White Tea & Wisteria - a match made in heaven!

Hi everyone,

I made a new soap a couple of weeks ago, and have just gotten round to putting up pictures and uploading it to my folksy shop - things have been a little hectic of late! Lots of exciting things going on at work at the moment.

Anyway, here is a new one for you - slightly out of my bakery theme, but it kind of fits. White Tea & Wisteria - it's punchy, it's floral, it's got lovely delicate undertones and basey notes that make you go "aaahhh" as you smell it. It's lovely, and it's exactly what I wanted! I wanted a soap to take into a bubble bath and help me relax even more, and this bad boy definitely does the job.

My description for my folksy shop is as follows: "White Tea & Wisteria. Bathe and relax in the heady exotic and alluring floral smell of Wisteria, coupled with the fresh and delicate fragrance of White Tea. With heaps of shea butter and lovely caring oils such as castor and coconut, this soap is the perfect accompaniment to your bubble bath. And it looks pretty to boot!" I really feel like I hit the nail on the head with this soap, it's just perfect. I love the top layer of glitter as well, that was a bit of an afterthought but I'm so glad I did it - it underlines the girliness of it all just beautifully.

Anyway, enough chat - here are some pictures!

White Tea & Wisteria handmade soap

Handmade soap - a top layer of glitter

White Tea & Wisteria - layers of pink and white

The layers came out quite well considering the white part completely seized on me - like wow, seriously, it was hard to get it in the mould. I scented the white part with White Tea and the pink part with Wisteria. The pink part was actually supposed to be purple, but it morphed in the mould as it set. The glitter is purple and irridescent white which was supposed to match the layers, but I think it looks quite nice all the same.

So there you have it guys! The final cure date is the 12th June, and it's already in my Folksy Shop if you would like to buy :)

Hope your weekend is going well!

Naomi

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Strawberry Shortcake & Lemon Cheesecake Lip balms

Hi guys!

Doesn't that title sound so edible?! Were you ever one of those kids who ate their lipbalm instead of putting it on their lips? Well, you definitely will be with these! Check out my first official youtube video, where I demonstrate how to use a lipbalm base from www.bathbomb.biz.

All my ingredients:

Vegan Lip Balm Base

Lip balm tubes

Flavour oils and lip safe micas

The lip balm is light and smooth, and like my un-eloquent ramblings in the video, isn't greasy or heavy. Here are some pictures of my finished balms, without their labels etc.

Vegan lip balm - home made from a base

Strawberry Shortcake and Lemon Cheesecake Lip Balms

Homemade lip balm

So there you go! Let me know if you decide to make any, I'd love to see!

Naomi

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More bespoke wedding favours!

Hey everyone,

Thought I would do another blog about my most recent project. I was approached before Christmas and asked to design 80 wedding favours for a wedding at the end of April. The colours were green and the couple were very keen on a his/hers theme. I met with the bride and she told me what scents she liked and what colours she was interested in, I went away and took some notes and worked out what I would need to undertake the project.

In February I ordered all the ingredients in and started planning the recipes. 

Here are the final versions:

Ladies' Choice - handmade soap wedding favours

Both together

Men's Choice - handmade soap wedding favours

So the ladies' soaps are a lovely light pastel green, scented with black raspberry & vanilla with extra added vanilla to create more of a deep vanilla punch. The top is textured and coated in glitter. I added shea butter to create a softening, creamy bar.

The gent's soap is my popular Mountain soap just in half-bar sizes. The scent is fresh, masculine and lingering. It has added ground apricot stones to make it scrubby, designed to help you wake up when you get in the shower early. The recipe also has cocoa butter, which makes a harder and bubbly bar for you to soap with. (Perfect for the shower!)

I was very pleased with how these favours came out - all my batches were spot on, the colours came out exactly as I wanted, and the labels look fantastic with the bride and groom's names. I boxed them up last night, and they're being collected today for the wedding on Thursday. I really hope they look lovely on the tables, and that they match perfectly with the green colour scheme.

I think personalised wedding favours are so lovely. They make that special day so much more special because it's something you've picked and someone has helped you create, making your day exactly how you want it.

What did you have as your wedding favours? Let me know what you think of these!

Naomi

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Continuing the Bakery theme with Lemon Meringue

Hey guys!

Just thought I would share a few pictures of my latest creation - Lemon Meringue. Continuing along my Bakery theme, I bought this fragrance on a whim to see what it smelt like and it was so amazing I had to use it straight away.

See the pictures below for how it came out!

Cold process soap - In the mould

Handmade Lemon Meringue soap - just cut!

