10-10-2014 THREE NEW SOAPS ADDED TO THE STOREFRONT!

www.spoonbridgesoaps.com 

Here it is October 10th and I feel as if I'm so behind the eight ball already.  I have one fall soap made, two floating around in my head and zero Holiday soaps. Where DOES the time go? 

I am checking out the St. Paul Art Crawl tomorrow and will take notes as I hope to be a vendor next year. My daughter and family live in an artists loft that participates in the art crawl, so I'll be based out of their studios if I decide it's something I could manage next year. I've never done a market before because of the time involved (my day job takes a lot of my time and energy) but a one-weekend art crawl would be fun I think!

So, here are my soaps so far. 

This soap is called "Autumn Wreath" and it's a rebatch of a design I just didn't care for. The fragrance is the same, I just wanted more of a rustic look to the bar and then I added a bit of shine with a mica oil swirl on top.  It really smells fabulous - like a fresh baked apple pie with apple, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, pumpkin and vanilla. My mouth is watering and I'll be thinking about apple pie the rest of the night, but I promise I won't get in the car to pick any up.  

I'm calling this soap Peppermint Twist. I used first distillation peppermint essential oil which, to me, is a bit earthy and minty. Not so much a sweet peppermint as a natural mint.  I really like it.  I added some "candy bits" of soap in the mix and I can tell you my house smelled minty fresh for a week after making this one. This scent REALLY holds!  

Dirty Hippie (not to be confused with a peace loving Hippy) - this Hippie is politically charged and not afraid to stand up for what they believe in - and take on anyone in the process.  They aren't afraid to be labeled "liberal".  I got an interesting swirl of charcoal, orange mica and purple mica in this soap. I'm sure that even if you gave me a million dollars, I could never duplicate this swirl.  It's a drop swirl, but the colors blended in an interesting way. The scent is cinnamon and patchouli...leaning towards the cinnamon side. The fragrance behaved well considering the cinnamon that was in it and I love the smell after cure. You smell the cinnamon...and know there's something else....but the patchouli doesn't hit you over the head, it's subtle.  

Well, that's it for now. I haven't been doing as much soap making as I'd like, but I've set Sunday evening aside to soap.  

Until next time, thank you for stopping by !

~Suzy

SOAP CUTTER FOR SALE !

UPDATE:   Sold to the beautiful and talented Miss Cathy "Teach" McGinnis   :-D

I'm selling my Bud Haffner guillotine cutter. I've only used it a few times as I switched to a wire cutter ....I just wasn't making M&P as much as I used to. 

It's time to sell it to someone who'll put it to good use.

E-mail me at Suzy@SpoonbridgeSoaps.com or call/text 

612-245-4177

Thanks!

Suzy

August 2014 - Great Cakes Soap Challenge Club - Negative Space Embed

I'll start by saying that this has been the most challenging soap I've attempted to date!  I had an idea of what I wanted to do, but wasn't sure how to make the holes!  I pulled my slab mold out of storage and brushed off the dust (nice to put it to use, but log molds are still my favorite) and decided on a drop swirl.  How to make those holes?  I ended up using small plastic mixing cups to form the holes in each bar. After seeing Amy struggle to get the pvc tubes out, I decided to remove the cups just after the soap had hardened a bit, but was still soft.  Well, the soap ended up expanding a bit into the holes, so they weren't perfect - but they were still holes. I'd wanted to do a pink/blue swirl for the negative space embed, but picked the wrong color. I grabbed a colorant I thought was okay for cold process, but once the raw soap met the pink it became gray.  Start over.  I made a new batch and colored it blue this time around.  I think it's a great highlighted space for my Spoonbridge Soaps stamp.  My recipe has beeswax and a bit of honey, so the little bee stamp works perfectly. Vibrance Micas were used along with Peak Green mica from The Conservatorie.  The fragrance is a combination of Champagne by Bramble Berry to give it some ZING, with eucalyptus and spearmint essential oils. 
A big thanks to Amy Warden for organizing these challenges - it's good to think outside the box and try something new!    ~ Suzy  Spoonbridge Soaps, Minneapolis

IT'S GETTING CLOSER - MINNESOTA STATE FAIR TIME !

** UPDATE ** 

I'm excited to announce that my Beeswax and Honey soaps won a blue ribbon at the 2014 Minnesota State Fair ! My daughter entered her beewax lotion bar for the first time and it came in 5th place! The Fair has been a family event for me since 1958; first attending with my parents each year, then with friends as a teenager, with my own family as an adult and now with my daughter and her family. This will be the fourth Minnesota State Fair for my granddaughter Eden and the very first for grandson Louis. My son takes time from his job as a police officer each year to work as a paramedic at the State Fair. Say what you will about the Fair with it's high calorie greasy food and crowded Midway, it brings families together to enjoy time with each other once a year and and that can't be a bad thing.  

