Soap cake!

I am obsessed with soap that looks/smells like food, so in this vein I made a soap cake this weekend. I finally, finally actually managed to get some successful swirls going too. It turned out perfectly, I'm so pleased. I used real cocoa to colour the brown layer and swirls, and it is scented with chocolate and almond milk. I can't wait to use it - and can't wait to have a big slab of cake next to my bathtub :)

Salt soap

I made my first ever salt soap this weekend. Salt seems like a weird thing to add to soap - I would have assumed it would just melt away, or be really drying or something. Not really something you think of when you think skin care. But I have read so many rave reviews about the stuff, I had to try it. It's supposed to result in a super hard, slightly exfoliating bar that "polishes the skin". Sounds weird. We'll see. They ended up quite pretty in a rough, brittle sort of way. I decided to skip the log mould altogether, as the huge amounts of salt mean the bars tend to get really hard and crumbly. The fairy mould turned out wonderfully - shame I dropped her on her face shortly after taking this picture :/

Man soap results

Could have been worse, I guess. I like the colour of the blue. Not the most beautiful soap I've ever seen - but should be completely usable.

Welcome to my addiction

I've been soaping on and off for years. Sort of. I was obsessed for a few months about 10 (12?) years ago, but forgot all about it until last year. I am well and truly addicted. I'd like to share my "soaping journey" here.

Today I had big plans - I wanted to make a bar for the husband. He had mentioned thinking black soap would be pretty cool, and here I was with a full compliment of oils, a manly scent (called Adonis) and some brand spanking new soap colours. Including black. I decided an elaborate 3 colour swirl was in order. I've never tried an in-the-pot swirl before, so that was my big plan. The bulk of the soap would remain white, and I'd use blue and black swirls. I checked the website I'd bought the fragrance oil from, and it distinctly said "no acceleration", meaning if I didn't seriously mess anything up, I should have enough time with the soap at a very light trace to do some very fancy swirly things. So off I went. Everything was going brilliantly. Reached a very light trace quite soon, had all my cups and colours and things at the ready, so I added my fragrance oil. Let's just say they LIED! The batch started to seize immediately. I tried, I managed to poor some in to my measuring cups to add the colour, but I could barely even stir it to mix it up at this point, so I frantically just globbed everything in to the mould as quickly as possible. Definitely no time to swirl. It was solid before it hit the bottom. Yikes. It did go in to a full gel pretty quickly, so I stuck a knife in and blindly swirled it around. Tried to make some textured tops as well. I may have just made it worse - who knows. Also, the scent is heavier than it seemed in the bottle. It has taken over the entire house, and is giving me a horrendous headache. Here is my big, globby mess at the moment. I can't wait to see how it looks tomorrow when I unmould!