RobsCreations

In my recent  Review of the Aroma Zone (AZ) soap making workshop  I've been complaining about a peachy fragrance I bought on the day of the workshop. Before buying it, I've asked if the fragrance was going to work well in Cold Process and the alleged expert said "YES, sure!"  When I got back home, I read on the AZ's website that this fragrance is not great for CP and got quite p****d off. Needless to say, that there's no explanation concerning this statement (does it fade over time? does it affect soap color? Does it ACCELERATE trace?!?) and therefore I had to find out myself... I didn't have much choice in terms of raw materials and I didn't want to invest in new stocks in case something went wrong. Few precautions: 1) I scaled down the amount of total oils in the recipe (325 gr instead of 800 gr) 2) I used silicon moulds (didn't want to spend time lining the wooden mould) 3) I added the fragrance at the very last moment...

The teardrop technique allows you to create a sort of multi-stratified drop inside your soap bar. Like the one below (please be fair folks! That's my first teardrop soap ever) Chevron swirl on top! 💖 Looks complicated, uhm? At the end of this post I've shared a video from Kapia Mera Soap Company  showing how to properly do it. I initially thought to use the same recipe as for the Fire Vibe Soap (high olive oil content, slow moving trace). I've then considered that this design is even  more complicated and that I am not fast and experienced enough to leave things to chance...  I therefore formulated a recipe with a Saturated:Unsaturated fat ratio of 28:72...this trace is moving soooooo slowly that you have the feeling you can work with it forever 🤣🤣 Recipe (super slow moving trace): Olive oil (pomace) 39.25% Canola oil 31.25% Coconut oil 12.50% Palm oil (organic) 17% Note that the palm oil I buy from  The Soap Kitche...

I have mixed two techniques in order to obtain different patterns , one on the inside of the soap bar and one on the top. Here you have the links to the original videos showing the techniques: 1)  Tilted tiger stripe swirl 2) Multi-mica Taiwan swirl Since  I run out of castor oil,  I had to modify the recipe shown in video 1) as follows  😅 Recipe (slow moving trace): Olive oil (pomace)  70% Coconut oil  22.25% Palm oil (organic)  7.75% Note that the palm oil I buy from  The Soap Kitchen   'carries Organic Certification and comes from Columbia. It is not produced on land that has been taken from the Rain Forests, nor are there any Orangutangs made homeless. Our suppliers do use 'ethical' methods in their production (we have actually visited the site). Our Columbian suppliers are members of the RSPO (Round Table for Sustainable Production of   PalmOil).' Scent:   O range  EO ...

This is  SA VA GE LA UR EL   Recipe: Olive oil (pomace)  40% Coconut oil  25% Palm oil (organic)  20% Bay laurel berry oil 11 % Castor oil  4% Note that the palm oil I buy from  The Soap Kitchen   'carries Organic Certification and comes from Columbia. It is not produced on land that has been taken from the Rain Forests, nor are there any Orangutangs made homeless. Our suppliers do use 'ethical' methods in their production (we have actually visited the site). Our Columbian suppliers are members of the RSPO (Round Table for Sustainable Production of   PalmOil).' Bay laurel berry oil is from  A roma Z one Scent:  naturally coming from the bay laurel berry oil Colours : 1) arctic pearl metallic mica 2) silver grey metallic mica  All micas are from  The Soap Kitchen 2 days in the mould + 1 day as whole bar outside the mould before cutting!

This is the first of three short posts about the last soaps I made! This is GO LD EN CI TR US Recipe: Olive oil (pomace) 50% Coconut oil 25% Palm oil (organic) 20% Castor oil 5% Note that the palm oil I buy from The Soap Kitchen   'carries Organic Certification and comes from Columbia. It is not produced on land that has been taken from the Rain Forests, nor are there any Orangutangs made homeless. Our suppliers do use 'ethical' methods in their production (we have actually visited the site). Our Columbian suppliers are members of the RSPO (Round Table for Sustainable Production of   PalmOil).' Scent: grapefruit + tangerine EO from CEVEN'Aromes   Colours : 1) gold sparkle metallic mica + buttercup yellow mica 2) copper metallic mica + c lementine orange mica  and 3) deep bronze metallic mica  All micas are from  The Soap Kitchen 2 days in the mould + 2 days as whole bar outside the mould before cutt...