Each bar is garnished with a slice of green lemon

I love, love, love how this came out. It's got a brown biscuity base with heaps of buttery lemon on top, formed into stiff peaks which will go white as it cures. The fragrance behaved impeccably, and it smells unbelievably lemony, sweet, sugary and delicious. You just know this is a fragrance that will be long lasting on your hands, and it'll look cute on the sink to boot!

You can order this in my Folksy shop or go on my facebook page to see what else I'm up to ;) As the final cure date for this soap is the 13th May, everyone who orders a bar will get a note for how to care for your soap whilst it's curing. It's totally useable, it'll just last longer if you let it cure ;)

Happy Wednesday!

Naomi

A new promo for a new month!

Hi everyone!

Just thought I would do a quick blog about my new promotion for April. I have 9 bars of a new soap I made, Green Tea, up for grabs. So whenever anyone buys a cupcake soap from my Folksy shop in the month of April, you will also receive a free bar of Green Tea! How awesome is that!

Green Tea handmade soap with soap cupcake

It's a lovely zinger of a scent, perfect to freshen up your hands or to take into the shower. It's lemony, fresh and tangy, but with lovely base notes that make it perfect to bathe with for a lingering smell. Like all my soaps it's packed with shea butter, and will leave your hands and body silky smooth.

Obviously as there are only 9 bars, this promotion is stock dependent.

See my video on my facebook page

Be sure to check out my Folksy shop to make your purchase!

Have a great weekend,

Naomi

Vanilla Spiced Latte soap

Hi everyone!

Sorry for the lack of updates recently. I've decided to focus a little more on bars of soap instead of cupcakes, and have created a bakery/cafe themed range. This is the first addition to my new range - a Vanilla Spiced Latte! Check out the pictures below.

Vanilla Spiced Latte handmade soap just poured in the mould

This is the soap just poured in the mould. I marked out on my mould where each bar would probably get cut, and positioned cinnamon sticks so when cut, each bar should have a lovely wafer. I was crossing my fingers a bit with this one, and was quite pleased with how it came out ...

A perfect soapy latte! Vanilla Spiced Latte

Handmade cold process soap - Vanilla Spiced Latte

I'm so pleased with how this one turned out, it looks exactly how I wanted it to. A lovely dark base with a fluffy white top - the perfect latte! When it was first cut, the lower brown part was not as dark, but due to the vanilla fragrance, it turned darker as soon as I started cutting it. For those of you who don't know - vanilla tends to darken soap, but as I wanted a nice brown colour, it worked quite well!

I stuck to my tried and true recipe of coconut oil, palm oil, olive oil and castor oil, but it's got a good hunk of unrefined cocoa butter in it as well, making it super good for your skin. I love using unrefined cocoa butter in soap; the entire time you're melting it, your kitchen smells like chocolate! Win!

The smell consists of a lovely buttery vanilla, with hints of ginger spice and a lovely mocha base. It smells divine, I can't wait till it cures! I will be putting this in my Folksy Shop even though it still has three weeks left to cure. Any orders placed before the 30th March (final cure date) will be shipped out after it's cured. This little beauty is sure to be worth the wait!

Happy Saturday!

Naomi

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Great Friends and Great Magazines

Hi everyone!

I've had a great week so far, and I've not written a blog in a few days and whilst I have a few ideas brewing - this theme couldn't wait! This week I have been featured in a blog and a magazine!

First things first! On Sunday all three flavours of my soap cupcakes were featured in a fabulous blog  by a very good childhood friend of mine! Liz always had a good eye for things, and her eye for all things awesome has grown only more so as she's grown up, so I feel very lucky and very blessed to be featured in her blog! You should definitely check it out, she took some lovely pictures - (and we all know I'm a sucker for a bit of soap eye candy!) Thank you Liz!

Secondly, I was contacted a few weeks ago by iPad magazine Gathered by Mollie Makes for pictures of my lavender cupcakes. To be contacted by a handmade magazine is unbelievable, and I literally squeeled for joy when I read their email. I sent them some high res images, and voila! Issue 18 of Gathered by Mollie Makes was sent out on Monday and here we are!

Gathered by Mollie Makes feature

How amazing is that! I'm so pleased the picture came out alright and that it works in the magazine. It was a feature on soap, and to be featured alongside such other beautiful things is amazing! Here's the front cover of the magazine if any of you spot it on your iPads:

Gathered by Mollie Makes Issue 18

Issue 18 is out now and on sale for a bargain of £1.48!! Grab yours now to get some awesome patterns and endless ideas for hours of afternoon craftyness! I can't wait to make this part of my feature for the craft fair in Chester on Saturday!

Have you ever read an issue of Mollie Makes? I think I might have to subscribe!

Happy soaping!

Naomi

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