Time for "Fresh"

With our very SHORT Winter exiting and Spring arriving, I am starting to turn to my "green and fresh" fragrances.  Hiding in my closet and waiting to come forward was "Badedas"!  The description of this fragrance is: 

...blend of fresh, invigorating leafy greens & florals, basil, citrus, amber, and musk...

It's a very nice clean and fresh fragrance and I was pretty happy to soap with it.  I thought about the type of swirl to do for this and decided for "In the Pot Swirl".  

My colors: Titanium Dioxide, 24K Gold Mica, Omega Blue Ultramarine, and Hydrated Green Chrome Pigment.  Please applaud me because I finally figured out that "less is best" and ended up not dumping the entire pot of color in the soap mix! :)

As usual I added my favorite Goat Milk and this time decided to add some Colloidal Oatmeal for soothing.  The vendor listed this fragrance as not accelerating, and it actually did a little on me. Even with soaping at a low temperatures.  I was starting to be concerned that I may not  be able to do my swirl since the soap was starting to thicken up on me.  But in the end the results were pretty nice and I was happy with it.

If you look closely the milk really wanted to gel this one.  You can see a little bit of the power circle in the middle.  I even stored it in the fridge overnight.  If I would have left it in the counter it would have definitely gel on me for sure.  Sadly the fragrance is starting to fade.  I did not remember from the comments that it does, so now I will just have to wait and see how long it will hang on for.

I am loving that with the time change I have much more light to enjoy later in the day.  I can take advantage of this when I take pictures of my soaps!

Thanks for checking out my blog!

HAPPY SOAPING!!!

Roxana

Crackling

Have you heard of "Crackling" in soap?

This is when your soap will overheat and results in uneven cooling, causing the glycerin in your soap to pool around together.  Kenna from "Modern Soapmaking" has a great Blog about this: "Troubleshooting Crackling and Glycering Rivers".  There are soapers that get creative with this look and use it really well in their design...I try to avoid.  Well, I did try to avoid it.

I purchased some Coconut Milk from the store the other day and decided to use it with my next soap.  I was curious to use a new fragrance " Eucalyptus and Thyme".  I have never soaped with Eucalyptus, only because to me the fragrance is so close to mint that I get a little nervous on how my allergies would react.  But I was surprise to find out that I was able to soap with it very well.  But boy is it STRONG!!!  My house smells like a jar of Vicks Vapor Rub :).  Too bad I don't have a cold, because it sure cleared up my sinus!

But I am getting distracted and not telling you about my "Crackled" soap.  I used my Coconut Milk and happily mixed in my fragrance as I cleared my sinus ...I decided to try the "Tiger Stripe Swirl" and was very happy that my soap mix was behaving.  For some reason I decided that I wanted my colors to pop more..I decided I was going to insulate my soap.

HELLO!  

Coconut Milk!!!

 Titanium Dioxide!!!  

What was I thinking?  

Apparently the fragrance cleaned up more than my sinus!  

I woke up in the middle of the night with one single thought.  MY SOAP IS GOING TO OVERHEAT!  I sprang out of bed (nearly scared my hubby to death...but not enough because he went back to sleep) and ran to the kitchen to uncover that soap.  Too late...I knew I was in for it the next day.  So today I present to you...my "Crackled" soap:

Can you see some of the Glycerin Rivers?  

I will say that I was a little disappointed with the crackling.  I was pretty happy with my stripes, but not much with the crackling.  

Well...that will teach me :)

And if that was not enough...have you seen what happened to me the other day when I tried to make Lilac Soap in the column mold?  If you haven't...here you go:

This is what happens when your mold is not tightly secured and you pick up the top without holding the bottom part!!!

Yes...my soaping diaries :)

I also wanted to share a cute little animation that I recently had made.  Kirsty, an independent artist in Fiverr.com, made it for me.  Her site is: http://www.fiverr.com/boslass

I think it's pretty cute!  I can't remember when was the last time I had that much bouncy hair!  I think that's probably why I love it so much!  

Thanks for checking out my blog!

HAPPY SOAPING!!!

Roxana

Drop Swirl Technique - Soap Challenge

It has been a while since I have joined one of the Soap Challenges that Amy from Great Cakes Soapworks hosts.  I usually miss the deadline and end up not signing up.  This time as soon as I found out that the Drop Swirl Technique would be the challenge for this month I made sure to make the list! 


I thought about colors to use.  I wanted something bright and high contrasting.  I decided to go with the colors from this palette from Design Seeds "Peony Palette":

I thought about using the light teal as the background..but then decided to go with the pink.  I got a little carried away with the pink as you can see, and my teal was a little too dark!  

I need to remember that sometimes "Less is Best" :)

I also decided to add some Stearic Acid to this batch.  I wanted to have a much harder bar.  I was surprised on how fast my mixture ended up tracing.  I was not soaping with any milks so I went a little higher than my usual temp, high 90 degrees.  The fragrance that I used which is Mango has always been a slow mover for me so I am thinking that the Stearic Acid was the culprit.  I also ended up with tons of air bubbles!  I made a much smaller batch than I am used to and ended up adding a air bubbles when I tried to mix in my colors.

While the colors may have be a tad too bright and dark, I do like how this swirl came out. I am thinking that next time I am not going to gel it and see if the colors play much better.  I love this fragrance so this will be a batch that I keep for my personal use.

Thanks for checking out my blog!

HAPPY SOAPING!!!

Roxana

Blog Design

I don't know about you, but I have no clue when it comes to Blog design.  I currently use Blogger and when I first started blogging and sadly sat here and choose one of the pre-set designs I was not entirely happy.  Don't get me wrong...they are some very nice design, I just was not sure if it reflected the colors and designs that were "me".  What ever that is :)

Little by little I started to pick up some tricks here and there.  I was able to discover some pretty cool Blogger Backgrounds to use, yet still it felt not entirely me.  I was seeing too much pink everywhere!  I originally choose my logo line when I was living with three guys in the house (my husband and two sons).  I was gravitating to pink since all I was seeing was blue and dark colors...and "Pink Sudz Soap" was born.  Then my daughter was born, and now I see pink everywhere! LOL

Since I am not changing the name I decided to start to do some browsing to see if I can get some pretty cool ideas.  I was gravitating to the clean, blank designs.  I checked out how much it would be to purchase a template and had to pause at how much money I would end up spending!  That would mean no more fragrance oil purchases for some time!!! NO WAY!

My good friend Cee Gee from Oil and Butter  encouraged me to try to do it on my own.  She gave me some wonderful tips and even started to explain a couple of things to me, and I will kid you not - I GOT MORE SCARED.  So like a good friend she pulled me off the ledge (or maybe pushed me!) and encouraged me to try.

So here you see my new Blog design.  Not as much pink...(except for all the letters), but a more cleaner look.  Tell me what you think!  I would love to hear your feedback and any other tips you may have to share.

I also have a brand new signature logo.  I think I like it...I may tweak it a bit by myself , but for now it is good.

I found this awesome blog Her and Nicole , that showed me how to center my logo and tabs!

Well, now that I have bored you with my latest blog chattering I will confess that I have made soap...I just have lost the cable that uploads my pictures from my camera to the computer :(
I am going to need to retake the pictures with my Iphone so that I can somehow transfer them so I can share them with you and do some blogging!

Thanks for checking out my blog!

HAPPY SOAPING 

and Blogging!!!

Roxana