Two more for the shop...

Hi. I'm listing two new soaps to the shop this evening and I hope you like them.  This first one is a White Ginger & Amber, which is a warm amber blended with a hint of ginger and light florals.

This next one begs you to remember the taste of childhood sugared lemonhead candy. It is scented with a fragrance that takes it up a notch with citrus top notes of real lemon, and warm base notes of vanilla and sugar.  Citrusy and sweet.  :)  I also added a sweet sparkly daisy just for fun.

They'll be available tonight.  Thanks for reading! :)

Multisoaping...

I haven't soaped in a while so instead of one batch, I made two....well almost two.  The first batch is a customer request of a dupe of Aquolina's popular Blue Sugar.  It's more of a men's scent, but not SO manly that women can't wear it as well.  It has vanilla (more on that in a minute), caramelized sugar, cedar, tonka bean, licorice,  patchouli, lavender, coriander, bergamot, mandarin and star anise.

I used coconut oil, avocado oil, cocoa butter, rice bran oil, castor, and olive with 100% GM.

I went lighter on the color in this batch and wish I had goosed it a little more, but....ah whaddya gonna do?!  Creamy colored base and some light azure colored swirls.  Nothin' too fancy.  Here it is in the mold:

Trouble is, my son was home from college for the night, and he and his friends came in right when I was mixing things up and completely forgot about the vanilla content.  This sucker'll probably end up a nice yucky brown.  Oy. So much for my multitasking skills.

For my next trick, I wanted to do a layered soap with a dupe of LUSH's "Rockstar".  No vanilla stabilizer in this one either, because apparently my brain has left the building.  The supplier says that it only discolors to a "creamy peach"   (wha'?!) so hopefully the color will mask it enough.  I've only poured one layer so far.  LabColor's Royal  Purple.   The blue family is almost always a differen't color than the final result when it's poured, so think purple, people.  :)  Right now, it's more of a....ummm....NOT purple. ;o)

This will probably change a thousand times, but I'm thinking maybe a layer of a lime-y green and a layer of orange or hot pink or something.  We'll see how it goes.

So what's everyone else soaping?  Also, if anyone has soaped Daystar's Blue Kisses and have experience with the level of discoloration, please post in the comments below.  Stay warm everybody.  It's crazy cold here in Michigan!  Brrr!

UPDATE:

It's gellin' like a felon now and looking slightly less blue so maybe I'll get purple after all.  Serious glare in the pic.  Sorry.  :)

Update #2...

Poured another layer. One of my soapbuddies (Thanks, Salty) assured me that he's soaped this scent before and it didn't discolor.  Whew.  I hope it stays this funky lime color.  :)

UPDATE #3

I decided to go with orange for the final layer.  I toyed with pouring a 4th, but they'd never fit in my soap boxes...lol. 

Then I sprinkled some soap safe magic sparkle and put it to bed. :)

These will be ready to be sold in about 4 weeks.  I wasn't sure I was going to like this scent when I heard about so many people going bananas over it - because  you are so overpowered with scents when you walk into a LUSH store, it's all just too much - but this is really super yummy!

I'm tryingto kickstart a line of aromatherapy bath oils, and maybe I'll get to that today.  If I do, I'll post more later.  Have a great day, all. 

Thanks for reading!

New product launch...

Well, I've been threatening to list these on my Etsy for some time now, and tonight I messed with them at great length to tweak them to where I think I have a winner.  These are my new herbal bath teas.  All natural ingredients, and they smell just absolutely incredible.  They'll come in a set of three differen't kinds - Muscle Relief, Pamper Me and Sleepy Time.  The paper tea bags didn't hold up as well as I'd have liked so I switched to muslin and they're great.  The packaging may change yet - still not sure what will work best for shipping etc.  I really hope you guys like them.  :)  January has been slow for sales because Christmas just passed, so maybe these will spark some interest.  :)

Honey, I think we're better off separated...

Ugh.

