So here is my friend, Leo.  He smells like lemon sugar and is colored with natural colorants turmeric and cocoa powder.  As part of the Great Cakes Soapworks challenges, he is the final attempt for 2013.  Yay!  I've had a lot of fun making these challenges.  I was particularly excited for this one as it was one that I had never tried before, and I loved how it looked.  Of course, I had to push the envelope and use colorants and a fragrance I had never used before either.  Fortunately, the fragrance behaved wonderfully, but the turmeric isn't as vibrant as it was when I first poured (think bright red-orange!).  It's still pretty, but not as contrast-y as I wanted it to be.  However, since I had redone the mica swirl challenge 4 times, I decided that I was happy enough with this one to not reattempt it.  I will probably do it again in the future, but Leo is good enough for me for now :)

I didn't pipe the soap in, I spooned it in gently in lines.  My feeling is that if I try to make it look too perfect, it won't look natural.  Now that I'm staring at it, it looks like a sleepy face... if I turned it upside-down, it looks like an awake face.  Darn, now that's all I can see!  Haha oh well, until next time!

As I take the evening in, after a long day at work, I sip my cheap wine (which promptly gives me heartburn, but it's so good) and ponder the happenings of L.H. Soaps & Sundries.  If you haven't noticed, I gathered pretty much every bar of soap I had- except for 2 each of the gemstone soaps with Saturn and IO- and brought them to my consignment store in Chesterfield, Missouri.  I therefore, have removed them from the website and added them to the new tab in the menu bar entitled "Gallery".  Since I started this website, I made batches of soap as design ideas popped in my head (and really to test fragrances), which is what spawned the "Artisan Line" of soaps.  From there, I was inspired by a game (yes, a... game) to create the "Gemstone Line" of soaps, which have turned out to be a big hit!  Because of that, I have decided to immortalize the Gemstone Line by re-creating it every year.  I may tweak some soaps, such as Garnet and Amethyst, but I personally am pretty happy with how these are turning out.  Diamond was my fastest seller, with Emerald and Pearl being close seconds.  I am in LOVE with the fragrance of Peridot (pictured above), and I'm excited to come up with the idea for Sapphire (my birthstone, yay!).  My plan was to come up with a gemstone set, but to my amazement, I have sold certain bars too fast to finish an entire year's worth of gems!  SO, hence my continuation of this line.  I was originally going to release each gem during it's month, but I got too excited and I'm already on September~ but that's not a bad thing, right?

I continue to make Artisan Soaps as the inspiration strikes.  I'm telling you... it strikes every minute of the day!  But I am only one person, and I have to pick and choose.  I have been fascinated with natural colors lately, which was the ultimate inspiration for the bar to the right, Split Personality (now on the Curing Rack with Peridot).  I wanted to do this type of swirling so bad, but in my mind, I only wanted to do the swirl with two colors.  And... I couldn't make up my mind as to WHICH colors to use.  So, I did what any other rational left-brainer would do and did all four colors split down the middle.  It wasn't easy, but definitely fun!  Both soaps depicted here were fragrances that I have never used before, but relied on reviews to determine how well behaved they were in soap.  To my delight, the reviews were accurate.  Speaking of testing fragrances and reviews....

I love this soap.  I love it so much it hurts.  Because it turned brown.  You can see it going brown in the picture, but on the rack at this very moment, it is brown-brown.  I had hopes for this soap~ my husband picked the fragrance and the colors (after his favorite hockey team, the St. Louis Blues of course).  The fragrance reviews said it behaved well in soap, etc, same story, etc.... well, it behaved wonderfully!  Then it turned brown.  So, I named him "Rusty", and he's not for sale!  He's my husband's baby and he loves him so.  I guess all is not lost if the husband approves.  I will make Rusty again.... reincarnated into a soap that does not turn brown.  Gotta have the blue, gold, and white for the Blues.  I love you, Rusty... I'm sorry I failed you!  Here is a preview of next week's blog post:

Hey all!  This post is going to be a little short just because I'm running late for some things today.  The third challenge in the Great Cakes Soapworks challenge is mica swirled tops!  I was a excited, but a little worried about this one because my camera is a cheap little thing that doesn't have great resolution to see the swirling.  As you can see, this was the best I could get (click for larger image).  Anyway, I didn't have a "making of" post because I actually tried this one 4 times!  They all turned out great, but not exactly as I wanted.  This one has silver and bronze swirls on top and it really sparkles in the sun!

Here is a piece that is cut.  I did a "spoon swirl" split down the middle with 4 colors:  white (titanium dioxide), pink (madder root), black (activated charcoal), and green (alfalfa)  I think it turned out pretty neat, but I can't cut the rest of the loaf because it felt a little too soft yet for me.  The log is unmolded and chillin' on the rack to harden up a little more.  Anyway, visit Great Cakes Soapworks for more great results!

