PURO SOAPS

Trying to simplify and keep calm

2013-02-22T18:43:00.000Z

I just realised how long ago it was that I last posted, deep shame and embarrassment....

The only excuse I have is the busiest Christmas EVER! and the fact that I have been trying to recover and simplify ever since, well along with new soaps for Valentines Day and new Spring Soaps of course. So, today, just a few pictures for you.


New Marshmallow Rose top

And the same soap cut into bars


Fruity and Juicy, with peppermint, 5 fold orange and Lemongrass


Ginger and Grapefruit made specially for a customer


Revamped Honey Bee for 2013

Lots more new soaps to follow but I hope you will forgive me, I have been busy honestly.....

2013-01-18T13:24:00.000Z

Happy New Year and Many Thanks to all our followers and friends on Facebook and Twitter.
JoAnne Poskitt was our 1000th liker on our facebook page- and a little box of goodies is on its way to you JoAnne!
https://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/Purosoaps

Schwarzwaelder-kirschtorte in soap!

2012-11-07T18:27:00.001Z

Hi everyone, apologies for the lack of blogging lately, been really, really busy with lots of lovely Christmas orders. We have one or two new things for you all this year which are pictured below, before that though I wanted to tell you about a new soapcake I have just made. A lovely customer of ours from Germany sent me an image of the famous Schwarzwaelder-kirschtorte (Black Forest Gateaux to most of us!) and asked it I could possibly make it in soap. What a challenge! I so loved the look of the cake that I was really keen to make one myself, obviously with a bit of a Puro twist.
this was the image I was sent, a truly beautiful cake and very inspiring.

So I started by making the base first. Chocolate fragranced soap swirled with vanilla. I created two layers and covered the first layer in cherry soap balls. You cant actually see this until the cake is sliced - I will try and remember to photograph that for you.

Then iced the sides of the cake with plain white icing soap

then the top - this is done with the cake on a turntable just how you would make and ice a normal cake.

The cake with added piping and the soap decorations, all made in advance.
Soap cherries, chocolate fragranced balls and wafer sticks dusted in cocoa powder, chocolate curls made from old chocolate soap finished off with chocolate gratings.

Detail of the centre of the cake

The finished cake with added sparkle!

So that will be winging its way to Germany as soon as it is cured. I did make two so there will be some available for sale either on the website or at the various Christmas Fairs I am attending soon, you should also be able to buy slices at Darts Farm, Topsham.

Now a quick run down of the Christmas soaps on offer. Hurry up, they are going very, very fast this year!

Christmas Puds
Designed to hang on your Christmas tree or as part of your home decorations. They will make your house smell lovely and spicy and, best of all, you can use them afterwards! Great stocking fillers too. Click here to go to the website page.

Gingerbread couples
Absolutely adorable gingerbread people, again for hanging on the Christmas Tree, fragranced with the same lovely Christmas Spice smells. These little guys are sold in pairs, Mr & Mrs Gingerbread!

Ice 'N Snow Cupcakes
Beautiful fresh fragrance, reminiscent of a crisp frosty morning. Fresh, minty ice blue icing with a glittering snowflake of soap on top and sweet glittery stars studded around the side. Website link is here

Soapy Snowmen
A lovely one for the kids, natural soap with no added chemicals or preservatives, each little snowman is made by hand with hand piped coal eyes, mouth and buttons as well as a really jaunty little hat and scarf. Comes in 3 colours which will be randomly selected for you. Visit the page here

And lastly our two soap bars especially for Christmas. Christmas Spice Cake and Follow The Star

To see more of our soaps visit out website or join our facebook page, this is where you will keep updated and find out about all our new soaps first.

Let us know what you think by leaving a comment, thank you.

Vindima! (grape harvest)

2012-10-06T12:08:00.003+01:00

It's that time of year again when everybody in the rural areas of Portugal are working hard on the 'Vindima' or grape harvest. As some of you may know we use my neighbours red wine in one of our soaps- 'Vinha doce' or 'Sweet Vine' which has recently been re-invented for this autumn with a beautiful grape and vine leaf detail

I love taking part in the picking and always try to set aside a day to help our neighbours. It's a really sociable occasion, usually with the ladies picking, and the men carrying the buckets of grapes up the steep terraces and into the press (which is in my neighbours garage).

Lots of banter, sometimes a bit of singing and no shortage of wine and food- usually a huge lunch and several breaks for a 'Bucha' (a plug or a mouthful!).

Red wine is full of anti-oxidants and makes a wonderful skin care ingredient, with regenerating and lather-boosting qualities, so it's a fantastic addition to soap and we can certainly say this one is made with passion!

http://www.purosoaps.com/Sweet-Vine-p/sv1.htm

Shelley

Summer Markets in Portugal

2012-08-31T11:19:00.001+01:00

We've been selling at a few of the local markets here in Central Portugal. Our soaps have been received really well and we've been lucky enough to be invited to several events and fairs.

Setting up in these beautiful settings is always a pleasure. We've been by the river at the organic market in Barril de Alva, under the amazing Plane trees at the Sandomil artisan market, and even the Botanical Gardens of Coimbra. http://www.uc.pt/jardimbotanico/

We'll be back in Sandomil this Sunday so if you're local come and find us!

tp://www.facebook.com/pages/Mercado-Aberto-de-Sandomil/127156340743716

PORTUGUESE PASTRIES AS SOAP

2012-08-16T12:29:00.000+01:00

Now this is an exciting project, one that we have been meaning to start for a long time.

