!

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.

Fallen Leaves Glycerin Soaps

Smells like Autumn in the soap alchemy lab today!

Calendula Soap

My calendula soap fresh out of the mold waiting to be cut. Olive, coconut, sunflower and castor oils used. Essential oils of lemongrass & lavender for scent. The scent is very delicate and the soap is really creamy. This is a new recipe I've been tweaking and I think I'm really going to love it and use it a lot. It's still too soft to cut so I will wait a few more hours or maybe try tomorrow. Cut pics will come soon.

Product Photo For Snow Queen

I'm using this photo for my online shop. I'm still (not-so-patiently) waiting for this one to cure so I can use my own sample bar!

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!

Black Magick Soap

Perfect for Halloween,  this is scented with Witches Brew and has purple and orange m&p soap ball toppers and dusted with pretty purple skin safe glitter.

Snow Queen Soap

Finally cut them into bars this morning. They smell amazing, like a winter forest.

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!!!

Time To Make Soap!

My soap curing racks are so empty right now, it is definitely time to make some soap to get ready for the upcoming holidays... especially Halloween and Christmas!

Green With Envy CP Soap

This little beauty I made is finally done curing and is ready for sale! It's on sale in my shop because I forgot to add the fragrance oil when I made it... Oops!  I do love the swirls in this one and green is one of my favorite cooler colors that is also calming. I'm making a much needed supply order soon and will be getting a nice teal mica (teal is my favorite color of all!) so I can't wait to get my hands on some and make some soap with it! I'll probably wind up doing a restock of this Green With Envy WITH the minty fragrance oil and use the new teal and green micas I'll be ordering. Should be really nice. Oh, and my lovely black lab Lady decided to photobomb my product shoot! :)

Life, School, and Alchemy...

Life got busy all of a sudden what with school starting for my (almost) 7 year old who started (gasp!) 2nd grade! I haven't written much here but now that he's in school and things are getting calmer (for the most part),  I can start blogging again and making soap in what I affectionately call my soap alchemy lab.

I have run out of much needed soap supplies like oils and butter, and colors, and can't make any soap magick until I get more at the start of September. Bummer. My not being able to make soap is driving me mad but thankfully, my downtime had me stumble across a new supplier online that I cannot wait to try out. They are called Mad Oils and have a little bit of everything I need EXCEPT the base oils themselves. But, no matter, they have fragrance oils that I'd love to get my hands on and make sample batches with, as well as botanicals, clays, gorgeous micas, etc...! I'll be ordering from them very soon, you can betcha! For any fellow soap makers, here's their link to go check them out. Cheers!

Mini Soap Cake

I love making soap cakes and cupcakes which is still fairly new to me. It's quite nice doing something more artsy and creative than just a bar of soap. This one (there are 6 total) smells so yummy that I want to eat it! I used a yummy chocolate scent in this batch that smells like hot cocoa and used avocado oil in my recipe for the first time which made the soaps really soft and took longer than usual to remove from the mold. I'm working on tweaking the recipe a bit to harden it up more. I posted this photo on my Facebook business page and already sold one which always makes me happy needless to say! I'm keeping 2 to cut into sample cake slices since the bottoms got slightly dented while coming out of the mold. I'm also still trying to come up with a name for this batch as well... any suggestions?

Green With Envy

Cold process soap finished with soap safe glitter and sugar pearls and scented with Eucalyptus & Spearmint fragrance oil.

Royalty Soaps Review- Butterfly Fantasy Soap

OMG is all I can say. The soap came perfectly packaged in a shrink wrap with her really cute business card. The labels on front and back of the soap told me everything I needed to know about the soap and her company which is perfect.

The soap itself brought back memories of my days dating my then first love in 1987 because he always showed up with Sweet Tart candies in hand for me and this is exactly what the soap smells like. It's bright and lovely with it's Rainbow layers of color, it's nice and big so if I wanted to I could cut it in half to make two good size half bars. The top reaches high and was expertly done and looks like a whipped topping on a dessert. An adorable butterfly embed sits quaintly on top of the "fluff" and sparkly glitter complete the look.

I immediately took it into my bathroom (which is also butterfly themed and pink among other colors) and tested it. The lather was so silky and luxurious that I didn't want to stop rubbing it into my hands. It rinsed cleanly with a smooth and moisturizing feel. I'm in awe. Katie is one very talented young lady and I highly recommend making a purchase from her. Here is her shop on Etsy.

Thank you Duchess of Suds... keep up the royal work that you do!

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!