Spoonbridge Soaps now for sale at Artista Bottega Art Gallery, 937 7th Street W, St. Paul, Minnesota !

Spoonbridge Soaps is excited to announce that our products are being sold at Artista Bottega Art Gallery in St. Paul!  If you're in the St. Paul/Minneapolis area and looking for a unique gift item, Artista Bottega is the place to go. Artists from the Lowertown area have works on sale and the items are ever changing. 

Check out this quaint gallery !! 

~Suzy 

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"

August 2013 Great Cakes Soap Challenge Club - The Holly Swirl

Great Cakes Soapworks "Holly Swirl" Challenge

August 16, 2013

Don't you love a challenge? Soap making challenges always inspire me to be a bit more more creative and to give color and fragrance selection more thought than usual.  Or , as in lately, they actually get me to make a batch of soap!  I've been on hiatus since last December and am just now returning to soapmaking.  Although I've kept up with fellow soapmakers in the forums online, I realize that I've missed the process of actually planning and making a soap that I'm pleased with an look forward to sharing. 

The batch I made for Amy's "Holly Swirl" challenge isn't exactly what I was aiming for in design, but it smells fabulous and I'm pretty pleased with it overall.  A big thank you, as always, to Amy Warden for pulling these challenges together.  I look forward to them and hope they'll continue!

Confession:  I actually made two batches, but the second was a fail.  I think my trace was too thin and I ended up with very subtle swirls, but a beautiful peach color overall and it will make nice gifts this Christmas!

I did an "in the pot two color swirl" of green and yellow, mixed with an "in the pot swirl" of turquoise and yellow and poured them into a base color of cream/white made by adding 1 tsp. of titanium dioxide.
I'd use more base and less swirled colors next time and I'd also make sure that the colors I chose wouldn't muddy or blend together.  Nothing ventured, nothing gained !!

In honor of my all time favorite movie, The Wizard of Oz, and it's one week IMAX 3D release in October, I created City of Emeralds.   

Thank you for visiting and I hope you'll leave a comment or critique.  

~ Suzy @ Spoonbridge Soaps

Colorants: 
The Conservatory - Shamrock Green mica, Gold Luster Green
Bramble Berry  - Fizzy Lemonade, titanium dioxide

Fragrance:  Ancient Incense by Moonworks Collection

Forgive the poor photo quality. I'm saving my pennies for a good camera, but in the meantime this is the best it gets.

Sweepstakes to win a beautiful yarn tote !

http://www.allfreecrochet.com/sweeps/Everything-Mary-Yarn-Tote

I knit and crochet when the weather's cooler, so thought I'd post this for you soaper makers who do the same.

Check out this sweepstakes to win a beautiful Everything-Mary yarn tote.  I have grocery bags with yarn in them and could sure use a few of these bags !!!

Good luck !!!

~  Suzy

Great Cakes Soapworks Challenge 2013 - Week 3 - mica swirl tops

Once again, a thank you to Amy Warden from Great Cakes Soapworks for putting a challenge together again this year.  Be sure to check out all the challenge participant's soaps!  

 I wasn't able to participate in last week's challenge, so thought I'd keep it simple this week with both my recipe and colors.   I have to say - I'm disappointed in the colors. BUT, I found a fragrance in the back of my stash that I really love.  Tinseled Garland by SouthernGardenScents.com 

Colors:  Wine Red Glitter - a mica by Elements Bath and Body.
               Black Cherry Mica - by Elements Bath and Body.

Both colors are AMAZING in the containers. The depth of color and sparkle was so intense, that if they translated even partially in soap they would be beautiful.  I don't think either did, but Black Cherry was a bit better than Wine Red (gross ..it turned a muted blood color and that's what it looked like in my attempt at a mica swirl on top).  I thought the difference in the colors was enough that it would be subtle, but unique.

Wine Red (L) and Black Cherry (R)

My fragrance was Tinseled Garland by Southerngardenscents.com.  I'm assuming it's a Holiday fragrance, but it just smells like juniper berries and a bit floral to me. No reason to save it just for the Holidays!  I'm on a fragrance "no buy" until I use some of the MANY I've purchased that are gathering dust. Tinseled Garland was one of those.