As you may know we have two manufacturing bases for our soaps, one in Devon in the UK and one in Lagares da Beira in Portugal, we use natural Portuguese ingredients such as lovely golden olive oil in our soap and we love everything Portuguese. With this in mind we have been thinking about making soaps that represent one of Portugal's most famous exports - it's beautiful egg puddings and pastries.

The most famous of these is known as Pastéis de Belém or Pastéis de Nata

It is believed that these wonderful little egg pastries were created before the 18th century by Catholic monks at the Jerónimos Monastery of the Santa Maria de Belém parish in Lisbon. During this time large quantities of egg-whites were in demand for starching clothes (such as nuns' habits) and also for cleaning wines, such as Porto, in wineries. This meant that there were a lot of egg yolks left over so many Portuguese monasteries and convents came up with wonderful confections to use left over egg yolks.

This proliferation and adoration of sweet pastry recipes continues today and these sweet little specialty egg pastries are very famous. The recipe for these egg custard pastries is kept a close secret. Pedro Clainha, current owner of the famous shop Aniga Confieitaria de Belém sais "we still use the same recipe, only three people in the world know it" Security is tight and the master bakers make the custard and dough in a locked room.

Pastéis de Nata is the name given to the imitation pastries produced all over the rest of Portugal, they are not always as good but, when you get a good one, they are never to be forgotten. My absolute favorite sweet thing in the world! (Ishbel)

The adoration of the Pastéis de Belém is easy to understand after you have taken a bite. The shell is made from massa folhada, Portugal's equivalent to our puff pastry. It spirals up creating a nest of hundreds of crispy layers. Inside is a luscious, rich, warm custard sometimes with a thin blanket of powdered sugar and a tap of cinnamon on top - absolute heaven.

So, here at Puro love a challenge as you know, we now have lots of Portuguese followers and we thought it would be nice to create a soap that meant something to them, would make them smile and, most importantly would be a lovely, bubbly treat. Here they are, hot off the making bench, soon to be available on our website www.purosoaps.com

We hope you love the look of them too. There is still room for improvement, I think the pastry cases need to be slightly more coloured for that "just out of the oven" look and the toppings could be warmer in colour but they smell really lovely, a fragrant vanilla scent that will make your mouth water and your skin smell warm and delicious.

Let us know what you think and if you are Portuguese we would love suggestions of more Portuguese pastries and puddings that could be created in soap.

Soap Challenge - Final Thoughts

2012-08-04T15:57:00.000+01:00

I know its a while since we took part in the Great Cakes Soapworks Soap Challenge but we have just been so busy since then that there has been no time to blog again. I went off to Portugal early July and made some exciting summer cupcake soaps along with Shelley, we had fun, made lots of soaps and talked, talked, talked!! Its pretty hard running a business together when we live at totally different ends of Europe so when we get the change we spend as much time together as possible. One of the good things we were able to do was to look at planning a schedule for new designs and creations for the Autumn and Winter seasons so watch out, lovely new soaps will be coming soon.

Back to the Challenge. I thought it might be good to let you know what we got out of it. Firstly here is a line up of all the soaps created between the two of us

My thoughts - Ishbel
I really, really enjoyed the challenge, it made me think hard both about my design ideas and pushing myself to make things that I had never tried before. A lot of the things we were asked to do such as making soap using milk we do all the time so it was tricky to follow the brief while still making it unusual and taxing. My favorite making project was the Jubilicious soap on week 9, the challenge was to make a soap with a textured top. This is something that we do regularly so I decided to give myself the task of creating a top that looked different and was an integral part of the overall design rather than just a rocky top. The design was based on the Jubilee celebrations in the UK, I waned to create a red, white and blue soap topped with a matching crown. The scent of this soap is fabulous too, Lady Grey tea, bergamot, lemon and orange, its refreshing and sweet at the same time and I love it! Im definitely going to push to get a soap with this scent combo in our main range.

My most technical challenge was piping soap roses (week 3), not only was it a challenge to produce the actual roses, I made my first Puro video of it too! A difficult thing to do but I have been practicing since and it is paying off. Our first Piped Rose Soap Cake is about to go off to one of our wholesalers in Germany.

So I feel like I have put my new skill to good use. Thanks to Amy Warden for organising this wonderful event, I hope we can take part in another one, but not for a while!!!

My thoughts: Shelley
I loved the challenge too! Not only did I learn new skills which I probably wouldn't have got round to trying- like making a landscape soap (not as easy as it looked!), but I also learnt new techniques from seeing the ones Ishbel made. The faux funnel swirl that Ishbel made in week 6 got me hooked, and has been my latest favourite swirling technique. I also really enjoyed doing the gradient layered bar- not sure I'll be repeating that one too often, as its quite time consuming, and I think I'm more of a fan of the crazy swirls than the controlled layering - but it's a great technique to have mastered!
My favourite soap challenge of all was the fragrance blend of week 5. I had to do a bit of homework with this one. After learning all about the theory behind blending essential oils, and a rummage through my left over stocks of Essential Oils, I came up with a blend which just produced the most beautiful soap. Unfortunately I don't think it will be included in the range as it was incredibly expensive to make- but who knows!
I'm off now to have a play with the icing technique Ishbel used on the cake above- all these ideas, that Amy encouraged us to try, are not only inspirational but addictive! ;-)

Natural Soap Cupcakes, new designs coming soon

2012-06-27T19:34:00.000+01:00

Just a quick post to let you all know that our Ice cream summer range of soap cupcakes are now available on the website and for wholesale orders.

they look great and smell even better

Also we have been playing with some more ideas for summer cupcakes, some lovely floral ones. We have just added them to our cupcake photo album on our facebook page, do please go and have a look and see which ones you like best. We still have not decided which we like and may come up with some more too, these are a start!!

