Equality Soap 2.0

I'm sorry it's taken so long to post pictures of my two newest soaps, but I've been working on making my own light box (blog post on that to come...) and simply haven't gotten around to it.

For the Equality Soap, I was disappointed that the green color morphed in the cold process soap.  Even though the site where I purchased the colorant said it was safe in high PH products like cold process soap, it just didn't do what I wanted.  I have had good luck with BB's Green Chrome pigment, and I had previously made a number of small Christmas tree guest soaps using that pigment that were a perfect green for the rainbow color scheme.

I chose my 3 least favorite Equality bars and shredded them down and separated the colors (and excluded the gross maroon color that was supposed to be green.  I'm sure that it will be lovely embedded in a different soap, though!).  I also shredded 2 of the small tree guests soaps for the green color I needed in the rainbow color pattern I wanted.

I really love the confetti look of this soap!  

I scented it with WSP's Pure Rain fragrance oil, because I was looking for a clean, ozone-y scent for this rainbow soap.  I mixed a white batter to a medium trace and poured 1/6 of the white batter with the shredded red color.  I did the same with the other 5 colors, ending up with the violet color on the top.

This made a HUGE bar - it will be over 6 oz when cured!!  Here's another photo:

I also ordered the heart tube mold at WSP, because I was inspired by the adorable soaps that Jennifer has been making with the mold.  I have been really loving the Pinkberry Mimosa fragrance oil from WSP also, and I made this batch with pink kaolin clay for the bottom part (and the top) and BB's Gold Mica for the top portion.  I am so happy with how this turned out! 

I'm sure I say this after most of my soaps, but this may be my new favorite :) I even am loving the halo effect that the cocoa powder is creating around the heart and throughout the pencil line.

{When I was looking at these pictures with my chin in my hand, I swore I could smell the fragrance.  Then I realized I WAS smelling the fragrance - since I just finished photographing these soaps, the smell was still there...  Maybe it's time to call it a night!}

Hope you all enjoy the weekend!  It feels like it's been raining every day since it stopped snowing in May, but tomorrow afternoon is supposed to be gorgeous, so I plan to be outside, celebrating with friends!

~Chrissy

Soap Challenge #3 - Mica Swirled Tops

I am a little behind on my challenges...  I'm really enjoying doing them, but as this is a pretty busy time, I haven't had as much time to play with these new techniques as I wanted.  Having said that, I was a little apprehensive about doing mica swirled tops.  I've seen blog posts by Emily at Sheih Design Studio with her amazing and creative mica tops, and I was a little intimidated to try myself.

I looked at what cool micas I had that would be good for a swirl, found that I had a beautiful gold mica from Brambleberry and built a recipe around that mica.  I had some lemongrass essential oil and wanted to try a blend with spearmint EO, and the colors that made the most sense to me were yellow and green.  I had some spearmint leaves for some texture in the soap, and I felt good to go.

I colored the bottom half yellow, used a cocoa powder pencil line, and made the top green so that I could use the super pearly white and gold micas for the swirl top.  I didn't have any pipettes, but luckily, I had given my husband a molecular mixology set for Christmas which had pipettes, so I repurposed a couple (shhh, don't tell him...)

Here's what the wet soap mica swirls looked like:

I was so pleased with how these turned out!  They kind of look like a tapestry, honestly.  I stuck them in the oven overnight to gel, and the house smelled so good.  The blend was lemongrass, spearmint, and frankincense EOs, but it smells kind of like lemon cake to me right now.

Here's what the soaps look like when cured:

Still looking good!

Some of the beauty of the swirls was lost when the bars were cut, but I really love the colors. If I had a better close up, you could see the spearmint leaves as added texture inside the bar.  Unfortunately, the light wasn't great this morning for pics.

I'm definitely doing this technique again.  I want to try it with textured tops, too.  It was easier than I thought, and it makes these soaps look so polished and fancy!

The only thing I noticed when unmolding, though, is that the mica on top was starting to rub off on my hands...  Has anyone who has tried this technique noticed the same thing? Did I use too much mica?  

~Chrissy

Over 1,000 page views!

I know everyone has their own measure of success for their blogs, but I am so proud of this milestone.  I started this blog a little over 3 months ago, with the hope that I might be able to convince my mom and husband to read it occasionally, and now it has over 1,000 views!! 

So, to celebrate, I decided to finally try to make some soap cupcakes.  I found an awesome sale on cake decorating supplies at Joann Fabrics and bought a bunch of stuff earlier this week to use as "soap only" decorating.  I had some Hot Chocolate FO from Brambleberry and some green sea clay I wanted to try out.   My recipe was supposed to make 6 cupcakes, using 25 oz of oils.  

I used the FO for the base of the cupcakes, since it will discolor them to a nice dark brown.  I poured out about 18 oz of the soap batter for the base and mixed in only the FO, no additional colorants.  Already, you can see the discoloration from the FO:

 I added some peppermint EO and 1 tsp of sea clay to the portion reserved for the tops and waited... and waited... and mixed...  and got myself some breakfast and fed the dogs... and mixed again... and FINALLY the batter was at a thick enough trace to pipe the tops.  I realized now that I should have used a larger tip for the piping - the one I got was for cake decorating, not cupcake decorating.  Oh, well.  Here's how they turned out after I was done piping:

The batter I poured was enough for 7 bases, but I didn't use enough of the "frosting", so I had enough left over for an extremely ugly cupcake. 

The color was not as vibrant as I had wanted, so I found some body-safe pink glitter and sprayed the tops of this cake.  Now the cupcake is a weird patina color and looks kind of slimy.  Another soap that is definitely going into my personal stash :)

I tried poppy seeds on a couple, both for some extra exfoliation and some visual interest (read: to cover up the poor job I did on piping...)

All in all, I'm quite proud of my first foray into soap cupcake-making.  I know how I can continue to improve, and my soap area smells ah-mazing!

~Chrissy

Package in the Mail! Oil and Butter

I am so excited - late last week, I received the following soaps from Cee at Oil and Butter (blog here).  She held a contest a few weeks ago to name her Arctic Bathtime soap, and I came in second with my "Barely Clean" suggestion. Here's the photo from her website:

As a thank you, she sent me a wonderful package with the following soaps - clockwise from top left:  Arctic Bathtime, Christmas Candy, Cherry Blossom:  

Here's a better picture of the really cute tops of Christmas Candy and Cherry Blossom:

Some close-ups of each soap:

 The eyes fell off the poor polar bear when I was unwrapping.  Guess I was a little too excited to see what was in the wrapping!

I love how the Arctic Bathtime smells - a little sweet and flowery and clean.  I also love that it's a Hot Process layered soap.  I am struggling with my HP soaps (post on that to come).  The Cherry Blossom has such a beautiful swirl and embedded top.  I love the colors, and the scent is not too strong or sickeningly floral, which is something my nose is very sensitive to.  The Christmas Candy has beautiful colors and has a nice sweet candy scent, and while I normally don't choose glitter on my soaps, I love this glitter!  It's a perfect touch for this sparkly holiday soap.

Thanks, Cee - your soaps are amazing!

~Chrissy