We Try 4 New Scents

#coldprocesssoap #patchoulirain #frenchvanillaoak #havananights #madampresident

#testingnewfragrances

Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Over the past year, we have amassed quite a few samples of different fragrance oils that we just haven't gotten around to using yet.  Today was a testing day - yay!  We have so much fun trying new things. The four FOs we tested are scents that we really LOVE, L-O-V-E, straight out of the bottle, so we were eager to see if we would still love them in CP soap.

Back in February we purchased four small silicone molds from +Bramble Berry with the idea that we would use them for test batches. They are the perfect size - 4 x 3 1/2 x 2 3/4 H. 

We have formulated a soap recipe that, when divided evenly into four parts, will contain enough oils for 1 oz of FO in each portion.  Once we reach light trace, we weigh our mixing bucket, then subtract the weight of the bucket to get the total of just the soap batter.  We divided that number by 4 to know exactly how much soap batter we would pour into each portion.

Yay for math!

To make it easier on the eyes we've divided the blog into 4 separate sections, one for each scent. 

Ready?  Here we go!

#1 - French Vanilla Oak is from +Natures Garden. They describe the fragrance as a sensual fragrance of creamy vanilla and warm amber which mingle with oak moss and sandalwood, anchored by patchouli and musk. It sounds like a lot going on, but the blend is quite wonderful. It has a 4.5% vanilla content so we went into it knowing this soap would discolor.  We have made candles with this FO also, and they smell fabulous cold as well as hot.

For the French Vanilla Oak FO, we decided to keep it relatively simple.  We used micas from +Rustic Escentuals: copper sparkle mica and light gold mica.  We left the rest of the batter without any added color so we could see how much it would darken as it cured.  

We poured a small portion of the uncolored batter into the bottom of the mold, then a layer of  batter colored with the copper sparkle, then a layer of the light gold mica colored batter, then topped it with the remaining uncolored batter.

Our curing room is also Kathy's laundry room, and occasionally we have mishaps! And the photo below shows you, well, this is what happens to a bar of soap when it's curing too close to the washing machine.....and, you put a big load of sheets in and accidentally wash the soap with the sheets!!! 

That load of sheets smelled fantastic!

#2 - Madam President is also from +Natures Garden. This has been a favorite fragrance of both of ours since the first time we opened the bottle.  We hope we love it as much after it cures in CP soap!  For this scent, NG has "combined fresh, zesty citrus notes of charisma and charm, balanced out by feminine florals of jasmine, white rose, and freesia. The nuances of brilliant musks and ozonic notes are backed by a respected and humble hint of sweet vanilla; ending with a kind hearted, warm amber base." This FO has .5% vanilla, so we expect it to darken as it cures.

All of the micas for this scent came from +Rustic Escentuals. We mixed a small amount of batter with Arctic White, Bordeaux, and Bewitched mica.  Starting with uncolored batter we layered each color then finished with the remaining uncolored batter.  

The colors we used "almost" seemed patriotic, leaning towards a red, white and blue look.

#3 - Patchouli Rain is from +Rustic Escentuals. RE says the fragrance is "rich, deep, and mysterious. This fragrance oil is a fresh rain and earthy patchouli with notes of lily of the valley, cyclamen, fresh ozone, earthen moss, and hints of sweet citrus."  This is definitely a fresh, sweet, version of a patchouli scent. There is no vanilla, so we could be more creative with our colors on this one.

We used an assortment of blue micas, from +Bramble Berry 1982 Blue Mica (which they don't sell anymore - at least we can't find it when we do a search) and Antique Blue Mica.  And from +Nurture Soap Supplies we used Blue Vibrance Mica.

We pulled out about a 1/2 cup batter for each color and left the remaining batter uncolored.

We poured the colored batter into the mold with no plan then did a quick swirl with a skewer just to give it a little drama.

The colors are pretty together, and the scent is wonderful; we just wished there had been a little more swirling action.

The last batch.....

#4 - Havana Nights is also from +Rustic Escentuals. RE's description says that the FO is "a sultry and provocative blend reminiscent of a hot summer's night in a beautiful, mysterious land. Havana Nights is a spicy floral with notes of spiced citrus, fresh water lily, sensual jasmine petals, cedar, patchouli, sandalwood, vanilla, dark musk, and amber."  Out of the bottle, this oil made us long for a beach vacation.  The vanilla content is .98%, so some discoloration might be a consideration.

We used +Bramble Berry Aqua Pearl Mica mixed with +Rustic Escentuals Clementine Pop Mica, both bright vivid colors that would convey the essence of the tropics.

Not so tropical. Unfortunately I (Kathy), after carefully layering in the colors, realized I'd forgotten to add the fragrance oil - big ooopsie.

So the lovely planned swirl went out the window when I mixed the scent into the batter.

Luckily you can still see remnant of a design, so it's not all for nothing. 

And this smell, oh my goodness, it is amazing!

Here is what the four test batches looked like after curing overnight. We had some ash.

We did not experience any acceleration or ricing from these FOs.

Here they are freshly out of the molds.

And once they are cut, nice light colored soaps.

