Soaps or cakes?

If you are my regular reader, you surely have noticed that my writing focus has transferred from soaps to toiletries. It's not that I didn't make any soap meantime, I just had no time to present them timely. Now, that they are almost or fully cured, it's a high time to make it to the blog.
So, without further ado, we're starting:

CHOCO-AMARETTO

This is the third choco soap I've made. The thing with this soap is that chocolate fans just can't have enough of it. Varying the amount of chocolate and amaretto fragrances, the first two versions were equally good sellers, so I'm expecting this one to be,too. 

What really makes a difference with this one is real chocolate. Unlike the first two, this one has real, dark chocolate,as an additive. 

Why would anyone add cholocate into soap? Well, I wouldn't have either, if it hadn't been that fun challenge.

But, let me leave it for later.

So, except chocolate, which is incorporated into the whole batch, this soap consists of the other two choco things- milk (goat's) and cocoa butter. 

The colours are cocoa powder, oxides and clays.

Here is the actaul version:

sweet, sweet soap

Sunbathing

Working with chocolate, in sense of soapmaking, has the same approach as working with other, high sugar content ingredients. You have to be too darn careful with the heat it will develop for sure.

As we a had severe, cold winter, this baby slept overnight at the balcony. And it did it well.

The soap is fully cured and listed at the shop

Состав: Sodium Olivate, Sodium Cocoate, Sodium Palmate, Sodium Castorate, Sodium Cocoa Butterate, goat's milk,  dark chocolate, clays, cocoa powder,pigments, glycerin, silk fibres, frnagrance

SUNDAE SOAP

Now, even sweeter soap. 

As I mentioned above, restocking Choco soap coincided with the special challenge which I took part into. The challenge was to create Sundae soap, using specified ingredients. The things I was supposed to use were, as unusual, as tricky: strawberry, chocolate and ice-cream- all three very real,lol. And overall, I had to use a specific tool- a spoon! 

ice-cream, forest strawberries and chocolate

So, the first day I made my Choco-Amaretto soap and took a part of the batch away for the challenge soap. The second day, I made piping and topping part. 

Sundae soap

Sorry, I don't have phases pictures, but I'll explain.

The bowl was made first. The next day I used a spoon to make a cavity in it and to fill it with the other batch. Once again, I used the spoon for the scoops and then piping tools to decorate it. Melting topping is m&p. The chocolate stick is real chocolate.

Then, I finished up with the excessive inner part of my 'bowl'. I wasn't hesitating a moment. I hand shaped it into another, small bowl. As I had enough soap to fill it, I actually got two sundae soaps.

And for the better perspective:

tiny sundae

both sundaes together

It's always fun participating in challenges , they usually push you to doing things you normally wouldn't do. 

Sometime, things go smooth and easy, the other time you have to repeat the process, but both make you go further and better than you have thought you could.

Hope you've liked the soaps! I have more to show you, and hopefully, soon enough to keep you interested!

Thanks for reading and all Orthodox Christians, have a wonderful Easter Sunday!

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World Soap Challenges- Final Week

Hello everyone!

We're done with Amy's challenges for this year! 

I enjoyed these challenges for so many reasons, but the most valuable is that I had a chance to discover some soap artists I hadn't known before. So, thanks Amy for organizing this year's fun for all of us. I believe you enjoyed, too, but yet, you were the one who had to prepare  a new video every week, new instructions and afterwards to visit everyone's blog or page and encourage everyone of us.

Let me say first I feel I didn't give my best (though, it's not that I was not trying), but every new batter brings me another risk, I almost never work without surprises, lol.

This week's challenge was something I had tried before (you can see my first 'Leo' soap  here), but I can say this one gave me the headache the most. Ok, let's start!

The First batch:  "Hey yellow, where are you???"

I still don't know what happend here!? For my not-meant-to be yellow, I used yellow oxide, and that puzzles me even more!? The inner spots were piped, the outer scooped with a spoon.

Ok, this is a nice soap loaded with shea butter and avocado oil! Liquid used- Whey! I think this will be great nourishing bar. But, for this challenge- it's just not what it was supposed to be!

The Second batch: I'm not giving up and rolling my sleeves up again! Now I opted for green, as basic colour and kiwi fragrance. I was considering adding poppy seeds into the base to give it more kiwi look, but gave it up in the last second, thinking it would be maybe too much. Now, I think I should have gone with poppy seeds, it would have been pop. This time I left my piping bags behind and tried pouring with spoons. One teaspoon, the other one was smaller. Let's see what I ended up with

WHAT??? Now, I'm furious! What the heck has happend here?

I think I know. My 'spots' portion were unfragranced and stayed so perfectly smooth and middle-traced all way long. On the other hand, my base portion, was fragranced and was slowly setting up. I think that this thicker, basic portion pressed the thiner leyers underneath and made them spread. By the way, this soap has a lots of ash! But, the ingredients are fab, so much cocoa and shea butter! Whey again for whole liquid amount!

And the Final one: New ride, guys! New colours, new method, sweet almond oil in place of butters and goats milk for liquid . Oooh dear, it soaped fantastically! This time I took two piping bags (ziploc bags,actually) and cut their corners as little, as I could.! Unmoulded, not cut:

Don't ask me how I ended up with NO ash on top!!? I have no idea,but  I'm glad I did! 

