First sniff impressions (taken from the video) Bramble Berry S.O.A.P. Panel fragrances

First impressions of the Bramble Berry mystery fragrances:

#1
manly, earthy, resinous (gritty)

#2
apple, light perfumey red apple

#3
floral, powdery

#4
fruit candy, almost an apple or pear

#5
gross, revolting, no idea what it's supposed to be

#6
wine, maybe sangria, fruity and wine

#7
water scent, ocean, cologne/perfume but unisex, fresh, clean

#8
masculine, designer cologne, almost like paco rabanne but not

I will post "testing impressions" once I've completed my soap testing for these fragrances. I will also be making a few wax melts with the remaining fragrance oils so that I can melt them and sniff them in that medium.

Can I just say I'm so stoked to be a member of the Bramble Berry S.O.A.P. panel and this feels like a super adventure to me. I have discovered that I'm really bad at picking out fragrance notes and I would be absolute rubbish as a perfumist. =)

Thank you all for coming along on this journey with me, I hope you all will consider entering the giveaway I'll be hosting at the end of this testing. I'll be giving away complete sets of these soaps in all 8 fragrances so you can see exactly what I was talking about. I could use some feedback on the scents with a "fresh nose".

Hugs!
Shannon

Bramble Berry S.O.A.P Panel soaps in scents 1-4

So... after my initial thoughts on the Bramble Berry mystery fragrances, I have soaped with fragrances 1-4. I haven't read back to see what my first thoughts were, so it will be interesting to me if they're the same now.

Here are the soaps:

I still really like all four of these fragrances. My favorites are #1 and #4. I love the apple, and the floral is quite nice for a floral (not big on florals.. as you may well know by now). They were all well behaved, very minor acceleration in two of them, not hard to work with at all. I will be uploading a video to my YouTube of the soaping process with these four soaps. Stay tuned for the next four (not looking forward to #5)!!

Bramble Berry S.O.A.P Panel unboxing and initial impressions.

My Holiday Wishlist

So as far as my soaping wishlist goes, here is what I'd love to receive for Christmas:

SoapMaker3 Pro Software
www.soapmaker.ca

Soaping Oils (from top priority down)
Sweet Almond Oil - Refined (7 lbs or 35 lbs)
Apricot Kernel Oil - Refined - Food Grade 7lbs
Coconut Oil 76 degree 50lb bucket
Jojoba Oil, golden 7 lbs
Palm Oil, Refined, Sustainable, 50lb bucket
Rice Bran Oil (7 lbs or 35 lbs)
http://www.soaperschoice.com/cgi-soaperschoice/Web_store/web_store.cgi?query_price_low_range=0&cart_id=

Soap Molds
18 Bar Slab Mold
http://www.brambleberry.com/18-Bar-Unfinished-Birchwood-Mold-P5168.aspx
With silicone liner
http://www.brambleberry.com/Silicone-Liner-for-18-Bar-Mold-P5639.aspx
5 lb wooden mold with sliding bottom
http://www.brambleberry.com/5-Pound-Mold-With-Sliding-Bottom-P5426.aspx
With silicone liner
http://www.brambleberry.com/Silicone-Liner-for-5-lb-Wood-Mold-P5270.aspx
Big Ball silicone mold
http://www.brambleberry.com/4-Sphere-Silicone-Mold-P5272.aspx
Large French Acrylic Mold **you might need to use the translator in your browser
http://www.saponine.fr/product.php?id_product=23
Tall and Narrow French Acrylic Mold **translator
http://www.saponine.fr/product.php?id_product=43

Any kind of gift certificate to the following places
Nature's Garden
http://www.naturesgardencandles.com/candlemaking-soap-supplies/item/Gift-1/-Gift-Certificate--$10.html
Bramble Berry
http://www.brambleberry.com/Gift-Certificates-C133.aspx
Rustic Escentuals
http://rusticescentuals.com/giftcert.php

I don't reasonably expect any of these items for Christmas, considering the fact that we don't get paid again until the 20th, and most of these suppliers are experiencing drastically long wait times.. plus the shipping lag.. so yeah. Mostly this is just for me to keep in mind what I really want to prioritize once I do have any money to spend on such items.

What does your holiday wish list consist of?

It's been too long!

