Lavender Oatmeal Soap

One of my friends commissioned me to make this Lavender Oatmeal soap for her. I had never mixed the two but it turned out great . Now I'm thinking of adding it to my regular collection. There are no colorants, just oatmeal, lavender flowers and lavender essential oils from Lebermuth and Essential Wholesale. It is simply fantabulous.

Two Mints & Hard Candy Soap

This soap reminds me so much of Christmas. I used a little Peppermint Essential Oil from Lebermuth, a dash of Spearmint Essential Oil from Essential Wholesale and a fragrance oil from BrambleBerry called Sleigh Ride which smells just like those minty hard candies I'd get in my Christmas stocking.

Teddy Bear Soap

I love doing holiday themed workshops with children. Here are some little brown bears we made using melt & pour soap. I had them color the nose and decorate . I gave them stockings and asked if they'd like to write Santa a letter. One little girl asked me if she had been bad would Santa still stop at her house. I told her that if she wrote a letter explaining her side of the story it would probably work.

Remember the good old Santa days?

Little Trees

When I conduct my children's workshops I dare not let them make soap from scratch. We have fun crafting with melt & pour. These are some of the soaps I had them create in a recent workshop. We added tree embeds to clear soap. Aren't they cute?

Cute Little Angels

These are truly angelic soaps. A part of the assortment that I'm doing for Christmas Baskets. It is of course CP soap and fragranced with non discoloring vanilla from Lebermuth.

Loofah Massage Bar

It took me a few years to find a use for these cute little soap molds from BrambleBerry but I did. The result is this fine cold processed soap, made using ground loofah & pureed zucchini. Those little mounds feel so good when you rub it on your body. The added bonus is the great smelling fragrance of Fresh Zucchini Flower also from BrambleBerry. I guess I was having a BrambleBerry soaping day.

Snow Flakes

I started to experiment making my cp soaps in individual molds and now I'm having a fun time making all kinds of lovely soap. These snow flakes are just a few of the things I'm doing for Christmas. I used vanilla fragrance from Lebermuth to give them their delicious aroma.

Four Thieves Soap

I'm sure everyone has heard The Legend of The Four Thieves but in case you haven't.

The legend is that during the Bubonic Plague in Europe the homes of stricken or dead people were robbed. It seems that the people who committed the theft didn't get sick. When they(four alchemist)were caught and asked to divulge their secret in exchange for leniency, they said they used a formula consisting of essential oils, herbs and spices.

My recipe consists of the following essential oils: lemon, cinnamon, eucalyptus, clove and rosemary. I also add eucalyptus leaves. Every winter I make soap and room spray using the recipe.

New York State Novelty Soap

I guess you could say that I'm in a New State of mind. I purchased these molds from Chase Molds and couldn't resist using them for one of my cp soap recipes. I used rose fragrance because the Rose is the official flower of NY.

Breast Cancer Awareness Soap

In honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month I have created this beautiful Ribbon soap. It is made using the cp method and has no colorants. The fragrance is Bulgarian Rose.

Oatmel Soap

This is one of my very favorite soaps to make. It reminds me of a delicious pot of homemade oatmeal when making it and it feels so creamy when soaking in the tub. It has the extra benefit of bringing back a bit of nostalgia with the patchouli essential oil I use to give it the wonderful aroma. It is a favorite with my friends, family and customers.

Rosemary Mint Soap

This classic aromatherapy blend is made using my own blend of spearmint and rosemary essential oils. I'm trying to use more natural colorants so I've experimented with spinach power in this soap. It came out rather nice. Thanks to Essential Wholesale for the essential oils.

Hyssop & Cinnamon Soap

This warming and sensual soap is one of my favorites, especially for winter. Hyssop is a herb that's mentioned throughout the Bible as a form of cleansing. There are no colorants and cinnamon essential oil is used.

Seaweed Soap

This is a great soap and makes me think of the time I played in the beautiful waters of St. Thomas in The Virgin Islands. It's made using kelp from the Atlantic Ocean and a fragrance oil blend from BrambleBerry. There are no colorants.

Halloween Pumpkins

These gorgeous soaps are just in time for Halloween. They are lightly fragranced with Gingersnap from BrambleBerry and colored with Neon Orange from Southern Soapers. And yes, they are cold processed soaps made using individual silicone molds.

Green Tea Soap

I love green tea. I love bathing with it and I love drinking it. I used green tea from BrambleBerry for fragrance and added powdered green tea which gives it that lovely color. Yummy!

Evergreen Breeze

Well, here is one of the results of listening to good advice from Linda Stevens of Upland Soap Factory. She said to get rid of all those little bottles of oils that have been sitting on your shelf eating up your profit margin.

