Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Rosalie and Emmett - Now Cut

Here we have Rosalie and Emmett!

I don't think they could have turned out more perfect! The Rosalie soap is the perfect lemon color but I do think yellow rose when I see it and it smells like one too. It's delightful and fits Rosalie so well.





Emmett is sporty and athletic and the scent is of a youthful sweet cologne but with an 'old world' touch to it.





I am having so much fun soaping these fragrances. I've done ten so far and only have two more left. The remaining two are named Volturi and The Meadow. I know exactly how I want them to look. I'm looking forward to soaping those soon!

Monday, February 20, 2012

Rosalie and Emmett - In The Mold

Another two made today!



Rosalie - colored in yellow and white and the scent is a twist on lavender and rose. It's much nicer than I expected.



Emmett - colored in blue and chocolate and the scent is a twist on a bay rum scent but sweeter. It's yummy!




Carlisle and Esme

Carlisle is a total laundry scent which does fit him nicely -






Esme is a classy, fresh floral -








Friday, February 17, 2012

A Little Bit Behind

I completely forgot to post pictures from my mass soaping the other day! Hubs was home on Monday so I took the opportunity to lose myself in the soap kitchen for a while. I am wanting to soap all of the Twilight fragrances so I continued with four more of those. I've already soaped Alice and Bella if you remember. I soaped Edward, Jasper, Jacob, and Forks. This picture is in opposite order that I soaped them in.


Edward began to heat up in the mold and so I quick threw him (lol) in the freezer. I ended up with a partial gel. I was totally ok with the soap at cutting time.


Then this happened...



I'm still stewing over how to better soap this fragrance next time. I wish Alice could have let me in on that one. :-P

The next soap I did was Jasper. I wanted the same white top as Alice and Bella. (Did you notice I'm doing the same design only with different colors?) I was very happy with the coloring.



Then it changed as well. It only went to more of a lime instead of mint but I'm still ok with that!



As you see in the previous picture, Jacob has remained unchanged. Seems odd with him being a shape-shifter...well, whatever. :-)



I intended Forks to be darker but last minute the dark green I was going to do became gold. I didn't want to soap another green. However, the gold didn't end up showing up as anything other than cream. When I soap it again, I will make it a darker soap as Forks should be darker. But in general, I LOVE this soap!



Yesterday my morning started off kind of rough and by afternoon I was feeling so good and full of energy that all I wanted to do was make soap. So I soaped Carlisle and Esme. It wasn't all smooth sailing but thankfully, those two fragrances move super slow and I had plenty of time to work. Carlisle is blue/white and Esme is peach/white.



You'll have to check out my YouTube channel for the videos. I have making and cutting videos (eight total!) of Edward, Jasper, Jacob, and Forks up now. I will be uploading a video of making Carlisle and Esme later on today!

Friday, February 10, 2012

Soaping Area Tag

After reading this post over at The Soap Sister blog, I was inspired to share my own soaping area. Like many soapers, I love to see where everyone works and store their supplies. It has taken me all week to take these pictures because I wanted to wait for a time when everything was nice and straightened up. :)

This is the table I work on. I move it over so there is a space between the table and the desk. My supplies then are behind me on the shelf (as you will soon see) and easy to reach when soaping. I cool my lye and then my soap in front of those fans on the desk. This desk used to be my sewing desk, before soap came into my life. So those containers underneath the desk contain all of my sewing supplies.



This shelf is invaluable. It has my microwave and all my supplies here. Some of the supplies overflow to the desk and ledge behind the desk, but I NEED that shelf and the table.



Bad lighting here but it does show the whole 'area' that I soap in. In my daydreams, I design the counter and sink that would go right where the desk is. :)



Then this ledge is where I store my soap. I actually have much more soap than that, but I've boxed up the soaps that weren't necessarily to my liking scent or color-wise. It's still good soap so I am keeping it for 'just in case.' Just in case we have some sort of natural disaster that we would need the extra soap. Just in case I decide that I'm bored of soap again. Shocking I know, but it has happened before and I stopped soaping for over a year.




I also did a soap shelf update video and a look around my soap room.

Friday, February 3, 2012

Gremlins Still Won...But Only A Little!

I cut my Fruitylicious soap yesterday and as many of you know from the video, the soap balls popped out. Well, about half of them. Out of six bars I ended up with 3 that turned out quite nicely. A couple look good on one side and you turn it over and there is an empty socket on the other. :D






Here are the results of the other soaps from Monday...

Sweet Tarts - so sweet and holding the color so far.



Strawberry - this seemed like it had faded but was back stronger yesterday.



Tart Apple - after cleaning up, the bars turned out ok and they sure do smell good!




Wednesday, February 1, 2012

How Fruitylicious Came To Be

On Tuesday, I soaped this lovely batch of soap called Fruitylicious. It is a fruity scent, strong on the pineapple, and has dollops of pink, purple, blue, orange, and green throughout the soap. Hidden inside are some beautiful yellow soap balls.








Here is how this soap came to be....

On Monday, I quite innocently went to work in my soap kitchen. I made two test batches to start. I made a Sweet Tarts scent and colored it orange. It's quite nice but I'm not sure if it will discolor. I also made a batch of strawberry. I knew that it would try to discolor but I really wanted a strawberry scent, just for me. I colored the batter pink and all was well until I added the fragrance. It immediately went to a funky tan color. I'm ok with that, I'm going for scent here.

Then I started with my Tart Apple soap. It was to be a yellow soap with green swirls throughout. Hmmm...yeah. That was until the fragrance seized like you wouldn't believe. I slopped in as much of the yellow into the mold that I could. Then I added in the green. It didn't have as much fragrance so it wasn't seized though it did start to clump a bit. I thought, ok, we'll just do a layer and back with the yellow. No. Way. Jose. The yellow was barely even scoopable! It was hard! So I jazzed up the top of the green top layer, suh-macked it around, and hoped that I knocked out most of the air pockets. It's going to be a super small soap when cut, but I do hope that it will still be pleasing to the eye. I have no doubt that the nose will be happy. Now, I *could* soap this fragrance again, granted I went with one color and got it in the mold ASAP. I used Grannie's Green Apple fragrance from Rustic Escentuals just so y'all know for future reference. The info on the site says it "Soaps beautifully with no A or D, scent holds true without morphing." Not to be negative to RE, their tester maybe did work super fast and didn't have any issue. I on the other hand... YIKES!

The remainder of the soap I scooped up with my hands and rolled into balls. By the time I'd made five of them, the remaining soap was dry and crumbly. I attempted to press that into some citrus molds but those were a complete loss. So here's hoping that those soap balls hold together!









I can't wait to cut my soap today!!! If it falls apart, well, I figure I'm going to have some pretty awesome soap to embed into yet another batch!

So there is the story behind Fruitylicious soap. I will always prevail over a 'bad' batch and I'll make it prettier than ever! So you gremlins, if you stay around too long, you're going to get a makeover and you're going to LIKE IT!