Cupcake Making Progress

For those that have seen some of my soap cupcakes on facebook, here's how I'm progressing on learning to make them.




"Clementine Cupcake" cupcake soaps with hearts made from leftover soap on top. Not bad.





Hmm. I think the room was tilting when I made some of these. These are scented with lavender and mint.




Two steps forward, and one giant step back. I used the wrong frosting tip and the soap started to get too hard before I could finish piping it. This is scented with lavender and mint too.





My best attempt so far. Yep, lavender and mint scented.

Making Clove Bud Scented Soap

I was perusing my blog and realized I don't have any soap making pictures. So below I show the steps I go through for making a, clove bud scented, goat milk, Bath Bar Soap. So for those that are curious, here ya go!


I start with weighing and melting my oils.


My lye is weighed and ready.

Next I take my bag of frozen goat milk out of the freezer, chop it up into smaller chunks, and put it in a stainless steel bowl. The chemical reaction of adding lye to milk causes the milk to heat up considerably. Freezing the goat milk keeps this reaction cooler thus keeping the sugar in the milk from burning and turning a brownish yellow when combined with the lye.


Adding the lye ( a little at a time) to the frozen milk. Adding too fast and you can get burnt milk.

The lye's chemical reaction starts to melt the milk.


All the lye has been added and dissolved and the milk is almost completely melted and ready to be added to the oils. The milk has stayed nice and white in color.


Here I am adding the the milk/lye mixture to the melted oils. I always use a strainer when doing so. This prevents any undissolved bits of lye from getting into the mixture and creating unwanted "lye pockets" in the finished soap.

Now that the milk/lye solution has been added to the melted oils, I use a stick blender to mix the raw soap.

Here's my clove bud fragrance oil measured and waiting to be added.

The fragrance oil has now been added and I'm continuing to hand blend the soap till it reaches the right consistency for pouring.

The soap has now been poured in molds aka pvc pipes. I've placed a thermometer in the soap to keep an eye on the temperature. Allowing the soap to get too warm will burn the milk that's in the soap. You really have to watch temperature when working with milk soaps.

Keeping detailed notes is essential in soap making, especially when trying new recipes and fragrances.



Here I'm checking the temperature of the soap. The saponification process generate heats and if the soap gets too hot, too fast, not only will it burn the milk, it can actually do what soapmaker's call "volcano", which means the soap gets hot enough to expand up and out of your soap mold. It's very reminiscent of lava pouring out of a volcano, thus the name.

It's the next morning and I've unmolded the soap.

The soap got a little too warm causing it to expand and crack in the mold. This is more of a cosmetic problem but I made a note of this in my records and next time I'll try and keep temps a little lower when I make this soap.

Here's the soap being cut on our home made soap cutter.

Here's the soap cut and ready to be put out on our curing racks. This soap had no colorants added, but the fragrance oil did cause it to discolor to a lovely tan. It fits the fragrance so I don't mind. After 6 weeks cure time this soap will be ready to use!

New Candle Melt Scents!

English Lemon Curd: The traditional British spread made with fresh squeezed lemons, fresh grated lemon zest, whole eggs, pure cane sugar, and farm fresh butter, cooked to a creamy, thick perfection. A wonderful blend of tart and sweet with lots of lemony goodness! * I've tested many, many, lemon scents and found them to be either too similar to that of a kitchen cleaner, or fading miserably after 2-3 hours in the warmer. I'm pleased to say this does neither and it is truly a delectable lemon fragrance.




Garden Zucchini Bread: Sweet zucchini bread with notes of vanilla, lemon zest, cinnamon and nutmeg. Sliced, warm from the oven, and ready for butter! *I don't think I've smelled a candle melt that makes my mouth water like this one. I, and the rest of my family, think this smells exactly like zucchini bread!




Oatmeal Raisin Cookies: Thick, chewy, and warm from the oven. Made with oodles of whole rolled oats, moist sweet raisins, sweetened with light brown sugar, and spiced with cinnamon and cloves. Truly the best of the best! * Ohhh, talk about comfort fragrance, this is it!
Hot Butter Rum: A popular winter drink since the colonial times, this dark rum infused with brown sugar, creamy butter, vanilla extract and spicy cloves. A rich and classic rum aroma.
* The authentic rum notes gives this fragrance depth and richness. It's also unique in that it's a sweet fragrance (though not overly) that is neither fruit, floral or bakery based.





NEW! - French Vanilla: Finding a good french vanilla has taken me many months of trying numerous samples, and finally after finding one that measures up to our standards, it gets discontinued by the supplier:( Back to the drawing board. But the good news is I found one that is even better than the original. This new French Vanilla is a little stronger, lasts longer, and has a richer vanilla fragrance.