Just to give you an idea..........

As you know, we love comments so please do let us know what you think.

Banana Cream Soap Challenge

2012-06-11T15:33:00.000+01:00

Shelley and I really are quite sad, this is the last of the Great Cake Soapworks soap challenge, we are a week late posting, but here is the last of our new challenge soaps.

Our challenge this week was to make soap with natural ingredients. Well, again, this is a bit strange for us as we always use as many natural ingredients in our soaps as we can. I decided to try a fruit pulp soap as I have never made one of these, I also wanted to give my soap embellishment skills an additional boost by trying something I have never done before. So, as a combination of new skills, I felt this was suitably challenging!

I decided to use bananas, mainly as we have a new banana fragrance oil that I use to make Puro Soaps Banoffee ice-cream cupcakes and it smells yummy. In addition we use a banana soap slice on each cupcake (see above), I normally hand paint each one and wanted to try a technique that would give us an endless supply of slices.

If you have ever got interested in making things out of polymer clay, you will probably be familiar with the technique of Millefiore, it is also often used to create beads and interesting jewellery. Essentially you start off with a large version of the form you want to create and stretch it, sounds easy doesn't it? How to make it in soap though? The object is made as a short fat cylinder, much bigger than you finally want and stretched one way to alter the dimensions and make the object appear much smaller than you originally started off with. The pattern should also appear when the lengthened cane of soap is cut through at any point along its length.

My banana model in the background and the three different colours of soap needed to make a banana cane

So I got on with it and made a fairly successful cane of banana, not quite as accurate as objects made of polymer clay but I think that is because soap has very different properties. It took quite a long time so Im not sure how time saving it would be in the long run but I did enjoy the task.

then I put the soap together and made this video whilst doing it.........

When cut up the soap was very strange, it was seeping a bit of oil (definitely not lye - I think it was vitamin E) and along the length between the white 'cream' soap and the tan coloured 'banana' soap there was a strange cave-like structure which I have never seen before. I have no idea what this is or how it was created but overall I am very happy with the finished result. The soap itself is very, very creamy with a rich double cream like lather, it smells really good too. It came out of the mold quite wet, not actually sticky, but feeling heavy and wet. I put this down to the banana pulp adding weight and moisture to the soap mix. It is already curing nicely and has an interesting speckled finish as well as the strange cave effect. The oils have all been re-absorbed and it seems pretty solid and stable. I'm really looking forward to using it.

All that remains is to thank Amy Warden for organising this brilliant Soap Challenge, I know I speak for both myself and Shelley when I say how much we have enjoyed it. I think what it has shown us is that there is never any end to what you can learn and how much you can push yourself with the amazing craft of natural cold process soap making. We hope to still be challenging ourselves in many years to come!!

Check out this link to Amys site to see other soapmakers challenge results, you will be amazed. Unfortunately this blog was a little to late to get into the week 11 line up but there are lots of superb soaps there to look at. We are planning a photo modeling shoot for all the soaps we have made during this 11 week marathon, so watch out for that.

Please, please let us know what you think of our latest creation, pass on the site and make sure you sign up to our facebook and Twitter pages, this is where you hear our news first.

thank you for following us......

Ishbel and Shelley

Serra da Estrela Landscape Soap

2012-05-26T11:21:00.002+01:00

This is Week 10, and the penultimate week of the current Great Cakes Soapworks Soap Challenge organised by Amy Warden.

I personally think this has been the most challenging one yet!

I thought I'd have a go from Portugal, as again Ishbel has more experience of making Landscape Bars in the past, and I wanted to have a go at a Portugal inspired Landscape bar.

So, all these photos are the inspiration behind my soap bar. First of all I wanted to create the rock of the Serra da Estrela- which is our local mountain range, a National park, and is the highest range in Portugal. I did this by piping a lumpy rock through the middle of the soap loaf.

Then I wanted to give a layer of the pine forests- so I added a green with some dried crushed parsley to give texture. Followed by the lush green pastures- so this was a very slightly lighter plain green.

Then I sat in the Portuguese sun- (i mean I sat a bright yellow tube of soap sun into the bar- I didn't have time for sunbathing at this point!)

These bottom layers were fragranced with all the smells of The Serra da Estrela- Pine, Eucalyptus, some cedar and the wild herbs of Bay and Rosemary.

Above the sun I wanted to create the wild amazing skies that we often get here- I swirled Orange, Pale yellow, white and a deep grey-blue red and scented it with the fruity floral scents of Portugal- Orange blossom and Citrus.

So..... here's the final soap.

It has the boulders, the green forest, the sun and the colourful sky.

I'm really happy with the result - it was a tricky soap to make, but I think it needs refining. It reminds me of a childs painting- and although clever (it is soap after all!) I would like to make it more sophisticated. (It also reminds me a bit of something from the Expressionism art period!) Perhaps I need to simplify it- take one element- the mountains for instance in more subtle colours- I'm not sure!! Let me know what you think!!

However I do know its going to be a fabulous soap to use- it smells wonderful and has the usual lovely local Portuguese ingredients- my neighbours Goats milk and our local Olive oil.

This is the double bar before I cut it in half.

This is the final bar.

Again. another brilliant challenge- and again I can't wait to have another go and refine another new skill I've learnt!

Shelley

RED, WHITE & BLUE - LADY GREY NATURAL SOAP

2012-05-17T20:04:00.001+01:00

So, some of you may have noticed a couple of small little things that are going on in the UK this summer? No? well let me tell you....

