Soap, soap, soap

I just realised I didn't say what fragrance I used for the blue soap. It's Moonlight Path BBW Type from Save on Scents. It has a very heady floral yet powdery scent which I like. It's described as a blend of lavender, roses, violets and musk.

I've been busy making soap! Oh my, it's like an addiction I can't kick. I keep thinking "Hmmm, maybe I should make some cream today but oh, there's that soap I really wanted to make!".

So here are more of my soaps!





Chocolate soap scented with Brambleberry's Dark, Rich Chocolate and it smells delicious! Yum...





Lastly, the Oatmeal, Milk and Honey soap superfatted with meadowfoam seed oil. I left this unscented but included some orange peel and vanilla infused olive oil. The vanilla didn't come through though unfortunately. However, it smells lightly of honey and reminds me of biscuits for some reason. These are great big hunks of soap and now I'm thinking maybe I should have cut them smaller.

I'm making soap again tonight! I'm on a roll! I want to try making solid bubble bath next. My sister would love that.

Soap Dishes

I saw the cutest soap dish on etsy at the Fruit Fly Pie!



Isn't it adorable? I'm so in love with it. Also, I'm making soap tonight! I've got so many ideas for soaps running through my head that I can't keep up with them! My notebook is filling up fast.

I also really want to make this idea for soap that I have in my head but I can't at the moment until I get my equipment. But it's going to be beautiful!

Edit: Have you seen the panda dog? :)

Swirls by Alkali Soaps

Mary and Jon have literally turned their soaps into works of art. Check out their incredible swirling patterns!



Soho



Sakura



Jabberwocky



Aurora



Film Noir



Scroll



Espionage

Aren't they just gorgeous? The patterns are so clean and perfect. Not something you see everyday in cold-process soap! I'd imagine seeing these in an art gallery. My favourite is the Soho. It must be hard getting the black line in the middle with the two different colours on either side. Extremely well done, Mary and Jon!

You can pay them a visit at their etsy shop here. All pictures are owned by and linked to Alkali Soaps.

Google is Great

I was bored so I started looking at my blog stats and reading what people type into google that refers them to my blog.

There are some pretty humourous ones.

is honey dangerous
If there are bears around, most definitely.

why it is important to be organised
You've obviously come to the wrong place.

do oats make your breasts bigger
Yes. No, sorry.

dangers of oats
They're evil. A danger to your tastebuds if you eat them plain.

whats oats
What's oats?? WHAT'S OATS????

Cookies!

What my 19 year old sister, Amanda and 12 year old sister, Chelsea were doing till 3 am this morning.













Such silly but sweet girls :)

Oh, woe is me :(

Something terrible happened last night! Are you ready? Okay, here goes. This WAS my soap.



This IS the carpet. I can see it now.



Real estate agent: What the *&@^%*&#^ happened to the carpet?!?!?!
Me: Uhh, funny story actually. It was the lye that actually ate away at it.
Real estate agent: What were you doing with lye?!?!?!??!
Me (sheepishly): Umm, making soap? Hehe...
Real estate agent: ..............................................get out.

Yes, I spilled raw soap on to the carpet. The bottom of my mould which is removable, popped off when I was adjusting it to get a better picture. I managed to spill HALF of my soap on to the carpet. Everything happened so quickly after that. My first thought was to get the soap off the carpet and it took me a few rounds of running back and forth from the closet to the kitchen. In my hurry, I didn't wear gloves as I took them off after I poured the soap into the mould. My hands were burning and so was the carpet. I looked at it closely and noticed weird dark patches. Then I scrubbed at it and a clump of carpet came off in my hands! Dan rushed to get the vinegar and we dunked more than half a litre on to the carpet. Alas, it couldn't be saved.

Why oh why didn't I cover the floor with newspaper. I didn't even think of it. The kitchen is tiled and I never thought I'd spill anything out of the kitchen. I'm so stupid :(. Well, lesson learned the hard way :(. I had thought of not posting up the picture of the carpet because it's sort of painful to look at but I think I need to make sure others don't make the same mistake as me. I still had some left over in the mould which I tried to save and will unmould tomorrow.



