Only 2 left!

Last week I set aside 2 bars of my new Citrus Mint soap and listed them on Etsy. As of this weekend I have completely sold out of all the other bars from this batch, so get yours before these last 2 are gone! They are only available online but I will refund your shipping costs if you can pick them up in person.

Don't miss out!

The addiction continues: Lush temptation!

Although I'd heard of it before, this weekend I had my first real Lush experience while visiting some old college friends for Memorial Day weekend down in Santa Barbara. I had a quick stop I needed to make to the mall on the way to my friend's nursing school graduation/RN pinning ceremony. Honestly, it was a sick decision on my part to only allow myself 20 minutes in one of my favorite time-sucks (aka, the mall), but I guess I'm a bit of a masochist. It caught my attention on the way back to my car to get to my friend's graduation party. LUSH!

If you haven't already checked out this store, you must immediately find the nearest location and make a point to check it out next time you're in the area. Lush is an organic, vegetarian (and mostly vegan) bath and body care store and a perfect example of what many of my dreams have been about of late :P

Of course, I didn't have time to spend more than a brief couple minutes surveying the store to see if it was worth returning for. I decided that it was definitely worth it and promptly dragged one of my friends back there with me the next day. Let me tell you, this place is HEAVEN for soap geeks and body product fiends! I've been thinking about playing around more with solid perfumes and lotion bars so I treated myself to a great massage bar, but otherwise managed to exhibit uncharacteristic willpower and didn't allow myself any of the other temptations, such as a yummy new face cleanser or bath bomb.

Cold Process!

It has finally begun. You might recall that I mentioned my (former) acupressure guy TJ, in a previous post. He was kind enough to introduce me to his girlfriend Talia, who is also interested in soap making. After months of emails and anticipation, we all finally met up on Sunday for our first batch of cold process soap.

I was having too much fun to remember to take lots of pictures of the first batch, but here are a couple pictures I did manage to get:

Testing the temperature of the lye solution.

Melted oils mixed with lye solution to trace, oatmeal added and poured into our makeshift mold to saponify and cure.

Soaps by the sea

I was recently asked by a friend who sits on the board of directors for her mother's literacy foundation to donate some soapy goodies to be auctioned off at her foundation's annual fund raising dinner coming up this summer. The theme of the event is "By the Sea" and, while it's certainly not required for the donations be theme-specific, I thought it would be a fun project to aim for.

That was the inspiration for the soaps I made last weekend:

For the first batch, I was aiming for the color to fade from light blue at the top to dark blue at the bottom, like the color of the horizon when the sky blends into the ocean. I ended up with darker hues than I had originally intended, but this way I suppose it reminds me of the colors of the ocean itself, as the light filters out at greater depths. The white lines are the waves.

I kind of like how the waves ended up sticking out of the mold on one side, adding texture. (Bonus feature: turn them upside-down after use to allow the water to drain and prevent the entire bottom of the soap from getting mushy! :P ) So far I'm the only one who likes that feature, though. What does everyone else think?

Anyway, for my second attempt at ocean/wave soaps I decided to use the tube approach:

This technique didn't allow me to get that nice color fade I was going for in the first batch, but I like how they came out anyway!

All the wave bars are scented with a combination of ocean and sea breeze fragrance oils, making these great unisex soaps.

I'm on Etsy!

I finally got around to setting up shop on Etsy. For those of you not yet familiar with this website, prepare for hours of lost productivity! The entire site is dedicated to folks like me who are looking to sell their handmade wares online. No matter what the occasion, this has quickly become my favorite place for handmade and unique gifts. I highly recommend taking some time to explore all this amazing online community has to offer.

It will probably take me a while to finish stocking my Etsy shop, but I am open for business! If you're looking to purchase some of my handmade soaps or you're kind enough to spread the word, you can find me here:

soaploft.etsy.com

Framed Art Soaps - Part 2

I wasn't sure how I felt about the horizontal layering lines on my first batch of framed art soaps, so I made some more stamped soaps without them :) I've also sealed the design on these new ones by pouring a layer of clear soap on top so that the design won't start to fade away the first time you use them.

Unfortunately, most of the stamps I have right now are pretty intricate, which makes this kind of design a bit tough to get right. Right now they're a bit time-intensive but I'm working on perfecting the technique a bit more. Stay tuned for further developments in framed soaps!

Thoughts on Essential Oils

One of the major elements of soap making is the aroma. Some people buy soap and other body products solely for the fragrance. There are a lot of great fragrance oils out there to choose from if you just want nice smelling products, but you can open up a whole new world of benefits if you use pure essential oils instead. I've been reading up on essential oils and aromatherapy lately and I'm sold. It's a giant world to explore, but if I can make multipurpose body products that not only serve their purposes as soaps and lotions and lip balms, etc., but also help soothe someone's cold with lemon and eucalyptus, promote healing for their damaged skin with lavender, or lift their mood with geranium, I think that's a path worth exploring.

Framed Art Soaps - Part 1

I had planned, for my first real post, to start at the beginning and talk about some of the soaps I made when I first started photographing my projects a couple months ago. I have to postpone the old projects, though, because I had a super soaping day on Sunday (yes, super soaping Sunday = bliss) and I'm pretty darn proud of the outcome:


Framed Leaves soap bars:
-hemp and goat's milk soaps
-oak moss fragrance oil
-no, your eyes are not tricking you. Those are copper (mica) leaves and BROWN (oxide) frames (...and a stain in the table runner I'm using in the background- crap!)



I'm fairly new to this whole blogging business, but since becoming a mad soaper, there are a couple blogs I've been keeping my eye on. My favorite is the Soap Queen (aka Anne-Marie Faiola of Bramble Berry). My inspiration for these framed soaps came from a Valentine's themed rubber stamping tutorial she posted last month. I really liked her final products but her stamps were a bit different from the ones I already had. Mine have a square-shaped rubber border surrounding the edges of the design which ends up making a ridge in the finished soap bar, contributing to the frame effect.












I really like the framing effect here and the way the copper (stamped) leaves shine and shimmer in contrast with the white. In that last photo especially, though, you can see that I made these bars in three separate pours. I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing, but I have to admit that I'm not a huge fan of the stripes on the side. (Mainly because the imperfections bug me.)

I have to admit I'm really proud of these two (and the Peek-a-Boo Bamboo I made at the same time). They're the first soaps I've made that really make me want to go back through all my other projects and marvel at how far I've come :P

What do you guys think?

Until I have the time...

Thanks so much for visiting my new blog!

I already have a giant list of projects and other soaping tidbits that I'd like to share with you, but since I created this blog late on a Sunday night before a regular work week (boo!) it might take me a while to get everything up. In the meantime, please feel free to check out some pictures of my soaps that I've posted to my Flickr account.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebeccaloft

Keeping it clean!
Rebecca