Firstly its the Queens Diamond Jubilee, a pretty major happening here. The main events take place between June 2nd and June 5th although there seems to be things planned all year, even 'The Archers', Britain's longest running soap, on Radio 4 is hosting a special event to celebrate. This is the official Website of the British Monarchy for those of you who might be interested in finding out more about this Right Royal Event.

Then there is the London 2012 Olympic Games, now surely that could not have escaped your attention, many visitors will be coming over to the UK and the country is due to be plastered in Red, White and Blue Union Jack flags along with a complete take over of TV, radio and newspapers. There are bound to be lots of exciting stories and many records broken. The dates for this event are the 27th July until 12th August, now while some residents may be using that as an excuse to escape the madness and leave the country, many will be staying for the fun and parties, oh and to watch Team GB of course.

Why is all this relevant? Well, as part of the Great Cakes Soapworks soap challenge (this is week 9 already) I decided to do something that would celebrate both events in some way as well as fulfilling the challenge brief and trying something new. This is Ish by the way!! I know it gets a bit confusing as there are two of us making soap for Puro Soaps.

So........... Red, White and Blue, had to be the colours for this soap really didn't it?

Did you know the Queens favorite tea is Earl Grey? and, those of you who know Shelley and I, know that we cannot function without tea, tea and more tea, so I decided to create a special Earl Grey tea fragrance (natural of course) for this soap.

I remember seeing a wonderful Twinings advert for 'Lady Grey' tea with the fabulously English and gorgeously sexy Nigella Lawson (see below) and that got me going.

Earl Grey tea is china tea which has added bergamot, Lady Grey is a lighter alternative with infusions of lemon and Seville orange peels, a more sophisticated tea I think (I like both). So to create this scent I used essential oils of Bergamot, 5 fold Orange and Lemon and mixed, it smelt exactly right in the pot, I just hoped it would survive the rigors of cold process soap and smell as good in the soap.

The challenge for week 9 was to create a soap with a textured/peaked top. Ha, well we already do this most of the time so my challenge was to create a peaked top that represented the Jubilee (by looking like the Queens Crown) as well as being slightly individual for each bar. When we make our soaps we use large wooden molds which are double the width of our finished soap bars, this means that not only do we cut our loaves of soap across to create slices, we also have to cut them in half again to create the individual slices. In practice this makes it quite hard to create an individual peaked top for a single bar. So I set myself the task of doing just that. Here goes.......

I got my usual recipe mix ready, brought it to a light trace then divided it up into 3 jugs for the colours. I used natural pigments for this, Ultramarine blue and Red Oxide as well as Titanium Dioxide for the white. I decided to layer the 3 colours fairly thickly, retaining a little bit of each to do thinner layers on top of the loaf. I hoped this would mean that when I started working the top texture I could draw the thin layers up together to create red, white and blue peaks. It sort of worked!

Remember, I also wanted to create an individual, crown like peaked top on each bar to represent the Queens Crown and the Jubilee. So the finished loaf looked like this...

A little sparkle of glitter and then the overnight wait for it to set up. Here is another close up of the peaked effect before cutting

The next day I got the soap out of the mold and the scent was fabulous, it really does smell like Lady Grey tea, a light, fruity scent with the distinctive bergamot tones over the top. Then I set it up, ready to cut and went for it.

I was pretty happy with the first thin cut end piece. The colours are not quite as bright as I wanted but they have actually darkened a bit now 2 days later so I am hopeful they will not fade at least. Oh but the smell, it is so lovely, I had to stop and make a cup of tea!

Cutting the final bar, and the division has worked! That was really the most important result for me in this challenge, to end up with a bar of soap that had its own individual, crown like, peaked top. Here is a close up, you have to use your imagination a bit, but I do think the top does look a little like a crown, the glitter helps.

And here are the finished bars in all their Jubilee/Olympic/tea glory! Now all we need is a name for this soap, can you help?

The best suggested name will receive a free bar of this soap as soon as it is ready. It will be judged by Shelley and I and the winner will be announced on our facebook page and via our new Twitter account @purosoapsclub. (please do follow us on Twitter)

Please note, sorry but due to postage costs, this offer is only open to UK and EU residents.

Please add your name suggestion to your comments on this blog post - you know how much we like them! You could also leave your name suggestion on our facebook page too.

Thanks for taking part, and thanks, as always, to Amy Warden for organising this great event. The next challenge will be made by Shelley in Portugal, it is to create a landscape soap - very exciting!

Salt Bar

2012-05-12T09:50:00.000+01:00

We're on Week 8 of the soap challenge set by Amy Warden of Great Cake Soapworks.
This week it's a Salt Bar, and it's ....made in Portugal! (Shelley).
The reason I'm doing the challenge again is because Ishbel has already made salt bars and had a lovely one in her range previously, so I just wanted to have a go really! Only one problem- I have never seen a salt bar, used a salt bar or made a salt bar, so I have apsolutely no idea what it's supposed to turn out like!
Ishbel passed on her recipe to me- it was basically about 66% Coconut Oil, 11% Castor Oil, and about 22% Palm Oil (we dont use palm oil in any of our ranges any more, but i have a small amount of old stock- it's organic and sustainably sourced from a small RSPO approved producer).
I used about the same amount of salt (ordinary fine table salt) as coconut oil (it seemed like alot!) and more fragrance than I would normally add- around 6% fragrance to base oils (we usually use 3%).
Ishbel instructed me to add the salt to the melted oils and mix well, and then add the fragrance, and finally the lye mixture (I just used water for this)- it took a while to trace (surprisingly) but was a gorgeous consistency. I chose a fragrance of Bay Rum, and Peppermint Essential Oil- (the peppermint being the major part), and coloured it with a pale bluey sea green. The whole room took on an amazing aroma- the peppermint being so zingy and invigorating!
I was intending to do a small loaf mould- and add a layer of ground dried seaweed I had found in my box of goodies, but in a last minute change of heart I poured the mixture into chunky heart moulds and left them plain!
So here's the result- sorry there aren't more photos- my hubby has had the camera with him for the last few days, so I was unable to photograph the making process. Also these photos don't really show the colour very well- it's a lovely pale duck-egg blue/green.