I think it's time to get a new mould and also time to wise up.

Updates!

Hello, everyone! Uni has been keeping me pretty busy as of late. Assignment after
assignment after assignment! I'll be making soap tonight so stay tuned for it in the next couple of days :). Melbourne is sunny today and the max temp is about 40C/104F.
Unbelievably hot so its a good thing today is my day off and I get to stay home and make soap!

Still some people are out and from the shouting and cheering going on outside my apartment, I'd say they're having a pretty good time!



Really, I'm just testing out my camera's optical zoom. They seem to be big fans of Foxtel (cable TV).

Joanna from The Soap Bar and Product Body Blog featured my soap on her blog! Thanks Joanna, I'm glad you like the swirly tops on my soap :). Joanna owns her own business called Product Body which sells handmade bath and body products. From the amount of people who rave about her products, I'd say they're pretty awesome! I haven't tried them myself as shipping to Australia is expensive from the U.S but I still love going to her site and just browsing through her products. She has such clever names for her products like Crush on You (sugar scrub) and Mama Bomb (moisturizer for expecting mothers). Take a look!

Also, I've just received my order of shea butter and cocoa butter from Mama Aum. The first thing I did was open the bag of cocoa butter and take a HUGE sniff. I was absolutely blown away by the scent. It smells exactly like a bar of rich, dark chocolate. Normally, cocoa butters just retain a hint of their chocolatey scent but the smell of Mama Aum's cocoa butter was pretty full on! I love, love, love it! Go here to order some of their yummy creamy cocoa butter! Their shea butter (pictured below) is delicious as well and fantastic to work with in creams, scrubs and soap. Order some here!



Their customer service is also top notch and I can't stress enough on how fantastic the quality of their products are. Do pay them a visit.



This is tussah silk from the Mountain Spinnery. They forgot about my order and forgot to send it until I reminded them a couple of weeks later which was a bit of a letdown. However, the silk is gorgeous. It's so soft and so fine. The great thing about tussah silk is that no silkworms are killed in the process, the silk is collected after the moths have broken free of their cocoons. And yes, the silk is for my soap like everything else is :D. I was also wondering if silk really does make a difference in soap?

Recently I ordered some polymer clay jewellery from Acrylicana's etsy shop! They're really cute too. Take a look!







I've added more blogs to the list of blogs I read. They're on my sidebar and are all very interesting and definitely worth taking a look.

See you all very, very soon, I promise! I also have a visual treat for my readers the next time I blog. Hope you like it :)

Perfect Potion Discovery Nights

This is for the Aussies! If there is anyone interested in taking up soapmaking and the like, you might be interested to know that Perfect Potion are having their discovery nights this year.

Their discovery nights are like mini workshops where you can learn about aromatheraphy, massage and creating your own soaps, creams and bath and spa products. Some have a participation fee of $40 and some of $10. However these workshops are only available in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria.

If you'd like to know more, visit their website or call them free anywhere within Australia at 1800 988 999.

Hope this information will appeal to some of you :)

Carrot and Calendula

Wow, I've been away for a while haven't I? Sorry for my random disappearing acts! Uni has started and I can't believe that I've been so busy this week. I've been dying to make soap and I have all these ideas running through my head that I just can't wait to get on to them!

Apart from that I want to get started on making my own shampoo and conditioner. We'll see how that goes! Hopefully soon. I want to make so many things actually, creams, bath bombs, scrubs. Honestly, what an expensive hobby this is! To profit from it is a dream that I haven't reached yet unfortunately but I'm taking it one step at a time.

This is a carrot and calendula soap made with carrot juice, carrot seed oil and calendula infused sunflower oil.





I scented this with roman chamomile instead and the apple like scent combined well with the carrot oil making it smell sort of fruity. This is meant as a facial soap so my cousin will be my personal reviewer in about 6 weeks? I hope this works well!

On another note, I've misplaced the key to my letter box!!!!! Which reminds me, I'm going to go look for it now! You can tell I'm extremely unorganised :(