Soaps for a holiday craft fair

We're taking a momentary break from Etsy, but we'll be back up VERY soon. I want to get some stuff up this weekend actually.

Also, we're doing a craft fair in September... if you're in the Millburn, NJ area on September 28, 2008, please stop by and see us! Here are some new soaps for the fair:

Soho:



Argyle:




Vesuvius:



Film Noir (redesigned):



Deluge:



Zen:



Blasphemy:



Frenzy:




Cut pictures on some of them will be coming as soon as they're hard enough to cut!

- Mary

Scrub-a-dub-dub

We made a foaming sugar scrub last night, scented passionfruit mimosa (the same scent as our Georgia O'Keefe soap) and I kinda sorta wanted to eat it. But I didn't. But I wanted to. It's been a while since we've made scrubs... I used to make them constantly. I was a total scrub ho, and even sent scrubs to three swaps I was in (a different recipe each time). Why do I love using scrubs so much?

1. they make my skin ohhhhh sooooo soft
2. they get rid of dry, flaky skin
3. they're luxurious... I feel like I'm truly pampering myself when I use one.

So we went back to a tried-and-true recipe that we'd used before, and I forgot how much I liked it... making it and using it. Maybe I'll do some R&D on this recipe and offer scrubs in my shop in the future. Jon also wants to play around with perfume at home (at work, he has particular fragrance projects he has to do, but he really wants to just play), but the raw materials are kind of expensive. But we can play around with single note FOs and EOs and make some fragrances of our own!

That's about it for today... to recap: Mary shouldn't be allowed near yummy-smelling scrubs when she's hungry because they make her want sweets. Bad scrub, bad.

You know what?.....

I think I AM going to graduate school after all.

Yesterday Jon and I took my mom to NYC and we went to the Met to look at some modern art. I took my modern art class in summer 2005 and I was sure that I'd forgotten everything, but a lot of it came back to me! I was worried my memory would suck, but I surprised myself. And I had a blast analyzing the art... it made me really miss undergrad school, where I got to learn about it every day. Museum-going is so much more fun when you've already learned about a particular artist, piece, or period... it's like you have a backstage pass into the artist's mindset or the historical period.

I don't know WHEN I'm going back to school... but I've made up my mind that I WILL go back. I really miss school... I know I'm a huge art history nerd, but I loved it. :) I have no idea what period I'd do though... I really enjoy art in situ (where it was originally located) and cool architecture so I'm leaning towards the British Isles circa the Middle Ages or the Renaissance. But we shall see!

A new soapie (made a few days ago, but I forgot to post it):



It smells like mango and cream... very yummy! Tonight I think we're going to make some salt bars... it's been a while so I hope it goes well!

My resolution is to update this blog as often as possible, so check back soon! :)

Mary

Shimmy shimmy soap

Some recent soaps!

I think we're naming this one "Glitz" or "Glitter" or something along those lines. It smells like watermelon, strawberry, and cool fresh aloe. Very very yummy. I haven't listed any herringbone soaps yet, so I went with that design for this soap. The bottom is purple.



This one smells like lime, pear, and apple (maybe blackberry too) in a slushie. I'm really digging this scent in a major way. I decided to go retro in the design, because it's a bright, poppy scent. The bottom is pale pink.



Lavender... because we don't have a lavender soap yet! This is the most floral lavender fragrance I've ever smelled... usually I don't care much for lavender EO or FO because they're kind of camphorous, but I really love this one. I tried to make the design look like lavender stalks... not sure if I was successful or not. :/ The lavender and the white are too close in shade, I like a stronger contrast usually. We'll see how it looks cut. The bottom is light blue.

Soaps on the curing rack

Soaps on the curing rack:

Bora Bora - I still don't have a cut picture of it, only this wet pic. The bottom is a bright magenta/violet and the scent is a complex tropical fruit/sweet floral (smells somewhat like Victoria's Secret Love Spell).