I hate when I lose a batch of soap. All the work, all the expensive oils and ingredients wasted. Makes me a crazy person. I'm also a giant moron, because this one could have been prevented. Months back, I got a bad lot of sodium hydroxide. At the same exact time, my digital scale battery was on the verge of dying and causing some wonky measurements. After a couple of failed batches, I checked the battery, replaced it and all was right in the world again. I figured there was more of a chance that the mismeasurements from the scale caused the batch failures than the likelihood of several pounds of bad lye so I set the cans off to the side, bought new lye and carried on with successful soap. Why I didn't throw them away right then is a testament to my inner goober but also a glaring example of my cheap-assedness. :)

Yesterday, I ran out of lye again, and thought "Ahh what the hell - the lye is probably okay, and it was just the bad battery before" and proceeded to use it in my soap tonight. Yeah, you can probably guess what happened, eh?

Total separation. .  Notice the layer of clear liquid floating on the top of the soap, glimmering my the light of my dining room chandelier.  Ahhhh ambiance.

I've tilted the mold to one side in this next picture so you can see just how much liquid rolled to the back side of the mold. 

So....this batch is a bust.  Damn.  Lesson learned, but I still cringe that it happened because I know better.  I should have 86'd that lye months ago but I  was too cheap to just toss it. 

So how many of you have gotten bad lye and soap disasters because of it?  Share your horror stories in the comments section.
Thanks for reading...

::plays a haunting rendition of Taps:::

It's time to pick a winner!

I wanna thank everybody who entered the soap naming contest!  There were so many creative (and sometimes hilarious) names and it was really difficult to choose between them.  So tough, in fact - that I had to call in reinforcements!  I decided to use a cool little program that virtually picks a name out of a hat!  I just typed all of the entries into the program, hit shuffle, and the name is chosen with a click. 

So, without further adieu -  the winning contest name issssssss..... 

LOVESICK!!

So congratulations to Holly!!! Please send me your contact information at aldsoapco@att.net and I'll be getting your free soap out to you! :)







Thanks for helping me out everybody.  From time to time, I'll be hosting more contests and giveaways so check back here often!  As always, thanks for reading!

Strawberries dipped in chocolate!

Coming soon...

I'm a winner! Squeeee!! :)

More photographic evidence that soap is taking over my house....

Evenin' all  :)

I keep getting lots of email asking for the cut pictures of the soap I'm making.  Never fear!  They'll always be posted, but sometimes it takes me a day or two.  I have the two from the last two days cut now, so I wanted to make sure I put them up.  The first one is "Jungle Love" from monday, January 4th.  The pictures don't really pic up the pretty shimmer.  It's super pretty and girlie.  :)

The next one is our contest soap!  Whomever comes up with the name for this one, wins a free one.  FREE!  See yesterday's post for details.  Some names are a crack-up and really good so far!

Again, each of these will be ready for purchase in beginning of february.  Thanks for hangin' out with me while I make them.  

I also have some other good news.  Soon, hopefully within the next few weeks, I'll be offering two kinds of soy tarts for the candle lovers!  Stay tuned to see what we come up with!  I'm excited to get started. 

The insulation experiment yielded some interesting results last night.  I covered the soap, and I did end up getting a full gel.  It's so interesting how with each recipe, the need for insulation changes.  I have a high coconut recipe, with 100% goat milk that absolutely gets flaming hot if I even THINK about covering it.  Sometimes I even refrigerate it.  This recipe seems to handle it okay.  40 % lower coconut, same amount of goat milk.  Hmmm.   The gelling doesn't really matter that much except that it can effect hardness/softness and even slight color results.  What do you guys think?  Do you like to gel, or not?  Love to hear your thoughts in the comment section.

Anyway - I hope you enjoy the pictures.  Thanks for reading!

Soap & A Contest!