"Tinseled Garland" by SouthernGardenScents.com

Here are my results.  I really need to practice on that mica swirl top.  I'll use less olive oil next time and more mica.  I'm not unhappy with the cut bars, but they aren't what I'd planned.  Try, try again!!

The color muted and the mica swirl just didn't look good - it lost a lot

 of the sparkle and the color faded into more of a browned pink.  Ish.  

Okay, is it me or does this look like a cut of meat...marbled bacon maybe? UGH!! 

It may not be pretty, but it smells wonderful and I'll use this fragrance again - it behaved very well and is holding it's scent....the house smells great today !!

See you in two weeks for the final challenge !!!

~Suzy @ Spoonbridge Soaps;   Minneapolis, Minnesota

Great Cakes Soapworks Challenge 2013 - Week 1 - Tiger Stripe

A Big Thanks to Amy Warden of Great Cakes Soapworks for pulling together this years challenge.

Be sure to check out the challenge information and videos. 

There are still three weeks left to join in if you weren't able to this week!

This week's challenge was the "Tiger Stripe",  a technique that was on my "gotta try this" list. 

This was my first time making soap since October, so I hoped it was like riding a bike. I have to admit, I was nervous!  Lye into water...not water into lye...volcano...bad.  Goggles, apron, gloves.  My oils and supplies are all still sitting in packing boxes in the basement of my new townhome since my divorce and move in December, so I had to do some digging. I must have gone up and down the stairs at least five times because I kept forgetting things - measuring cups, lye pitcher, lye spoon, wrong fragrance, changed my mind on fragrance, no....going with the first fragrance.  I managed to find everything except my digital thermometer, but did dig out the old thermometer I'd originally used when I first learned to make soap, so all was good.  Choosing colors really stumped me this time.  I decided to steer away from the traditional tiger colors of black/brown and orange.  The store that sells my soaps had requested something with Spring colors, so I finally decided this would be their batch.  I used "Breath of Spring" from TKB Trading and "Peacock Blue Mica" from The Conservatorie in my base batter of cream with some titanium dioxide added.  Both these micas in the mixing oil just don't get any prettier.  I wish there was a way to hold that shimmer and bright intense color in my cured soap.  Oh, my final fragrance decision was Morning Sunrise from Moonworks Collection.  Their fragrances are always unique and have depth to them.

Creating the tiger stripes....blue, green and cream. 

Mold filled and top swirled, although it's subtle

Out of the mold and ready to be cut...the house smells sooooo good ! Morning Sunshine says it all. Fresh, clean but not a chemical or artificial smelling clean.  

The cut bars - cool technique !!  I like this look better than the faux funnel I think.

I really need to get a good camera and stop using my phone,  but here's a close up of a bar.  I can't wait to try this again!  Next time, more contrast and maybe three or more colors.  I'd like to figure out how to eliminate the dip in the bottom layer.  Any ideas ?

Thanks for visiting ~ please leave a link to your blog or website so I can follow your soaping adventures !!

Until next week......

~Suzy @ Spoonbridge Soaps    Minneapolis, Minnesota

Join the challenge !!

Hey all !  It's been a looooong time, but I'm coming off my soaping hiatus and am looking forward to getting back into the game.  

**  News of the week **

Amy Warden from Great Cakes Soapworks is having another soaping challenge this year!  It actually starts tomorrow, March 24th.

I participated in her challenge last year and not only learned a lot, but was really motivated to try new recipes and techniques that I probably wouldn't have otherwise.
This years challenge is only four parts, so not overwhelming or super time consuming.

Check it out here

I hope you'll sign up and give Amy's challenge a try.

Here’s the schedule:

Week One March 24th: Tiger Stripe

Week Two March 31st: Elemental Swirl

Week Three April 7th: Mica Swirl Tops

~BREAK~

Week Four April 21st: Leopard Spots

See you there!!

~Suzy

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas, from my heart !!   

Now that I'm settled in my new home and am working to pull a crafting/soaping room together, I hope to post more and on a regular basis in the coming year. 

Here's to a happy, healthy and peaceful 2013 !!

~Suzy and Spoonbridge Soaps, Minneapolis

Happy Thanksgiving to all !

