The SOAP testing continues...

My adventure continues with mystery fragrances #4 & #8, I skipped to number 8 because frankly it was not my favorite scent of them all, and I just wanted to get it done.  

First I worked on Mystery Fragrance #4

 The fragrance: #4-First impressions right out of the bottle was of something sweet, yet tart like orange or cranberry; mixed with something earthy and crisp like balsam. Sort of like the holiday potpourri they have this time of year.  The idea:  Another swirl to help me practice my swirling abilities, I marvel at some of the beautiful swirls I see from fellow soapers, plus I just love the creative part of swirling soap!  The Colors: Think Holidays, so I went with Green, Red and Black.  Would have liked to add white, but realized I am completely out of titanium dioxide (now how did that happen).

The Recipe:  A slight variation on my basic recipe from prev posts, but with more olive oil.  Since batch #2 accelerated so fast I thought I would tweak the recipe just a little to give me time to swirl. 







The Results:  A very beautiful swirl with crisp lines and an amazing scent.  The fragrance did have some discoloration, it turned the soap base yellow, thus resulting in muddier colors than expected; and the fragrance had a little bit of acceleration.  The green color however, ended up much brighter than it normally is.  Is this green morph from the fragrance or the oils?  I do not know the answer, but I am going to find out.  Will the green settle down into the more deep green that it's supposed to be?  Maybe, we will see as the soap cures.  If it doesn't, that's still OK, I like how it turned out anyway.  Even thought the base was a bit thicker when poured the swirls still came out fantastic.  I am very happy with this one!

So success #3 in my SOAP testing adventure. 

Monica: 3  SOAP Fragrances: 1

The second Batch I did was Mystery Fragrance #8

The Fragrance:  #8-Not my favorite, I usually love earthy fragrances, but this one was a little too earthy even for me.  It's a very smoky type of fragrance that reminds me of Frankincense or Myrrh, similar to Witches Brew without any note of sweetness.  I wasn't going to put this in soap, because lets face it, I'm not sure anyone would want to smell like that; but I could not think of anything else to use it in, so into soap it went.  The Idea:  In my effort to try and make something fun out of a fragrance I didn't like (which is harder than you would think), I immediately thought I could pass this fragrance off as a Halloween fragrance like Witchy something or Fright Night.  3 different Halloween themed layers was the idea that came to mind first.

 The Colors:  What immediately comes to mind when you think of Halloween; why Orange, Black, and Purple of course!  I would have liked to add a little glitter to give it some fun pizazz, but I didn't have any skin safe glitter in my cupboards.  (Don't worry I put it on my wish list for my next Bramble Berry order)  The Recipe:  Again went basic with Olive, Coconut, Palm, Shea Butter, Castor oil, and Sweet Almond Oil.  With this one it was OK if it traced quickly; when it comes to layers the thicker the better.  This one had no acceleration whatsoever, in fact, I had to wait a little bit before pouring each layer. 

The Result:  The layers turned out fantastic, and the colors are awesome.  I still don't like the scent any better than I did before, but the colors and the look have given it a bit more appeal.  This fragrance would have been great to use as a column pour because I actually had to wait a bit for it to get to a thick enough trace in between layers.  Overall I like it, but would not make it a part of my soap line, it may have appealed to the guys if I would have left it uncolored.  But that is not quite as much fun, is it?

The layers are great and the colors came out super pretty.  I have noticed no discoloration from the fragrance, and overall it performed well for me.

So overall another success, I plan to get some input on the fragrance from some of my trusty tester people and see what they think, because while I may not like it someone else may LOVE it!

Monica : 4 SOAP Fragrances: 1

Stayed tuned for the next batch of SOAP testing fun!  I'm thinking Mini Cupcakes with Fragrance #5 (Have been dying to try those cute cupcakes that people make), and some embeds with Fragrance # 7