Hey folks!

Today I'm going t share with you my soap project I did last month. I entered the Great Cakes soap challenge for May. This time around the challenge was a mica & oil swirl technique. This was my first time trying this and I think it came out pretty dang cool! The technique is mixing mica colorants with a carrier oil, I used sweet almond oil for this.

These are the mica colors I chose Maroon, aqua & gold. The scent is Beau Brummel from Bramble Berry. This is probably one of my most favorite scents.period.ever. It smells of tobacco and maybe hints of cherry but not a stinky tobacco... it's good. So so good. Bramble Berry describes it as a scent reminiscent of a 18th century gentlemen's club. So I thought these 3 colors would be perfect for that.. they remind me of something royal & rich.

Ok back to the soap! Here is the top, a blank slate right now. I started off by using a dropper and making a maroon paisley pattern on top and then adding the swirl.I really just kind of winged it. I also used my dropper to make small gold dots randomly everywhere on top. Be careful to use small drops as the mica oil does spread.

Here is the soap after it has set up in log form. I let the soap sit in the mold for a few days, covered with a piece of wax paper. The mica needs time to absorb into the soap and I didn't want to risk messing up the top cutting it. Cool so far huh?

Here is the soap after I cut it into bars. Love it! I would definitely try this technique again. It's fun and I like how customizable this is and it turned out beautiful!

Thanks to Great Cakes Soapworks for another great challenge.

Embed soap challenge!

Welcome!

I entered this months soap challenge from Great Cakes Soapworks. This months challenge is embeds. I chose to make soap balls for my embeds. I have never made these before... in Amy's tutorials she had hot processed her soap ball embeds in the microwave. I made my balls hot processed but I used my regular method and used my crock pot. I made a small 1lb batch for this and colored them 3 different colors, pink, orange and yellow. I never have good luck coloring hot process. For the scent I used a fragrance called Energizing. It's a blend of orange & ginger. After I made all the balls, I then made another small batch of soap the cold process way and added titanium dioxide to brighten it up. Here is the end result. I'm pretty excited about this!


Here is my process

And here are the cut picks!

Final entry picture

Good luck to those who entered and thanks for visting!

Rosewood soap

I am going to assume you all love to look at soap pictures as much as I do...I can sit for hours going through Facebook pages, Pinterest pages and even Google images. It's really fascinating how creative soapers can get. I love the different techniques, styles, colors, shapes and the different molds people use.

Here is a soap I made a couple days ago. It's scented with Rosewood, Cedarwood & Orange essential oils and it's great! To make that gorgeous pinkish-red color I used madder root powder. I just blended it with some sweet almond oil and let it sit in a jar for the better part of a day before I used it. It made a really nice color, I love it!

I love that everything in this soap is natural. Essential oil for fragrance, herbs for colorants and yummy stuff like coconut milk, Mango butter and kaolin clay.

Toodles for now! Next post will hopefully be on the wonderful Lemongrass soap I made last week.

Gradient Soap Challenge

This month I joined the soap challenge from Great Cakes Soapworks. This months challenge was to make a gradient soap using 3 colors. This was my first time entering the soap challenge and my first time making a gradient soap! It actually went really well. The fragrance is Cedarwood Sage. I planned everything out, printed out the instructions. I even wrote down on paper my layers so I wouldn't get things mixed up. For the soap I used green, yellow and orange for a fall color theme. I also used just a sprinkle of glitter on the top of the soap. Here are some pictures I put into a collage. This is the beginning stages of the soap, from mixing colors to layering, to the plops on top! I did leave out some of the layering pics but you get the point.

This next set of pictures are when the soap has hardened, before I cut the soap in it's loaf form and then the cut bars. For this gradient soap I used colorants from TKB, all my other supplies used are from Bramble Berry, Wholesale Supplies Plus & Natures Garden.

And here is the final product! All in all I am pretty happy with how it turned out. I wish that the layers were just a tad more pronounced but I'm pretty proud of it!


Cedarwood Sage Gradient Soap

Thanks for stopping by! And thanks to Amy of Great Cakes Soapworks for hosting this great challenge. It's always fun to learn something new.

Soap Swap

Earlier this year I joined Bramble Berry's spring soap swap, I had so much fun I decided to participate in the fall swap also. This time around I combined 2 scents. Black Tea and Blackberry, both from Bramble Berry. I wanted the tobacco smell from the black tea with just a touch of berries. It sounded good in my head so I went with it.

This was my entry. It is colored black, white and burgundy. I didn't do anything crazy as far as swirling. I literally just poured the soap batter in the mold. I was quite happy with the swirl. I named this soap Blackberry Tea

Here is a cut picture of the soap. Lookin' pretty good!

This is the Blackberry Tea all packaged up and getting ready to send out for the swap.

And these are all the fantastic soaps I got back from my swap! For those of you who have never joined and are curious about the swap. Bramble Berry hosts 2 swaps a year. A soap maker makes 12 full size bars and sends them to Bramble Berry and in return you will get 12 bars back from 12 other soap makers! All you have to pay for is your shipping ( bars shipped out & bars received back) and of course the cost of your own supplies to make your bars. I cannot wait til spring to join again!

Vine videos!

My first set of vine videos! Such a neat way to video soap making adventures! Here I am making Cucumber Melon soap. My youngest daughter was so kind to film for me. I think she did a great job! Thanks Cami!

Soap Making

 Why make or buy handmade soap? Besides that it is so customizable, you can make it any color or no color, any scent or no scent. Handmade soap uses little ingredients. It's not like the bars and body washes at the store. Those are made of tons of chemicals, things we can't pronounce and remember the skin is your largest organ. We should take care of it!  Handmade soaps are made with simple good for you ingredients. Oils, fabulous butters such as shea butter, colorants from clays, micas & pigments, fragrances from synthetic fragrance oils or natural essential oils. Soap makers control what goes into them. Some are all natural and some are mostly natural with the exception of say fragrance oils. The one below is made with a fragrance oil, my usual oils and cocoa butter.

Blue Sugar handmade soap

     This is a bar of my handmade soap. It's Honey Almond scented, uncolored, plain Jane  looking, contains a fine oat powder I ground myself & raw honey along with it's usual good skin loving oils. I set out a year ago to make soap mainly because I thought how cool is this? I can customize soap recipes to smell like whatever I want and look however I want?!
Holy crow!

     One of the first things I learned was the difference between handmade soap & commercial soap my soap was just that. soap. Commercial soaps are not soaps they are detergents and really harsh on your body. In my researching I shifted from "how cool" to " I need to" to protect my family. I use essential oil and synthetic fragrances. Some of my soaps aren't completely natural, and some are...  but either way they are better then store bought in my eyes and I control what goes into making them.

    So here we are a year later.. I make soap, lip balms & solid lotion bars. I make my own laundry detergent (it's 3 ingredients!) and use vinegar as a fabric softener. I've made my own hand soap. I am far more aware of what we put on our bodies & what we eat as well, and my plan is to change that for my family. I'm planning a herb garden this year to grow on my tiny condo patch of grass. Hopefully the herbs I grow, I can use in soaps, salves and herbal teas. I'm applying for a garden plot here in our city at the community garden, hopefully we can get a plot! Wish me luck


I'm looking forward to sharing my experiences with you