Mendhi - bottom is deep blue and the scent is Nag Champa (earthy, sweet resin, spicy incense, and sandalwood). I was going for a henna-inspired look on the top. I need to get cut pics of this one too... I'm good at getting wet pics, but I drop the ball when it comes to getting cut pics (until it's time for Etsy photos).



We went to MOMA this weekend! Very very inspirational! Esp. when it came to colour. I hope that we can kind of incorporate some of that into our soaps. :)

Curing soaperoonies

Over the past few weeks, we went on a soaping frenzy to end all soaping frenzies. Okay, maybe not to end ALL soaping frenzies. I hope to beat this soaping frenzy with another one down the road. :P So these are the soaps that will be showing up in our Etsy shop over the next couple of weeks, starting this weekend.

(Sorry for the so-so photos, there will be better ones when they're up on Etsy!)

#1: Using a pinwheel design... "Flutter". Smells like a spring bouquet of flowers - very fresh and lady-like, but not old ladyish/perfumey at all! Jon likes the smell of this one and he's not usually the biggest floral fan in the house.




#2: "Stiletto"... so named for its amber spice scent. ME-OW!!! I had a lot of fun with this scent... it's right up my alley! ;)



#3: Not named yet, but inspired by Monet's Waterlilies... these will be guest soaps and sold in sets of 4. Smells like a fresh waterfall blended with a watery floral... this could be a winning floral for guys as well as gals!



#4: "Sonnet"... a blend of rose, amber, peony, and mandarin. Very very pretty scent. This is a redesign of a soap we did before with the same scent that sold out (it's basically the same pattern, but with a layer this time).



#5: Not named yet... smells like a foamy freshwater cascade... it reminds me of Buttermilk Falls, NJ (a trail we used to hike at with a GORGEOUS waterfall that you could climb right up against). I kept that falling water image in mind when I did the swirl.



#6: Not named yet... smells like cucumber and melon, blended with honeysuckle, cotton, and flowers and fresh air. Very complex scent - not a standard cucumber melon at all. But we went with the cucumber melon colours (peachy orange and mint green) for the swirl.





Maybe this weekend we'll go to the Met Museum or MOMA (and bring a camera) and pick up some inspiration for some more soaps. And of course... blog about it! :) I really need to get better about blogging!

- Mary

A path of blossoms... and Satsuma Orange

(Why do the pictures in Blogger look so dull when I post them? The pictures are vibrant until I upload them... I may start just giving links to my Photobucket instead - click on the links for better photos).


This is the reincarnated soap of one that died (Jon dropped the lid in it after I was all done - he was VERY upset and convinced me to try again immediately so I wouldn't have time to be afraid to do it). So this is the reincarnated one. It's supposed to look like leaves and cherry blossom-type blossoms. Today it looks about the same, but there are some raised-up lines in a couple of areas. The bottom layer is pink - approx. the same colour as the pink blossoms, maybe a little darker. You can see the "dead" soap in the background. I have to admit that after it was ruined, I said "screw it" and squirted the remainder of the swirl soap on top of it, to use it up. So that's why it's an explosion of white and pink

Full wet pic



This one we did tonight ... after a very long, bad day, I was happy to do a simple swirl. It is scented with SW Satsuma Guava and SW California Orange. It smells DELICIOUS and (like I expected) the fragrances reversed trace so I'm glad it wasn't a layer. It's a 20% SF recipe with coconut, mango, shea, and jojoba - just for fun. And Jon came up with the design for this one (I swirled it, but the design was totally his)... I really love the creative ideas he comes up with! :) Next time I might do the black a little thicker so that it isn't as wispy... one part was thicker and I really liked how that bit came out. I hope this one does well overnight - I'm not insulating it because I would be highly surprised if it tries to gel... I may have to bite my tongue though, you never know! I saw a few VERY tiny air bubbles on the top, but I actually didn't freak (big step for me, lol)... we did our best to shimmy them out, and I'll worry about them later.

Full wet pic
Detail