.-.-Bubbly.*.Luv-.-.

Cupcake Soaps!

2012-01-09T19:17:00.000-08:00

These are something I have been wanting to try ever since I became interested in handmade soaps to begin with. A lot of soap makers that I follow and love do cupcakes and they are always so adorable, and they look really complicated to make. I had heard from other people on the facebook group that I'm a member of (melt & pour soap crafters) that they can never get them right, so I'm pretty excited to share what I've come up with!

This was my very first attempt, I was pretty determined to do it! The frosting was not exactly as I imagined... and I had NO idea how to work a piping bag...

On my second attempt, for my actual order that I talked about in my last post, I enlisted the help of a friend who loves baking to show me how to work a piping bag and a coupler :) MUCH better results this time! I'm so happy with how they turned out. The frosting is whipped soap, and has a bit of a sponge/foam like feel to it that's really cool. What I'm excited to try next is making bath bombs with a whipped soap topping! :) Let me know what you think of these!

First Order Ever! Thank You!

2012-01-08T10:19:00.000-08:00

The four soaps pictured below are part of... my first ever order! One of my managers at work ordered 6 soaps from me to use as a door prize in a gift basket at her daughter's wedding shower. Some of them didn't turn out as planned (that seems to be a common occurrence), but I'm still really happy with them. I have two soaps still left to make for her (cupcakes-I will do a separate post on those), and I'm really excited and hope they turn out as well as these ones have!
Green: Vanilla Pomegranate
Orange: Tangerine Lychee
Pink: Berry Vanilla
Blue: Sugarplum
The 3 pink shapes off to the side are.... BATH BOMBS! These are ridiculously easy/fun to make and I'm excited to try again with different colour combinations etc. The basic ingredients are pretty simple, and there's a lot of fun things you can do with them. The ingredients are: baking soda, citric acid, olive oil, fragrance oil, water.. Tada!

Christmas Gifts :)

2012-01-08T09:40:00.000-08:00

This holiday season I wanted to share my interest with my friends and family. Since a lot of people have already received soaps from me as I've been experimenting, I decided to make tiny little Christmas shaped guest soaps as a surprise for my managers at work, and my family. One of my managers actually found these molds at the dollar store, silicone ice cube trays :) They are scented with honey almond and the base is a detergent free shea butter base. It doesn't lather as well as I would like it to, and I probably wont be ordering this base again but I'm pretty happy with the way these bags turned out. I think they are pretty cute :) They seemed to go over well, and a lot of my aunts were curious as to how one actually makes soap. Part of what I love about doing this is not only being crafty and creative, it's the positive response that I get from people when I share with them what I've done. May be selfish, but I love the feeling that gives me, knowing that other people enjoy what I put time and effort into making.

Re-batched Cotton Candy

2011-10-01T09:39:00.001-07:00

After my recent disappointment with the Cotton Candy soap, I decided to try to re-make it. I grated a couple of pieces with a cheese grater, cut some of the blue and pink layers in to chunks, and melted down the rest. It is a dark lilac purple, with blue and pink shredded soap on top (with some sugar for added sparkle), and blue and pink chunks throughout. The colours aren't really picking up on camera, but it looks pretty cool. I also added a little bit more fragrance, this time pink sugar because I thought that would go well with the very, extremely faint cotton candy sugary smell that already existed. Pink sugar is a perfume- supposedly smells like vanilla sugary sweet goodness. Anyway, the soap turned out okay. I am completely unimpressed with fragrance oils from www.coastalscents.com and I will not be repurchasing any from there in the future... I know that adding MORE fragrance to this soap was probably a mistake, but one of the most disappointing things to me is making soap that doesn't smell good. I know that adding more fragrance takes away from the lathering ability, and can possibly be drying etc. to the skin. I am hoping to be able to afford higher quality ingredients in the coming months so I can try this out some more!

Cotton Candy Failure!

2011-09-23T21:04:00.001-07:00

My boyfriend generously bought me some soap base from Michael's so that I could get some more practice- and I messed it up again! lol

Pretty much the only things I like about this soap are the colours, and the layers (minus the mica glitter). I got a bunch of fragrance oils from www.coastal scents.com and while some of them are really good, this one seems to be a dud. When I first opened it, I couldn't smell a thing but everyone else in my boyfriend's house swore they could smell cotton candy. After a while of the fragrance oil sitting in my drawer, I could smell it faintly as well. When my boyfriend brought home the base, he requested that I try the cotton candy fragrance oil. Little did we know, that was a big mistake. I used ALOT of fragrance oil. About 8 medicine droppers full to be exact. I can't smell anything in the finished slices other than the soap base. Maybe when the soap sits wrapped up for a while, some of the smell will come out, but I somehow doubt it. I'm pretty disappointed in this. I got sent the mica as a sample with my fragrance oils- and my opinion of that is that it's pretty much just a big mess and not worth the trouble.

While this soap didn't turn out how I wanted it to ( I had doubts from the beginning), I still had fun making it and can't wait till my finances are in a place where I can buy a higher quality base and try out some of the other more promising oils that I purchased.

This is what happens when my boyfriend makes soap!

2011-08-15T15:04:00.001-07:00

It actually looks pretty cool, and he had fun doing it lol

I got ahead of myself!

