The camera is not cooperating...

Soaps need to be wrapped up for the office party stocking stuffers. Party is tomorrow.

Sooo, this is what I'm going to have to work with for the post.

Snowflakes:


I love the look of the one on the bottom right. I just dusted the mold with the mica and did the pour.

Hearts:



Remember the angels I did here? After about two weeks, the background morphed.

I contacted Bramble Berry for help and was told "It sounds like there is some Vanilla in the winter grapefruit - which is causing the discoloration. That's one of the adventurous parts of using one of our Limited Edition fragrances - since we haven't tested them yet interesting things like discoloration can happen!"

I honestly have no problem with that. On items where color is critical, I'll stick with the tried, true, and tested FO's. In this case, the luscious scent more than makes up for the morph! This is one I really REALLY hope they move to their regular line. *nudges Anne-Marie*

Between the camera and the shrinkwrap, you can't tell in the picture but there is just a faint hint of that sapphire blue on the surface layer. It is a lovely opalescent shimmer.

Pictures of snowflake and heart soaps coming soon...

In the mean time:

Because I've been asked...

I get my glycerin base (used for the angel soaps and other future limited editions) from Organic Creations. Fabulous stuff! Many of the glycerin bases I've seen on the market have added detergents for extra lather... not BallyHoo Betty! :-) I'll sacrifice tons of lather in my glycerin soap if it means I don't have extra chemicals any day. And this stuff always leaves my skin feeling fabulous.

The glycerin soaps contain: saponified oil (coconut, peanut, soybean, castor and safflower), glycerin, filtered water, cocoa butter, aloe vera, sorbitol (a humectant derived from berries), and vitamin E.

Of course, my cold process/artisan soaps don't have any added detergents either and they lather beautifully. I've always wondered why the glycerin soaps don't. If anyone has any input, I'd love to hear it!

Cameo Angels

Success!

Now, if only I could figure out a way to keep the flash from causing a glare and get a good focus.

Damnit, Jim... I'm a soaper, not a photographer...

I honestly don't know how mica that looks ivory with very subtle red glints turned out a rich opalescent pink. Lovely and dramatic but not quite what I was looking for.

The quest for the cameo angel will continue this afternoon.

Needless to say, I'll have a few angel soaps stocked up for the holidays. *grin*

Angels among us...

At least among my growing stock of soaps.

While I see areas that I missed while cleaning up the first layer, and while I see areas where I pulled up the first layer during the same cleanup (allowing the second layer to slip underneath in a spot or two, mostly on the angel in the upper right hand corner.) I'm still really happy with how these turned out.

Forgive the glare from the flash, the sapphire mica is shimmery and very reflective.
By the way, it's the camera that's crooked, not the soap.

These are scented with Bramble Berry's limited edition Winter Grapefruit; a blend of fresh grapefruit, juniper, and Italian Lemon (Invigorating and fresh...YUM!)

My mother had requested four of these as special Christmas presents to people at work, so she had final say on colors. I really wanted to go with a cameo look for these soaps, so we compromised and are both happy with the results.

I think I'm going to be doing another batch of these though, with a matte black background and an ivory (while subtle hints of red) opalescent for the angels. While the shimmer on shimmer is lovely, I think the shimmer/opalescent on matte will have more of an impact. It will also give me an excuse to use Bramble Berry's Sleigh Ride! (Orange, Green Apple and winding with peppermint and cloves)

I managed to snap a picture of the the elusive Spotted Lavender (with dried lavender buds) soap while it was resting on my drying rack, next to the common Coffee and Dark Chocolate soap. (One of these days, I'll manage to capture the even more elusive Swirled Lavender, even though I'm beginning to think that there is no such beast.)
I also got a picture of the Dragon's Blood bars (left) and a teasing glimpse of the Orange Spice soap (to the right.)

Pictures!

Forgive the semi blurry shots on some of these.

Here is a shot of bars from my first four batches and the calico soap ball I made with the shavings from the first three.

From upper left: Arabian Spice, Calico ball (made of Arabian Spice, Black Tea, and Frankincense and Myrrh) and two day old Vanilla Bean.
From bottom left: Black Tea and Frankincense and Myrrh.

I know, fairly boring for the most part. I did three batches before I started to play with color. Let us take another look at that 2 day old Vanilla Bean, shall we?
But wait, it got better. :-)
Here it is after it's cured for about two weeks. I was expecting that deep, deep brown (natural discoloration for vanilla) over most of the bar...it seems I over blended just a tad. Forget I said that and pretend I did it on purpose, ok?

Not going to have pictures for the next couple of batches. The vanilla scared me a bit and I didn't try swirling colors again for a while. Not until I did the batch of Dragon's Blood...and the FO discolored so much you can't even really see the swirl, so I didn't bother taking pictures. (At least it smells lovely, and lathers like a dream.)

Before the soap darkened though, it looked pretty decent, so I decided to try it again. This time I was going for a white background with green swirls. I also played with doing swirls/waves on the top.
Here is the Moroccan Mint, still in the mold. I almost didn't want to cut it. Of course, an eight pound bar of soap would have been a bit awkward in the shower...

Here are a few of the cut bars laid out on my carrying tray waiting for transport from the den into the drying racks in the bedroom (which smells great, by the way.) I didn't get quite the look I was going for; the white wasn't even throughout and the natural cream color of the soap comes through as a vein throughout all the bars. I think I know what happened and it's another "ooops" that I think I might try to duplicate at another time.

I really need to go start that batch of lavender soap. I'm going to try the same technique I used with the vanilla, but with a bit more control this time. *fingers crossed*

Packaging and Pictures

The new boxes for the soaps should be in by the end of the week. I've got to remember to charge the digital cameras so I can show off the pretties!

I'm not sure if the batch of Vanilla Bean bars have fully darkened, but I think they have. I'm may have been a bit over enthusiastic about doing my first swirl and over blended by quite a bit, so I have dark brown streaks from the few areas that didn't get hit with the mica, a tan/fawn where the scented portion blended with the mica tinted/unscented soap, and an ivory pearl streak from the unscented portion. It's absolutely lovely...but I don't know if I'm going to be able to recreate it without the almost-headed-off-disasters that lead too it.

Pictures coming soon.

New Blog

For the friends on LiveJournal: Yes, I'm sticking around, and I'm going to keep it "friends only".

This journal is going to be kept in a public view and I plan on posting soap pictures, projects, etc here.

We'll see how it goes.