Geez....I just realized how boring the last couple of posts have been. Same videos, same boringness. LOL. I'll try to post something more entertaining than soap in a mold, next time - but no promises. :) Tonight, I'm making the next one in my Valentine's Day series of soaps, and this one smells delish. I'm looking for names for this one and if anyone has a good idea, please post it in the comments below. I'm looking for something love related, sexy, naughty even....you know...something to fit the holiday. I know all you pervs have ideas...lol. The best I came up with was "Scandalous", and suddenly I'm in a Britney Spears perfume commercial. .  :::Gag::: 

To make it fun, let's make it a contest! If you come up with a name I use, you get a free bar of the soap. How does that sound? :) Post your ideas in the comment section, and I'll choose the winner by...say...hmmm...let's say 8 pm, January 10th. Should be kinda fun. :)

So anyway - it wouldn't be a soap day without a picture and grainy video... Thanks for reading!

 Oh! And if you're reading this, and you're one of the people waiting on orders from me, thinking "Hey! Why's this heifer playing with soap when she needs to be making my body mousse, butter, scrubs etc. - don't worry. I made those tonight too, and will be getting them out to you tomorrow. :) Bye for now!

Goin' bananas...

Yes, Gwen.  That's b-a-n-a-n-a-s. 

Guess what?  I'm making soap again!  Had a nice time this evening at my sister's place earlier.  She was throwing a get-together for her son who's home for christmas from the military.  Good food, nice visit.  Then, after we arrived back home, my oldest attempted to upset me as much as possible (I think he's gone pro, at this point) so I needed some soap chi to remove my brain from the nonsense.  Nothin' like some direct lye fumes to deaden the cognition.  LOL.  Hmmm...what colors tonight?  I've been on an orange kick it seems, so how about we switch it up with some pink and green and put a li'l funk in it!  I'm callin' this one "Jungle Loooove"  Oooh baby!

I'm thinkin' tropical....umbrella drinks and cabana boys.  A nice winter distraction!

What's everybody else doin' tonight? :)

                                         

Thinking of you...

My father would have been 79 years old today.  I miss him.  I miss what influence and memories he could have given to my kids, I miss his hugs and laugh.  He died of lung cancer 6 1/2 years ago after a long, brave battle with the disease.  Please don't smoke, and everyone please kiss your dads for me today...

Love you, still......

The cut...

An update on the soap freakshow....

So...you may or may not remember the layered soap tutorial I did a coupla days ago. (Scroll down to see it). If not, Lemme refresh...

In my feeble, blonde brain, I'd envisioned a deep melon red and lemon yellow layered masterpiece (hee!), known far and wide for it's unadulterated awesomeness. It started out pretty well, it seemed...no crazy issues in the making of it, but when I cut into it, the melon red color in the bottom layer utterly vanished, for reasons known only to the soap gremlins.

Well, it's still not the deep colors I had hoped for, but the color does seem to be slowly creeping back in. (Good call, Peanut Gallery! :) ) We're rockin' more of a "peach" these days, but hey...sometimes ya gotta roll with what chemistry gives ya! So because many of you have asked to see it cut, I wanted to post some pictures. Enjoy!

If eating this is wrong, then I just don't wanna be right....

Happy 2010 everyone! I hope this post finds all of you well, and that everyone had a safe but fun time ringing in the new year last night. I wanted to share with you what I've been up to this evening. I really need to do this in the daylight from now on to get better photos. Sorry about that. I also forgot to charge my HD camera (again) so the video is less than er....crisp. :/ Anyway....OMG you guys! This might be my new favorite scent. The whole house smells like lemon squares baking. The pie crust, the soft lemon zest, the coconut and vanilla....I gained 10 pounds making it. ;o) The pics are dark, but it's orange, lemon and ivory colored,and will be ready for the Valentine gift giving season (if I don't hoard them all to MYSELF!) SO incredibly yummy! It's going to be called "Sinful". Rowr! ;o)



I've got some orders I need to fill for some foot scrubs and some Deep Conditioning Creams, so hopefully I can get some pictures and information up about those too, at some point. Remember, there are only two days left in the 50% off Blogger Sale! Some of you have already taken advantage, but the countdown is on! :) Here's wishing all of you an amazing new year! Thanks so much for reading!