Comeback: Production Week!

Last Thursday, I woke up feeling fabulous and got my booty in gear to FINALLY make some new soaps! The last new soap I made was back in February before my morning sickness forced everything to a grinding halt, and I've had a few soap ideas floating around in the back of my head all of this time. So, since I felt so great, kiddo was being super cooperative, and I had all of the supplies I needed, I got down to business to make two mini-loaves of soap!

My first batch of the day is a scent that I have been mulling over for a year: Tomato Vine and Raspberry. I love this scent because the tomato vine scent is so strong and the raspberry is more of a bottom note. Totally summer.
I started off the soap with a base of creamy yellow, then did a drop swirl with some rich chromium green and shimmering pink mica. I then swirled the three on the top for a nice color mix. The shimmering mica really helped to round out the bars.

My second batch is a restock of black raspberry vanilla with a new design. Black raspberry vanilla is a classic bath and body scent, and I just adore it! I think the name is a bit of a misnomer though, because I smell more blackberry than anything. ;o)
This batch of soap started off with a white base, then I added some pastel purple and bright blue in another drop swirl. For the top, I splattered the purple and blue in alternating angles and left them unswirled. I really love the splatter effect... I need to pull that one off more often!

Here's a pic of the wet soap headed to "bed", with black raspberry vanilla on the left and tomato vine/raspberry on the right:

Since these are new molds and I did not line them, it may be a few days before I get to unmold them and cut each bar. As soon as I cut the bars, I'll be uploading photos of the finished soaps... I am so excited to see how they will look in the end!

Ahh... It feels wonderful to be soaping again!

Thusday Inspiration: Freshly Fallen Snow Soap

Last week, East Tennessee was blanketed with a 3 inch layer of fresh, white, fluffy snow! Snow is a rarity 'round these parts (did you read that with my Appalachian accent?), so it was so nice to take some time off from school, watch it fall, then enjoy a few hours of play time with my kiddo in the "snow drifts"... Not sure if 3 inches of snow can be called a snow drift, but whatever!

So, after doing some research and planning, I decided to use the snow as my inspiration and made some fresh snow soap!

Adding the lye to the snow

I started out with some fresh, clean snow, collected right on the ETSU campus. I added my lye directly to the snow, letting the chemical reaction melt the snow down as the lye dissolved. While the lye cooled to room temperature (it didnt take long), I prepped my colors: titanium dioxide for white, ultramarine for a bright blue, and charcoal for gray.

The soap is scented with a really lovely fragrance, filled with notes of grapefruit, agave, ylang ylang, willow, and lavender.  It's a nice, fresh scent with lots of lightness. I did not want to use a traditional winter scent, like a mint or pine, but rather wanted to use a scent that would be loved year round.

Here's the "wet" soap still in the mold:

And here is a Vine video I made while I was swirling the soap:

Thursday Inspiration: Sunset Soap in White Tea and Ginger

I've come up with a new Thursday column that will both inspire me to make soap and will indulge all of us in our love for "soap porn"... For Thursday Inspiration, I will be making a soap inspired by a picture, song, video, or what have you!

I figured that I would start off this series with an inspiration that came from both a gorgeous wallpaper and the mold itself. My new mold hails from Wal-Mart and makes my inner hippie giddy with glee! I love the peace signs and the L<3VE embed... They are perfect! This mold, paired with the sunset below, gave me the greatest inspiration for a fun, bright new soap.

Sunset from motaen.com 

I started off with some bright orange mica and a blend of yellow oxide+titanium dioxide to achieve a bright yellow. I filled the raised portions with the colors, then swirled them together. The bulk of the soap was colored with ultramarine blue. The soap is scented with White Tea and Ginger, a fresh, clean scent, slightly foral but very light.

Here are the finished bars, three days old:

I love how they turned out! Almost exactly how I imagined them... They smell incredible! The orange is a bit muted, but I am still in love! I will need a steadier hand the next time I use the mold, though.
These soaps will be available in 4 weeks. I will have two peace signs and two L<3VE soaps available when they have cured!

