Soap Making with Almost Autumn fragrance oil by Natures Garden.

 Acceleration - no.

Discolouration - no.
Performance - perfect!
Tiggy's score out of 10 - 6

OOB (out of the bottle) smells like a warm, amber laden fruit. In soap, it morphs a little bit. It soaped incredibly well despite me doing a 40% water discount. By 40% water discount I mean I simply remove 40% of the water required to make the soap. I don’t use soap calc to determine what this amount is, I take the default water amount from soap calc for my recipe and multiply it by 40%, then subtract that number from my water before I mix my lye.

For this soap I used three different micas. I used Dark Orange and Brushed Copper from Mica Moma, and Dark Green from Prima Mica. I left part of the batter neutral for a little added contrast. The colours in my soap could have been a little more vibrant so if I were to make this one again, I would add just a little more of each colour.

The scent in soap (after two days) seems to have lost the top notes of citrus. It has fallen slightly flat. Sometimes I have known scents in soap to change as they cure and even had soap that lost its scent entirely only for it to return nearer the cured date! The only time this happened was with a fragrance called Angelic from Scent Perfique. It’s a dupe of Angel perfume. Smells amazing OOB but totally disappeared in my soap, then after 4 weeks the scent re-appeared. I don’t understand the science behind that but maybe somebody does. If so, please feel free to leave a comment. If the scent changes in any way I'll come back to edit the notes here.

Would I buy this fragrance again? Nope. It’s ok, bit disappointing to be honest. I expected more from it when I saw the picture on the NG website. I was drawn in by the cup of dark coffee and autumn leaves all around only to be let down by what seems like a generic scent. I think it would work much better in candles or melts. Soap can really beat a fragrance up so maybe give it a try in some scented products for the home rather than in CP soap.

I made this soap using my original recipe that you can find here: https://handmadesoaprecipes.com/products/the-best-cold-process-handmade-soap-recipe

The video for the making and cutting of this soap can be found here: https://youtu.be/CU8V6J2dEaI

The Lost Boys Collection

80s film fan? Us too!

The Lost Boys is one of our favourite cult classics so what better way to honour the movie than a whole bath and body collection dedicated to it? 

With scents plucked from our imagination you are taken on a journey back to Santa Carla - the home of the vampire!

The scent list is as follows:

Head Vampire - Suave, sophisticated, and totally untrustworthy. Saffron & mugwort, violet leaf, heavy musk, amber, drying incense, and oud entwined with notes of leather and light citrus.

Boardwalk - Blue cotton candy, coconut pulp, an old wooden carousel, pin ball machines, and salty sea air.

Civilian Wardrobe - Vintage comic books, army greens, a smidge of aftershave, and worn leather Nike’s.

Star - Sun drenched skin, caramel, freshly-washed hair infused with incense smoke, a crisp white cotton vest, and red lipstick.

Thou Shall Not Fall - A balmy seaside breeze carrying soft notes of caramel marshmallows, warm vanilla infused honey, and soft patchouli from a leather biker jacket.

In this collection you will find handmade soap, three in one whipped soap (for use on hair, body, and as a shave cream), luxury body cream, and conditioning hair rinse.

This collection is only available once per year - usually in the middle of summer to keep the vibe of the film alive. The Lost Boys is set in the fictional town of Santa Carla, California, where the sun always shines - apart from at night when the predators come out, of course!

To receive information on the product drop, and the time it will go live sign up for our newsletter via the website https://www.futureprimitivesoap.co.uk 

See you soon, vampire lovers!

 

Recent handmade soap offerings

A pic heavy post of some soaps I've made recently. Most are restocks.

Lime Cooler Handmade Soap. Made with a sweet sugary lime fragrance oil. Simple green swirl on white base.

Protection Handmade Soap from The Witchcraft Collection. Made with an herbal infusion and an essential oil blend to help create a protective aura around yourself if you feel under attack from outside influences. 

Magpie Handmade Soap. An essential oil blend of spearmint and patchouli. This one has been in the line for quite some time. Made with activated bamboo charcoal. 

Call The Corners Handmade Soap. Another one from The Witchcraft Collection. My favourite of the bunch right now. This essential oil blend is super good. Lavender, Palmarosa, Patchouli and a smidge of Spearmint. The blend has been designed to honour the four elements. Made with Brazilian yellow clay.

Everybody's favourite White Witch Handmade soap. A classic blend of Indonesian patchouli and geranium.

Money Magick Handmade Soap with an essential oil blend to attract wealth and abundance. Made with an herbal infusion and a mint leaf scatter. Contains cedar, ginger, orange, and a few others. Smells divine!

Coconut Milk & Lavender Handmade Soap. Made with coconut milk and Bulgarian lavender oil. A reserved sprinkle of local lavender flowers on top. 

Wild Fig Handmade Soap will be back for spring sometime at the start of March. If you like the diptyque candle 'Figuier' you'll probably love this. I find the scent quite similar. 

Inches Lane Handmade Soap packaging. I still use our own branded wrap with a simple cigar band. Always finished with a wax seal. 

My word, times have changed since I started this blog. I've just written this from my phone. I can remember sitting on our desktop computer at home, taking it in turns with Matt to use the thing so that we could both upload to our blogs. There was no real social media. No Facebook or Instagram. YouTube was just about to be a thing! 