It's been awhile since I've posted, but I wanted to pop on and wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving!  I'm heading out to join my daughter and her family and am sure I'll be too full and sleepy to post this later in the evening. :-D    

I'm preparing to move to a new home on December 1st and start life as a single gal again, so I may not be posting much until things are settled.  The good news is that my new townhome has the PERFECT spot in the lower level laundry room to set up a soap area!  I'd always talked about turning the office into a craft/soap room in my current home, but just never seemed to get around to it.  I may not have much for furniture, but I'll have a soap room - and what's more important than that !!!  

All my best,

~Suzy

Happy Givember from Bramble Berry !

 Thank you to Kristen and Anne-Marie from Bramble Berry for sponsoring this blog !  Kristen from Bramble Berry, the soaping supply company that I seem to turn to more often than all others for their fragrance oils, essential oils, colorants and supplies, contacted me asking if I'd be interested in trying some products and sharing the results on my blog.  Heck, YEAH!!  I was flattered that Anne-Marie even knew of my little blog and thrilled to have been asked to try product.  The best part?  They ALSO gave me an offer for the readers of this blog to be used in the month of November - or Givember as Bramble Berry has declared it ! 

So, my surprise box arrived on the doorstep a couple weeks ago. Inside was the Bramble Berry 
5 pound mold. I purchased their silicone liner to go with the mold as I've never been handy at lining a mold with freezer paper.  I always seemed to end up with a super wrinkly edged soap loaf that needed a lot of "fixing".
Okay, so ..if that weren't enough...I was also supplied with some micas and Bramble Berry's popular Cranberry Fig and Moonlight Pomegranate fragrance oils and asked to go forth and create !
I decided to not "over think" this one and to just mix it up and see what I come up with.  It seems I get the most unique and popular soaps when I don't try too hard.  

Here's the final result!   Read down for my review of the Bramble Berry 5 lb mold and silicone liner, the actual products used in this soap AND......a special coupon code!   Any order placed during the month of November that includes this code will be entered into a drawing to win a Bramble Berry gift certificate worth $50.00 !!   

Here's the Bramble Berry 5 lb loaf mold with the silicone liner. Yes, the liner IS a bit floppy and I'd recommend taping it to the mold along the sides - at least until you've finished pouring.  I didn't at first and ended up with a couple soap glops between the liner and the inside of the mold as you'll see. I'm a bit of a messy soaper, so maybe you'd fare better. 

Soap's in the mold (ignore that blob of green soap spilling down on the right) and it's halfway full - time to swirl.  I used the "Celine Swirl" method, invented by Celine from I Am Handmade, and then filled the mold the rest of the way, swirling again before I added the top layer. 

I used four plastic hair coloring bottles ordered from Amazon (available at Sally's Beauty too) filled with black, red, white and green to create the top lines - and then swirled them with a bamboo skewer.

I got smart and ran a couple pieces of tape on the sides - too little, too late. I'll use masking or painter's tape next time. It's STILL easier than lining a mold with freezer tape in my opinion ! And wait until you see how easily it is to unmold your soap.....so slick !!  Those specks are cranberry seeds on top - with a small bit of glitter to add a festive Holiday touch.

The bottom wooden piece slides out and the silicone liner just comes out the bottom. Genius !!

So easy - loving this !

The thinness of the silicone liner allows it to "peel" away from the soap.  This was the easiest release of a soap from a silicone liner I've ever had.  And I was able to ease it around the corners to keep them sharp. I've had problems with soft corners that don't come out cleanly with other liners.

Did I mention it was easy?  :-D   

Here's the soap I'm calling "Good Cheer".  It a Holiday-looking loaf and the Cranberry Fig and Midnight Pomegranate smell amazing together!!

My cutter is from Cumberland Acoustic and such a time saver. 

Here's another look at "Good Cheer" - thank you to the generous ladies at Bramble Berry who sponsored this blog and allowed me to try a few colorants I hadn't tried before - not to mention their wooden mold with the slide out bottom design.  I'm so thankful to have it and know it will get a lot of love and use !

The colorants used were all from Bramble Berry:

Merlot Sparkle mica
Vintage Gray mica
Luster Black mica
Chrome Green pigment
and Pearly White mica

Fragrance:   Cranberry Fig and Moonlight Pomegranate from Bramble Berry

Cranberry seeds and mica from  Soap Making Resource.