Kid-free Weekend and some Soap Porn

This past weekend, for the first time since our son was born, my husband and I had a child-free weekend! Benjamin spent the weekend with my in-laws, working on the farm...

Giving hay to the cows...

Driving tractors...

And indulging in a few s'mores at Myers pumpkin patch! 

While all of the fun was being had at Tunnell Farms, me and my husband enjoyed a lovely date night, filled with trips to antique stores, a stop at the Nutty Java (our new favorite coffee spot!) and dinner at Mad Greek in Bristol! 

I also found some time to knock out two great holiday soaps! 

This first one is called Country Christmas, which is a great blend of wood and pine, orange peel, berries, and snow scents. I colored the soap with a warm green base and swirled the top with some gold mica. Super simple, but I am in love! 

My second new holiday soap is one that I am calling "Christmas Night". The soap is a dark black soap, scented with black currant and topped with some white and gold sugar pearls and some iridescent glitter. 

And now, it's Monday. Husband went back to work and kiddo and I are back at school... But what an amazing weekend! 

Summer Round Up (picture heavy!)

With Labor Day, summer is officially over, and it is back to the grind.
I wanted to recap the summer, looking at what all I accomplished with my time off from studying...

After some thought and consideration, I entered a few soaps in the local county fairs to be judged. I was so excited to place at both fairs this year!
At the Appalachian Fair, my Pomegranate Vanilla soap placed third in the Valentine's Day category, and my Jack-o-lantern soap placed third in the Halloween category! I was so excited and honored because they competition was fierce. Too bad they did not have a soap category, because...
At the Greene County Fair, my Green Grass soap placed first in the soap category! Wow! What a huge achievement!

I spent a lot of time this summer making new soaps and trying out different swirls... I'm pretty proud of the results, and they inspire me to try new color combinations and patterns. Here's some of my favorites:

My Applejack and Peel soap with the peacock swirl turned out amazing! 

Blackberry sage was my first try at the peacock swirl, and it turned out rather well!! 

(I also waited all summer for the blackberries to ripen so I could get these photos!!)

This is my chamomile soap with embedded loofahs! Love it!

New facial soap: tea tree and peppermint with activated charcoal and shea butter!

A lot of my time was also spent on editing a book that I am writing... It is a how-to book that I hope to share with you all very soon. I've also been researching crowdsourcing options as well, so keep a lookout for some big announcements coming from me after the Christmas season!

Both coffees were not mine... but I would have
drank them both if I could have!

And... of course... I spent most of my time with my sweet son, who turned three years old in July. We went on many adventures together, we played and learned together, we potty trained and weaned together, and now he is my big guy, heading off to his first year in Headstart! Of everything that I accomplished this summer, spending my days with him was the most fun and most rewarding.

So now, we head back to school and off to some new adventures!

Adventures in Pencil Lines

This summer, I have had the time and opportunity to learn and try out new soap making techniques, and one of my favorites has been creating pencil lines in my soap!

What is a pencil line?
A pencil line is a thin line made in soap by using a powder, like mica, clay, or cocoa powder.

Wild muscadine soap with a pencil line made of cocoa

Pencil lines are made by sprinkling a thin layer of the powder along the top of the soap, then gently placing another layer of soap on the pencil line. You have to take care to make the line as solid as possible, but not making the line too thick. If the line is too thick, your layers may come apart!

Most of the pencil lines that I have seen are made with sparkling micas, but I have had success using both cocoa powder and clay, both of which I had on hand at the time. If you use a loaf mold, the process is straightforward. However, if you use a mold like the one I use (which is the 9 bar birchwood mold from Bramble berry), you can either make the pencil line and omit the dividers, or place the dividers, then make your pencil line, like I did in the video below.

Pencil lines are gorgeous details in soap! I cant wait to try it out again!

Friday Spotlight: Bacon Scented Hand Soaps

I love to browse in Target's dollar section for goodies, and you would not believe my excitement and glee when I stumbled across a bacon mold! I grabbed it, paid for it, and ran home to make some bacon soap!

These soaps are made with a vegan glycerin base and dyed a dark magenta. The soaps are scented with bacon fragrance oil, which smells like a big mouthful of bacon bits! Yum!!