And what I have found inside:

Not bad this time! I still can complain about this one (my spots should have been placed differently), but boy,  I must say I am so tired of this leopard design, I'm not going to repeat it soon again! I really need some rest ! I love these colours and no ash on tops. Do you think ash is related to butters amount in the batter? This one is without any, unlikely the previous ones, which contained  both cocoa and shea butters and have had so much of ash!

I'm going to take more pics of this one and will update this post later, so if you wanna check it out, you're welcome. Or, have you had enough of my 'leopard spots' for this year?

Thank you for visiting my blog and please leave a comment! Don't be shy to express your thoughts on my first attempts! ...And hope to see you all sooner than next year's challenges!

Take care!

Updated: As I promised earlier, I took some more pictures (I adore soap porn), so here they are:

Состав ('Manmma Leo') / Ingredients: Сапонифицирани масла/ Saponified oils - Маслиново (Sodium olivate), Кокосово (Sodium Cocoate), Палмино (Sodium palmate), Рицинусово (Sodium Castorate), Авокадово (Sodium avocadate), Ши путер (Sodium Shea Butterate),  Сурутка (Whey), пигменти (pigments), мирис (fragrance).

Состав ('Papa Leo') / Ingredients: Сапонифицирани масла/ Saponified oils - Маслиново (Sodium olivate), Кокосово (Sodium Cocoate), Палмино (Sodium palmate), Рицинусово (Sodium Castorate), Масло од маслодајна репка (Sodium Canolate), Ши путер (Sodium Shea Butterate),  Какао путер (Sodium Cocoa Butterate), Сурутка (Whey), Активен јаглен (activated charcoal),пигменти (pigments), мирис (fragrance).

Состав ('Baby Leo') / Ingredients: Сапонифицирани масла/ Saponified oils - Маслиново (Sodium olivate), Кокосово (Sodium Cocoate), Палмино (Sodium palmate), Рицинусово (Sodium Castorate), Ладно цедено сончогледово (Sodium Sunflowerate),  Бадемово (Sodium almondate), Козјо млеко (Goat milk), пигменти (pigments), мирис (fragrance).

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World Soap Challenges- Week Three

I'm maybe the last one to post on this (I mean third) week challenge!

But, better late, than never,right?
(Edited: I just don't know how I could forget to link this post) If you want to see what others made for this third week, here's the link of Amy's page!  You will find, as usual, so many beautiful creations there!

This soap has collected nearly 90 likes on FB SR page by now!

I never guessed it would be like this, but now you will see why!

The mica swirled tops are totally put astray here!

But before I show you an interesting picture, let's see the mica swirled top

first:

Wet soap and...

...cut

Now, time to reveal what has drown everyone's attention:

Do you see faces here?

Take another look!

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World Soap Challenges- Week Two!

It's almost unbelievable how many soapmakers has signed up for this challenges and I'm so delighted to be part of them. This second week task has been quite demanding- of skills, working time, utensils and afterwards, cleaning time, ggggrrrrrrhhh...
I don't mean to sound rude, nor to offend anyone, but first time I saw this technique, I wasn't that impressed. I suppose the layers with two contrasting colours aren't my style. Later, I saw some beautiful creations done by this technique, but I didn't try it until now.
I'm really looking forward to seeing this week soaps, I'm sure I will completely change my mind about so called 'Elemental Swirl'.
I watched the soapmaking video Amy had uploaded on her page, I bet her soap will be amazing. If you still haven't seen it (which I honestly doubt), here's the link.
Ok, my turn now. This is my version of 'Elemental' soap.

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'DIVA SOAP' on the World Wide Soap Challenges!

Hello everyone!
When I read about soap challenges Amy was about to organize, I immediately knew I would be IN!
It's so interesting to see others' works on the same theme.
 I've already visited her page (what you can do,as well) and seen so many great soap artists 'in action'.
I've tried this techinque before and I hoped for best. I decided to soap with no butters added, but in the first one I included avocado and sweet almond oil, along with 'great four of mine' (olive,coconut, castor, plam) and in the second sweet almond and sunflower oil.
I'm gonna say that I'm a real Murphy's friend, where he goes, there I am! Otherwise, I would have been able to make something like this.
First, I couldn't make to soap the whole week, then when I finally found a few perfect hours on Thursday night. I opted for essential oils (lavender and anise), what should have reduced a risk of premature setting up. The colours I wanted to achieve were not what I actually got. So, mix little bit of one here, little bit of other there,....and so on, until my batter started to thicken more and more. What I got is here:

I don't think it's something wrong with this soap, on the contrary, I find it pretty, but just not what I was going for.

Ok,that was on Thursday, I still had one day to give it another shut.
 This time I used the fragrance oil I knew it would behave (a masculline, pino type fragrance) and pre-mixed the colours that I thought it would match my desirable colours. But, Murphy is with me again! My soap batter was setting up on me! WHAT?? I didn't use butters, but I had new palm oil (with higher melting point + lower soaping temperature), included in my recipe, so I suppose, it's the one to blame. So, I didn't have a chance to pour faux funnel, so I poured the soap lengthwise. Actually, I think the result is much more tiger-like than expected. First round went fine, the others, up to the end were scooped with a spoon.
What do you think?

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