Dark Star: A Grateful Dead Soap

     If one were to press me on what my favorite animal would be my response would be different then the average millennial girl, I would tell you its a dancing bear. Even before I actively listened to the Grateful Dead I grew up with my dad and his vintage shirts with them on them from his concert days. The first bumper sticker I ever got was a dancing bear holding a rose, and at my low points I have shown disgust in those who talk about the cute little bear or calling it a "weed bear"(its happened more than once). So when I found a dancing bear ice cube tray on amazon you can be sure as hell i got it on prime. I didn't know what I was going to do with them but I went ahead and made one in every color of the rainbow with some melt and pour.

sorry for the bad Iphone quality

     After I made my army of bears, there's like 80+ of them, I painted their collars with mica. I use just dry mica and an old eyeshadow brush and it sticks the the MP just fine.

    

    My goal for this soap was a tie-dye pattern. The tie-dye plan was to do an in-the-pot-swirl and then once in the mold to make a circular pattern with a hanger swirl tool. The soap ended up being thinner than I thought (which yay! I now know Bramble Berry's lavender and cedar is a slow mover) and the in-the-pot swirl was on the verge of becoming a hot muddy mess so I just left it alone and hoped for the best. Since the top was looking a bit muddy I put the bears on so they were lying down and covering the entire top.

Another bad quality pic for y'all

     The soaping process went pretty quickly and smoothly for me and the six colors I used. I used Bramble Berry's Lavender and Cedar FO which is fresh and a nice all around uni-sex scent. When I cut into the bar it was a bit darker than I expected but I like it! For the name that was hard to decide, the last Grateful Dead soap I did was easy to name, a water type scent = Ripple. This one was harder to find something to fit the look and smell but in the end I think Dark Star fits nicely since its a darker tie-dye look. But I would be open to any suggestions that y'all think might fit this bar better!

     There was one final issue with cutting the soap, I had planned  out  how to cut it some what, but it was a pain getting whole bears in each bar. You can see the red/purple/blue bear bar is thinner than the others. In the end I gave up on having whole bears on each bar though I still ended up with less bars than usual.

Thanks for reading and happy Soaping!!
                                                  ~Anna Rose

She Lives! and a Soapy Roundup

     Hi y'all I kinda faded away from soap making, and this blog for almost two years. I am glad to say I am back after my extended hiatus and plan to be posting regularly in addition to keeping track of my new Etsy store IvyRoseSoap! My new post schedule will know be primarily on the weekends because sense the last time I've posted I moved from being homeschooled to a private school (the transition to be honest was why I stopped soaping for a while). Now that I am finally comfortable in the new environment and my migraines have decreased I decided I need to start following my passion again. Now that I have given you a quick update on my life, that I'm sure you'll end up hearing more of, I can share all the soaps I have made since we left off.



   First is my Grateful Dead inspired soap I call Ripple. It was a gift to my sisters boyfriend and is scented with Wholesale Supply Plus' Aqua Spa. I made the lightning bolt by using my 5 lb loaf mold from Bramble Berry with the multi-section dividers in so is was three sections and I poured white into 2 of the 3 sections. After they hardened I cut them into manageable 4-5 inch chunk and carved out triangles. When I made the actual soap I kept the multi divider in with tree sections and lined up the lightning bolts in the middle and red and blue on the sides. The reason I did that was just to keep the colors on their side and keep the embeds straight. After the mold seemed full I took out the dividers and as the soap got into the middle area it sank in so after that I poured the remaining red and blue in. Sorry this one's description was longer than I planed it probably should have gotten its own post! On a similar note my next post will most likely be about another Grateful Dead soap yet to be named so keep an eye out my fellow Deadheads!

  Next is what I'm calling Lavender and Chamomile. It is scented with Bramble Berry's Lavender Chamomile Huggies type which I love. It reminds me of the bubble baths I took when I was little so for me it is very nostalgic so I just have to have this soap around! On the top of this bar I decided to add lavender and chamomile buds for an extra effect, and mainly so I could remember the name of this scent...

      Keeping with the Chamomile theme is my Chamomile soap scented with Bramble Berry's Chamomile Cybilla fragrance oil which they claim to be close to the real deal essential oil but I cant speak to this because I have never smelled the real deal myself. I made this soap with Chamomile tea replacing my water and I colored it very subtly so I don't know of you can really see in the picture but it has a swirl of yellow, green, and cream. I also topped this soap with a line of chamomile buds along the center.

    This is my latest lavender EO soap and it is also happens to be my least favorite of the lavender soaps I have done. The design in my head was light green with big shreds of lavender soap throughout, but my shavings were to thin leaving me with plain green soap with barely visible hints of purple. The mica line was my last ditch effort to get some nice lavender color in the bar.

                                        

     The first snow soap I do every year after our first big snow. It is scented with Wholesale Supplies Plus's first snow and for the water portion I use filtered snow. This design is similar to my last one (here) but with the addition of little sugar pearls and snowflake sprinkles to the top.

     This is my Love Spell soap which I think is my favorite drop swirl I have done. It is scented with Bramble Berry's dupe of the Victoria's Secret perfume which I like but don't love. The only thing I wasn't happy about in this soap is how the white portion turned out speckled, my water soluble titanium dioxide seemed perfectly dissolved in the water but the bar tells a different story.

  

Next is my latest rendition of Wasabi soap, scented with Bramble Berry's wasabi FO. This design was just me experimenting with design. I tried to do a faux-funnel pour on both sides with a divider in the middle, it didn't turn out how I imagined it but i still think its okay looking.

   This soap is actually my most recent of this round up and it is scented with Bramble Berry's Energy. I have soaped with this once before so I knew it went slow so I decided to do a squeeze bottle design. Using squeeze bottles I discovered that they are a PITA during pouring (my hand was tired half way through filling my 5lb mold, and you know soap only gets thicker), getting the last bit out (again soap only gets thicker and thicker), and especially cleaning. While the results were pretty i think it will be a while before I do it again, maybe next time I will use disposable icing bags.

The next one is my Honeysuckle soap in a new design and color scheme. It is using Bramble Berry's Surplus Honeysuckle FO which is my mothers favorite. This is one of the first soaps I've done just plain layering with a I think my lines are straight enough. It is also my first soap in a long time I didn't color with any micas, unless you count the pencil lines. Speaking of pencil lines i used gold mica between each layer to add at least a touch of sparkle to the bar. Over all I think this is my favorite design I have done with this scent, it just looks so springy and fun! 

     Okay we are almost to the end, I'm sorry this post is so long! I just have so many soaps to catch y'all up on. This is my Grapefruit Bellini soap, which the scent was actual scent #8 from when I was on Bramble Berry's S.O.A.P panel eons ago.

  Next is a soap I made using WSP's Fresh mint, which I love btw. This was just a simple hanger swirl with different shades of green. On top I put crushed mint leaves and green glitter. This lead me to a question I want to ask y'all, how do you store your glitter? I may end up doing a little short post on how I store mine if y'all are interested.

       Finally we are onto the last soap of the day! If you have made it this far I very am proud of your accomplishment. I am ending with my Eucalyptus soap which had no real design except just pouring in a bunch of different colors. this soap smells so good and strong I used the EO which if you have smelled it before you know how potent it is. The smell didn't fade out of our whole house for a week!

 
   Well this is the end of today's post but stay tuned for more upcoming posts, and don't worry they will be shorter! I am happy to be back and as usual happy Soaping!

                   ~ Anna Rose