New soaper here! Just started 2 months ago

[Stephanie Pendleton]

Hi everyone!
I am a crafter and I have always wanted to make my own bath/body products. I don't plan on doing this as a business- I am a nurse and mom already- just more for fun and to give as gifts, friends, family.
I have made 5 loaves, 3 in the standard soap queen recipes and 2 I tweaked to include a friends honey and beeswax from her hives and one for more moisture. So far it's been so fun! Not cheap if you keep experimenting. Included are a few of my creations.
My first is the pink and white layered soap- yum!
2- garden frost- Soap on a stick!! Floral! A mess, air caverns but still pretty
3 lemon fizz- with poppyseed layer, one bar separated but the rest all intact
4 sweet raspberry- smells good, morphed with the vanilla stabilizer, will it return? A week into cure
5 honey beeswax lemon- loaf made for my friend who is a beekeeper, my favorite to work with, like working with caramel, creamy- smooth. Hot hot during cure! I think it caramalized the sugar, smells like it- yum.

 

[SaltedFig]

Those are some amazingly good looking soaps!

Did you say these are your first 5 loaves?

(I need a jaw-dropping emoji ...)

And ... you'll need to flick off the himalayan salt from the garden frost if you are going to use it on your body - that particular salt scratches the skin when it's in crystals like that.

And and (?!) ... what are those pearl looking things on top of your pink and white layered soap? They look really pretty with the soap color and pattern you've chosen.

 

[earlene]

Beautiful! Stunning! Too marvelous for words. yes, NOT cheap. It's a very fun hobby. Good thing you are a nurse, and hopefully are working enough hours to support this new habit! It grows on you and we keep getting interested in trying new techniques and more supplies, and the list goes on. But they are so appreciated by our friends and family when we give them as gifts. And of course, we benefit from using them as well. So not bad for an addictive-type habit.

 

[Stephanie Pendleton]

Those are some amazingly good looking soaps!

Did you say these are your first 5 loaves?

(I need a jaw-dropping emoji ...)

And ... you'll need to flick off the himalayan salt from the garden frost if you are going to use it on your body - that particular salt scratches the skin when it's in crystals like that.

And and (?!) ... what are those pearl looking things on top of your pink and white layered soap? They look really pretty with the soap color and pattern you've chosen.

Ohh thank you! My very first! Coming from you I am blushing
Thanks for the advice about the salts. Yes they are the medium coarse, sprayed with alcohol and covered in mica- I will let my friends know when I gift them. If they don't fall off by then- as they are curing and I turn them they are falling off bit by bit.

The pearls are just sugar pearls from my local soap/candle store.
Thank you again!

 

[Stephanie Pendleton]

Beautiful! Stunning! Too marvelous for words. yes, NOT cheap. It's a very fun hobby. Good thing you are a nurse, and hopefully are working enough hours to support this new habit! It grows on you and we keep getting interested in trying new techniques and more supplies, and the list goes on. But they are so appreciated by our friends and family when we give them as gifts. And of course, we benefit from using them as well. So not bad for an addictive-type habit.

I work full time, but I have been banned from buying anything more for awhile. It was my Christmas present- base supplies to myself. My husband snowmobiles and I take care of the kids, him and my patients, so this is "me" time. even if that does mean giving things away to others- just who I am. Thank you!

 

[SunRiseArts]

gorgeous, and welcome!

 

[IrishLass]

Welcome Stephanie!

Absolutely lovely soaps for your first batches! Looks like you and soapmaking will get along just fine!

Since we are a forum of enablers, it just wouldn't be fit and proper if we didn't get you started off right away without a good enabling: If you ever would like to use soap as your 'pearls' instead of sugar pearls, here's an awesome silicone mold: https://www.vanyulay.com/product/si...-bearing-embeds-444-cavity-silicone-mold-378/. It enables you to make beautiful pearls out of soap- either CP batter or melt & pour base. For ease, I like to use a white melt and pour base mixed with pearlizer.

Here's what they look like fresh from the mold (necklace and coins added for perspective):

That little bit of soap that you see left hanging on the bottom of the pearls are perfect for anchoring them down to the soap so that so that they stay put without falling off:

IrishLass

 

[Relle]

Welcome Stephanie, lovely first soaps. If you would like to post Photo's of your soap in the future we have a designated Photo Gallery to do that.
Here - http://www.soapmakingforum.com/forums/the-photo-gallery.22/

 

[Zany_in_CO]

 

[Stephanie Pendleton]

Welcome Stephanie!

Absolutely lovely soaps for your first batches! Looks like you and soapmaking will get along just fine!

