Pink Sugar - a video experiment...

Okay...so first off this is like what, video number 4 maybe?  You know, for all that I spent all 4 years in high school VERY active in Theatre Arts, I am a freaking THESPIAN!  (No, for real, and no smart remarks ya'll, I have already heard them)...anyways, yes, a thespian I tell you and I canNOT do awesome superb videos????  What is wrong with me right???

I dunno...but I am actually fairly pleased with this one....oh yes, not the greatest, but I like it :) 

I got 2 samples of "Pink Sugar" with my latest order from Rustic Escentuals.   If I did it right, that link should show off the fact that they carry MULTIPLE options for Pink Sugar FO and ALL of them sound pretty good right? All sound pretty close, all are bath and body safe, same price...AHHHH!  So I picked 2 - SNC and their "best seller".

So far....my vote is the "SNC" copy....the best seller may sell best, but to MY nose at least it does not SMELL best!

I do think they are just absolutely GORGEOUS though! 

OH!  and what I was trying to say in the video towards the end:  When a fragrance discolors to a dark brown, it's not that people are not clever or creative with it..BUT...we are ALL stuck with that color (the brown discoloration) as part of the soap SOMEHOW right???  Which is why I haven't ever soaped this fragrance until now - I already have several brown vanilla sweet smelling soaps and I didn't know that I wanted another...but I think I see myself heading off into more cupcake type stuff with this one.  It is very delicious to sniff :)

And...what else was I gonna tell ya'll??? OOOHHHH!!!!!

So...at about the 16 minute mark....watch for the blackout!  No really, power went out for a second only...but see!  I am NOT making it up, living out here is CRAZY most days!

And there you have it:  I am going to work on getting better with the video thing...but I like making videos :)  At least I am talking to share with other people and not just talking to myself LOL :)

Cutting "Key Lime Pie Soap" (aka da Lime in da Coconut)

I've been making videos! YAY froo froo fancy pants phone!  No, no video camera here - just an android phone - but still!  Okay, so don't laugh - there's some MAJOR double chinage going on...but here it is! My "Key Lime Pie soap" all cut and purdy-fied!

The scent is really called "da Lime in da Coconut" from Rustic Escentuals, and it's harder to see in the video that this is indeed the same sparkly mica dusted tops, but it is :) Smells OH SO GOOD!

I have been dragging my feet getting things uploaded BECAUSE I have been moving and grooving doing some "spring cleaning" in this house!  Actually....it was just well over due time to clean the fuzzy dusty house, not because of spring...but you get my drift I think :)

And so, may I present, Key Lime Pie (soap) :)

And WHERE is my promised acceleration???

I know - sounds CRAZY right? A soaper looking for acceleration....hmmm...perhaps I have lost my mind? Aren't most soapers trying to find ways to fight it so they can create beautiful swirls and designs? Nope, I promise I am of sound mind - barely - but sound, and I was ready for this particular fragrance to create and issue or two and ti didn't, which then affected my plans a bit. Have you ever planned a batch around it's warnings and then not gotten any of that stuff? For example - it says "slight accel." - and then nothing? Hmmm....maybe I have lost my mind...see, what had happened was:

I went in yesterday thinking I wanted to soap "da Lime in da Coconut" from Rustic Escentuals.  The plan in my head was:  dark brown and white swirl base with green drop swirls down the middle and a pearly white mice swirl top.   Sounds REALLY pretty doesn't it? However...I paused to check the specs on this one and to quote the manufacturer:  "CP Notes: slight accel., no discoloration, scent holding well, no scent morph"  See it?  Yeah - slight accel - uh oh....I'm not a "loosey goosey" kinda soaper...generally slight accel = soap on a stick if I am not VERY careful....

