Custom Wedding Soaps

I got an email from a lady a few months ago who said she would love to have some soaps made for her sisters wedding. We did everything on email with pictures and descriptions of what they were looking for from the colours to the size.

The brief she sent with the colour ideas.

"They are gorgeous! I absolutely love them. Thank you so, so much. I never thought that it would come out EXACTLY the way I envisioned it. The colours are perfect."

Thanks Raisa we had a lot of fun making these and they smell gorgeous.

Custom Soaps for Tiara Publications

We recently made custom Teddy soaps and loved them soap much we thought we would try something a little more sophisticated.

To order a custom soap for a special occasion you contact us here

Butterfly Swirl - perfected.

I think I finally got this swirl right.

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Piped Rose and Lavender Soap

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Custom Soap For Style Engine

A client of mine, Kim Clark, approached me and asked if I could make her some customer soaps. Kim is brimming with ideas and is so creative. She came up with the colours and fragrances and I did the rest.

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Mantra Marbles - a Soap club challenge entry

   This month Amy Warden from Great Cakes Soapworks set us the challenge of Mantra Marbles.
   This was a fun challenge and I learned a lot about swirling in this technique.
We used Peacock Green Mica, Titanium Di Oxide, Shine Red Mica , Peach Pink Mica  and Apple Green Mica. I used the non pareil method and it is fragranced with Neroli Essential oil.
This is Amy's entry, which I think is beautiful.



I had a few attempts at this but I love the colours in this option which was my first attempt.

I will definitely be doing this technique again, thanks Amy
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A Sunny Day - M&P embeds a tutorial

It has taken me many years to become comfortable working with Melt and Pour clear soap base. I am s stickler for a clear soap with no bubbles so when I couldn't get it right I just gave up, for a while anyway. Then I decide it can't be that hard and tried again. Now it is like second nature. You can see an earlier attempt at this technique here. I am using this technique and a few others in a team building exercise with Grindrod this week. I think they should have a lot of fun.

You will need:

Clear soap base

Green oxide

Titanium di oxide

Blue mica

Flash Gold Mica

IPA

Fragrance oil

Any small mould you want to use

Cookie cutters or a craft knife to cut our your shapes

Microwave jugs

How to:

Melt some clear soap base, enough to create your grass, clouds and sun.

Separate the soap into smaller containers and mix your colours

Green oxide with Titanium Di oxide for the grass

Titanium di oxide for the clouds

Flash Gold mica for the sun

Pour a thin layer of each colour into your moulds, or just onto a marble counter top. These will be used to cut out your embeds.

When the soap is hard enough cut out your grass

Cut out your sun

Cut out your clouds

Once all your pieces are cut out place them in your mould to see that they will fit comfortable

Remove the pieces and place them face up

Now make sure you have melted more clear soap base ready for the next step

Spray all your soap embeds with IPA

Pour a small layer of clear soap into your mould and quickly place your embeds FACE DOWN into the soap and spritz with IPA

Now take the rest of the clear melted soap add desired amount of fragrance and add your blue mica and titanium di oxide and stir well

Feel your clear layer of soap with the embeds to make sure it is hard enough to take the blue layer you are about to pour and spritz it with IPA if it is

Pour the blue layer carefully over the embeds

Spritz with IPA and walk away and have a cup of tea

Wait for about 40 minutes or until the soap is cold to the touch

To release from the mould break the airlock by squeezing the corners together gently. you can see above the airlock has been broken

If the soap does not pop out easily then leave it for a while longer

#Riverlea Soap

 

International sponsorship with Great Cakes Soapworks

I am very pleased to announce that Riverlea Soap will be the International sponsor for Great Cakes Soapworks July contest. Amy has graciously allowed me to supply gift vouchers for the winner, second and third place plus the sponsors choice. Thanks so much Amy.

I am so excited to see what lovely entries you all create.

Have fun.

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The Find - Watercrest Mall

I have a very creative client , Louise, who owns a store in the Watercrest Mall in Waterfall called The Find.

She designed all these soaps and has made the most amazing labels to go on the boxes. I was just the soap maker.

Don't they look amazing?

Well done Louise

Ebru Soap - A Soap Challenge entry

This month Amy from Great cakes Soapworks decided on the Ebru technique for our challenge. This was quite difficult actually. It requires the skill of free hand drawing, something I don't have.

This was my inspiration for the soap I made but as you can see it did not turn out quite like that. I figured if I chose something really simple that did not require too much drawing I think the thing I noticed most about the differences between the two mediums is the consistency. I think doing this technique with soap is really hard as your soap is setting while you work but with the marbling ingredients they remain fluid all the time.

I used  a slow moving fragrance and did not put any fragrance in the colours BUT what I found was the base started to set up while I was dragging/ drawing my pattern. I think that I may have had my oils too cold but I was afraid if they were too warm they would set up faster. Decisions, decisions!

Despite the difficulties encountered it was a fun technique to try and I will definitely attempt it again. I might have to do a little more research though and see what the other contestants tried.

#Riverlea Soap

 

Neroli Spoon Swirl - A video

I love making this soap. I smells gorgeous and looks amazing.
I used Neroli Essential oil and Titanium Di Oxide with Peacock green Mica 
You can see the video here.


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Mini Desserts - a soap club challenge

I have been a little separated from my blog this year. The best laid plans have gone awry leaving me behind in my posting and I have just not managed to catch up. I will have to spend a good few hours post dating.

Anyway this month we had our challenge from Amy Warden at Great Cakes Soapworks - Mini desserts. I have to admit I was a little intimidated by these tiny suckers! Once I got over that intimidation I had a lot of fun.

My first desert was Pistachio Dream cake. I used chocolate chips for the base and also added a little chocolate brown oxide to ensure I got a deep chocolaty brown. For the chocolate curl I shaved little of the base off and then piped a "Leaf" onto the top and then pushed the chocolate curl onto this.

Strawberry Mousse Cake: I made this dessert with White chocolate chips and Titanium Di oxide to ensure I got a good white base. I then coloured the base with Red Dayglo and titanium di oxide to get pastel pink. I then piped roses and added leaves with the same green I used on the leaf of the Pistachio cake.   

Mini Strawberry Cupcake: I did not use any food in this cupcake. I did use the same roses as the Mousse cake and piped the leaf onto in at the end. I started with the base, using red Dayglo, then a day later piped the icing and then added the rose and leaf on the same day.

Strawberry Meringue Pie: I used Chocolate chips in the base along with desiccated coconut. I then poured pink soap coloured with red dayglo and titanium di oxide onto the base and then piped white soap onto the top. I added coloured jojoba beads  for the sprinkles.

Thanks Amy. This was a lot of fun and not as intimidating as I had initially imagined. i will definitely be making more in the future.

#Riverlea Soap