Soaptacular!

I had a soaptacular event recently and made a bunch of soap.  I like to cold-process oven-process my soap, which is why you see it in my oven. Putting the soap in the oven at 150-170F for 1-2 hrs and then leaving it in the oven overnight will speed up the curing process allowing the soap to harden quicker and be ready for use sooner. I always oven-process my soap as it helps to get a complete gel of the soap which tends to intensify the colorant.

Oven full of soap!

 This peppermint essential oil soap is colored a light blue. When the picture was taken the color had not fully developed yet. I sprinkled the top with some glitter and blue jojoba beads. Not only does this soap smell good, it gives you a little tingle in the shower...zing!

Peppermint EO soap.

 The Tea Tree Shampoo and Body Soap is one of my best sellers. This soap is made with tea tree essential oil and some luxurious oils that are known to be good for your hair.  I find that this soap makes my hair look and feel much thicker. I always have a bar of this in the shower....

Tea Tree Shampoo and Body Soap

 The always pretty geranium rose soap.  This soap is colored with a mixture of pink and red clay and a sprinkle of glitter on top. This was the first time I made it in a tray mold instead of a loaf. It came out okay, but the rose buds did not end up all being in the center of the bars. I really need to get this cutter from forcraftssake.com to make the cutting easier and straighter.  So many crooked bars...sigh. :(

Geranium Rose Soap

 Here are my Jasmine Salt bars. I had the geranium rose soap on top of this on in the oven and you can see where it discolored. I moved the rose soap and let this sit for a while more in the warm oven and the color did all turn a nice light pink. This Kelsie's mold is perfect for salt bars. It makes the sides so nice and smooth and you don't have to worry about cutting the bars.

Jasmine Salt Bars

As promised, more soap!

Here are the rest of the new soap pictures. I am sure I mention this a lot, but Dylan sure can take nice pictures of soap. Luckily all he "charges" me is for his regular shower/shampoo soap and the occasional shaving soap. Pretty good deal don't you think?

This first soap is my Sensitive skin bar. It is made with all kinds of oils that are great for sensitive skin. This bar feels so smooth in the shower, I just love to use it.

This soap hasn't actually changed in look, but we took some new photos anyways. This is Lavender Shea. It has a nice calming scent and smooth texture. If you look closely you can see the tops are brushed with a purple mica to give them some shimmer.

Up next is Jewelweed and Comfrey. It is made with olive oil infused with both of the herbs. Very nice bar of soap and these herbs are reputed for getting rid of the oils from a poison ivy bush.

This is my Jasmine Salt bar. Lovely scent and pretty color. The salt is a fine grain so it does not scratch. It makes a nice lotion-like lather.

Now to make some ginger souffle salt bars! Just need to decide how to make them look...any suggestions?

New Soap Pictures!

Ok these are LONG overdue, but finally soap new pictures for you to drool over! Over the past year I changed the shape and design of many of my soaps. Finally some pictures to show you how they look. Enjoy!This one is my Ayurvedic Shampoo and Body bar. It has such a great later and an almost licorice scent (though it is scented with Basil and Lime essential oils).

This lovely is my Irish stout shampoo and body bar. It was made with Guinness which really helps to boost the lather.

This refreshing bar is Eucalyptus mint. It is a soothing and cooling soap. I love to use it on mornings that I just need a jump start to wake up.


This one is my Coffee Kitchen Scrub soap. It is chock full of coffee grounds which help to remove kitchen scents (think garlic and onion) from your hands. This is also a great soap to use after gardening or a mechanics soap.

This is our seasonal Apple Pie soap. Pick some up before they sell out! I LOVE this scent. The scent of apples and cinnamon just relax me.

Check back soon as I will be posting more eye candy!

Tea tree shampoo

I just put a ton of tea tree shampoo in the oven to speed up the saponification process. It is one of my best selling soaps so I made a super large batch this time! This soap smells so good and I just love the way it makes my hair feel and shine after a shower.

I have a lot of new soap pictures that I will be posting here soon and then updating my websites. I finally convinced Dylan that I needed new pictures. I have changed the design of almost all my soaps over the past year and have been stuck using photos of the old designs. So expect a lot of soap porn in the coming days!

Lots of new soap...

I have been super busy lately, so I have not had a chance to upload photos of my new soap. All these lovely pictures were take my my partner, Dylan Maxwell Reilly. I will be posting a bunch more over the next few days. This first soap is a shampoo bar that is loaded with luxurious ingredients. It was made partially from olive oil that was infused with a bunch of Indian Ayurvedic herbs that have been touted to prevent and stop balding, gray hair, and it is supposed make your hair thick and very healthy. I am not sure if it really can stop balding or gray hair since neither of them are a problem for me, but it certainly makes my hair thick and shiney. I have some guy friends that are testing it out for the gray/balding issue. These herbs have been used for over a thousand years, so I would not be surprised if they do work. Too bad I can't actually market the product as a gray/balding prevention without breaking the law.


This is the same shampoo as above, but in a more manly shape for my friend, Will, that will not rub a ladybug in his hair. haha
This is part of a Bayrum shaving soap that I had to rebatch because only some of it poured nicely into my pvc pipe mild. You can see the soap that poured nicely and did not have to be rebatched here.
This soap is scented with black raspberry vanilla, which is now my favorite scent! The purple swirl was made with alkanet root powder.

Productive Weekend!

After having spent all day Saturday at a renaissance fair that Dylan's kung-fu demo team performs in, I was feeling the need to make LOTS of soap. So, Sunday I made 5 batches of CP, rebatched some shampoo soap that was soft, and made a batch of cream soap. It was a lot of fun! For the cold process soap I made them all with a blend of shea butter, olive oil, castor oil, palm oil, and coconut oil. For scents I made a vanilla, lavender vanilla, black raspberry vanilla, lemon poppyseed, and chocolate espresso. They all smell marvelous. The cream soap contained coconut oil, cocoa butter, olive oil, jojoba oil, castor oil, stearic acid, palm oil, and glycerin. For additives I included hydrolyzed silk protein, hydrovance, panthenol, kaolin clay, and calendula petals. The calendula petals provide a light yellow color which should look very nice once the glistening sheen develops in the soap. I will post picture of all the new soap soon!

Tea Tree Shampoo Bar

I made this shampoo bar about a month ago and have been using it now for a couple of weeks. I am now a convert to shampoo bars. I do not foresee a return to store bought liquid shampoo. I love the way it leaves my hair. I have very fine hair and this shampoo bar has definitely made my hair feel much thicker and I have a lot more volume. I have noticed that my boyfriends hair looks much thicker as well. We have a friend that stays with us a couple days every week and he loves the new shampoo bar. He apparently has problems with a very dry scalp and has seen an improvement since using my shampoo bar. I will probably be listing these bars at my Etsy store tomorrow. I love the shampoo bar, but I am a bit disappointed with how it looks. There is a crack in the bottom of the bars likely from over heating during the gel stage. So I am still debating if they are store worthy because of the crack.