2012, A Look Back (and forward!)

It’s been a busy soaping year! After a hiatus from soapmaking, I decided to jump back into soaping in June of this year. After looking back through my soaping notes, I realized I needed a better system for remembering the soaps I had made and how I had made them. I decided a visual journal would be the best way to capture each soap that I made, and so Oil & Butter blog was born! This blog has been a really important creative outlet for me, and I never expected anyone else to find my little blog, but soon Laura found me, and then Jenny, then Marika, Angela, and so on and so forth, and we are now up to 88 blog friends on O&B!

These are some of the highlights from 2012:

1. Swaps: Definitely a highlight for me this year has been getting to know all my fellow soaping bloggers and friends, and exchanging soaps with them this year. What a wonderful community I stumbled into, it’s been a privilege getting to know each and every one of you. I have learned so much from following all your blogs and having the opportunity to try out your soaps in person!

2. Luxury Soap Recipe and Tutorial: In August I held a poll and giveway, asking for your help deciding which ingredients to use in a luxury soap that I wanted to make. You guys really came through and helped me pick some luscious ingredients! The Luxury Soap Recipe and Tutorial remains the most popular post on O&B, and has been repinned many times on Pinterest and was even featured on Craft Gossip too!

3. My favourite soap: If I had to pick just one soap as my favourite this year, it would be the Eggnog Mug soap. I love trying new techniques and new ingredients, and this soap contained both a new ingredient (egg) and a new technique (making your own soap mold). Close seconds would be: Polar Bear Soap, Cedar and Saffron, Blackberries and Cream, Spooky Soap and Snowman Soap.

4. Favorite fragrance of 2012: Plumeria & Pomegranate; I don’t know how, but these blended fragrances came out smelling like candy…so good!

5. Oil & Butter got a Facebook and Pinterest page! And, our Spooky Soap was featured on the Wholesale Supplies Plus series 'WSP Learns from YOU: Your Creations Inspire Us' ....Thank you WSP!

6.  I don’t think I shared this with you guys, but this past summer I traveled to Bellingham and took an advanced swirling class at Otion Soap Bar. I highly recommend their classes if you are in that area; my instructor (Kat) was excellent, and she really helped me feel more confident in picking out colors and I came home with some new swirling techniques. I’m hoping to travel back there for a class again this summer (maybe lotion this time?!), and of course to replenish my Brambleberry supplies!

7. Looking forward, these are some of the things I would like to try in 2013: New soaping oils like babassu oil, rice bran oil, macadamia nut oil. Of course, there are a million and one new fragrance oils I would like to try too! I would also like to try using more fruits and veggies, and making infused milks and oils. I would like to revisit frosting soaps. I would also like to try making some of my own butters (coffee, avocado, pumpkin, etc). And, I can’t make any promises, but I am working on being able to start selling my soaps this year too…so keep an eye on our Facebook page for more details! ;)

Thank you for joining me in a fun look back on 2012 and a look forward into 2013. What new soaping things would you like to try in 2013, and is there anything you would like to see more of on O&B in the new year?

Wishing you all the best for the new year, and a big thank you to each and every one of you that have been following my soaping journey this year. I look forward to what 2013 has in store for all of us, Happy New Year everyone! =)

 

Soap Up Your Life :)

I know I mention this each time, but one of the nicest things about blogging is the chance to connect with other talented soapers from all around the world. My little bars of soap have traveled to countries I could only dream about visiting. I know it sounds strange, but I feel like a little piece of me is traveling to each country I send my soap; and in a way it is, we all put our hearts and souls into our soapmaking :)

I was super fortunate to have the opportunity to swap soaps with Angela from one of my favourite soap blogs, Soap Up Your Life. When she suggested we swap, I jumped at the chance! I am in awe of her colors and swirls, so I was really looking forward to seeing her soaps in person. Each soap is like a brightly colored jewel, they are truly works of art. I honestly couldn’t pick a favourite, they are all equally impressive:

Sudseezauber: I was secretly hoping she would choose this one to send! It was the first soap on her blog that I ever saw, and I was hooked on her soaps from that moment on! Her design techniques are something to aspire to; wispy swirls and perfectly chosen complimentary colors! This is fragranced with Bermuda Triangle, which is a lovely fruity tropical fragrance oil.