No really, I KNOW part of my "thick soap batter no matter what I do" problem is my milk.  Milk, when subbed for water 100% in your lye mix, is not actually all liquid itself!  No really, milk is made of part solids and part water!  Now, when your milk is raw straight from the goat, you have ALL the fats, and all the proteins and such that came in that milk too!  Oh yes, store bought milk, even goat milk, has been stripped down of quite a bit before it hits the shelves!  I tried once using store bought goat milk and FINALLY got a "thin trace" and ya know, I hated it! I'm use to my soap tracing in like 2 whirs of my blender - well, it's emulsified at least :)  The store stuff was horrid, took forever to trace and smelled funny since they add lipase to it :(  Just YUCK!  Never did that again ever! (My girls were all dry at the time...and I was desperate to soap but I got over it pretty quick and waited for them to come back into milk after that.)

I know, I hear you, you're saying "What about your oils???"  No, really, even 100% olive oil soap goes thick on my in like 5 minutes of barely trying!  And no, it doesn't seem to matter if I add MORE milk to my lye solution - I still get THICK batter and SQUISHY soft soap that takes MONTHS instead of weeks to get remotely hard!  It's got to be the milk - Nubian milk is pretty rich and my saanens are far behind them...I'm okay with that - the more butter fat in my milk the happier I am.  I actually have learned to like it and don't really like working with thin batter, thin trace, thin anything - heck, I'm a chubby girl, thin is NOT in my vocabulary anyways lol!

So...back to the point.  Slight accel = don't risk crazy swirls!  At least in my world, that's what it is "code" for.  So, I sat down and re-planned this batch in my head.  After sniffing the bottle a few more times, I decided I smelled more LIME than COCONUT anyways and it came to me:  MAY A KEY LIME PIE!!!! Well - I don't have any nifty pie thingies...but I can make a loaf that LOOKS like a pie!  Okay - so now I was set!

I went on in, got ALL set up - oils weighed and measured and melted CHECK, mold lined CHECK, colors ready CHECK, milk and lye prepped CHECK.  And away I went...First I mixed it all up to that nice emulsified point, and poured off a tad for the "crust" and colored it a medium brown - NO fragrance!

Very "crusty looking" - should have added some spices or ground walnuts or SOMETHING to make it more "graham crackery" but alas, I didn't think of that until later :(  Still...nice smooth crust....on to the "pie"!  I split the rest and adjusted my fragrance into the correct portions for each.  The plan was to add fragrance AFTER color was in there and then pour before it could set up - like I said, this ain't my first rodeo with the phrase "slight accel." right....

So, in goes my minty lime green - a tad more mint than lime - but that's okay:

See how it's already thick enough to stick to the sides there?  No fragrance yet either - thick is just "my thing, my style, how I roll".  So, holding my breath, I grab my wisk - NOT the blender - and dump my fragrance, stir like a mad woman and into the mold!

Wait a minute, just wait one stinking minute here!  See how SMOOTH that is???  A few lumps, yes, but not my usual consistancy with something marked "slight accel."!!!  At this point, I am thinking to myself "WOW! Maybe I FINALLY worked fast enough this time!"  You know, one of those "If I had given it a minute it would be more gloppy, I'm just lucky moments"....oh no!  No, no no no no NO!  I was more than lucky, I had a reverse curse!

Curse you say?  What's WRONG with this lady???  Well, see, I was banking on that slight accel bit for the top - I wanted to be able to frost/pipe the top and then go make dinner.  I wasn't in a hurry, but I figured I wouldn't have to wait long as it would set up and I would move all speedy like and then be done right?  Nope...I mixed my white into the top and it's little bit of fragrance and sure, yeah, it was thickER, but not THICK.  Not like I was thinking it would get...so, I put it into my piping set up and thinking "It's coming any minute now I better hurry!" I began to pipe and got this:

Why yes, BLOBS of soft soap batter!  WHERE IS MY SLIGHT ACCELERATION?????  Now I am kinda mad...I REALLY wanted that swirly white brown marbeled soap with green in it and a mica swirl top as I am digging the mica swirls at the moment!  I was thinking I should have gone with said design, I was ready to walk away for a bit anyways, and so I did, I went and started dinner.  Seriously, like 15 minutes later it was STILL soft!  WHAT????  Only me....

