Welcome to our first Christmas 2018 soap—Sugar Plum Christmas Soap! Sugar plum will be one of our ongoing themes this season, and I’m really excited about all the different projects I’ve devised for it. We’re kicking off the theme with these stunning purple, swirly, sparkly bars—I had so much fun making these, and I haven’t been so excited to slice a soap in quite a while (well, until I made our other Christmas 2018 soap)!
I had so much fun creating these sunny, speckled bars. The idea was to create a swirl using texture—as opposed to colour—to differentiate the swirl from the rest of the soap. When I set out to make these bars it had been positively ages since I’d made soap. Who else gets sucked into those strange inertia loops where you haven’t done something in a long time, so you keep not doing it, and then BAM… it’s been months? That’s me and… so many things. Anyhow—as I brought the lye water and fats to trace and starting working with the batter I wondered why it had been so long. Soap making is far too fun to fall victim to the do-nothing inertia loop!
I had so much fun crafting up these creamy, sweet-smelling, sparkly bars of tea latte inspired soap. The batter is silky smooth and has great play time, so the whole mixing-pouring-swirling experience is calm and easy and fun (no pudding panic here, ha!). A dusty brown base is accented with milky white swirls reminiscent of the swirls on top of a latte, with the brown hue coming from the essential oil blend. The tops of the bars are sculpted up and decorated with sprinkles of tea leaves and a bit of something sparkly for a little something special. I think these bars of Cream of Earl Grey Soap are pretty darn lovely!
I don’t remember when I first fell in love with the lavender/spruce scent combo, but it’s been a long standing favourite of mine for a while now. The woodsy, calming sweetness of lavender blends beautifully with the bright, fresh, camphoraceous notes of spruce and it’s just downright lovely. And, thanks to both of these essential oils being relatively inexpensive, they lend themselves quite well to soap making! This Lavender Spruce Soap is the second recipe in my lavender spruce series; it features lovely purple and green swirls in a creamy white base, and is wonderfully fun to make.
This simple, warm, wintery soap is just the thing for January. The first month of the year is typically hit with at least one cold snap here in Calgary, necessitating hot tea and warm baking and a general refusal to leave the house for anything less important than a tropical vacation (or a dog walk). I might, however, make an exception for some warm spiced bread pudding, good whiskey, and good company. While devoid of both whiskey and raisins, this Winter Custard soap can be your sudsy cold snap respite, with its lovely sparkly top and warm, creamy yellow colour. Mmmm.
I had so much fun making this pretty soap. Coloured with powdered indigo and some pretty purple and green micas, I wanted to channel Aurora Borealis, or the Northern Lights—and the winter solstice seemed like a great time for it. I had a lot of fun thinking through how to create a soap that would channel such an incredible natural wonder, and while I don’t think I quite nailed it, I do think these pretty bars are a fitting tribute.