Here you have my second card of the month (with the first being the Mother's day card ) and it's for a friend's Birthday.  I had in mind something with plants and animals since a while and when I saw this rubber stamp in the shop I fell in love with it. To me, a tree of butterflies means joy and liberty. It reminds me the beauty of nature and it's complexity. It represents that lightness (read gentleness) we all should have.... In this occasion, I've also made the envelop myself and  I'm very very proud of me... It's only my second card after all!   Materials: Chocolate A4 Vivaldi paper 240 gr (1 sheet 21 x 14.4 cm and one sheet 7 x 11 cm)  Cream A4 Vivaldi paper 120 gr (1 sheet 9 x 13 cm)  Artemio frame puncher (tiny flowers)  Holographic embossing powder  Transparent embossing powder  Chocolate 154 Versacraft mini ink pad  Bronze 94 Versacolor mini ink pad  Double sided tape  Butterflies tree rubb...

Few weeks ago I bumped into this video  by chance. I got stricken by the ability of the lady (Christina Griffiths) and by the interesting technique she was using to create some super cute Baby cards. She used water colours to colour some embossed animal figures. In this other   video ,  Christina used a gold shimmering mica to water colour her cards and she really did an amazing job!  I don't have water colours at home, but I have plenty of mica and pigments and I wanted to try them. I went for very simple cards (nothing compared to  Christina's) that I've also decorated with cornflower petals and with an embossed sentiment. Micas are a naturally existing  silicates which can occur in scales , sheets or flakes . In the cosmetics field, coloured micas are fine pigment-coated powders that are used to add bright colours and iridescence (shimmer) to many products.  Besides using micas in soap making , I have used t...

A brand new batch!!! Bees wax, shea butter, sweet almond oil, avocado oil, and also mica and lip safe fragrances for Sangria and Hot Chocolate lip balms. No preservatives at all!

I wasn't really planning to do any M&P soap for Xmas time, but... I received an adorable silicon mould to make reindeer-shaped ice cubes from my friend Nora . In addition, knowing my love for candle making, my husband Mass i, suggested me to use the mould to do reindeer-shaped floating candles (that I'll certainly do later on, and NO I won't be using the mould for cooking anymore!). Few nights ago I couldn't really manage to sleep...to avoid getting stress by this, I decided to start thinking about something positive and nice, and came up with this idea: Reindeer M&P soap!!! It's white and red, full of glitters and with a reindeer in the middle of each slice: very Xmast-ish indeed! M&P base is always the same kind as for the other soaps, the soap is delicately amber scented, and each reindeer is coloured with Fairy Red mica , that shouldn't bleed!!!  

A lot of different opinions about that... to cut a long story short I'd say it's worth giving it a try if you do not exaggerate  with the amount of mica! Too much mica can clog the wick (either cotton or wood) and won't anyway add more colour to the final products! For this project I have used soy wax and paraffin and two different kinds of wick (cotton and wood). To dissolve mica powder I have used some carrier oil (sweet almond oil) and did that before adding micas to the melted wax. I have used only a tiny amount of micas! For more details on how to make mica-coloured candles please visit my  FB page

I already had many new things to try, for this reason I decided to stick to the same basic recipe I've been using before (beeswax, shea butter, avocado oil and sweet almond oil). I bought lip safe micas, fragrance oils, white chapstick tubes and shrink wraps for the tubes. I've matched Hot Chocolate Mica Powder with Chocolate orange Truffles Flavor Oil , and Sangria Mica with Strawberry Flavor Oil (for materials please see my FB page). I've also prepared couple of plain ones (no mica, no fragrance). Being the first time that I used micas I didn't want to exaggerate and I ended up with pretty mild colours. Also the presence of avocado oil (which is greenish) affected the final result, but I liked it anyway.     I printed out labels and eventually sealed the lip balms with my wonderful shrink wraps (for a quick video on the wraps see my FB page)!!!

I've used tangerine essential oil and micas for the colours. I was afraid I have gone too far with the amount of micas : apparently they might turn the bath tub in a mess ! I've eventually used them and I have to admit that  it's true that micas leave a halo on the sink edge, but it gets away with a bit of clean tap water!!! They smell incredibly good, the bubbling is adorable and colours are amazing.