Naked Beer Bar

Another soap I’ve been wanting to make for ages is a beer soap, so I decided it was well and truly time that I got around to actually making it.

I can remember when I was quite young, my Mum using Beer as a special rinse after washing her hair to make it “nice and shiny” as she used to say, it didn’t hold much of a appeal for me at the time, but I’ve been reading about how good beer really is, especially for your hair.

Washing your hair in beer has even been claimed to make your hair grow faster (now I really don’t believe that one) but it is known to give body and shine to your hair.

Beer baths are particular popular in Europe where local lager is poured into tubs for guests to enjoy the rich and relaxing suds and people travel from all around the world to relax in their curative beer spas. They also incorporate it into their “Brewski” facials which are said to leave the skin smooth and supple.

Our Naked Beer bar is made with a whole bottle of "Pure Blonde Naked beer", hence its name. I’ve added extra rice bran and hazelnut oils and certified organic cocoa and shea butters to make it a truly special soap bar that has a wonderful bubbly lather and lime, orange and may chang essential oils to make our beer bar a very pleasant bathing experience indeed. Hope you like it:)

Lemon & Lime LOOFAH BAR

Well I'm back from our holiday in New Zealand and had a wonderful time, it is such a beautiful place and I really didn't want to leave. But it's back to the grinestone so to speak and while I was holidaying I had a few new soaps doing their thing and are now cured, ready to use and I'll be adding them over the next few days.

The first one is a Lemon & Lime Loofah bar which I've been wanting to make for ages. It is handcrafted from a fresh slice of nature’s own exfoliator, loofah and is then filled with our finest all natural vegetable soap which contains emollients such as shea and avocado butters to cleanse, enrich, soften and soothe.

Finally, I've added essential oils for their therapeutic value, Lemon, lime, rose geranium and palmarosa and the end result is the BEST Scrub & massage you will find anywhere. I just LOVE my loofah bar! it gently buffs away dry dead skin and leaves your skin feeling soft and smooth. Once you have one you will never want to be without one, I know I don't:)

Sandalwood & Vanilla

I don't think I'll bother trying to think up a special name for this one, I think the name says it all, well nearly, it also has a touch of patchouli in it to add the finishing touch.

How to explain the fragrance? warm, inviting, tempting? all of these and more, it smells beautiful.

I've used red clay and cocoa for the colour, hope you like it.

Secret Garden

I thought I'd share another one of the soaps I made for my Daughter a few months ago. You won't find this one on my website, you can only buy it on my Daughter's website, where it's even on special at the moment, or I sell it at the markets.

I had it listed on Etsy, with a few other different soaps, one of them was the Mandarin and Vanilla you might remember from a few months ago. Anyhow I ended up taking them all off yesterday, because after 4 months I didn't sell any at all, very disapointing:( so no more listing on Etsy for this little black duck, I'll leave it to the experts:)

With Secret Garden you can close your eyes and imagine you're showering under a waterfall in a tropical rainforest, it's sooooo relaxing!

The aroma of tropical and citrus fruits will fill your senses, fresh squeezed oranges, pineapples, bananas, coconut and fresh kiwi fruit will make your mouth water, very tempting:)

The little leaves on the soap is where I got my inspiration from, isn't nature wonderful? they look so pretty.

Free Earrings?

A little birdie has told me that lovely Lou from Rocks Revealed is giving away a silver pair of Rose Quartz earrings, handmade by Lou herself, some people are just so clever!

If you'd like to enter all you have to do is sign up for their newsletter, but be quick as they are drawn on the 8th September:)

A touch of sunshine

My Sunshine bar has had a face lift, normally it has a orange swirl through it, but I thought it was time for a bit of a change. This bar has finely ground oatmeal, apricot kernel oil and avocado butter added and carrot tissue oil and paprika.

I think it looks like it has little leaves on it, what do you think? It's a shame it has that white flecky thing happening, I might leave the oatmeal out next time. If you'd like to see what the original one looks like, you can see it on my website, well, till I get the chance to put the new one on that is:)

Reminder to myself - don't soap when upset!!!

Geisha Girl

I'd been planning Geisha Girl for a while and couldn't wait to make it. I had set aside a morning when I thought everything would be AOK to have a nice quite morning soapmaking:) The only thing I had to do was pick up a few essentials down the shop. Sounds easy? It didn't work out as well as I'd hoped.

I thought I'd get my bit of shopping done first so I'd have a nice clear mind. I've found that my soap always seems to come out better if I can relax, take my time and just concentrate solely on making them.

I got everything ready to make it so I could start when I got home and off I went to the shops. Everything was fine till I was backing out of the carpark, had the car turned almost all the way around ready to drive off, when someone decided to back out as well (young man with his girlfriend in the car) and hit me.

As you can imagine I was very upset. I went home unpacked my things, had a cuppa and tried to settle down. As I had everything ready to make soap, I decided to go ahead and make it, well, I find soapmaking relaxing and thought I’d be OK and it would be all right.

Well, I was wrong:( I got right to the end, had it in my soapbox and was quite pleased how everything went so well. Put the cover over the top and Oh NOOOOO! I found the last oil that I was supposed to add at trace. Panic, panic, I had to add the oil or the soap would be no good.

I was so angry with myself because I’d tried to be so careful, knowing that I was still upset and I wanted to get the layers the way I wanted them.

Luckily I’d poured at a fairly light trace so I just had time enough to stir the remaining oil though, I knew it was going to turn out plain now, so I quickly added some balls that I’d done ready for another soap to hopefully make up for my lost layers.

So the layers went out the window and this is what it turned out like.

Exactly the same oils, colours and fragrance as the top soap, but totally different look, thanks to the man who was more interested in talking to his girlfriend than watching where he was going and my inability to concentrate when upset.

So the very next day I was determined to have my layers and tried again, with the result of the top photo, now that's more like what I wanted:)