Gracious!! It feels like forever since I posted my last blog post. I'll bet it has been forever. I'll be updating on some of my latest goings on in the week ahead. I'm getting ready to be a vendor at the one of biggest craft fairs (for me) yet! It goes on for two days and I'm just about ready for it. I'm just finishing up cleaning up, packaging and labeling all of my soaps. I'm still waiting on a few containers to come in so I can make my lotions. In the next few days I'll be doing my lip balms and sugar scrubs. I'm still undecided if I should do lots and lots of sugar scrubs, if I should do some "foaming" with soap added and some without the soap. Lots of things to consider and not much time to execute it all. My fair starts on 11/30 however that week ahead of my fair will be dedicated to cleaning the house and preparing for Thanksgiving, so almost no time to do anything soap related in that week. I'll be making about 10 or so fragrances in lotion. I have 8 oz pump bottles and 4 oz pump bottles coming in. I already have my gift boxes in, my foot spa baskets in, I just need to kick it all in gear and get it out! I'm super excited for this craft fair and I'm hoping and praying I do well. Anyway I'll be posting some pictures on here, and lots and lots more on my Facebook page. Catch me on there for more details and more frequent updates. I'll be sure to come back on here and update through the next week though.. I've set a reminder on my phone to make sure I do just that.

Anyway, until next time!

Multi-color Gradient Soap Challenge...

I'll preface this post with a "whew! Glad that's over and done with"!!! I'm glad I entered this challenge, however out of all challenges I've participated in, this one was the most challenging for me (which I guess is the point of the thing, yes?). It was stressful for me and while I'm glad I did it, and my soaps came out better than I'd hoped, I'm glad it's done for now. I'm sure I'll do this again in the future, but it might be awhile before I attempt it again.

So I started off with a practice soap, just to get the hang of the gradient process. It was much easier with only two colors, I can tell you that much. The fragrance I used (I kept forgetting the name, but it was Frosted Snowdrops) was very well behaved and so I did get a few layers that broke through, but I rather like the effect in the finished bars.

Two important lessons learned...
1) Titanium Dioxide is much easier dispersed in hot water than oil.... however it's not prudent to mix with your mini-mixer/frother in a Dixie cup with hot water.. ask my carpet how I know.
2) With a two color gradient soap, you will need more of your "light" or "top" color than your "dark" or "bottom" color.

Here's the making video of the practice gradient if you care to watch.. I've decided to name it "Arctic Ice"

Here are the cut bars of Arctic Ice:

So then I went on with my challenge soap after an hour break. Collecting myself seemed to have worked to kind of zen myself out, which was a good thing. So for this soap I used a fragrance called Apple Pumpkin Strudel. I chose this one on purpose because the name screams three colors.. brown, orange, and red. Or at least it did in my head. It's a really lovely fragrance that combines ripe apples, pumpkin spice and a bakery kind of scent. I'm loving it for this soap, in the finished bars you can really get the fresh apple and the bakery, although in the freshly cut bars I lost a bit of the pumpkin fragrance however it might come back in the cure. For my colors I used Cappuccino mica, a blend of yellow mica and smidge of red lab color for the orange, and red lab color for the red.

Here is the making video for that soap:

Here are the cut bars of Apple Pumpkin Strudel

As you can probably surmise, I did have some partial gel happening, which is why the center of the bars are lighter than the rest. I think it came out great though, and at least along the edges you can really see all the different colors of the gradient. I think they turned out AWESOME! I'm almost tempted to rename them Sierra Sunset because that's kind of what they look like.. a sunset along the Sierra Nevada mountains (although really most of our mountains are purple). I am super proud of myself for accomplishing this task and for staying sane through most of it. This was pretty challenging for me and I have to give kudos to EVERYONE who does 3 color (or  more!!) gradient soaps. **Sidebar..  I did end up naming this soap Sierra Sunset**

Thank you all for joining me on my journey through gradients today. If you're a participant in the challenge, best of luck to you. I'm super thrilled to be a part of the Great Cakes Soapworks challenge this month, I really did feel challenged and I'm excited to see everyone's soapy creations.

Til next time!
Shannon @ Smellicious

Making Apple Jack & Peel soap using the Holly Swirl method...

So this last week has been really interesting for me. My older two kids started school on Monday (my youngest starts Kindergarten on the 19th!) and while this usually brings about a sense of relief and much needed quiet in the house, my daughter's bus accommodations have somehow fallen through the cracks so I've been dealing with endless frustration at the incompetence and disorganization with our school district's transportation department instead. I was thrilled to be able to soap on Tuesday (temporarily get my mind off my petty troubles) and I made some Apple Jack & Peel soap, the first in my fall line. I decided I would make this my Holly Swirl entry for the Great Cakes Soap Works challenge this month. I really love how this came out.

So now I will post the making and cutting videos that have been uploaded on my YouTube channel below if you'd like to see me make this and cut it the same night. It's actually crazy for me to be able to cut my soap the same day I make it. I soap at room temperature and usually try my best to prevent gel so it's generally at least 24-48 hours before I can cut my soaps. I knew this fragrance would heat up so preventing gel would have been fruitless. I simply left it out to do it's thing and went to check on it 8 hours later and it's ready to unmold. 2 hours after the unmold I couldn't handle the wait so I cut it. It's AWESOME!!! Ok here are the videos... thanks for reading and watching and best of luck to all who have entered this contest!!!