Mystery Fragrance #2 - Island Joe

Hi there!

I'm on to my second mystery fragrance. In my last blogpost I talked about the Brambleberry Winter SOAP panel, and the first fragrance, which I named "Berry Happy". Now, on to the second one which I'm calling "Island Joe". 

When I first smelled Island Joe, I immediately thought COFFEE and it brought a huge smile to my face. I'm a big fan of BB's Turkish Mocha fragrance oil, and even participated in the swap last year with that as my choice to share with twelve others. But, I digress.  This mysterious fragrance brought to mind a bar of soap with fresh coffee grounds layered with deep rich mocha mica and a creamy swirl to top off the day. 

I used the same recipe for every soap, but the first four soaps (I only have four, one pound molds) I used sodium lactate. I didn't need to, with such hard oils in my recipe and a steep water discount. So for the final four, it was left out. 

Recipe:
72 oz oils (18x4 mater batched)
24 Sunflower Oil
24 Coconut Oil
24 Tallow
21 oz. Distilled Water
10.5 oz. Sodium Hydroxide

The soap worked well for layers. I only had to wait a couple of minutes to spoon on the second layer gently and it held pretty good. By the time I got to the remnant batter to be put in my round mold it was pretty thick, as you can see by the picture. 

I really like this fragrance. After cut, cure, etc. The smell has faded to more of a coconut scent. I'm very curious to find out just what these really are. This just might be something entirely different. But the beauty of doing this challenge, is that there are no absolutes. Just to absolutely have fun and run with it. 

And the final outcome...

#2 Island Joe

Stay tuned for my next reveal... #3 KaPOW!

Mystery Fragrance #1 - Berry Happy

Hi there!

In my previous blogpost I talked about the Brambleberry Winter SOAP panel, how I was chosen and my initial thoughts. Now, I'm going to dive into each individual fragrance, one by one. I'll share my creative vision, impression, and how I liked working with each one.

Fragrance #1 "Berry Happy"

So... mystery fragrance #1... smelled like pomegranates, berries, vanilla, crumb cake out of the bottle. It was sweet, it was a bit fruity and I really like it. The colors that popped into my head first were raspberry, purple and teal. 

No rapid acceleration, no ricing,
I decided to do a "tilted tiger stripe". 

  

This soaped wonderfully and the scent was phenomenal! I decided to name this soap "Berry Happy". I've named all the soaps and of course, used my one pound Brambleberry silicone test molds and silicone round cavity mold to test them all out.

 

The soap moved slow enough, but once it started to thicken up, it moved pretty fast. So, I had to work fast. By the time I got my remnant batter into the round mold it was pretty thick. Which you can see by looking at the round molded soap. Not too thick to work with, especially if you're looking for well a well defined color scheme. On a 1-10 scale of "moving" I give this a 7. 

  And the final results...

FO #1 Berry Happy

  Next up... Mystery Fragrance #2 "Island Joe"

2014 Brambleberry WINTER Soap Panel - Part 1

Hello, 

It's Heather, from Fatty's Soap Co.

A couple of months ago Brambleberry posted a question on their Facebook site asking what your favorite Brambleberry product is. If you were interested in taking part in the 2014 Winter SOAP panel as a tester you just needed to post your favorite product and post to your favorite social media site. They would review the submissions and choose eight panelists to take part in the testing of these secret fragrances. I'm thrilled to among eight other talented soap and bath and body products artists! Check out the Brambleberry blog to meet the others, learn about new products and enjoys all things soap. 

I chose to talk about my favorite Brambleberry product, their silicone molds. I have a multitude of them! But, my all time favorite one is the five pound silicone liner that fits their five pound wooden birch mold. I'm a huge fan of wood molds, and I also love my silicone ones! Hey, what can I say? A soap maker needs all kinds of tools, just ask any one of us.

5 Pound Silicone and Wood Mold with
Dead Sea Mud Tea Tree Oil Soap.

 
Being a tester means that we panelist get to try eight fragrances in the medium of our choice. I am choosing cold process soap, because that's what I like to do most. I'll be soaping at room temperature with a very basic three equal part recipe of sunflower, tallow (that I render myself) and coconut oil. I chose this recipe... one, because it's a tried and true recipe that anyone can make and the ingredients are easy to come by, especially for beginners. And two, because tallow moves slow for me, and I wanted to make sure that I'd have time to test out the fragrances without any "surprises". 

Since there are no absolutes, I get to have creative freedom in making these soaps. Normally as a soap maker you tend to stick with a color/fragrance scheme. Which is smart. You want your senses to embrace the color, fragrance, name, ingredients, etc. It's hard to wrap your brain around a soap that is supposed to smell like fresh oranges that is colored purple and named dusk. Are you feeling me?

With that said, I'm going with my heart, first instinct and vision I get upon first opening the bottles. Stay tuned for my reaction and my artistic rendition of these mysterious eight fragrances. And thank you Brambleberry for choosing me to be included on the panel. I'm overjoyed and thankful!

Heather Rai

My first mystery fragrance: #1 Berry Happy