I'm still uncertain if it's how it should be- I have to admit I imagined a more glassy bar. I will have another go with this method, but add more dimensions- maybe include some botanicals and layers of colours, but I really wanted to strip it down this time and keep it simple. Can't wait to see the other results of the challenge- I've been making soap for several years now and the challenges have shown me there's still loads to learn! It's been a brilliant process- thanks Amy, and thanks to everyone else who's taking part and giving everyone such positive comments and encouragement every week.

A quick P.S!i just wanted to add- i've just tried a little bit of this (it should be cured first- but I was curious!) and it does turn very smooth and glossy once it is in use- the only thing I wish I had done differently is added some texture - I feel like it should be scrubby! Overall I'm impressed (and converted- i was dubious!) and I love the peppermint- I will definately be doing a new and improved version soon!

Shell

Gradient Colour Soap!

2012-05-05T10:21:00.003+01:00

We're on Week 7 of the soap challenge set by Amy Warden of Great Cake Soapworks- Gradient colored soap! This week it's ....made in Portugal! (Shelley)
I've had friends here from the UK for the last week so I thought it was a good opportunity to invite them to join in, and make a really fun bar which they can take back as a souvenir of their trip! Plus it's been raining all week so what's better to do when its grim outside- make soap!!
Some of our soaps do have simple layers in, but not quite to the degree which we have been asked to do in the challenge this week!
We've used our usual recipe which has lovely Portuguese olive oil and Goats Milk (this time from my neighbour Glorias goat!), but we only made a small 2lb/1kg loaf sized batch.

My friend Kate chose the fragrance we would use- it's called Tropicana, and it's a lovely blend of fresh tropical fruits- papaya, succulent peach, crisp melon, dry pear and strawberry. This immediately made us want to choose bright, fruit-inspired colours, and feeling brave we thought we'd do two colour gradients- red/pink and yellow/orange. The only problem was I couldn't remember if it was fast tracing so we made sure the temperatures were low and kept the soap in a very liquid state!

We started off with the bright red at the bottom (which actually came out a fabulous hot pink!) and whizzed up each layer just before pouring it, so we wouldn't be waiting too long for the layer to set. We added the titanium dioxide and made paler pink layers, and then we went onto the orange layers, which we did in reverse- so we started with the pale creamy yellow and then a bright yellow, and then an orange (i did add a little bit of red to the very last layer to get a good papaya colour!).

I just couldn't wait to turn the soap out the next day to see how it had worked- and was so pleased with the result- i LOVE it!!

Amy's soap challenge has really pushed our soapmaking skills and I can't wait to try this technique out again!

The finished bars cut and stamped with our logo

If you want to have a look at all the other challenge results please visit this page

Shell

Cutting Bridge Inn Beer Bar natural soap with new wires on the cutter

2012-05-03T19:57:00.001+01:00

I did promise after the last video that I would remember to order new wires for my old and well used cutter. The problem I have found with it, and I know others in the soap world have too, is that wire cutters work very differently from knives when it comes to cutting soap.

If the wire is fairly thick, mine came with 2mm stainless wires fitted, they do not actually cut the soap bars, they seem to push curls of soap out of the way on their journey through your soap loaf. This leaves a rough, kind of bobbley surface on the finished soap bars, which does not look nice and means you have to scrape the soap off before packaging.

I got fed up with this so I investigated the thinnest wires I could use on my cutter and ordered stainless steel guitar E strings from Amazon. Now they come very cheap (£1.24 for a set of 5) so I ordered 3 sets thinking that I was bound to break a few when setting up the cutter.

In fact I only broke one, carefully tightened the others and this video shows you how good the result was. I am thrilled, I can't tell you how much nicer, and quicker, it is now to cut a huge loaf of soap up. These Bridge Inn Beer Bars (a big favorite here in the UK) are going to look so good in our new boxes too, I cant wait to see them.

Our new packaging is looking really great. We have new boxes for our soap bars:

and lovely new cupcake pods which should really protect them as well as allowing customers to see how beautiful they look.

So, as always, let us know what you think of both the new video and our packaging. We really love to hear your comments. Please feel free to share this too. You can visit our new You Tube Channel and if you do please be sure to subscribe. We hope to be making many more.
IshbelXXX

Swirly Wurley Psychedelic Sixties Soap!!

2012-04-28T20:04:00.000+01:00

Strange title but true.. This is Week 6 of the Soap Challenge organised by Amy Warden from Great Cakes Soapworks, I cant believe we have already got to Week 6 and there are now over 90 soap makers across the globe taking part, what a fabulous soap making party we are all having!!

Seriously, the challenge has been great, testing skills, making us think and, most of all, great fun. The best thing for both us as makers and you (I hope) as watchers is that it is to continue. So below are the next few dates and the challenges we have to rise to:

Week 6 (starting April 22): Faux Funnel pour soap
Week 7 (starting April 29): Gradient colored soap
Week 8 (starting May 6): Salt Bars
Week 9 (starting May 13): Peaked Tops
Week 10 (starting May 20): Landscape soap
Week 11 (starting May 27): Making soap with natural ingredients

As before, we make the soap during the week and then on Saturday Amy posts the link to which we post our photos, videos, blogs etc.