These soaps come in sets of 6 and are perfect to use as hand soap, guest soaps, or travel soaps. These soaps would make a great gift for the bacon lover in your life.

Want to check out my bacon soaps? Click here!

Friday Spotlight: Blackberry Sage

This week's spotlight soap coincides with the ripening of the local blackberries here in East TN! My blackberry sage soap captures the scent of the berry perfectly and pairs it with the herbal sage for an amazing scent!

The soap is swirled on top with purple, green, black, and white for a dramatic look. The swirl is the peacock swirl, making each bar slightly different. The base is swirled with purple and green.

The scent is amazing! Blackberry sage is warm and inviting, with juicy notes of berry anchored with warm notes of sage.

Want to check out my blackberry sage soap? Click here!

Friday Spotlight: Cup O' Coffee Soap

This week, let's take a look at the soap that will definetly wake you up in the shower: my Cup O' Coffee Soap!

Cup O' Coffee Soap

This soap is vegan friendly with an olive oil base, so it is mild and moisturizing. The soap is colored a dark brown, just like that cup of java that you sipped on this morning. The soap is topped off with a creamy swirl and sprinkled with real coffee beans for a mild exfoliate.

The scent is called "coffee house", and it is a real, true coffee scent. Just plain, black coffee! Delish!

I was lucky enough that this soap was featured in a recent treasury alongside other awesome coffee products! Wow! Thanks!

Make sure to give my soap, and this amazing treasury, a look over at Etsy.com!

Swirling Soap Series: Simple Swirl

This swirl is another simple swirl, but the end effect is gorgeous! We have talked about the nonpareil swirl, and this swirl is similar, with one slight difference: instead of using a comb to create our effect, we are going to use one chopstick.

Tea tree/Peppermint Soap

Before you begin...

Basics:

You will want to start off with a slow moving recipe (recipes with 70% olive oil or above work well for me) and a fragrance that does not accelerate trace. Mix your lye and oils together until you reach emulsification, which is where the oils and lye are mixed together, but not thickening. You will want your mix slightly runny. Once you reach emulsification, add your fragrance, then set aside a few ounces of soap into separate containers to color. When choosing the colors for your soap, remember that bright, contrasting colors work great! The addition of black, white, and brown can make a very dramatic effect. 

Tools:

For this swirl, all you will need is a chopstick and a paper towel to clean the chopstick off. You can retire your comb for now!

Diagonal Lines

Normal Soap Lines

So, we are going to start off with drawing our colored lines in the soap. Make sure to alternate your colors! You can go left to right, or you can draw diagonals, like I did in my example above. 

Once your lines are drawn, start at the top of your mold and insert your chopstick. Drag it down the mold until you reach the bottom. Clean off your chopstick, then insert it in the bottom of the mold about a half inch from your first line, then drag your stick to the top. Clean off your chopstick and start over, alternating lines from top -> bottom, then bottom -> top, until you have reached the other side of the mold.

You are finished! This swirl gives your soap a gorgeous feathery look, and can be done with as little as two colors. This is one of my favorite swirls, and it is my go-to swirl for many soaps.

Friday Spotlight: Soap of the Month July 2013 - Simply Lavender Soap

July's soap of the month is one of my most popular soaps at craft shows: Lovely Lavender soap!

My Lavender soap is a vegan soap, made with olive oil, coconut oil, and castor oil. I make these bars using the hot process method, and decorate the bars with chunky swirls of cream and purple. The hot process method requires the soap to cook in a crock pot for a few hours, making the soap usable immediately, instead of curing for up to 6 weeks. 

Almost everyone loves the classic scent of Lavender! Lavender has been hailed for its aromatherapy properties, including helping people relax and may even help with sleep.

Throughout the month of July, catch my Lovely Lavender soap at a discounted price of $5!

Soap Tutorial: How to make Rebatched Milk Soap

About a week ago, I was reading on a parenting community that a member wanted to make some milk soap, but she was not comfortable with handling lye. On the surface, this would limit soap making to melt and pour varieties. However, there is another option: rebatched soap, or french milled soap!

