Violet Soap

No Shrinking Violet

 

Well, that's a weird title. Let alone the name of a soap. My idea was to make a soap that was violet in colour and in scent, a sort of "in your face" violet. So, a shrinking violet, it is not, hence the name.

My plan was to have a nice white and purple swirly soap. I got more of a cream (macaroni colour, for those who watch the video) and a mauve-ish layer/swirl combo. And of course, after gelling, the titanium dioxide did it's crackly thing. All in all, not bad looking, but not what was planned. 

And I only have myself to blame.

 I knew that the fragrance oil caused acceleration and I should have added it to the main oils before adding the lye, instead of later. This would have given me a bit more time. Also, using oxides, I always seem to get a few specks that wont mix, so out comes the stick blender in full force, thickening up the batter with lightening speed.

Mind you, after all this, it does smell divine! For such an "old-fashioned" scent, this is actually quite popular. Very light and fresh. If truth be told, this is one of my favourite florals.

If you want a bit of a laugh, have a peek at the video!

Peacock Swirl

Peacock Swirl? Not so much. More like:

Attack of the crazed, alien peacock

My first attempt at a peacock swirl - the first challenge from Amy Warden's Soap Challenge Club - was not the beautiful, delicate meanderings of colour and form that I had envisioned it would be.

Instead, it is more of an abstract, poultry-derived mishmash of  green, white, orange and a shy violet peeking faintly around the other colours.

Don't get me wrong, the whole soap is actually not that bad. It has a certain vague watercolour quality to it, reminiscent of some of Monet's works. But Monet painted ponds with waterlillies and pretty bridges. No peacocks, none within ten miles.

The problems began when I elected to pour the white soap base before mixing the colours. This gave it plenty of time to set. Like cement. OK not quite as thick, but thick enough. Then, when I ran the comb through the soap to start the swirl, I dug the thing too deep and started dragging the thick base along with the colours. 

This flash of brilliance on my part, plus the fact that the teeth of the comb were a bit too close together, caused it to get all gunked up with the white base thereby turning it into more of a paddle than anything else, and the delicate design became more of a gobble dee gook!

So there you have it. My first attempt, but by golly, not my last! We shall soldier on! So, for now, enjoy the video.

 

French Countryside

The Making of French Countryside

I'm taking part in the 2013 Universal Soap Challenge, an idea developed by Lucy from Simply Radiant SC. Each month, we randomly select a country and then create a soap inspired by that country.

For the month of May, I got France. So I decided to colour the soap based on the different crops growing all around the country. Yellow (well, it turned out more cream than yellow) for the mustard fields near Dijon, purple for the lavender fields near Grasse (home of some many reknowned perfume makers), and green for the vineyards that abound throughout the country.

I fragranced the soap with a mixture of Petitgrain, Litsea, and Rosemary to give it a nice herbal scent with a hint of orange flower.

Then, for fun, I added a gold mica swirl on top, reminiscent of the golden age of the Renaissance (think Versailles).

So, here's the video of the making of French Countryside.

Welcome

Welcome to Le Bon Savon De Tati!

Errr, what's this Savon bit? Let me explain. I'll start by introducing myself. My name is Marie and I'm the proud aunt of two great kids (well mostly grown up now) who call me Tati. It's a cross between tante (French for aunt) and auntie. So that's where the Tati comes from.
And I'm French Canadian, so Le Bon Savon de Tati (Tati's Fine Soap) stems from that.

Oh, and I make soap. Of course.

I've been in the soap making phase of my life for about a year now and am truly addicted. I'd never realized how many different kinds of soap one could make. Different fragrances, colours, shapes, there's no end to the diversity of soap. Not to mention the different processes that can be used to make soap: cold process, hot process, melt and pour, cold process oven process...... Mind boggling, but in a good way.

For those of you who like videos, you may like my Youtube channel. See the link below or search for Tatisoap on Youtube and you should be able to find me. A word of caution: I ramble on and usually end up making some type of mess. And I seem to have acquired a couple of alter ego commentators (with a strange sense of humour) along the way. You'll see them blithering on about this and that, sometimes, making no sense at all. They don't have names yet, but one has a purple speech bubble (that's the really odd one) and the other saner one speaks in blue.  

So, that's all for now. Just wanted to say hello and hope that you'll want to follow me in my soaping adventure.