I FINALLY got this - still a bit soft - but REALLY pretty when it's all dusted with pearly mica no?  Yes, very pretty indeed I think!  I unmolded it this morning, but haven't cut it yet - I had to go out and feed and milk first and felt like blogging a bit before I got all soapy cutting stuff.  REALLY shiny pretty soap!  Not quite as fun as swirls would have been, but unique unto itself and yes, it smells VERY key lime and not so much coconut still, so I am happy with my decision there :)

It really is crazy how soap can do sometimes isn't it???  I suppose the last few weeks have gone "not as planned" for a reason though - probably the universe setting me up to get a bunch of buck kids instead of does next month - but still....I'm kinda excited to go cut stuff up now. I REALLY am in love with that top now that I look at it again.  Bet I couldn't get so lucky twice that's for sure!

My new colors came!

And I totally forgot about them!  Well...not really...but as I was having a cry baby poor me moment (due to crazy happenings 'round the homestead) they got overlooked!

Until recently, I have been pleased to work with just a few basic colors for my soaps.  You know, the old stand by type stuff.  Ultramarine blue and purple, titanium dioxide (lovingly called "TD" by many a soaper), black oxide....nothing fancy really.  I've been content to work with just a few basic colors - until I started really paying attention to what other soapers were up to that is...

When Madame Great Cakes (Amy at Greatcakes Soap Works...she's another great one too) anyways, when she posted the next soap challenge I decided after looking around I really needed to start investing in some more exciting colors!  I admit this also:  I have a hang up/fetish for purples, blues and greens!  Yellow, orange, red....ehh....not so much my favorite things! It's part of why I have been content to work in more basic colors - all the fancy, pretty, bright stuff has never really held my attention that long, I had plenty of purple and blue stuff to keep me content. I also have a few greens and some white that do fall under the "mica" category...but no fancy reds or yellows.  Hmmm.... I finally had to admit it was time for me to round things out a bit, play with some more interesting micas and what not...

Upon hearing the call for another soap challenge, I FINALLY ordered some more colors!  Not much, just a pink, and 3 micas that have caught my eye several times at Brambleberry.  I had always passed on them until the other day, and I finally committed and placed the order.  When they arrived I stared at their beauty in their jars for easily 30 minutes - afraid to open them for fear my butterfingers would spill them or a sneeze would send the contents floating into the air! I was then tempted to open then and poke at them a bit...like a kid, I wanted to rub them all over the house like little bright spots of color on the walls! How silly right?  But I was all "ooh and aahhh" about it - color has not really been my thing right?

There are my new little soapy soldiers, all lined up in a row while I stare at them - you can't see it, but the goats are staring back (probably wondering if they are edible...).

After making a few batches of soap now, well, I AM HOOKED!!!! I think I need more of these "micas" lol!  Not only is it really nice to be broadening my own little horizons - but it's fun to have the rainbow in my soap room! I didn't realize what I had been missing! I need more MORE MORE I tell you! Especially pinks and reds - I have been missing out on pinks and reds.  Notice, I am still not really excited about yellow/orange...nope, they are the neglected color choice around here :(

Then once again BAM!  It me like a freight train!  As I was reading the link up/blog for Amathia Soapworks version of the tiger stripes challenge (and bear in mind she was "The One" who inspired it - another VERY clever and amazing soaper indeed!)  I thought to myself "Ok!  I NEED these colors!"  Not just one soaper, but several have mentioned the same colors from the same company - The Conservatorie - in several blogs and videos.  Yup, ruby red, tangerine, magic yellow, apple green, blue kamikaze, and cosmo martini are all on the shopping list.  I have also challenged myself to find one more each of:  red/pink, yellow/orange.  Yes, I consider red/pink one category and yellow/orange another...I know, it's kinda sorta like cheating a bit.  But the budget (and my soap room) can only hold so much at one time haha!

 I am giving myself the weekend to decide on things, and placing my order Monday.  I think I need to go buy some new organizing stuff - perhaps that shelving I had mentioned a month or 2 ago???  That's the only issue I have so far with a new obsession - housing it!  This place is tiny and the soap room is the smallest room of all....

So, now that I have developed a new "habit" to feed - the only problem I see - is where am I going to keep all of this stuff?