To make french milled soap, you will need:

• a double boiler (I use a candle pouring pot that sits in a pot of water on my stove)
• 1 pound (4-5 bars) of cold process or hot process soap
• Up to one ounce of milk (any kind of milk will work. I have great success with goat's milk and butter milk)
• Any scents, fragrances, or essential oils that you want to use
• A mold
• A spatula
• A knife or cheese grater

1. Start off with cutting your soap up into small chunks or grating your soap with a cheese grater. 

2. Put your soap chunks into your double boiler and warm the water on medium heat.

3. As your chunks are warming, slowly stir in your milk one tablespoonful at a time. You may not need the full ounce of milk. Look for a chunky-mashed potatoes-type of consistency in your soap. If the soap is not 100% smooth, it is okay. 

4. Now is the time to add any color, fragrance, or essential oil that you like. I made my rebatched milk soap with ginger essential oil and orange essential oil.

5. Using your spatula, carefully pour your soap into your mold. Let it cool overnight before unmolding and cutting. Put your soap in a cool, dry place to "cure", or harden. The harder your soap, the longer it will last!

Friday Spotlight: July 4th Red, White, and Blue Star Soaps

Today, let's take a look at a seasonal product: my Red, White, and Blue Star Soaps!

These soaps were designed just in time for the Independence day celebrations on July the 4th. The soaps are made from a vegan melt and pour base and molded in the shapes of stars.

One white bags of soaps contains two red, two blue, and two white soaps. Each soap is scented with a blend of wildberry and lemon. The blend reminds me of lemonade and blackberries at my grandmother's house in the summertime.

These soaps will be available through the patriotic season, and will come back around every summer. Stock up while you can!! These soaps are great to use as guest soaps, hand soaps, decorative soaps, or travel soaps! Find them in my Etsy shop!

Friday Spotlight: June 2013 Soap of the Month - Waterlily Orange

Soap of the Month: June 2013

This month's Soap of the Month is Waterlily Orange, a very popular soap at craft shows!

This soap is a vegan cold process soap in blue and orange, with a very unique, lovely scent. The soap was made with olive oil, coconut oil, and castor oil for a mild, hard bar of soap. It was colored in layers of blue and orange, with delicate orange flowers gracing the tops of the soap.

The scent is called Waterlily Orange, which is a lovely mix of the floral and citrus. Lily notes top off the scent, with orange notes in the middle, and an anchor note of amber.

Since this is my Soap of the Month, you can catch these bars at a discounted price of $5! Also, be on the lookout for samples of Waterlily Orange in all orders going out in the month of June (while supplies last). Make sure to head over to my Etsy shop and grab a bar before they are all gone!!

First Attempt at a Peacock Swirl

I've seen the peacock swirl around in the soaping world, and while it is gorgeous and produces amazing looking bars of soap, I've always been a bit hesitant to start such a complicated-looking technique. I love beautiful, bold swirls on the tops of soap (so much that I bought a mold just so I could do them!), so yesterday, I decided to bite the bullet and try a peacock swirl.

First, I watched this video by LovinSoap about 10 times in a row.

Then, I attempted the swirl using my 9 bar mold from Brambleberry.com and Blackberry Sage Fragrance Oil  from AromaHaven.com. I chose this mold because it gives me lots of room to swirl on the top of my soap, and I chose this scent because it does not accelerate, giving me plenty of time to work.

And here are my results:

I like the swirl and it is very pretty, but it is not in the classic peacock, or bouquet.

I think I have identified two problems with my first attempt:

1. My lines of soap in the beginning were more thick than I have seen others do. I think I need to thin out my lines, which will give me more room to have more lines and more swirl.

2. I drew my S-curve very wide. Next time, I am going to tighten up that curve, hopefully giving myself more swirl per inch.