Since we are a forum of enablers, it just wouldn't be fit and proper if we didn't get you started off right away without a good enabling: If you ever would like to use soap as your 'pearls' instead of sugar pearls, here's an awesome silicone mold: https://www.vanyulay.com/product/si...-bearing-embeds-444-cavity-silicone-mold-378/. It enables you to make beautiful pearls out of soap- either CP batter or melt & pour base. For ease, I like to use a white melt and pour base mixed with pearlizer.

Here's what they look like fresh from the mold (necklace and coins added for perspective):

That little bit of soap that you see left hanging on the bottom of the pearls are perfect for anchoring them down to the soap so that so that they stay put without falling off:

IrishLass

Question for your embeds:
Do you gel your soaps? I ask because:
I would prefer to "keep it real" and use ingredients that are made from soap if possible so the molds are enabling but will be my next buy in a few weeks!
do those little balls melt? I worry that they will melt, or the MP will melt in my soaps.
Thank you in advance.

 

[IrishLass]

Hi Stephanie! In regards to gel- yes- I gel all my soaps (including the one in my above pic). In regards to melting- no, the M&P does not melt in my gelled CP. I often use M&P for creating decorative embeds for my CP, and no matter if they are placed on the surface of the soap or on the inside, I've never had any of them melt on me.


IrishLass

 

[cmzaha]

Ohh thank you! My very first! Coming from you I am blushing
Thanks for the advice about the salts. Yes they are the medium coarse, sprayed with alcohol and covered in mica- I will let my friends know when I gift them. If they don't fall off by then- as they are curing and I turn them they are falling off bit by bit.

The pearls are just sugar pearls from my local soap/candle store.
Thank you again!

Welcome Stephanie, I would recommend you scrape the salts off the top of the soaps before gifting them. They can cause severe abrasions and lacerations. All your soaps look marvelous especially being the first soaps your have made. I can guarantee my beginning soaps never looked so good.

 

[earlene]

IrishLass, I'm glad I saw your soaps before the pictures disappeared. The pearls mold is a really cool idea. I hope your photos come back!

Welcome Stephanie!

Absolutely lovely soaps for your first batches! Looks like you and soapmaking will get along just fine!

Since we are a forum of enablers, it just wouldn't be fit and proper if we didn't get you started off right away without a good enabling: If you ever would like to use soap as your 'pearls' instead of sugar pearls, here's an awesome silicone mold: https://www.vanyulay.com/product/si...-bearing-embeds-444-cavity-silicone-mold-378/. It enables you to make beautiful pearls out of soap- either CP batter or melt & pour base. For ease, I like to use a white melt and pour base mixed with pearlizer.

Here's what they look like fresh from the mold (necklace and coins added for perspective):

That little bit of soap that you see left hanging on the bottom of the pearls are perfect for anchoring them down to the soap so that so that they stay put without falling off:

IrishLass

Now that's REALLY weird! In Preview mode I can see your photos. This is what I saw BEFORE I quoted your post:

I wonder what that's about.

ETA: BUT, when I posted this the pictures are again missing. Curiouser and curiouser.

 

[IrishLass]

Testing...........Hopefully you'll see my pics again right here:

Edited to add: Yay, it worked!


IrishLass

 

[dibbles]

Welcome Stephanie! Your first soaps are WOW! Can't wait to see the next 5 batches.

 

[Stephanie Pendleton]

Welcome Stephanie, I would recommend you scrape the salts off the top of the soaps before gifting them. They can cause severe abrasions and lacerations. All your soaps look marvelous especially being the first soaps your have made. I can guarantee my beginning soaps never looked so good.

I was able to get the salts off and it looks very pretty without! They left behind the mica and the little spots left behind where the salts were left these little depressions which are really neat looking. Thanks for the advice. I will just leave the salts to some other recipe One bar I could not get the salt off at all, so I just sliced a small bit off, looks pretty just as is. Luckily it was such a hard seize that not much was able to stick down in the batter.
Thanks everyone!

 

[Lafftar]

Looking so edible! WelcomeWe

 

[lsg]

Welcome to the forum. Congratulations on such great looking soap.

 

[shunt2011]

Hi and welcome. Lovely very first soaps too!

 

[elurah]

Welcome, Stephanie Your soaps look amazing!! I particularly love the pink and white layered soap and honey and beeswax soap with the detailing.

I agree, it can become such an expensive hobby! My particular weaknesses are all the different essential oils and absolutes from new direction aromatics, and all of the different natural colorants from brambleberry or FNWL (indigo root, coreopsis flowers, alkanet, ugh!).

I look forward to seeing to what you make next!

Warmly,
Allie