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: