Christmas Spirit....

Soap # 22 made 14/11/2015 best after 14/12/2015

Christmas Baubles, fragranced with Home for the Holidays, this is the third batch of this soap, being handmade each one is very slightly different and has it's own character.

Soap # 23 made 14/11/2015 best after 14/12/2015
'Ginger Highlights, fragrance with my own blend of ginger, frankinscence, litsea, lemon, orange and bergamot essential oils

Four thieves....

Soap # 18 Four Thieves or Forthaves....made 7/11/2015 best after 7/12/2015

Love this blend of essential oils Rosemary, Sage, Lemon, Lavender and Clove, you can read more about it here

Yes, I did make a full loaf but lost the photos somewhere, too busy to fuss about it just now so used the nearest bars available.....

Soap #19 made 7/11/2015 best after 7/12/2015
Christmas Baubles fragranced with Home for the Holidays a lovely fresh Christmas scent.

Soap # 20 Christmas tiger swirls,

Elf Sweat fragrance oils with a tiger swirl on the left...

Soap # 21 Coconut Kisses

Lots of yummy butters and oils and a Coconut cream fragrance oil.....this soap was such a vibrant yellow from the FO but it has mellowed and is now a lovely rich cream colour...

Holidays are coming!

Soap #16, Winter Berries, made 31/10/2015 best after 31/11/2015

Winter Berries Fragrance oils
Red, green, black white colourants

Olive oil
Rice bran oil
Shea butter
Coconut oil
Avacado oil
Palm oil
Tussah Silk
Kaolin clay

Lovely scent but colours morphed slightly, that is something that happens sometimes. If I use this fragrance again I'll take a few different steps now that I know that.

Winter Berries is a lovely fragrance and even though the colours changed slightly it's still a lovely looking soap.

Soap #17 Home for the Holidays, made 31/10/2015 best after 31/11/2015

Oils as above
Red ( my own concoction), green and white micas
Home for the Holidays fragrance oils

I'm naming this one Christmas Baubles, smells off Christmas trees and fresh winter mornings....

Still Soaping...

Soap #14 made 24/10/2015 best after 24/11/2015
Purple Passion

I needed to make a rebatch of some lilac coloured soaps

Coconut oil
Palm oil
Olive oil
Shea butter
Mango butter
Castor oil

Lavender & Tea tree essential oils

Colours  TD, purple passion, carnival green, glitter white, pearl black
Kaolin clay

Bar size av 169gms

Soap #15 made 24/10/2015 best after 24/11/2015
Absinthe

Heavy bars at 180 gms

I bought a batch of fragrance oils and among them was this small bottle of Absinthe.

What's the luck... arrives one day and the next I read somewhere online that this fragrance accelerates and sets like soap on a stick. I thought I might as well just use it straight away while it still seemed like a problem in my mind. I was all set to just dump it in the mold if it became a problem but sectioned off some of the batter to do a top if posible. After adding the fragrance oil I was ready and watching.... no reaction at all.... quickly added some colour, still no reaction so added the top and did a quick swirl, still no reaction.

Anyway, it turned out to be a simple soap but it didn't accelerate and has made some lovely bars....oh, and it smells great too!

First time using an FO!

Fragrance Oil that is.....seems simple at first but anything you add to your soap can change the texture, colour or fragrance in ways that you would never initially think.

Soap 9.... made 10/10/2015, ready 10/11/2015

The Fragrance oil I used for this soap is named Irish Cream, reminiscent of the famous Bailey's! It really does smell like that, there is also a creamy sweetness there too and although I didn't really read up on the contents of the fragrance I knew there had to be vinallin/vanilla in there that would probably morph the colour of the soap anything from a dark cream to a dark brown so I thought I would play with that concept and see where it would lead.

 In the bowl are my hard oils, (left to right around that) water, lye, fragrance oil sample, colloidal oats, titanium dioxide and soft oils.

Water and lye mixture added to the hard oils and melting....

                             

Apart from the oats, these are the only additives, fragrance oil and titanium dioxide then for the top, gold mica and glitters.

After adding the soft oils and splitting off into three sections, jug with spatula has only TD, no fragrance, jug on the right has only fragrance, first layer in the mold has the oats and the fragrance, take notice of the colour of the soap batter.

In the mold top decorated with swirls and some extra bars on the left.

After 24 hours I unmolded and left to dry for another 24 hours

Cutting the bar, the first slices show the colour inside....I would have loved if the soap had stayed that colour....

But look what happens when the bars are left to dry....remember the only 'colour' addition is the TD which is actually not a true colour but white to make a distinction in the creamy white colours and swirls.

The bottom layer of colloidal oats for exfoliation can also be clearly seen...

I like the effect, shame I only had a sample size fragrance to play with and I used most of it here , maybe I'll get some more and play a little more with different percentages of fragrance in the layers next time.

So many soaps so little time.....smells good enough to eat too, even though it's dark I still like it!