Greenery: Stunning again, done in different shades of green. She mentioned on her blog post that she used Aloe Vera and Cucumber f.o. in this soap and that it disappeared in the CP. I can very, very faintly smell some fragrance but I’m not sure if I’m picking up some fragrance from the other bars it was packed with. Even unscented it is a gorgeous bar, I’m impressed with how white and how hard her soap bars are. 

Wooden Berry:  Another absolutely gorgeous combination of colors and swirls, the fragrance she chose completely compliments the design of this soap! This is fragranced with Tayberry and Teakwood, which smells like a smooth combination of berries and wine to my nose.

Irrlicht: This fantastic-looking soap won Angela 2^nd place in a soap competition, which doesn’t surprise me at all...it’s one of the prettiest hanger swirls I have ever seen! This soap contains silk and soy cream and is fragranced with Brazilian Jackfruit, which is a gorgeous fruity/floral combination.

Tahitian Waterfall: This fragrance smells absolutely divine too; crispy clean and floral, it went straight onto my NG wish list along with the others! This soap is made with coconut, lard, olive, peanut and castor oil.  I was looking forward to trying a lard soap as I have never made or tried one before, but I hear lots of positive things about its properties in soap. She used a column swirl technique to mimic a waterfall with her fluid swirls…aren’t they stunning?

The lather on her soaps is incredible; creamy but yet bubbly at the same time, a really rich, luxurious lather.  Her soaps left my skin feeling and smelling fantastic!

Angela was so thoughtful and even surprised us with some candy from Germany and a postcard of the area that she is from along with a nice handwritten note! It was truly a pleasure exchanging soaps with you Angela, and I hope we get an opportunity to swap again one day! I hope you take the time to visit and join Angela’s blog, Soap Up Your Life; what I have shown you here is such a small sampling of all of the wonderful soaps that she makes and shares on her blog. 

I hope everyone is enjoying a happy and relaxing holiday with their loved ones!

 

Red Currant and Thyme Tea

Wow, this soap set a speed record for me...from pouring to unmolding was 4 hours! I have no idea why it set up so fast, but I wish they all set up as nicely as this one! Here it is in the mold with a sparse sprinkling of cranberry seeds on top:

I really love this subtle fragrance, I definitely detect the tea first and then the berries. I believe it's a dupe of a Bath and Body Works fragrance, although I can't vouch for that as I haven't tried the original. It behaved very nicely and didn't accelerate. The orange was supposed to be a pale yellow, so I don't know if the fragrance discolored or if I overshot with the gold mica. One of my Facebook followers (hi Monica!) commented that it looks like sorbet, and that was my first thought too! Here it is cut:

 

Plumeria & Pomegranate

Thank you to those of you who voted on my Facebook poll! Plumeria & Pomegranate and Red Currant and Thyme were tied, I realized that I inadvertently voted for Plumeria and Pomegranate and that is why it was registering ahead...doh! I am still hoping to make the Red Current and Thyme before the weekend is over; meanwhile, here is the Plumeria & Pomegranate out of the mold:

I just recently discovered Cherry Kernel Oil, and I haven't tried a new soaping oil in a while so decided to give this one a try.  It's similar in properties to sweet almond oil and peach kernel oil; it is a light and emollient oil, used in soap to provide conditioning and stable lather. I used it at 13% in this soap.

The swirl turned out more tie-dyed, because I dropped and drizzled the colors on top and then swirled them, rather than doing lines of color and then swirling, like I have done before. I actually made a video of how I did the tops, but I have no clue how to edit and upload it...lol!

