New New & More New!!

Whew! It's been one of those weeks. Busy, busy, and more busy! First off the giveaway is still on and I have been given quite a few awesome names to choose from. Overwhelming? No, not at all ;)

Check out this pic of the "pumpkin spice" soap that will be renamed this week. I was going for a different kind of swirl, but it did not work out as planned. It still came out in a neat layer on the bottom with a swirl on top. The smell is absolutely amazing as well. The soap will be ready in time so that the person who wins the giveaway can request it as their "free" soap choice. 

Thanks to all those who have participated thus far. If anyone else wants to take a last minute stab at a name idea for my "pumpkin spice" soap you can click here and leave me the comment with your name idea. 

http://thenakedbar.blogspot.com/2011/10/give-me-name-get-you-bar-giveaway.html 

Oh, and all ideas need to be in by November 1st, and I will be picking the name on November 5th!

This week I was also able to snap a couple of snazzy pics of me making some Cold Process Soap. Sorry some of them are a little blurry, but you know how it is taking pics of yourself.....

In this photo I have all of my items laid out in preparation for making my latest men's soap "Cool Like That". (It's a Cool Water dupe). You remember the song from back in the day by Digable Planets? Am I dating myself? LOL!

The large red bowl contains all of my oils (melted down and cooled to room temp). The two small orange bowls contain my colorants. In the case I used titanium dioxide for white color and activated charcoal for grey color. I combine both colorants with a touch of olive oil so that I can easily incorporate them into the soap.

Now I pour my lye water (also cooled to room temp) into the melted oils. Do you see how the oils and the lye water are starting to combine on the bottom making it cloudy looking? Exciting!!! That is the chemical reaction taking place in the formulation of soap!!

Okay in this next pic you can see the action really getting started! The lye and oils are mixing together and I am accelerating the process by using a stick blender. (Can you imagine that years ago this was done with a spoon? Uh, no thanks!) I continue mixing until I reach the stage in soap making known as "a light trace". The mixture is the consistency of a gravy. 

Check me out with my soap maker costume! I've got my really super cute green eye goggles. You can't see them in this pic, but I also have some cute gloves too! 

After combining my lye water and oils I then divide the soap into the colorants in each bowl. Finally I swirl each of them into my mold. (Sorry I could not get pics, but I needed both hands for this). Not to toot my own horn, but this is probably the best looking swirl I have done ever! I absolutely love the way it came out. This soap is very "Cool Like Dat!!!"

I probably need a better camera, but I think my picture taking skills are getting a little bit better. There are so many soap blogs that I have seen with some truly amazing pics of their soaps! So I have got to step it up!

Oh and BTW, check this out!

This week I also came across a very cool soap blog called The Soap Seduction! As a fledgling soap blogger I get so inspired when I come across soap artists like Patrice! Her soaps are awesomely awesome and her soap names are hilarious (to say the least)!!! 
Here is her link....