WSP FO Review #9 of 15 - Sugar and Spice

UGH, where to begin on this scent....Sugar & Spice, you played oohhh so NOT nice! Scent description is ..."Spun sugar evokes something sweet while hints of coriander and cardamom offer spice"...I get none of this. To me it smells like a sweet floral...and it is not fun to soap at all!

Yikes! What a mess. This seized so bad on me, and no previous reviews stated this, so I was unprepared. 

 

The end result is not pretty. It also has zappy lye spots.

...and is just ugly! 

 

I thought of rebatching this since I haven't done that before and thought it could be a good learning experience, but since I don't care much for the scent I don't find myself very motivated...so I think my garbage can is going to smell pretty this week.

 

Not too bad though to be 9 fragrances in and this is the first I don't care for...safe to say...I will not soap this one again.

 

 

 



WSP FO Review #8 of 15 - Urban Cowboy

Urban Cowboy....Grapefruit and bergamot lend to this masculine fragrance with notes of amber, patchouli, oakmoss and sandalwood.

Previous reviews say it seizes, so I planned no color to be able to stay on top of the soap....well the good news is...it doesn't seize...the bad news??...

...It RICES! UGH! What to do...what to do...

...think fast, can I salvage this, what...do...I...do...

I figured I had nothing to lose at this point so I stickblended the heck out of it...and it actually smoothed out, whew!!
 

This baby heated up in no time....

 

So just what did we end up with...

 

A beautiful creamy white bar of soap. This is a great scent for a man...reminiscent of a cologne, but a great masculine scent.

 

What is your favorite scent for a man?

 

Sympathy Card

I took a (small) break from soaping to make a sympathy card for a friend who just lost her Mama. :(

You would think with all of my card classes I would have some already made, but I obviously steer away from the sad ones and stick to the fun ones.

So off I went on a Google search for the stamp set I wanted to use (Elements of Style) and one of my favorite card making blog sites Krafting Kreations used this set a couple years ago on this card and I used that as my inspiration...this is what I came up with.

Hard to tell in this photo...I embossed and lifted up the bird and the wording...and there are 3 little rhinestones in the lower right hand corner.

WSP FO Review #7 of 15 - Sugar Leaf

Sugar Leaf fragrance is described as...Vanilla Sugar, Sparkling Citron, Apple Peel, Sheer Floral, Sensual Woods, Creamy Musk.

The vanilla content for Sugar Leaf is 9%. I decided to try the same as I did for the Sugared Shortbread scent and use vanilla stabilizer for 1/3, full scent for 1/3 and nothing in 1/3. I think I learned what a blind swirl is? It all looked white to me as I pour so I just layered and layered hoping I end up with something great.

 

This scent does not darken very bad at all, and the vanilla stabilizer keeps it pretty light as well. So if I were to soap in the future I would use the stabilizer in the entire batch and use pretty colors since it appears to behave nicely.

My only negative is I think the scent is pretty light and the only scent I really pick up on is vanilla. It is a very nice vanilla, and that is how I will list it as I don't pick up any of the other notes.

 

WSP FO Review #6 of 15 - Sweet on Paris

Today is a BBW dupe of 'Sweet on Paris". Because I live under a rock I hadnt heard of this scent before. WSP describes this scent as "The delights of an authentic Paris bakery with sweet notes of blackberry, lemon and buttery vanilla"

I couldn't decide what colors to use on this scent, so while digging through my box of colored goodness I came across 2 micas I haven't soaped before. "Neon Pink" and "Blackstar Green", both from TKB Trading.

The vanilla content of this scent is 14% so using vanilla stabilizer was a given here. You can see the uncolored soap yellowed a bit, so I was hoping it would whiten up like it did on the "Strawberry Picnic" scent.

It didn't whiten as much as the other scent did, but it did mellow out some, and the coloring compliments together.

I wish I could take good photos, the neon pink doesn't show as wonderful as it looks in person.

I like this scent, it smells great and it soaps beautifully. If I were to soap again, what colors should I use?

WSP FO Review #5 of 15 - Sun Ripened Strawberry

Sorry for the big gap in between posts...but photo taking has not been cooperative...and what's a blog post with no photos?? Right, no fun! So now on to the review...Who doesn't love the scent of summer-ripened strawberries blended delectably with a hint of green leaf? This fragrance is mouth watering out of the bottle.