Wait until you see how they looked 2 weeks later.

Not so bright, are they?

The vanilla content rears its darkening head and changes the color somewhat.

They all smell great, and I don't think either of us has a favorite. We want to make larger batches of all of these.

And that definitely isn't what was supposed to happen. We were trying to eliminate some of our fragrance stash....not add to it!

These will be cured and ready to go on Tuesday, October 6.

Clyde Slide Soap Challenge Entry

September 16, 2015

We are at it again, another entry (try) at Amy Warden's Great Cakes Soapworks Soap Challenge Club!  This challenge is called the Clyde Slide. Strange title you say? No....not when you have visited Clyde Yoshida's Vibrant Soap site or his youtube channel.  We've been watching Clyde create beautiful soaps for a while; he is truly an artist and inspires us with his creativity.

But I digress. The idea for this challenge is to duplicate the way Clyde makes a "swirl" or "slide".

The picture above is the one we submitted to the challenge. We actually had a ball creating these soaps; all of them look different which makes it that much more fun!  As usual we saw all kinds of "things" in the swirls of the soaps, and we will share a few with you below.  In the meantime please enjoy our YouTube video of our process as we created our entry for this challenge.

We did try several other Clyde Slide batches, however this one seemed to best represent a true "slide". Please enjoy the making of the other "attempts" on our YouTube channel (once we get them uploaded).

If you would like to simply see a few shots of the final results, please see below.

In this one we see a lizard face with a cute white nose (or maybe a happy cartoon clown).

Here the lizard is again but with a lot more yellow.

We call this one Half Moon Bay, mainly because we see a half moon, and other planets.

This one by far is our favorite one. We see saggy green boobs. What do you see???

This soap will be cured and ready to sell on October 14, 2015.

Road Trip Part Deux

Shall we call this On the Road Again? Probably not. It sounds just a little cheesy.  But, on the road again is exactly where we were the last Friday of August - the 28th to be exact.  

Our destination? Roebuck, SC - home of +Rustic Escentuals.  RE is one of our favorite suppliers of fragrance oils, colorants, and candle making supplies.  We were happy to meet the generous owner, Amy Coker Pascoe.  Amy and her excellent staff held their first (annual, we hope) open house, complete with a welcoming red carpet. But before we get ahead of ourselves we'll share a few snaps of the drive from NE Georgia up to Roebuck,  SC which is just a few miles SE of Spartanburg.

We started off early with a gloomy and overcast sky.  We headed down, down, down from Habersham County into Stephens County towards I-85 north in Lavonia.

Once we got on 85 it took about 1-1/2 hours (give or take) for us to get there.

Ten minutes after getting on I-85 we crossed Lake Hartwell and popped into SC. 

We buzzed past Anderson then the metro Greenville area, passing the GSP airport, then zooming past the BMW and Michelin plants.  Finally we veered off 85 and cut over to Roebuck, spotting the familiar water tower we remembered from last year.

A few minutes later our excitement built as we pulled up in front of the Rustic Escentuals building.  As you can see in the photo above, the parking lot was full.  Following signs, we drove around back and found beautiful fall decorations and a tent set up by the back door with a red carpet leading into the building. Why we didn't take a picture I'll never know! I think we were just so excited to get there we almost ran in the door. Okay. No almost about it.  We did run through the door.

Once inside the converted shipping area, we found Jennifer manning the welcome table. We signed up for free door prizes (we both won prizes!!),  put on our name tags, and off we went.

When our numbers were called for the door prize there was a generous selection to choose from.  We passed over the T-shirts, wax melting pots, and pouring utensils and chose certificates for a free 8 oz and 16 oz bottle of fragrance oils. We were so thrilled that our numbers had been picked!!!

The first things we noticed - after the cute "Happy Fall Y'all" sign and decorations - were the racks of samples placed everywhere and the encouragement to take what we wanted! As if the door prizes weren't generous enough!

There was an amazing Sniffing Station which included ALL, and we mean ALL, of the fragrance oils they offer. We see the descriptions online and imagine what the scents are like, but it just doesn't compare to be able to actually SMELL them.  No more wondering for us; we were able to sniff everything and chose several new fragrances that we both LOVED.

Another display featured their mica colorants with examples of what all the colors looked like in CP soap (so helpful!). They also had a special deal of 12 sample packs of mica colorants for $12. Yep! You bet we jumped on that and will be using the colors in the near future.

One table featured a Inspiration Station with many items made using Rustic Escentual products. We are happy to say that several Soap Lily Soaps made using RE scents and colors were featured.

Again, why did we not take a picture??

No answer!

One table was full of Flavor oils, used in lipsticks etc., another had packaging items,  and yet another had clearance items for sale at a reduced price.

Still another table had a candle melting pot and examples of wax tarts on display with someone ready to answer questions about how to best create candles and wax tarts.  In fact, no matter what question we had, there was always a Rustic Escentuals representative nearby to point us in the right direction.

At some point while we roamed from area to area we realized that Rustic Escentuals owner Amy Coker Pascoe was close by so we introduced ourselves to her and chatted with her for a few minutes. She was quite the popular lady and a most gracious host.