All in all, I am pretty happy with the soap, I love the colors and the scent, and the swirl isnt terrible for a first timer. The soap gelled overnight, so the green and purple really pop next to the white and black. I have some new fall and winter scents coming in next week, so I'm looking forward to practicing this advanced swirl a few more times! Plus, I am going to get some help from a friend of mine who is an expert at swirling and marbling paper! Go check out her Etsy shop here: DynamiteFibers

Friday Spotlight: Tea Tree and Peppermint Soap

I really miss my weekly segments focusing on different sellers on Etsy, so this summer, I am debuting a new weekly segment: Friday product spotlight!
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Let's take a look at this week's spotlight: Tea Tree and Peppermint Soap!

This soap is a vegan soap made with olive oil for mildness, coconut oil for hardness and cleansing, and castor oil for loads of bubbles. The soap was made using the hot process method, where the oils, lye, and water are cooked until the mixture is completely saponified.

I colored this soap with activated charcoal powder, which is a natural black. Activated charcoal is known for drawing out toxins.

The soap was scented with a combination of tea tree essential oil and peppermint fragrance oil. Tea tree is a medicinal scent that is a light medium note. Tea tree has antibacterial properties. The combination of tea tree and peppermint is classic and rounds out both scents perfectly.

The combination of activated charcoal and tea tree makes this soap a great facial soap for people who suffer from acne breakouts.

Review: Birchwood Soap Mold from Brambleberry.com

One of my favorite soaps so far: Marigold Mint

At Christmas, I begged my husband for only one present: the 9 bar birchwood mold from Bramble Berry. The mold looked so slick and perfect, and I was dying to start making soaps with swirls and designs on top to match the fragrance within. And as soon as Christmas arrived, I became the proud owner of the 9 cavity mold!

The mold came with the wooden box, four outer walls, the four dividers that could be slid into place before or after pouring the soap, and a wooden top to help insulate the soap.

This mold has presented me with a few interesting challenges. First off, this mold was quite different from the silicone molds that I have been so accustomed to. I had to learn how to wrap the wooden mold in freezer paper to keep the soap batter from spoiling the wooden box. My first few attempts to wrap the mold where HUGE disasters! I learned quickly that when I added the walls after molding, I have to take care not to rip the paper, or else the soap batter will leak into the box and will ruin it.

After perfecting the art of wrapping the mold, it was time to make the soap. Using the mold is very easy and makes gorgeous soaps! I've been able to start making pretty swirls and flowers on the tops of my soaps, and I have been super pleased with my mold. I've actually ditched most of my loaf molds in favor of the birchwood mold. I love the new look and feel of my soaps!

Be sure to come back tomorrow and checkout a video that I made of soaping with the 9 bar birchwood mold!

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Just a quick FYI, this is a personal review of this product. This review was not paid for in any way and I am not affiliated with Bramble berry or Brambleberry.com!

Hot Process Goats Milk: mystery revealed!

Every soap maker, from the newbies to the seasoned soapers, either loves or loathes making goats milk soap. The milk can separate, curdle, cook, discolor, or stink! It is a big pain in the booty, but the outcome is so lovely! Goats milk soap is truly worth all of the sweat and tears!

After just a few craft shows under my belt, I began receiving more and more requests for these tricky suds. So, one evening, after apparently losing my mind, I attempted to make goats milk soap with disastrous results! My soap stank, looked bright orange, and was just a mess... So, bound and determined, I set out to perfect the art of making soap with milk, while hot processing!

Keep on the lookout for my tutorial!

Felted Soap

I've been seeing a lot of felted soap lately. I've seen it on Etsy, and I saw TreatMeBathandBody felting soap on Instagram. What finally pushed me over the edge to try it was having more than two people asking about felted soap at Heritage Days last weekend. So, I grabbed a few skeins of wool yarn and some stray bars of soap, and went to town!

I started first by cutting the yarn and pulling the strands of fibers loose. I laid them flat and pressed them into "sheets", similar to the fibers that I've seen others using on YouTube. I then felted my soaps by using hot water and my hands... and voila!

Felted soaps! They look like mossy rocks!

I'm in love with the felted soaps! I am hoping to start listing them on Etsy before November, and I am going to have them for sale at the Greeneville Woman's Christmas Expo and Craft Bazaar the first weekend in November.

Happy Creating!

S.O.A.P. Testing Reveals!

Here's the reveal!!

Enjoy!!