I used WSP Stained Glass Strawberry Red Liquid Color and added poppy seeds for esthetics and exfoliation.

Another easy to soap, wonderfully smelling fragrance.

Now for the end result....

The smell stayed and is wonderful and sweet, the color though....

I am not happy with how the edges stayed pink, but the inside turned so pale.

I will definitely soap this fragrance again, but I believe I will choose a different colorant. What do you think?



WSP FO Review #4 of 15 - Fireside

Fireside scent description is...a warming blend of cedarwood, sandalwood and leather with rich amber and cashmere musk. When you open the bottle and take a sniff....it smells like a campfire. To be honest had I ordered this I would have said eww...and put on the shelf to never touch. But since I committed to review... I soaped it...I am in love! this smells just like the description and I think it is a wonderful manly scent.

 

For colorants I used WSP Sparkle Bronze Mica and TKB Antique Copper...boy was I a messy soaper today!!!
 

The scent behaved nice and gave me a lot of time to layer and swirl.
 

And the end result is a great looking bar that smells wonderful. I am so glad I soaped this! Will definitely soap again!!

Skunked Dog......Again

:(
*sigh*
Lil pup got hisself skunked, Stinky!!! I blogged this before, but since I had to scramble for the recipe...again...I thought a repost would be good. (so happy to have had everything on hand)

16oz bottle of peroxide
1/8 cup baking soda
1tsp Dawn liquid dish soap

Mix together and bathe. I have a lil Chihuahua, so this one batch gave me 3 scrubbings on him...yes all in the same bath... to be sure the smell was gone. If your dog is bigger you may want a double batch.

Tart burners are going with pumpkin scented tarts to help get the skunk smell out of The Hubs and my noses.

WSP FO Review #3 of 15 - Sugared Shortbread

Sugared Shortbread is a nice scent. Its fragrant of light brown sugar with vanilla extract, rich butter and sugar cookie. YUM!

I divided the batch 3 ways....using no additional colors I am going to use the fragrance oils for my colorants....
 

One has the fragrance oil, one the fragrance oil with vanilla stabilizer since the vanilla content of this fragrance is 17% (whoa!), and the last one has no fragrance. I just spoon layered and plopped in the mold.
 

And the end result is a wonderful trio of colors...the dark brown of the fragrance oil, a warm brown containing the vanilla stabilizer, and the off white of the natural soap.

This was a great fragrance to soap, no acceleration and smells great!

First Day off in Years

Its official... we sold our brick and mortar store. We will still have our business and will continue with online sales and occasional shows, but things have changed for us this year and we had the opportunity to sell the physical store and things just couldn't have worked out better for our needs right now.

So today was our first weekend day off together in literally... seriously... years!! Now what to do?? We did lots and had fun adventures!! First we visited our oldest at a show she was doing selling her Enchanted Wax Works candles and face painting.

 

 
Then I came home and made soap...I am a creature of habit...or is it more like addicted to soapmaking?! lol

I will blog next week about these fun new scents.

Then we went for a walk, as todays weather just could not have been more perfect.

 

Found this interesting guy on the trail, he is only the size of a quarter...and this is where The Hubs asks me if I have to take a picture of everything...why yes...yes I do. :)
 

 
Duck!....

Great viewpoint of the river...the leaves are starting to change. 

The Hubs and I. :) 

Then we came home and decided to enjoy our pizza while watching the sunset....

...Until an uninvited guest showed up...again The Hubs shakes his head at me taking yet another picture...and informed me if I got sprayed I was sleeping on the porch haha....
 

Thank goodness we had left the dogs inside...because otherwise our adventure would have concluded with dog washes.

So that was our adventurous day on our first day off together...in what felt like forever. Fabulous Day!!!!!!!!!!!

What did you do this weekend?

WSP FO Review #2 of 15 - Tangerine

Next up for our review is Tangerine....

The vanilla content is zero for this fragrance so we dont have to worry about any browning, and what better color to use but Brambleberry's "Tangerine Wow" colorant?!

 

 

There was no acceleration, in fact I was not prepared for the amount of time this fragrance afforded me. It is a very slow tracer, so I just did a simple in the pot swirl....

 



 

 

It came out nice, but I poured at a thin trace so the swirl isn't very defined, but it is still very pretty. The scent was light when I made the soap, but it seemed to become stronger a few days into the cure. It is a nice citrus fragrance.