Has it really been over a month?

Just a few of the things that have kept me away from my blog!

Hopefully normal service will resume shortly 8-)

Eredine Body Cream

The first of my ranges, Eredine, inspired by the forests of Argyll, is a rich woody fragrance with herbal hints on a deep floral base. Made with a large % of mango butter, jojoba, frac coconut & olive oils.

Orange, clove & cinnamon soap, yep, it's a Christmas soap ;-)

Anyone else starting to panic?

I've been quiet the past few weeks, I'm having a mild panic that the big "C" word is creeping up on us!  Of course I knew it was coming...it happens every year but as all you soapmakers know, we have to work quite a bit in advance.
So why did I chose now to change my bar size, I've been soaping like a fiend!
And why did I have the bright idea to introduce 4 new ranges before the "C" word?

Some, but not all of the new bigger bars.

Fraoch, gaelic for heather. This is a heather ale soap with lavender & cederwood essential oils.

Mock ups of my new ranges, still a bit of work to do on these.
Panic.....panic :(

Really fast soap!

Time laspe HP soap making, isn't it fun!
Clever Soap 4 Breakfast  filmed this.

Totally Balmy!

Further development of my range of balms was what kept me amused and out of the rain today.

So, we have...

Horsetail Balm - olive based with tea tree oil.

Breath Easy Balm - a natural take of Vicks Vapour Rub, with menthol, peppermint, eucalyptus and lavender.

Dry Skin Balm - avocado oil base with red clover, chickweed, calendula & chamomile.

Calm Balm - a lavender balm to de-stress and aid sleep.

Arnica & Calendula - for bumps and bruises.

Oliveen - an olive based take on Vaseline.

Comfrey & Echinacea - a warming balm for aches and pains with black pepper & rosemary.

Stuff...

A new pic of Lomon, the male orangutan I sponsor via BOS. He looks so healthy now compared to when he arrived at the sanctuary, he was bald, very underweight, withdrawn and extremely ill, it was touch and go whether he would live or not.
Through the amazing work of Lone Droscher Nielson and the dedicated babysitters, Lomon is back to good health and happy in his new enclosure. Eventually he will be released into a safe area of rainforest where he can live without threat of his habitat being destroyed to plant palm trees.



New labels for my balms. Not the finished article but a good starting point. I wanted to get some colour into the labels and something that implies the natural ingredients that go into my balms.

Another prototype. Bath Salts or Bath Milk in a milk carton. An idea I saw whilst googling packaging, there was a template to make your own cartons. The problem with boxes made out of card is that any essential oils will eventually evaporate or get sucked into the card. Of course you could put the salts into a bag inside the box but that's another layer of packaging.

Tetra Paks can be recycled (in my part of the country they go in with paper waste) so I like that element of them, also they are a bit quirky!

Wild Nettle & Comfrey

For this soap I infused a handfull of each dried herb in olive oil that I used in the soap. I heated it very gently in a double boiler for 2 hours. The result was a dark green herby oil. No further colour was added, just a tsp of ground up nettle leaf. Nice colour isn't it?
For the fragrance I used lime & eucalyptus essential oils 3:1, it's a lovely fresh scent, mainly lime at the moment but as that will probably fade I hope the eucalyptus will come through.