Just like the title says, there are new soaps on the Curing Rack.  I have also decided to add the ability to add these soaps to your cart.  These soaps are in "pre-order" status and can be added like usual, but are recommended for use on or after the date listed by each soap's picture.  I have added this feature because I get so many requests for soaps shortly after I make them, that I want them to be available to you.  However, I really want to emphasize that it is important to not use the soap before it's cure date.  The reason behind that is because curing is a very important process for a soap to become super hard.  It also brings the soap to a milder state, which is much better for you.  If a pre-order soap is used before it's cure date, not only will it not be as delicate as it should be, but it can melt really fast!  So anyway, keep this in mind when ordering :) 

In other news, I've been working on Challenge #3 for the Great Cakes Soapworks challenges, and I'm just not getting the results I want.  The funny thing is, I've done this technique so many times before!  I'm glad we have 2 weeks to do this one, because it's just not working right LOL!  That's ok, because as you can see, both soaps pictured were my attempts at the challenge, and they still turned out great!  I'm going to do something a little different next time though... I may still use the madder root natural colorant for the new attempt because I LOVE how it looks (the pink swirl in the Eucalyptus Spearmint bar).  Anyway, I'll keep you posted on new things to come~ and there is a lot!  Think... haircare! :)

Well, here it is everyone!  GROOOVY is cut and curing :)  If you wanted to see the making of Grooovy, check it out HERE.  Elemental Swirling is an "In The Pot swirl" within an "In The Pot swirl" (like a dream within a dream?).  I'm really happy with the way it turned out, as I had never done this swirl before, and rather than do the basics of the challenge, I just HAD to push myself even further with 3 layers!  I also "dropped" the layers to break the line definition between them to get a more interesting pattern.  As you can see, there is a circular "plop" in the pink layer where I dropped my second layer and I think it looks pretty cool.  Other soaps had a more fluid look to them....

See how neat that turned out?  The third layer on this soap almost touched the bottom! (the green and purple).  Anyway, I've already had a preorder on this one before I even listed it.  I scented it with a fragrance called "God's Love", which at first smelled a lot like Twizzlers.  Now that it's mellowing, it's more of a baby soft fragrance with a hint of fruitiness.  I used a high olive recipe so that I would have plenty of time to play around and mix my individual colors.

So, for the third challenge, it will be mica swirl tops, which will be exciting because I love that look!  Check out the Great Cakes Soapworks challenge blog to see everyone's fantastic work!

First I've got my oils all weighed and ready.  This is only a 1.5-lb batch.  It is suggested to have a larger batch to compensate for the technique, but well... challenge, right?  My biggest mold is 2 lbs, so I made do.  This is another high olive recipe so I can be assured that it will move slowly and I have time to work with it.

Here is my initial setup.  As you can see, I prefer to take my challenges to extremes.  I am using 7 colors for this project!  I am also using a fragrance that I am unsure of.  You can see the fragrance is individually measured in the smaller cups.  The measuring cup on the far right is my silver mica for making the pencil lines between layers. 

Here are all my colors with the soap batter poured in.  since I had to split it 7 ways, I had to do some math.  The pink, orange, and green are the main colors, while the yellow, blue, and purple are secondary.  The left has white, because it's going to be a "secondary" in all three layers.  Oh yeah, did I mention I'm doing three layers instead of only 2?  Challenging?  You bet.

For my first layer, I had pink, yellow, and white.  You can barely see the yellow in there because the trace is still so thin.  I also added one little measuring cup of the fragrance to this.  Since I wasn't sure how it would react, I added it a little at a time to make sure I could pour a layer and still be able to work with the other layers.  Well, the fragrance worked great!  I think it even made the batter thinner initially...

For my next layer, I had the orange, blue, and white.  I would have made all layers complimentary colors, but for some reason my eyes have a strong aversion to the red-green combination.  I wanted every color in there, so I just kinda mixed them up.  This is the only one that uses complimentary colors.  You can see the pink layer chilling in the mold with mica sprinkled on top.

And for the final layer, green, purple, and white!  I sort of did a drop swirl with the layers to see what I would get.  I hope it doesn't turn out ugly.  I think my orange layer made it to the bottom, so I'm a little worried about that.  I was gentler with the green layer so that it wouldn't poke through all of the layers. 

And here's the final log!  I reserved some of the batter from each color to do the swirl on top, but I reserved more of the blue apparently.  There is practically no green or orange in the top swirl, but it looks ok to me.  I swirled this one the same way on top as I did with the Tiger Stripe challenge.  Except I had 7 colors instead of 3 :)