So, what have Puro Soaps done this week? We have decided to split the challenges up, as we did before. This gives us both the chance to play and expand on our skills. Week 6 was Ishbels week...........'made in Devon'

Well the challenge was to make a soap using the Faux Funnel technique, don't ask, if I tried to explain this to you I would be here all week! So instead I have made a video (with the help of my lovely son Ryan who is an excellent graphic designer), both of the making and then the next day cutting so you get to see the whole process and the final bars of soap. It is shorter than the last one, honestly. I hope you stick with it and watch until the end, the music is great (I would say that as its my choice) and you do get to see the whole soap making process in its entirety. this soap is our really fabulous 'Beijinhos' which means in English 'Little Kisses', it's fragranced with Kismet - (Lush Karma Type) Patchouli, orange, lemongrass, lavender, pine, gardenia, sandalwood, and musk - Its gorgeous!! and, more importantly, behaves very well in cold process soap.

OK, so click and watch, please remember to leave us comments, we LOVE them, and do visit and sign up to our facebook site too, thats where you get to hear about all the special offers and new products first.

If you want to have a look at all the other challenge results please visit this page, I hope you do and if you like what you see do leave a comment. We soap makers work very hard to design and produce what we do and to hear that you like it too makes all the difference.

'Scent'sational Soap Challenge Wk5!

2012-04-21T09:52:00.000+01:00

This weeks soap challenge set by Amy Warden of Great Cake Soapworks is all about blending your own fragrance. It's something we have done in the past but I've not thought about it quite so scientifically before.

After doing a bit of reading about the different 'notes' of essential oils I thought I'd try and make my blend with the recommended mixture of three parts from the top note group, two parts from the middle group and one part from the base note group. I noted down all the oils which work well together and came up with a formula of complimentary scents.

Less is more I told myself- or KISS- 'Keep It Simple Stupid'! Only problem with this was that just using three essential oils just wasn't daring enough this time, and I saw this as an opportunity to have some fun! So... I went to town!!
For the top notes I used three parts of each bergamot and orange, for the middle note two parts of each geranium and lavender, and for the base, one part of each rose and geranium. These were all essential oils I had in my fragrance stock, including...gasp..actual rose otto essential oil- well in for a penny, in for a small fortune! The essential oils were weighed to make up 3% of the soap base oils.

My next decision was to keep it plain and natural or...wait for it... Go to town!!! I just thought well, hey, its gonna smell extravagant (hopefully), it should look extravagant! So I added a bit of colour to turn it a lilac colour (representing the lavender) and added toppings of bright pink roses (the rose bit) and dark purple butterflies (don't ask- I'm just into butterflies at the moment!)

You can see the colour of the blended oils in the small pot in front of the pan above- it was really dark and thick!

I added one last little white swirl just to bring in some contrast to the lilac colour (getting a bit carried away by this point!), added the toppings and then kept my fingers crossed it would work as this is probably one of the most expensive soaps I have ever made!

I removed the block from its mold this morning- it was very soft but looked and smelt wonderful- I can't wait for it to cure to see what its like to use.

I have to say the whole scent is stunning- but I am finding it hard to pick up all the elements. I can't smell the orange for instance, and the lavender and geranium are definitely more recognisable. I asked my husband what he thought it smelt of- his answer was 'mmm nice Bubble Bath' !!! (not sure if that was a good answer or not!)

This really should be a luxurious bar to use- it's made with our usual recipe with Portuguese Olive Oil and Goats Milk and is totally Natural and Palm oil free.

If you want to see all the other soaps created in this challenge click this link. We both hope it will go on as we have enjoyed that challenge of trying something new and pushing our boundaries - Thank you Amy for this wonderful opportunity.

Shell.

Wine O'clock! (Week 4 of the Soap challenge)

2012-04-14T09:40:00.002+01:00

Week 4 of The Soap Challenge set by Amy Warden of Great Cake Soapworks is to create a soap made using alcohol. We currently list a lovely beer soap but we have been recently trialing a wine soap, as there is no shortage of good local red wine in our area!

To see all the other soaps in Week 4 of the challenge go to this link.

All our neighbours make their own wine and we get given a lot (mainly red), so it seemed like the perfect thing to include in our range of Natural Portuguese Soap. I personally love the whole process and always get involved in the the grape harvest and pressing and, as some of you know already, we are both partial to a drop of the old vinho tinto!

I can't tell you how brave I had to be to post this photo of me pressing the grapes with my neighbour last autumn- but I thought it important that you know we at Puro will always go the extra mile when it comes to making our soap!!

Having done a little bit of research- I thought it best to simmer the wine first to reduce the alcohol as I had read about explosive results when mixing the lye and alcohol. While the wine was simmering away I felt inspired to add some other ingredients into the pan - slices of lemon and orange peel and a stick of cinnamon- I just fancied making the wine a little fruity and spicy- almost like a mulled wine or sangria.

After it had cooled down I bagged it up and popped it in the freezer ready for when the both of us could get soap making!
We added the caustic soda to the frozen wine which meant it didn't immediately get too hot. It didn't smell too bad either! but it did go a dark sludgy brown, so we added a small amount of red soap colouring to the batch which turned the soap a rich shade of cinnamon. We made the toppings to continue with the fruity theme and added soap citrus slices and cinnamon curls. The smell was absolutely wonderful!

After unmolding the following day, the soap mellowed to the warm wine red you see below.

The resulting soap which we are calling 'Sweet Vine' (Vinha Doce in Portuguese) is beautiful and smooth and surprising creamy and luxurious. You can see more pictures of this lovely soap and full ingredients by visiting this link to our website. If you missed the line up of Week 3 outcomes you can still see them here, there are some wonderful ideas, all based on piping cold process soap, along with our video entry, piping roses.