2011-08-14T19:41:00.001-07:00

It had to happen at some point...When most people try something new they mess up, or aren't happy with the result on their first try. For me, It's my third try. What I TRIED to do was pink heart embeds (hidden in the soap because my slice cutting was misguided- they will be visible through use) with brown sugar and coffee mixed in, with the same honey almond scent. When making the mixture for the swirls, my boyfriend kindly pointed out to me that the pink hearts wouldn't necessarily be visible with pink swirls as I had originally planned for this soap to be pink and brown, so I quickly added some blue and changed the colour to purple. This is what the outcome was:

I think the actual swirling technique with embeds is pretty cool, and I am happy with that aspect of the soap. What I'm NOT happy with, is the colour combination, the fact that I got too overly excited to try too many exfoliants, the scent is not very strong and the coffee kind of makes it strange, and I had poor overall planning and time management.

I know, I know... it's a learning process. I just want so badly to be GOOD at this. I want to turn it into something- and I'm still toying with that idea. One project that I'm not overjoyed with the results doesn't equal quitting. It's just going to take a lot of practice... Unfortunately for me, practice equals a little bit of money. I guess that's partially why I'm upset that this soap didn't turn out how I wanted it to- because my boyfriend bought the base soap for me. Hmmm... Anyway, hopefully next time will be better! I definitely learned a lot this time.

Please leave your thoughts and opinions below! Also, if anyone close to me (friends or family) would like a sample slice of this, let me know and I'll see what I can do.

Project #2: Almond Sunshine++other thoughts

2011-08-10T13:32:00.000-07:00

Apparently, I've caught the soapmaking bug after just one attempt!

I used the rest of the 2lb soap base I used for the first one: goats milk soap. This time, I used just a honey almond fragrance oil, and added real almond extract to the mixture. This one has oatmeal mixed in for exfoliation and on top for decoration. Also in this soap is cinnamon (extra texture and scent).

Oatmeal has so many skin benefits:

Restores natural moisture balance

Aids in healing minor skin irritations or sensitivities

Removes surface dirt and impurities

Gently exfoliates

Removes dead skin cells

Contains anti-inflammatory properties

Soothes and softens skin

Deep cleans pores without irritation

Provides healthy, youthful, glow

Cinnamon:
brings blood and nutrients to the skin surface

can be used to dry acne

Almond Extract:

seals in moisture

strengthens hair and skin conditions

natural healing and protectant properties

I'm thinking this soap would be a really good facial cleanser- as most of the fragrance is natural almond extract, and the combination of cinnamon and oatmeal, as well as goats milk would be helpful for problem skin without drying it out.

Picture Time!

I'm getting really excited about doing this. It's so much fun, creative and I like looking at the finished product knowing that I MADE it. It's way more satisfying than buying handmade soaps from other people (although I'm sure I will still partake in that particular obsession from time to time...) I started doing this with the intention of gaining a new hobby, with background thoughts about opening a small business; an etsy store. What do you think? I'd love to be able to continue to do this and share it with everyone.

My First Project: "Pearberry Delight!"

2011-08-08T22:50:00.000-07:00

Being my first project, I didn't know if I would actually fall in love with making soap as much as I've fallen in love with looking at, and using handmade soaps so I bought my supplies at Michaels craft store even though I had heard that their products were not of the best quality for soap making. Before diving into this project, I did a lot of research through watching instructional videos, and reading about different soap making methods and techniques because I wanted to make sure that I at least knew a little about what I was doing.

What I used:
-goat milk melt and pour opaque base
-skin safe fragrance oil: pearberry & honey almond (own mixture)
-skin safe colourant: Blue, Yellow (mixed to make colours)
-tupperware container (mold)
-knife, spoon, cutting board
-glass measuring cup
-rubbing alcohol (with spray nozzle!)

Watching instructional videos (as well as browsing a LOT of online soap shops) really helped me to have an idea of what I needed to do in order to bring to life the image I had in my head of my finished product. I had so much fun making this and I can see myself really enjoying doing this for a long time to come! I plan on using some of this soap myself, and sharing it with friends and family to see what they think.

Here are some of the pictures of the process:

Making an embed: Waiting for base to melt:Waiting for suspension layer to form for embed:
Soap hardening in the mold:
And finally.......Finished Product!!!
Pearberry Delight!

Hope you enjoyed reading/seeing my first attempt at handmade soap art! I am so extremely impressed with how the colours and design came out, and it smells really good too!

Let me know what you think of the design :)

My Inspiration

2011-08-08T22:42:00.000-07:00

It all started with watching beauty guru's on youtube- a frivolous way to spend my time I know. Then, one day one of the guru's mentioned a soap "haul" they had gotten from a handmade etsy shop, so I checked out the store. From there, I found so many different handmade soap artists, some on etsy, some with more 'established' online stores, and I was hooked.

In the past year or so, I've ordered from 4 different soapers, and I loved them all. They are my inspiration to try something new:

Eden's Secret www.edens-secret.co.uk
Bubble Babez www.bubblebabez.com
So Stinking Sweet http://www.etsy.com/shop/SoStinkingSweet
Mel's Sweet Bar www.melssweetbar.com

Some of these soap makers also make videos on youtube that are either entertaining, helpful or for marketing purposes. Their soaps are amazing quality, so beautiful and I reccomend anyone who is interested checks them out for sure! Who knows...maybe one day I will open my own shop!