* Denotes my personal notes on each fragrance.

Discount Soaps!

It's that time of year for cleaning out and making room for new soap! Here are some great soaps at discount prices.

Lemon Verbena 2nds Same delicious fragrance as our regular Lemon Verbena soap, with a great creamy and silky lather. When I first made this soap it was a little too cleansing (aka drying) so I let it sit for several months on our curing shelf, allowing the ph to come down with age. Now it's a wonderful, hard, long lasting soap, still strong in fragrance, perhaps a smidge more cleansing than our usual, but still gentle on the skin.

Many Man 2nds Same wonderful fragrance as our regular, best selling, Manly Man soap slices. This was a botched batch of soap that I rescued by remelting the soap and adding yummy avocado oil and cocoa butter. The soap has great scent strength and lathers into a silky, creamy lather. Very rustic in appearance.

Creamy Coconut 2nds Same coconut fragrance as our regular, great selling, Creamy Coconut soap, although a little lighter in scent strength than our regular. Like the soap above, this was a botched batch that I rescued through remelting the soap and adding yummy avocado oil and cocoa butter. This soap has a fluffy, creamy lather.

Pomegranate & Citrus Experiment #1 This is a sweet/tart citrus combo, an experimental blend that actually turned out really nice. However, I also tried to experiment with the looks of the soap by imbedding pomegranete red colored soap curls. Long story short, it came out UGLY, as in, sick to my stomach, win the prize for ugliest soap ever ugly. I ended up remelting the soap and remolding it into my round molds. Though still not beautiful, it's a major improvement over what it originally looked like (trust me;). Delicious scent with creamy, silky lather. Pomegranate & Citrus Experiment #2 Same sweet/tart fragrance blend as above, but this time I colored a portion of the soap with what I thought would be a beautiful pomegranate red color. I was hoping it would combine nicely with brown tan color of the rest of the soap. Instead I got a tan soap with a bubble gum pink accent. It still smells great, with the same silky, creamy, lotion like lather of the rest of my soaps.

Lavender Orange Experiment With more lavender than orange, this soap smells stronger when wet than dry. In fact, I was going to originally write that this soap has very little scent that was until I washed my hands with and the smelled the fragrance come alive. This is another one of my experiments in color. Hard bars with silky creamy lather. Note: Each bar is slightly different in look as some have more yellow/pink imbeds than others.


Apple Jack Spice Unstamped (formally known as Apple Jack Peel): I made way too many of these soaps for the Holiday season, so many that I still had a good sized batch sitting on my curing shelf waiting to be stamped. So rather than stamp them I placed them here in clearance section and priced them to sell! With a spicy apple fragrance, this is one of my personal favorites that I like year round, but then I like spice scents like clove and cinnamon not matter the season. These can also be wrapped in paper (helps retain the scent) and stored in dark, dry, room temperature place for next fall season. The bars will shrink a little, but will be rock hard, long lasting, and extra, extra, gentle on the skin.
Cinnabear I made too many of these and need to move them. Like the Apple Jack Spice, these soaps can be stored, wrapped in paper, in a dark, dry, room temperature place for next fall. These will stay nicely fragranced and be extra hard, long lasting and mild with extended cure time.

Holiday Favorites are in!

Two of our best selling holiday soaps in our Classic Rounds are now available!




Apple Jack Spice: Cinnamon, cloves and apples blended together perfectly for a delicious fall fragrance.


Cranberry Orange:A zesty cranberry sweetened with orange. A wonderful classic holiday blend.

New Soap Slice Fragrances!

In time for fall, three new sweet and spicy Soap Slice fragrances!

Bobbing For Apples: Crisp, sweet apples with a splash of juicy orange and spiced with nutmeg, cinnamon and clove. Reminds me of pressed apple cider fresh from the orchard.

Wild Oats & Beer: Creamy oats with notes of sweet vanilla and rich milk, blended magnificently with smooth dark beer, nutty almond, and warm butterscotch. An absolutely delectable fragrance!

Spiced Pumpkin Ale: Full bodied, brown ale flavored with pureed pumpkin, brown sugar, smooth rum, and spiced with grated nutmeg, warm cinnamon, and crushed ginger. An absolutely edible fragrance!

A couple new Special Edition Soaps!

We just added two new "Special Edition" Soaps . As a special treat, we've kept the price low on these soaps. These are available only online.
Coconut Almond: This a lite, creamy coconut, with soft green notes, combined with a yummy bakery almond.


Rosemary Eucalyptus: A blending of two favorite essential oils for an invigorating, wake-me-up aroma. Very similar to our best selling Classic Round Eucalyptus & Rosemary soap.