We'll leave you with a photo of one of our lovely neighbours Gloria, who in the typical Portuguese hospitable manner, is never far away with a jug of the local wine!

Soap Display Stand Challenge!!

2012-04-11T16:07:00.003+01:00

Phew!! It's finally done!

After our success of making the trugs last year I thought I'd have a go at building a display stand for one of the shops we supply here in Portugal. The trugs we have are lovely- especially for things like markets and fairs, but we'd had some feedback from friends that in this particular shop display it was hard to see the soaps properly.
Right! Display Case- 'How hard can it be?' (our normal answer to a new challenge!!) The truth is that actually this time it was quite hard! Once we'd got the basic unit together (I have to admit to having a bit of help from the hubby for this bit!), it became apparent that the shelves weren't all that strong. Easy solution- we'll put some dowel up at the front of each shelf for extra support.

The only problem with this idea was that Dowel is very hard to get in rural Portugal! We tried making the struts with pieces of wood which had been routed to make them less square but it felt too chunky. Had I thought about it I could've gone into Ishbels house here and nicked her curtain poles (just kidding Ish!), but i ended up having to bring them back in my luggage from B&Q in the UK!!

After fitting some corner triangles at the back of the shelves, and the dowel struts, the stand felt really sturdy (hubby said 'thats strong enough to sit on, that is!' but I'll take his word for that!)
I blended some paint to get some nice fresh Spring colours, and got the local printers in the village to make up some vinyl banners with our lovely logo.
One final coat of varnish and it was finally ready for some soap!

This is what it looks like in situ, and it just happened to be the same colours as the spring display which was being put together as I arrived- result!!

You can find it in http://www.deklomp.pt/

Our first video - piping roses in natural soap

2012-04-07T10:54:00.000+01:00

Hi everyone, Ish here. I'm so excited, thanks to a comment received last week from Carol, I managed to get my camera settings right and now I can make a video and load it onto my computer. Next big trick is to see if I can get it loaded up here too!!

This is a video for Week 3 of the Soap Challenge, organised for us all (88 soap makers from all over the world) by Amy Warden at Great Cakes Soapworks. It has been such fun, I really have enjoyed challenging myself to go that bit further and do things that I have never attempted before. Next weeks challenge is going to be interesting, making soap using alcohol.

Anyway, back to Week 3, we were challenged to pipe cold process soap, which for us at Puro is difficult to turn into a challenge as we are known for our cupcakes and soapcakes which all feature spectacular soap piping. So, this is meant as a challenge right? I decided to undertake a piping experiment that I have never done before, piping roses. I have done two different ones, the first being the easy option and the second considerably harder. I hope you like the video, it is a bit long (I got carried away!) but I hope you stick it out to the end. Let us know what you think, did you like it, is this a format you would like us to use again (but perhaps a bit shorter)?
Thank you for watching.

Natural soap goes a bit fruity!

2012-04-05T22:53:00.000+01:00

Just a very quick blog before the Week 3 soap challenge reveal, had to let you know that Shell and I have added two new soaps to the website, the most amazing is:

Our revamped FLORESTA VERDE - GREEN FOREST , a firm NMSPortugal favorite returning in a new guise. This soap was loved by everyone who tried it so we are really happy to announce its relaunch. Lovely creamy white soap with ice blue hints, decorated with beautiful handmade soap pine cones, leaves and nuts - the fragrance is fantastic, pine, eucalyptus, spruce and menthol it is frosty clean and fresh!

We also have a new FRUIT CAKE - BOLO INGLES soap - an aromatic offering, warm and homely, scented with fruity fig, sweet blackberry, raspberry and warming sultana - its yum, yum, yummy!

So go along to the website and have a look at the rest of the photos and information, we really like these new soaps and we hope you will like them too.

Let us know what you think....

Plants, Flowers and Soap inspiration!

2012-04-03T13:31:00.004+01:00

I know alot of our wonderful followers have come over from Ishbel's Naturally Made Soaps blog site. For those of you who don't know me - i'm the other half of Puro- currently running the Portugal side of things. Although I've been making soap for many years now, it's not my only passion! I'm a Horticulturalist, specialising in Planting and Garden Design. It's no surprise that alot of our soaps are inspired by the nature and landscape around us, and you'll have to forgive me if my blogs go off on one sometimes into the world of plants and gardens!
It's not only about the inspiration that goes into our soaps but also about the ingredients- I'm always trying to grow things that we can perhaps incorporate in our products- Lavender for instance- and knowing where our ingredients come from is really important to Ishbel and myself.

I was recently asked to design a garden here specifically for crafters The garden was to include lots of plants suitable for use in making toiletries and soaps, creative cookery and dying fabrics. How happy was I being involved in a garden which would have soapmaking ingredients and pigments etc. in!! Above is a photo of the garden in construction- as it's planted up over the next few weeks, I'll add some more photos to show you how it develops.

I also visited Wisley recently and I can't tell you how inspired I was!! Not only from a gardeners point of view but also as a soapdesigner!
Ishbel mentioned to me this week about us designing an orchid soap- just look at these amazing orchids from the new glasshouse-how about that for inspiration!
Shelley

Soap Challenge Week 2 - natural soap using milk

2012-03-31T13:28:00.000+01:00

Another great challenge set by Amy from Great Cakes Soapworks for Week 2 of our soap challenge and, guess what?...... There are now over 84 soap makers from all over the world taking part. How great is that?