I blended Plumeria f.o. and Pomegranate f.o. for this soap, I had both fragrance oils and while they were nice separately, there were a bit too one-note on their own. I like the complexity that came out of mixing these two together; it's more like a sugared plumeria or a flowery pomegranate now.

What soapmaking oils have you not tried yet that you would like to try? I would also like to try babassu and argan oils...those are the only other ones on my list so far :)

 

SenMi Soap Swap + Stabilizer Update

Another wonderful package came in the mail this week! I swapped some soap with Ksenija from SenMi Soaps and she sent me this lovely assortment of her soaps, all the way from the Netherlands!

The ones that caught my attention right away were Sweet Love and Foxy Lady. Sweet Love has a real smoky essence to it, and I love the bold black and pink combo. Foxy Lady is so fun looking, and the fragrance is a perfect match for this sassy soap! Big Blue is made with mango and pistachio butter, can't wait to try this one as I have never tried pistachio butter in soap before. The Lilac smells very delicate, very much like the flower. The Natural soap contains kaolin clay, which I haven't tried yet either. I also can't wait to try the Milky Way, Green Dew and Creamy Peach, oh my!  I'm so lucky to have such a nice variety of soaps to try! ! I feel so spoiled with all these choices...thank you so much Ksenija for swapping with me! You can check out Ksenija's blog here: http://senmisoaps.blogspot.nl/    and her Etsy shop here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/SenMiSoaps  


And, I also wanted to update you guys on some vanilla stabilizer I tried recently. Back in September, I posted this blog post about testing Christmas fragrances. I wanted to test the fragrances with and without vanilla stabilizer, as I figured the fragrances would turn dark because of the high vanilla content in them. I decided to try Nature's Garden vanilla stabilizer, which you can use at half the usual rate. Most vanilla stabilizers are used at a 1:1 ratio with the fragrance oil, but NG's stabilizer can be used at half that usual rate. Here is a picture of what the soaps looked like 24 hours after they were poured:

And here is an updated picture of the soaps with the vanilla stabilizer 3 months later:

You can see that the titanium dioxide didn't make any difference in the long run, but the vanilla stablilizer has held up extremely well (except in the Grandma's Kitchen fragrance!). Pretty impressive!
 

Shieh Design Studio

Ohhhh, the anticipation!

 Beautiful packaging....

Unwrapped:

Pure soapy happiness! The Teakwood Cardamom fragrance is AMAZING! One of the nicest masculine fragrances I have ever smelled. This soap contains buttermilk, banana, pumpkin seed oil to name a few of the impressive ingredients. She also used some MP soap in this, I love the way Emily combined the MP and CP, it's just so visually interesting!

Paradise is a lighter fragrance, fruity. This batch contains a high percentage of shea butter along with apricot kernel oil and pineapple juice. I can't wait to try this one, I love high % butter soaps!

And last but not least, Oatmeal Milk & Honey. I was drawn in by the red mica pencil lines! It's made with goat milk and also contains oatmeal, sesame oil, cocoa butter and honey.   

I had a hard time deciding on only 3, her soaps are amazing! Her blog is one of my favorites too, you can find it here: Soap & Restless. You can find her soaps in her shops: Etsy and Facebook

I hope everyone is having a great week, thanks for stopping by and reading!
 

Frosty's First Snowfall

I am so far behind in holiday preparations, it isn't even funny. Why does it seem like time speeds up once the calender turns over to December? I was able to squeeze in another Christmas soap though :)

By the way, did you know I'm also on Facebook? I sometimes post sneak peeks of what I'm working on over there, so if you head over and 'like' my Oil & Butter Facebook page, you'll get the quickest behind-the-scenes updates :)  Like this preview that I posted last night of the Frosty soaps in the mold:

This little soap was especially fun to make and really got me in the Christmas spirit and looking forward to the first snowfall (not too much snow though!). I found these little snowmen a while ago and was saving them until a soap design popped into my head for them. This is fragranced with Sleigh Ride and is a fairly simple soap, the base is just white, as you can see here:

I just poured an overlapping layer of blue mica soap and blue mica soap tinted with some black oxide for the darker sky.