This is the shipping room that is in the rear of the building. It  had been converted to a showroom/dining/display area for this event.  The tables shown above are where we enjoyed the yummy food and figured out what to order.

The dining area was a wonderful touch because the food was an artistic creation all on its own.  Seriously, we never dreamed the open house would be a catered event! The food was catered by Ribault Catering  and Two Samuels, who by the way did an excellent job!

The most fantastic Rosemary buttermilk biscuits with smoked pork, yes....they were really good - we sampled everything!   

There were scones, mini muffins, cranberry roll up thingies (very tasty), sausage and sage mini quiches,  pumpkin bread with cream cheese drizzle presented in mini mason jars, fresh fruit, and more pastries. It was truly a beautiful display and the presentation was so nice that it surely didn't seem like we were in the shipping department!  

The drinks were lavender flavored pink lemonade, and cucumber water - both were amazing!

The coffee bar was loaded with yummy (almost fragrance worthy titles) Pumpkin Spice Latte, Chai Tea, Iced Coffee, and Hot Coffee.

When we had finished the tasty food and had our order narrowed down to something manageable, we were able to go into the stock room and with the help of Viktoriya we pulled our own order. That was such fun!

This picture above shows one of the two sides FILLLLLED with fragrances, and when we say FILLED you have no idea.

This is the other side of the warehouse; offices are toward the front of the building.  This side had lots and lots of candle making supplies, mica colorants, and a packing area.

This is the aisle where the glitter, mica and colorants are located.  

It was almost sensory overload!

We do make candles, though not a lot of them, so we loved seeing all the candle making supplies. They have EVERYTHING you could possibly need to make a candle, trust us, EVERYTHING!

Once our order was complete, we decided to go back to the fragrance samples one more time, re-sniffed several, and decided to add them to our order. Tracy was kind enough to help us pull the last few items added to our order.

Finally, Allie, the event coordinator from Launch Something Events, helped us finalize our order.

When it was time to leave we picked up our free door prizes - (1) 16 ounce bottle of Essence of Jesus fragrance oil and (1) 8 ounce bottle of Vanilla Oak fragrance oil - and said thank you and good bye.

We just didn't feel like we could thank everyone enough for a great job and fun experience. It was obviously a group effort that turned out very nicely.

Job well done Amy and your whole staff!!!

The photo above is one we snapped as we drove away, see you next year!

Our day didn't end there, though. Next we were off to our favorite place to eat in Spartanburg  (thanks again Kathy for the recommendation last year).

The one, the only, Willy Taco

located at 930 E Main St, Spartanburg, SC.

We keep hoping we will get one closer to home (hint, hint)

Even the guacamole choices were hard....

Holy Guacamole!
It was outstanding, seriously.....excellent and noticeably fresh.

Then it was decision time....what to order, believe us, it's a tough decision!

Our choices this year....honestly they were all wonderful, we split each in half which was just enough. 

This is Jordan, who kept up the tradition of excellent service (with a big smile) and yes, he did have photo approval of this shot.

After lunch we chatted a little with Jordan, said goodbye and headed home.

As we left SC behind and crossed over Lake Hartwell into GA we squinted and way, way in the distance you can see the faint shadow of the mountains close to us.

One last L-O-N-G hill then we are back in Hollywood

(which is a suburb - in the loosest sense of the word - of Clarkesville)

Five minutes later we were home.

Another fun, fun road trip for the Soap Lily girls.

Again, a huge thank you to +Rustic Escentuals, Amy, Kathy, Jennifer, Christine 

and all the sweet ladies on the staff for a job well done (and then some). 

Really nice work ladies! THANK YOU!

There was only one tiny blip during our road trip, and it was one that most everyone encounters - computer issues.

Much to their dismay, and we believe it bothered the kind folks at RE much more than it bothered us, the computer server decided to conk out the during the open house.  So all their great plans of processing our orders and having us take them home with us fell apart because they couldn't process the orders without the Internet server.  Ever gracious, Rustic Escentuals said they would offer free shipping once the computer issues were resolved. We really felt bad for them that after all of their generosity during the open house, they would also be providing free shipping. We did appreciate it, though. 

When our RE order arrived the following Tuesday, it was like Christmas.  We were so excited we decided to do a video while we unpacked, here is our loot.....

One final note in the It's a Small World segment of this blog:

  Yesterday (Saturday September 5th), we set up a booth at the 2015 Crush Fest held at +Yonah Mountain Vineyards.

It is a beautiful spot to sell our soap.

At some point during the afternoon a woman walked into the booth and we started chatting. She makes soap, we make soap.  She makes candles, so do we - you get the idea.  

We began swapping supplier notes and low and behold we both buy from Rustic!! Even crazier - this particular young lady, Paige Bowser +Breezy Quarters  (of BreezyQuarters.com) had been at the open house at the same time we were there.  No, we didn't realize it at the time.  

While we were chatting and comparing notes about how much we like doing business with RE I mentioned that we had done a blog about our trip last year, and she had seen it! How fun that was for us! I promised I'd mention this crazy coincidence, so a shout out to Paige!!!