 

I can't believe it's August already.

Once again, I'm entering a soap in the Minnesota State Fair Ag-Hort division.  It's a beeswax and honey soap and I'm hoping the judges like it.  I even added a little sugar bee on top this year to catch their attention.

My daughter is entering for the first time, so I'm anxious to see how her beeswax lotion bar turns out.

Wish us luck! Be sure to stop by the Ag-Hort building if you're at the Fair. So many cool items produced locally. They even have a glass sided hive display with working bees that the little ones love - or hate! 

I've added a storefront to my website - finally !!

Please visit me at :

Spoonbridge Soaps

..and let me know what you think.  I'm adding product as quickly as possible and hope to expand my product offerings in the near future.

THANK YOU!!  

Suzy

February 2014 Great Cakes Soap Challenge Club - Embeds

I'll start by sharing that I've never tried cold process embeds before. I have tried M&P once and liked the results, but making the embeds ahead of time and switching into "M&P mode" in my head requires planning - something I'm not the best at.   So I was excited to try this challenge with cold process embeds.  I didn't have a super hard bar recipe or small silicone mold that I trusted enough not to ruin my embeds by sticking, cracking or (more likely than not)  just never hardening. I've had that happen before! so I used two 4 lb loaves instead. One loaf was used as embeds and one was used as the base.

My recipe was the same for both, a moisturizing blend of olive, coconut, organic sustainable palm, avocado, cocoa butter and castor.  I added tussah silk to my lye water and a touch of cream to the soap base.

Here is the soap I used as the embed ~  The fragrance is Love Spell, a clean fragrance that blends with so many others. It was a bulk purchase a year or so ago and I wish I could remember who the company was because it's softer and more rounded than some I've smelled.  The colors are a blend of ultramarine violet, ultramarine blue and a touch of black mica.  The gold is heavy metal gold - all from Bramble Berry.

I cut this bar on the vertical into 1/4" slices. I then lined the left side of my loaf pan with these slices, but I alternated them blue/purple on top, gold on top.  I hoped this would give some interest and make it more geometric looking.

I held the stacked embeds in place with a sheet of plastic while I slowly poured the TD lightened base around and over the embeds.  After pouring, I let it set up a bit and then removed the plastic sheet. I was SO worried that the stacked embeds would all fall sideways and I'd end up having to line up slippery soap coated embeds again.  I got lucky - they held perfectly and my loaf went into a cold oven with the light on overnight. 

This is the final result - the base is scented with BB's Citron et Figue, a favorite of mine that sadly isn't available any longer on the website.  Maybe it's a seasonal Holiday fragrance?  If you know, please post in the comment section or I'll continue to hoard and ration my bottle. 

Once again, another great challenge learning experience.  Please check out all the other awesome entries at Great Cakes Soapworks    A big thank you to Amy Warden 
 for this month's challenge. We appreciate the time you put into these challenges and the knowledge we gain from them!   Until next month ~      Suzy/Spoonbridge Soaps

January 2014 Great Cakes Soap Challenge Club - Taiwan Swirl

I have to say, this has been one of the most frustrating - and beautiful - swirls I've attempted.

Now that I know just how thin the batter actually has to be, I'll be using this technique more often.

After attempting my usual recipe with multiple oils and butters, I broke down the third time around and used an 80% olive oil and 20% coconut oil recipe.  My fragrance, Love Spell from Sweet Cakes which is a local company in the Minneapolis area, performed beautifully !  No seizing, ricing, nothing.  I don't think it thinned the batter any, but it didn't thicken it either. 

I used two pigments from  Bramble Berry :  Tangerine Wow pigment - a gorgeous orange, really vivid and bright and Fired Up Fuchsia pigment.  The center is Blackstar Blue Mica from The Conservatorie . 

As much as I would have loved to use  a white base or add stripe of white, I didn't dare use titanium dioxide after hearing that it could thicken the batter.  I have a bit more confidence now and can't wait to try this again!!

Again, a big thank you to Amy for hosting. Be sure to check out all the other soap makers entries, they are truly amazing.    Great Cakes Soapworks Taiwan Swirl Challenge


Suzy ~ Spoonbridge Soaps, Minneapolis

"Sunrise Sunset"