These great smelling babies were made from a combination of fragrances I had in my supply cabinet. I used Evergreen Breeze & Sweet Pea from Planet Earth. I also used a small amount of Cedarwood from Rainbow Meadow.

They get their color from parsley powder but how long the color lasts is still on the table.

Hot Processed Liquid Soap

I received my supplies from Dianna's Sundries and thought I'd make some more liquid soap. Here is a batch that is about to reach the "Vaseline" stage. It's coming along really great. I think I'll use it to make more some shower gel for Christmas gifts.

Gardener's Hand Soap

This is my version of gardeners hand soap. It has ground pumice to get grime off hands and is scented with white tea & ginger fragrance oil from Brambleberry. It is tinted with green chrome oxide and poured into individual 4 ounce molds. I can't wait for fall harvest.

Eucalyptus Soap

Some people like Eucalyptus all year long but I tend to make it in the fall because it gives me a comforting feeling. Probably because it reminds me somewhat of the camphor fragrance my mother used when I had a cold. The essential oils I used came from Rainbow Meadows and Majestic Mountain Sage. I have a habit of blending oils from different suppliers to get just the right aroma. I also used ground eucalyptus to help carry the fragrance.

Doggy Soap

Okay, as we all know doggy needs soap too. Probably more than the rest of us. And yes they deserve to be pampered with a luxury soap all their own. That's why I formulated a CP recipe using essential oils just for them. No cat's allowed! I make these pretty bones using eucalyptus, citronella, tea tree, lavender, rosemary, peppermint and penny royal essential oils. No colorants. One of my customers commented that she liked to use them for herself. Well, no comment to that!

Buzz Off

This is the time of year when mosquitoes are on the hunt for unprotected skin. I think they especially like me but I have found a few things to ward them off and even made soap with them. I'm not sure if the soap works but the oils that I used to make them with helps a lot. They are The Bug Be Gone from Lebermuth & Brambleberry and just plain old lemongrass & geranium essential oils. The soap actually smells very good and now I'm off to see if it works.

Peppermint Soap

Peppermint soap was the third batch of soap I made when I first started making soap. It has always been one of my favorites so I have searched for just the right essential oil. I wanted it to pop like when you put a stick of Wrigley's Doublemint gum in your mouth. That is just what I get when I mix Essential Wholesale and Lebermuth Peppermint Essential Oils together to make my fabulous Peppermint soap. So refreshing. So uplifting.

Just Ducky!

This little fellow is a baby soap I make using cp soap in a six cavity mold that I bought from Brambleberry. Can't remember where I bought the cute little ducky from. Possibly Brambleberry also. I used Chamomile Bergamot and Lavender for fragrance. I think the babies love it more than the parents and insist that they buy them more and more each time. It is a favorite with my gift shop customers.

Pumpkin Soap

I made this pumpkin soap adding a little pureed pumpkin baby food that comes in those little glass jars. I used a pumpkin fragrance and a little tumeric for coloring. A little pumpkin pie spice mixture was sprinkled on top. No other colorant was used. It smells so good and I know some people will not want to wait until Thanksgiving to use it.

Bubbly & Blue

I made this soap from a fragrance sample I received and it smelled sort of like Seven Up or Sprite but in a very nice way. It just made me think of bubbles. I used 92 degree coconut oil instead of 76 and it came out very white. I decided it needed a little bit of color so I added a little Ultramarine blue that didn't dissolve but I think it looks great.

Calendula Soap

Calendula often called pot Marigold makes a beautiful soap. I love the way the petals turn the soap a beautiful golden color. I also like the way it makes my skin feel. I make my soap after soaking the petals in the olive oil portion of my formula. I also used Calendula Essential Oil from Essential Wholesale. Since Calendula has such a pungent spicy aroma I masked it with Orange from Sweetcakes.

Peaches & Cream Soap

What do you do with left over cream from a tea party? Do you continue to use it in your tea or coffee and pack on more calories? I think not! I know, I'll make soap with it. How will that turn out? Only one way to find out and find out I did. It came out beautiful, not brown at all. Thanks to information I received at the workshops I attended at the Handcrafted Soapmakers Guild Conference this May. I used a peach fragrance from Brambleberry. My soap smells fantastic and has just the look I was going for. I did use a bit of Coral Peach colorant from kangaroo Blue to give it a slight blush.

Just Soap

Soapmakers! We're always looking for the best fragrance, best ingredients and best natural skin safe colorants but I'm wondering if I'm the only one who didn't have a soap that was just soap. No extra emollient oils, butters or additives to make it "better". Just ordinary, made from 3 or 4 basic oils that's kind to the skin, soap. Because we all know that the glycerin will be there, no matter what, and that's what gives our soap it's special qualities...as we love tell our customers.

