Okay, I know that we are already well into the New Year but I still had to say it in my first post of 2013. Yay, me! Now, what have I been up to? I have closed out my books for 2012 and have conducted inventory. I have a mostly soaps left over from 2012. The reason? As I have previously stated, I am not that big of a soap maker. My interests lay in the field of fragrance crafting. I have been doing some research this calendar year and have found what I have been looking for and that is a list of geographical common scents. What does that mean? Well, I have always wanted to create a Highland's line but hadn't the foggiest clue as to what fragrances are considered related to Scotland or even the Highlands. I found it a book published in 1997.
The lesson that I have already learned but had reinforced is research, research and more research. That has been the greatest tool in developing my signature fragrances. Some people when purchasing F. O.s and E. O.s use them singularly. Most will be brave and mix F. and E. O.s together to stretch their resources or move outside of the soaping parameters. That is what I like. My laptop that contains all of my pics is currently in the shop being de-bugged. Arg!! I will hopefully by next post have pics to show you. I created an Orange You Glad soap that used tomato juice as the base and is scented with Basil, Spanish Rosemary, Blood Orange, Sweet Orange and Lemongrass. It has been curing for 3 weeks and my living room still smells like a citrus field!! Cool.
I also made a different version of my Coffee Shoppe: Chocolate Almond Biscotti. I love how much softer the bar is and the lather is stupedous. The fragrance really sticks to the skin after the wash. I am in chocolate heaven since I can't eat milk chocolate. The coffee grounds give the mildest exfoliation while still being effective. This time as last time I allowed the vanilla in the almond biscotti and the chocolate to color the soap. I did use Starbucks Blonde as the base for the soap and it was the prettiest cafe con leche color at first. Now I have a medium mocha color that is so wonderful to behold!
Now to my favorite part, fragrance analysis.
Basil is a pungent essential oil that I would recommend using very little of. It can overpower any blend that you are creating, even after mellowing for a few weeks. It blends very well with citrus e. o.s and, as strange as it may sound, vanilla f.o., coconut f.o. and gardenia f.o. With any blend you might want to do a 2-2-1 blend with Basil always being the least used.
I received some fragrances from a fellow crafter. I would have to say that not all were winners. 4 went into the Perfume/Cologne category. 3 went into the Diffuser only category and 5 went into the Body Butter & Soap category. None were complete throwaways. You can always salvage a lousy scent. In this blog I hope to never name a company that has scents that don't appeal to me. I will however, name any company that has scents that not only appeal to me but that I use repeatedly.
So this is the end of this post. Next post will be pic heavy since I had to do without in this one. Thanks so much for sticking with me into a new year.
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