Today's New Soaps: Goatmilk Jasmine & Aloe Poppy

A few days back I already made a batch of goatmilk jasmine. The poor thing got overheated quite badly, gaping zombie teeth in some of the bars (pretty scary looking!). Stupid me forgot that I was using more water than usual, a floral FO, and TD = overheating tea party.

Oh, and did I mention glycerin rivers too?

I was so disappointed and decided that I gotta make another batch ASAP! This time I'm being extra careful, placing the mold in the freezer first, and next to a fan after pouring. Crossing fingers everything is peaceful and cool inside.

Freshly poured: Goatmilk Jasmine

Next is a remake of aloe-poppy, with a slight change in the formulation by the addition of soymilk. I also decided to use a natural colorant this time: spirulina. I was using quite a lot (4 capsules), because from what I've read around, spirulina can fade after a while, especially if the soap is being exposed to sunlight. So far it has the most beautiful greenish hue which I really really like.

Still on the topic of spirulina, I decided to add the powder directly to the soap right after the lye mixture was in. An oil infusion doesn't make a strong green, plus I was lazy to wait 2 hours for the hot infusion to be done.

Freshly poured: Aloe Poppy with Soymilk

The design itself is pretty basic, nothing fancy at all. It's dedicated to scrubby soap lovers out there (me included!). I am so going to steal a bar from this batch, as I love milk and aloe vera in soaps. 

Taking Product Photos

One does not need a fancy SLR to take decent pictures of soaps. Well, if you have one that is a major advantage, but one must work with what one has, right?

I do have an SLR, but it's big and bulky and I just can't be bothered taking it out of the closet every time I want to take pictures of my soaps, which is like, almost every day. My faithful weapon of choice so far is my iPhone 5, it has a pretty decent camera and all you need is few pieces of white paper and a good lighting. Natural light is good, I usually take my pictures outside in the afternoon, where the sun is not so bright anymore. I also like a wooden colored background, because certain colors don't do very well in an all white setting. The wood makes a real nice contrast.

With a few simple edits here and there, mainly for contrast and brightness, the pictures came pretty decent.

Outside, natural light, afternoon

Inside, artificial light, evening

Outside, natural light, afternoon

You can also do a black background and play with some stuff like rose buds to make it more interesting

Inside, artificial light, evening

As you can see, the options are actually endless. Creativity has no limits. Look around you, things like a simple wooden spoon filled with lavender buds can make a big difference at the end when taking pictures of your lavender soap.

The examples above are only very simple pictures, requiring almost no effort to set up. Like I said before, creativity has no limits, the key to good product pictures does not lie with expensive equipment.

What to do with left over soaps?

The other day I was making some soaps and I had this left over batter that I poured into individual molds. They were pretty blah, just some plain old round and square soaps. Some of them were also the result of "FO gone nasty" that gave me instant trace I gotta squashed it into the molds.

Well, after some trimmings here and there, I decided to make some frosting... and....

At least now they are easier on the eyes, with some pretty rose embeds and some clever cutting... voila... individual soap cakes! Granted, they are not the most neat looking cake soaps, but if you see what they were look like before, LOL!

So, next time you got some left over batter, you can easily do the above and make yourself some soap cakes.

Raspberry Rose Soap Cake

I love making soap cakes and soap cupcakes, it is very fun and relaxing to do. I only make them for special orders, and when I get such order I am so very happy!

This time, a customer of mine requested a rose scented soap. Now, rose is not my favorite scent to soap with coz you know how florals are.. they give you a headache!

A lil tweak here and there, I then came up with raspberry rose, which is basically a blend of black raspberry vanilla, rose geranium, and fresh cut roses.

This soap is a combo of CP and MP. For the cake itself, I did a thin MP base that I put some oatmeal to replicate a real cake. Then a couple of layers of CP, CP frosting, and MP embeds. I am pretty happy coz the MP is safe so far, no sweating, no nothing.