It's been nice to do this again. I should do more. 

Until next time, Tiggy x

The Ghost of Witley Court Handmade Soap

Here I share the making of The Ghost of Witley Court handmade soap. Made with a parma violet fragrance, and coloured with a deep purple mica swirl on a titanium dioxide base.
The fragrance used is from Scent Perfique here in the UK. It performs perfectly, doesn't cause any issues or discolouration. 
I did a 40% water discount, which is basically removing 40% of the required water in order to eliminate soda ash, and to create a nice smooth top on the soap. I find that it can cut the cure time down a bit, but only by about a week. I still like to cure my soaps for at least 4 weeks and I leave them unpackaged for some time, just packaging what I need to for orders. This helps the bars harden better as the air is constantly circulating around them as they sit.
This fragrance behaves so the batter didn't thicken up on me quickly, in fact I had plenty of time to swirl the two colours together, and to create that lovely blobby top!

To watch the video click here to open in a new window: YouTube making video

5 New Soaps..and a lil Sale

Yep! Been busy...and there's still more to come.

In order of appearance (top to bottom), the new soaps are:

Temple Ball - a blend of Petitgrain, Orange, Benzoin (the very thick sticky stuff) and Nutmeg. Inside, what you can see is Coltsfoot leaf, which is know to aid the healing and the itch of eczema. There are random chunks of cocoa-dusted soap inside as well. It smells very fresh with a warm spicy background. 100% Natural.

NonScents - a blend of absolutely nothing. Just pure soap with extra virgin olive oil, organic cocoa butter and organic shea butter. The dark line and the crunchy looking topping is Aussie organic olive green clay. Smells like unscented soap! 100% Natural.

Festival 2011 - a fragrant blend of heady and dusty Nag Champa incense dipped in thick, black Indonesian Patchouli with a puff of woodsmoke. This is my favourite scent at the moment and will be available as bathing grains, SWASH and perfume oil in due course. The colours are yellow, blue and green oxide with Aussie organic red clay and Dead Sea Mud. 96% Natural.

Antiguan Firecracker - a tropical floral blend of Frangipani & Lilac petals lifted with Sicilian Lemon oil and Lavender oil. On the top are deep red rose petals, lavender buds (from my own bushes) and dried Chamomile buds. The colours are aqua, deep red and white to mimic the colours of my Antiguan holiday back in 2007. 98% Natural.

Garden of Cupid - named by Aleyah Jordon who entered our Facebook giveaway (she still hasn't come forth to claim her prize)...so if she's reading!

A blend of Sweet Fennel, Geranium, Lavender, Ylang Ylang and sticky pine resin. The top notes are the fennel and lavender, which then warms to a floral heart. At the end of the sniff you get the fresh pine aroma...but only if your nose is good at detective work. Inside the soap is Juniper Berry meal. 100% Natural.

All will be available from the shop at the end of January....or if you can't wait they're up in the Etsy shop to purchase and finish curing at your end until ready on 25th January.

Oh...before I forget and have to edit this post again...there's a SALE on in our online shop and in our Etsy! Go see x

Thanks for reading!

cookin' up a storm

'cyclone' logs 'cyclone' peaks just 'cyclone'

My balls

packets ready for sending.

I done made this 'Cyclone' soap yesterday. I didn't have a lot of Juniper oil left, and getting hold of some quickly proved difficult (and expensive), so I tweaked my recipe.

This now has a smidge of black pepper, which is actually quite similar to Juniper in that it has a lot of the same components, which make up the essential oil. I shan't go into the blurb and bore you though.

It smells so so nice. A really light, yet biting scent with an ozonic aroma. I have some available still but was running a little low. I add organic shea to the mix to make it extra good for the skin. To purchase one of the cured bars, click here to buy from FuturePrimitive Soap or click here for Etsy purchasing.

I've been quite busy lately with web orders, which is really great. Thanks to all who have ordered. Your soaps are on their way this week. Whilst packing them up, I thought I'd take a few pics to show the finished articles. I really like the way they look now, though I've been contemplating trying some different coloured strings. I've seen the ones I want, I just gotta go get some. I'm really happy with the new paper. It lets the soap breathe, and keeps them fresher for longer. 

Soap Packaging

Something I struggled with for a good couple of years...soap packaging.

I toyed with brown kraft paper, with cello bags (no good as the soap sweats), with thick paper with my logo, with cloth, with muslin...so many things...

I haven't shown the packaging of my soaps for quite some time.

I think the last post I did on this subject included my soaps with the gardeners string tied around them.

I soon tired of that as it's so time consuming when packaging larger wholesale orders.

Finally I allowed myself to agree on these strips, which simply wrap over each soap and are secured at the base.

All relevant info is on each strip.

I like the packaging colours to compliment what is inside.

The paper I have also allows the buyer to see the beauty inside too. Not see - through but near as damn it.

I know a lot of people struggle with packaging so please know that I have too.

I love a simple cigar band myself but when stocking in retail shops I think it's better to have the soaps wrapped.

I must say that Jaq from Soaphora has the most exquisite packaging.

Click here to see her Etsy...it's wonderful soap too!

I've been working hard on new strips for some of the new soaps I have made over the past few weeks. All will be revealed soon...the run up to xmas is just around the corner. I have 3 new soaps to show you very soon....

xx