Thursday Inspiration: Tennessee Orange Soap

My mom, ever the Vol fan, has been bugging me for ages to make an orange and white soap for her. It's always been a project in the back of my mind, and after finding the perfect scent (Orange Creamsicle) and the perfect orange color (Clementine Mica), I was ready to go!

The soap is a messy swirl of orange and white. It's a really simple, gorgeous swirl that I am super proud of! The inside of the soap has a white swirl and the scent is super wonderful! The orange and the cream balance each other out wonderfully!

Here's a picture of the "wet" soap in the mold:

The orange faded a little to a creamier orange, rather than a bright one, but it matches the scent beautifully! I'm pretty proud of it! Be on the lookout for this tasty-smelling soap next month!

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!