Since I had to make such a basic soap for my Advanced Soapmakers Certificate Exam with The Handcrafted Soapmakers Guild I have decided to keep that in my soap inventory. When I was making it I noticed how fresh & clean it smelled. And to me it was darn pretty when it came out of the mold and smelled even better than when I poured it. I just wanted to share my wonderful new discovery with everyone. Wonder how this will go over at my Farmers Market, where the first thing a customer does is puts the soap to their nose to smell.

Lemon Poppyseed

We all know how citrus is fleeting in a soap so I have decided to add several different lemons and other citrus in hopes of making it last...Lemon Balm, Lemon Verbena, Litsea and Lemongrass. My fragrances are from Sweetcakes, Brambleberry, Lebermuth and From Nature With Love. There is no colorant. It smells delicious!!

Black Vetyver

Aaah a deep Earthy, woodsy soap with a hint of musk & moss and the the right amount of sweetness for a perfect unisex soap. When I found this fragrance at Brambleberry I was hooked by the out of bottle richness but it's even better in cp soap. The colorant is black oxide also from Brambleberry.

Peach Cilantro

These little babies really smell great when first taken from the mold. I used peach cilantro fragrance from Lebermuth to give them their fantastic aroma. Unfortunately the fragrance doesn't hold up that well. They would probably do better in m&p. My first dissappointment from Lebermuth. They are colored with coral mica and green chrome oxide.

Let Them Bathe In Cake?

Okay. You know I must have much to much time on my hands when I start making soap that looks like cake but I don't and I have, so here it is. As a matter of fact, I kind of borrowed the idea from a few friends that make all sorts of delicious looking soap cakes, cupcakes and pies. Why do we do this?...because it's cute, a novelty and believe it or not, people ask for these things for showers, parties, anniversaries, etc. They put them on the tables as center pieces and use as party favors and the guests seem to love them.

I used cold processed soap, of course, iced with m&p and candy sprinkles from the craft store. It is scented with almond fragrance which makes it really smell like cake.

This Time, Lotion

A few weeks ago I took a lotion making class at The NY Open Center with La Shonda Tyree from Homemadesoapcoach.com It was a fabulous class and her instructions were so thorough that I was able to go home and make lotion right away. Of course I had bought most of the ingredients before hand but just didn't know how to start nor did I have any idea about preservatives.

I whipped up a 32 oz batch for my own personal use. I used sweet almond oil, Shea butter, hemp seed oil, castor oil and Optiphen as a preservative. Lime essential oil from Brambleberry and coconut fragrance oil to scent. It turned out thick, rich and creamy. I tell you it is out of this world, but before I market it for public use I will first have it tested at a lab.

Cabernet Grape Soap

If you are a soapmaker, or know a soapmaker personally, you know how we can sometimes get a little bored with making the same soap over & over. Well, I'm one who comes up with crazy ideas all the time. This time I was sitting around drinking some delicious grape juice and thought what a great soap this will make. I know I wouldn't mind taking a shower with it. But what would I do about fragrance.

I know, I had received a 1 oz. sample of Cabernet F/O from Lebermuth that smells like grapes. I've been waiting for the opportunity to use it and now was the time. I didn't use any colorants because I wanted to see what color the juice would give. The result is a nice tan shade of brown. I guess mainly because of the sugar content of the grape juice. It's been two weeks now and the fragrance is actually reminiscent of fruity grape wine. Can't wait to test it out.

Soothing Lavender Soap

Any Soapmaker worth her/his salt will have a lavender soap in their product line. It is by far the most asked for soap when I sell at my markets. I wouldn't feel quite right if I didn't bring lavender with me. Over the years I've tried lavender essential oils from several different suppliers and liked them all but have decided to use a blend of Lebermuth & Essential Wholesale for this soap. I've also added dried lavender flowers grown in my back yard to give it that extra oomph of fragrance.

Beer Soap, Anyone?

Who would ever think of making soap using beer in place of water? I would, of course, and several other soapmakers that I know of. The trick is to let the beer go absolutely flat. I have used it as a shampoo bar for my hair.

I didn't use any colorant or fragrance because I wanted the true aroma to shine through. After curing there was a slight pleasant herb smell. I'm guessing maybe hops. I used Guinness and got this beautiful golden color but I'm sure any beer can be used.