Oh, and remember how I said in one of my earlier posts that I had successfully used beeswax to deter ash? Well, unfortunately it only ever worked the first time I used it and then never again. I've tried beeswax in 3 soaps, and it only worked in one of them. So, it looks like I will have to stick with rubbing alcohol to prevent ash. However, in this case, I think the ash works! It gives the soap an endearing frosty look:

And Maja, I bet you think I forgot about you...didn't you?! I finally got the swirly soap out of the mold today and took a cut picture of it especially for you =)  It's isn't super exciting because I only swirled the very top, but I like the soft wisps of color:

Hope everyone is having a good week, thanks for reading!

 

Missouri River Soap

I’ve been following Holly from Missouri River Soap ever since I started back into soap making this past summer. I study her videos, pour over her blog and follow her on Facebook; she is seriously talented, and it’s always so exciting to see what fun designs she comes up with next. She has so generously shared so much of her talent through her blog and videos, and now I’m so excited that she is finally sharing her soaps through her online store!

She has started opening her shop for limited openings, so I quickly snapped up 3 soaps of hers to try; Montana Memories, Pink Flurry and Planet Fun:

All I can say is that they are as amazing in person as they are in her pictures and on her videos, I am so taken with all of them! 

The Planet Fun fragrance is amazing! I think I remember that she blended this fragrance herself, and the scent is really out-of-this-world (you have a great nose for blending Holly!) and the little planets are simply awesome! The Montana Memories soap…the gorgeous soft swirls with the little snowflake on top, so cute! It smells exactly like you would imagine a winter forest in Montana to smell like. I also had to get the Pink Flurry bar because the colors are just so amazing….bright and cheerful, and the fragrance really matches the fresh, cheerful look of this soap. Plus, she also included 2 little sample bars, which also smell equally divine!

Be sure to keep an eye on her shop; bookmark it and check it frequently as she stocks up for limited openings....that's what I plan on doing! =)

 

Palmarosa & Geranium Hot Processed Soap

It’s been a long time since I have made a hot processed soap, and because I am running low on soaps and need to get some made in time for Christmas gifts, I decided to give an essential oil HP soap a try:

However, before I get to this soap, I wanted to share with you these awesome swap soaps that I received this week from Gordana at Moj Sapun (MySoap):

Aren't they beautiful?! We each had to try something new with this swap and then also send one of our tried-and-true soaps. Gordan’s new soap that she tried was the activated charcoal and carrot juice soap (which is the one in the middle). She also tried a new technique with this soap, the faux-funnel pour. You can check out her post about this soap on her blog here. She also sent a beer soap (the one on the left), which is her tried-and-true soap. I'm really looking forward to trying this soap, because I've heard that the sugar in the beer really adds to the lather. This soap also contains cocoa butter, oatmeal and honey...nice~! The third soap was the loofah soap, which she has embedded into some HP soap...it smells so good too! I'm really looking forward to trying all of your beautiful soaps with these new ingredients I've never tried before. Thank you Gordana, I feel so lucky!

Now, getting back to this essential oil soap. It’s been a long time since I’ve made a pure essential oil soap, so I thought I would try a blend of Palmarosa and Geranium essential oils. I really like this blend; it’s a soft, clean floral with just a touch of green. The palmarosa reminds me of lemons and roses, and the geranium adds a light, earthy note to the blend. I used 2 parts Palmarosa essential oil to 1 part Geranium essential oil. I also wanted to add some interest to the top of the soaps. I had seen a picture of some soap on Pinterest with similar tops, and I wanted to see if I could replicate the tops by blending some mica colors. 

Here is the before and after:

 

 This is how I blended the mica colors to get this effect:

The finished HP soap with a blended top:

Thanks for reading and have a great weekend everybody!