As promised, here's the code.  Only codes used on orders placed during the month of November will be entered into the drawing to win the $50.00 Bramble Berry gift certificate.   

GIVEMBER50

If you haven't tried Bramble Berry products before, I'd highly recommend them for both melt and pour and cold process supplies.  Anne-Marie's Soap Queen videos on YouTube were my initiative to start melt and pour soap making several years ago and have been a help with cold process now as well.  My daughter and I had a lot of laughs and good times creating soap using melt and pour bases when she was younger.  She's a wife and a mother to an almost-three-year-old now and works full time, so our days of making soap have ended for now, but I hope in the future to teach her how to make CP and I know she'll love it as much as I do !

Happy Soaping and thank you for keeping me company!   xx   Suzy

Busy, Busy, Busy !!

It's been a while since I've posted, so please forgive me.  I'm in the process of a divorce (amicable) and a move as well, so life's a bit hectic and stressful and I just haven't soaped much.

I DO have an exciting blog and offer coming up thanks to the generous Kristen from Bramble Berry!  I don't have all the details yet, but keep an eye on my blog in the near future.  

In the meantime, I'd love to hear about the projects you're working on. Are you soaping for the Holidays?  Any favorite fragrances or colorants you've found that have WOW'd you?

Patchouli Passion arrived in my mailbox a couple days ago and I'm hoping to soap with it this weekend - it smells amazing!  I love patchouli, but even for those who aren't crazy about it I think you'd like this blend. The patchouli doesn't knock you over the head, it's subtle and there's a floral/fruity note that's really nice. I purchased it through Tamera Jenkins at the Soap Making Sense page on Facebook.  A great place to purchase fragrance in bulk. I've pre-ordered three times from Tamera and haven't been disappointed with a fragrance yet. All have held up well in CP and have multiple layers to them, really beautiful. 

More to come!!  

Two recent soaps

It's the same recipe, but these two soaps turned out totally different in texture due to crackling from the titanium dioxide used  in one.  Some people like this look. Me? not so much.

BUT, the fragrance is amazing. I used Earthen Oak for the first.  It's from Moonworks and is what I'd call a unisex fragrance.  Lots of depth and I'm just sure it's going to hold up through curing.  I think I'll name the batch Ashen Oak.  

The second fragrance, also from Moonworks, is Native Princess.  A Sioux would be offended by that name, but I'll come up with an alternative.  Thinking Oglala Cloud.

I've ordered several more of Rhonda's fragrances and am sure they'll perform and smell amazing!!

Hey all, may I ask a favor? If you have a minute, please go to: 

http://americanmade.marthastewart.com/profiles/andrew-fuller-836

and cast a vote for a fellow artisan soap maker and a talented guy, Andrew Fuller. He's a finalist in the 

Martha Stewart contest and has mega style - I think he deserves to win and your vote would be much 

appreciated. Thanks!! Suzy

Labor day Applejack 'n Peel !

I'd received some Applejack & Peel fragrance oil and decided today was the day to give it a try. I have another bottle coming, but this one is from Soapsupplies.net.  I have to say, it's one of the strongest fragrances I've purchased, which is great - you don't need to use as much!  After I'd made the soap I put it out in our sunroom and shut the door.  We left to go hiking with the dogs and I could STILL smell it in the house when we returned.  It's a wonderful Fall fragrance that's described as  "The perfect Holiday scent! Warm and welcoming aroma of baked apples, cinnamon, spice and a twist of citrus. Nice and strong with a scent that holds for a long time."  So far, I'd have to agree.  I just love this fragrance and look forward to trying more.  

I was shooting for pumpkin/candy corn colors of green, orange and cream. The colorants I used lightened on me some...a problem I've had recently and am really frustrated with. Wet they look strong and vibrant - once cured and cut they've faded.  Any comments or suggestions would be welcome !!  I'm at a loss.  Again, I'm without a camera right now, so please forgive the iPhone photos that just aren't very sharp. 

Here's Applejack 'n Peel, a subtly colored hanger swirl soap.  I'm all about bold and bright normally, but my husband says he really likes these subtle colors.  Diversity !!