Liquid Soap - Take One

This is the result of my first attempt to make liquid soap. I have to admit I was hesitant to make it at first but I got lots of advice from online friends,books and recipes. Last year at The Handcrafted Soapmakers Guild Conference I saw a demonstration and that gave me the confidence to try for myself. I must say that I've learned so many different skills form attending the conferences these past 3 years. The information is invaluable and has been extremely helpful in my business as well as personal life.

This soap is scented with lavender essential oil and lemon essential oil. It Will be used as bath gel, hand soap and dish washing detergent.

Salt Soap Bars

One again those crazy soapmaker friends of mine from Brooklyn CP Soapmakers got together for the salt soap bar class. We had loads of fun in addition to coming up with these beautiful spa bars.

The soap was made using Lime Essential Oil from Brambleberry and a smidgen of green chrome oxide to give it that sea foam green look.

Soap On The Rope

Last year after countless trial and error batches I finally got the soap on a rope right. This brings back memories of soap hanging off the shower head in the bathroom. We didn't dare use it because it was a soap for men. Well those days are long gone and we ladies need our version too. Here it is, something for everybody. I make them in Juniper, Citrus, Sandalwood and of course lavender.

Soap Filled Loofah Sponges

Just before Christmas Brooklyn CP Soapmakers' soap project was how to make soap filled loofah sponges. This is a result of how the sponges turned out. A fresh smelling wintery fragrance was needed so we used Spruce Essential Oil from Essential Wholesale.

Blackberry Sage

While at the Handcrafted Soapmakers Guild last year I met Lori from The Scent Shack and purchased Blackberry Sage fragrance oil from her. The coloring in this soap is an attempt to show how the fragrances blend into each other to create a third aroma.

Ginger Lemongrass Soap

Two of the most widely eaten herbs/spices have come to you in the form of a soap. The warmth of ginger essential oil and crispness of lemongrass essential oil combines to make this one of my most popular soaps. A perfect combination in any form. The lemongrass is from Lebermuth and the ginger from Rainbow Meadow.

Basil Lime Soap

I had made so much soap that when I got to this batch I was just plain tired so instead of trying for a nice swirl. Which I have problems doing anyway, I just tossed it all together. But I sort of like the way it looks and may keep that look. It is made with Sweet Basil essential oil from Essential Wholesale and Lime essential oil. What a dramatic combination!

Coffee & Grits Soap Revisited

On December 27, 2008 I was fortunate enough to have this soap featured in The Soap Log as it's "Soap Of The Day." So it must be given a mention here in my blog. It reminds me of the time I was a teenager and was allowed to have my first cup of coffee (drenched with milk) or what I would call a Latte today. And everyday, except Saturday, there would be a pot of hot grits cooking on the stove. Thanks to Kelly from Southern Soapers for the wonderful Cuban Coffee fragrance.

Cleopatra Soap

This beautiful golden colored honeycomb soap is named Cleopatra. As we all have read Cleopatra liked taking milk baths. I believe she liked to add honey to it also. So in this creation I have used goat's milk, honey and scented it using Oatmeal, Milk and Honey fragrance oil. There is no colorant.

Chocolate All Over My Heart

Every woman wants chocolate for Valentine's Day, whether she admits to it or not! I like mine filled with almonds. That's what I tried to duplicate with these almond scented hearts surrounded by the wonderful smell of Dutch Chocolate fragrance oil from The Scent Shack and infused with the additional essence of Hershey's cocoa. Yum! Yum!

Cherry Soap with Almond Hearts

The Valentines inspiration for this soap came from browsing through Martha Stewart living magazine. I decided that I wanted to use cherry & almond as a fragrance. What better reminder of Valentine's Day. The cherry fragrance is from Save On Scents, a supplier whose fragrances I've never used. The almond hearts are a combination of Sweetcakes Bitter Almond and Brambleberry Almond Biscotti.

Plumeria

I first made a small batch of this soap using a sample of Global Gardens Plumeria that I received in my Goodie Bag last year at The Handcrafted Soapmakers Guild Conference. It was a such a hit at my Farmers Market that I immediately contacted Kelly Bloom from Southern Soapers to send me more.

After making a larger batch and receiving more rave reviews I decided to keep it as a staple, especially after a customer from Hawaii said it reminded her of home.

Egg Shampoo Soap Bar

My soapmaking group, Brooklyn CP Soapmakers, will be meeting on January 17 to watch a demonstration on how to make soap using whole eggs. I had never made this soap so decided that I would give it a test run before hand. It actually turned out pretty good.

I got the inspiration from the Yolk recipe in Merilyn Mohr's book The Art Of Soapmaking but tailored it to my own ingredients. This recipe has no colorants and gets those green specks from the herb horsetail. It's fragranced with a free sample of Moroccan Mint I received from Brambleberry.