Hey guys!

Welcome back to Fairmount Soapery!  Today I am going to share some of the behind the scenes process of our newest soap in our music inspired series.  Our Sky Full of Stars soap is inspired by the 2014 hit by Coldplay.  In my mind I pictured a gorgeous deep blue and black swirl accented by small yellow and white dots inside the soap.  This was my first time trying out the method of using squeeze bottles for the accent colors, and it didn't turn out quite as planned; however, I do love the soap.  I want to quickly mention that this soap is currently available in our Etsy shop, and we have four bars in stock.

I scoured the fragrance section at Wholesale Supplies Plus to find the perfect scent for this soap.  I wanted something that was a little deeper, and I thought that the Arabian Nights scent fit the bill!  The notes of this fragrance according to the website is are musk and amber combined with mandarin and cedarwood.  Supposedly this fragrance is a dupe for the Arabian Nights fragrance by Beauté Laundrée Paris.  This is the kind of vanilla fragrance I love.  It's not too sweet but it's also not too musky. 
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This fragrance oil does have a 2.9% vanilla content which caused the white to discolor to a bit of an off white.  If I use a white with this fragrance oil in the future I will definitely have to keep this in mind.  I will most likely just ignore adding the fragrance oil into the white parts of the batch.  Luckily the color hasn't discolored too much as you can see.  The photo above I took about five weeks after I cut the loaf.

This fragrance oil played really well as you will see in the video below.  There was no acceleration and I had plenty of time to work.  The colorants I used for the dark blue were deep blue from TKB trading and blue vibrance mica from Nurture Soap.   The black swirl is simply activated charcoal from Bramble Berry.  The white is titanium dioxide which I am currently using from Crafters Choice, and finally the yellow is yellow oxide from TKB Trading.  Since the base color of the soap is so dark the lather is definitely dark grey so make sure to rinse off your hands, and your tub or sink well.

The idea I had going into this process was to add the stars inside the soap by using squeeze bottles with the yellow and the white.  As you will see in the video it turned into a real struggle for me because the yellow and white batter wasn't very thick so it didn't hod much of a shape.  You will also see that I had to do quite a bit of manipulation to get the base color into the mold so I think that ended up mashing up the colors.  If I try this process again in the future I am going to have to use a different mold, or less yellow and white so the layers that those colors end up in don't turn in to a line of color.

The top of this soap is by far my favorite part of the soap!  I had extra yellow and white batter left at the end of the pour, so I decided to dot those on top of the loaf.  Finally I mixed up some titanium dioxide and water after I cut the bars and took a paint brush to dot some extra white dots and spray some finer dots along the top and sides of the bars.

With all of that said, the video for our Sky Full of Stars soap is below, and on our YouTube channel.  This soap is available now!



*If you have never made cold process soap or handled lye please refer to the link below for more information.
Free Beginner’s Guide to Soapmaking: Cold Process

If you are interested in a bar for yourself you can find them here.  Overall I love the way this turned out, and it smells so lovely and refreshing in the shower.  The bars turned out so unique and interesting, so I will definitely keep this process in mind for another soap!   Let me know what you think!

All the love,
Pam
Fairmount Soapery

Find us here: 
Etsy Shop - Fairmount Soapery

Hello again loves!  I'm here to share the process behind one of our newest soaps, Pink Clay and Charcoal.  This soap along with both sizes of the 'Woman' Soap are available in our Etsy Shop now. 

As you will see in the video below, my original intent for this soap was to have the activated charcoal layer angled; however, I changed my mind after I poured the black and took the soaps out from under the mold.  Before I poured the first layer of the white, I cleaned up the edges and evened out the top of the black layer.  I also intended for the pink and white layers to be even stripes; however, I got a little over eager and didn't let the layers set up nearly enough before moving on to the next one.

Likely what I'm going to try if I want the angled black with the angled striped effect.  I will follow a tutorial by Sopish for the diagonal sliced striped soap.   That method will take much longer than this soap did; however, I think I would end up with the effect I am actually going for.  For her method I would have to make a full loaf of the pink and white layered soap, then split it and add the black charcoal layer on the top.  In order to achieve this I'm going to need to invest in one more mold, so this method might be a while down the road for us.  Otherwise I will just have to be more patient while layering this soap next time.

Overall I kept this soap as simple as I could, because I wanted to offer an unscented soap in our shop that could be used as a facial bar.   This soap is unscented; however, we do use unrefined shea butter in our base oils so these bars will have a scent of raw shea butter.  I also want to mention that I have started using milk powders in our soaps.  The buttermilk and coconut milk powders add such a lovely soft yet rich lather.

The colorants I used in this soap are activated charcoal from Bramble Berry for the black layer.  Activated Charcoal in soap is said to be a lovely detoxifying ingredient, and I personally love using activated charcoal soaps at the end of the day.   Our soap also contains kaolin clay and pink clay (magnesium aluminum silicate, kaolin clay, montmorillonite clay, and mica).  The clays are also said to be a detoxifying agent in soaps.  Our pink clay was sourced from Nurture Soap and the Kaolin Clay is from TKB Trading.

The white colorant I used is an oil dispersible titanium dioxide which I supply from TKB Trading; however, I will be switching to a water dispersible titanium dioxide from Crafter's Choice once I run out of what I have at the moment.    In order to make the batter turn white you actually have to use the stick blender in the white batter, you cannot just stir it in with the spatula.  If you just hand stir it in it won't turn quite as white.

To complete these bars, I kept the tops of the bars simple with a quick swirl with a pipette and no additives.

With all of that said, the full video for the making of unscented Pink Clay and Charcoal soap is below and over on our YouTube page!  The soap is now available in our shop.



*If you have never made cold process soap or handled lye please refer to the link below for more information.
Free Beginner’s Guide to Soapmaking: Cold Process

If you are interested in a bar for yourself you can find them here.  Overall I love the way this turned out, and it smells so lovely and refreshing in the shower.  The bars turned out so unique and interesting, so I will definitely keep this process in mind for another soap!   Let me know what you think!

All the love,
Pam
Fairmount Soapery

Find us here: 
Etsy Shop - Fairmount Soapery

Hello again loves!  Today I am sharing the process for a soap that will be available in our Etsy shop the first weekend of April.  This soap is called 'Woman' and is part of a new series of soaps inspired by music which is a huge part of my life.  'Woman' was inspired by the debut album of Harry Styles, and I have to say that I really love the way it turned out.  This was the first time I used our new mold, and I wasn't thinking so I ended up with more batter than intended, so I will be offering several mini sized bars in our shop.

Hello again loves!  Welcome back fo Fairmount Soapery!  Today I'm going to share the process for making the Dazed and Confused soap that is available in our Etsy Shop. 

Welcome to Fairmount Soapery, and my first soap that has gone into our shop.  The inspiration for our Mountain Sunset soap was a particularly pretty and fiery sunset over the mountains as I drove home from work.  In the winter the mountains of east Tennessee tends to lend us some gorgeous sunrises and sunsets, and the way the sun plays with the clouds makes for a wonderful array of pinks, reds, and oranges over the beautiful green mountain.