If you missed my blog about Week 1 you can visit Amys link up site and have a look at Puro Soaps entry as well as lots of other lovely, and amazingly different, soaps. You can also catch up with what I made by having another look at the blog from last week.

Firstly, I wanted to tell you about my disaster, well not a disaster as such, just a very annoying problem. I decided that, as well as the challenge of making coconut milk soap (which I have never tried before), I would video the whole thing too so I could add the video to this blog and give you a bit of an insight into how we make natural soap. So my lovely son Ryan came and helped set up a mini video studio in the workshop. We did a couple of tests and it all worked out well so off I went, mixing and stirring, adding coco powder, vanilla and fragrance and pouring into the mold, all went swimmingly well, no spills, no colour disasters and I remembered to use my gloves all the way through! Then we checked the video on the camera and it all looked great, really professional, until I tried to load the video onto the computer :-( It seems that my camera takes videos in a format that is not recognised by computers! AARRGGHHH - So back to the drawing board. I will try and come up with something for the Week 3 challenge.

Anyway here are the still photos of my soap, I hope you like it.

Meet 'Sandalwood and Vanilla', made using coconut oil and coconut milk as well as shea butter, olive oil and lots of cocoa butter.

The other very important ingredient in this soap is this beautiful natural vanilla paste from a wonderful local company here in East Devon, UK - Littlepod. Janet from Littlepod imports the finest quality, responsibly sourced, bourbon vanilla from Madagascar in pod form but also she and her contact in Madagascar have come up with a unique way of suspending the bourbon vanilla aroma and flavor in a paste. Used by top chefs all over the country, this paste is fabulous, it is so easy and versatile to use and so much better than ordinary vanilla extract. I make a bespoke soap for Littlepod and I know that this paste withstands the tough alkaline conditions of cold process soap really well. It gives a slightly creamy colour to the soap with a wonderful natural vanilla fragrance and sweet little flecks that come from the vanilla seed suspended in the paste.

I was really intrigued by the way the swirl turned out (or didn't as the case may be). The sandalwood fragrance makes the soap set really, really fast so I did not have much time to work with it. Instead of a beautiful cross colour swirl that I was attempting this very strange swirl/trace happened which I have not seen before, but I quite like. You can see it better on the close up picture below it makes me think of bare, naked winter trees.

You can see the vanilla seeds on this picture too. The base is coloured with cocoa powder and the top is completely natural apart from the slight creamyness, probably from the coconut milk but also the vanilla paste.

So thats it! I have to tell you the smell is fabulous, I can't wait until my sister Beckie sees this, she absolutely loved the last sandalwood soap I made, and that was 2 years ago!

Week 3 is all about embellishment, Piping cold process soap. Those of you who know Puro Soaps well will know that we do this all the time but I have a couple of new, untried ideas up my sleeve, I am going to give myself a very big challenge - lets hope it works out.

To see all the other soaps made in Week 2 click on this link - Week 2 Soap Challenge - they will be added over the next week. Next Saturday, get ready for the Week 3 reveal, its going to be good.

Wedding Blogs and sites

2012-03-29T11:05:00.000+01:00

Hi everyone! What fabulous weather we are having at the moment, its a little bit unsettling though. For the last 2 years in the UK we have had our summer in April/May then rain, rain, rain so I just hope this isn't the only sun we will see for the year!! Anyway, I am trying to enjoy it while it lasts.

I wanted to tell you quickly about two great new sites that Puro Soaps has just signed up to.

Firstly The Bridal File which is an online bridal directory for brides to be and their families, it has 19 wedding related categories to browse through with lots of lovely ideas and inspiration. Puro Soaps are featuring our fabulous wedding favor Cupcakes and Soap Bar Minis in the Wedding Favors section and the Wedding Gifts section.

Secondly The Dream Wedding Directory. This is a link to their blog which features other blogs from the wedding industry and I have just added Puro Soaps. I hope we will be featured soon.

Its always good to join other networks, great for support and also information. If you would like to feature Puro Soaps on your blog or website please let us know. We are very happy to share and will always add your link to our site too. I call it "Link Love" and we are firm believers in this form of small business support.

Where do you share your information and links? Do leave a comment and let us all know, we could start our own little blog corner for "Link Love" - how nice would that be?

Enjoy the sun and have a happy day

The guessing is over, The Great Soap Challenge week one reveal!

2012-03-24T11:55:00.000Z

I have already enjoyed this challenge so much, thanks to Amy from Great Cakes Soapworks, she has set some wonderful tasks for us to do each week and, I am so excited, this is the end of the first week and time to show you how my soap came out! If you want to see how I made this soap please go back to the last blog where it is all explained including step by step photos.

The single slice, I love this one, it was tricky to choose though as each slice was totally different. The top looks really nice and sparkly too so I have taken a couple of shots with the tops lined up.

All in all love the bar, the smell is nice too, peppermint and bergamot, which is a lovely combination. The bergamot seems to take the eye watering menthol scent away from the peppermint and softens it really well. I am also very happy with the pigment colours I used and will definitely be experimenting with them again, this has been cut for a couple of days now and there is no sign of fading at all so hopefully the colour is a keeper!

These bars will be ready in 4 weeks time if you are interested and will be posted up on our Puro Website under Special Limited Edition soaps.

I just cant wait now for week two, Making milk soap, this is going to be a tricky one for me as Shelley and I always soap with goats milk anyway, so another type of milk will have to be used. I have always wanted to try coconut milk, so perhaps that is the way I will go. Anyway, I shall blog again next week about what I have done then the reveal will be next Saturday 1st April (April Fools - I hope that is not going to follow through!!)

Do check out the Great Challenge reveal link and have a look at what everyone else has done, apparently there are now over 70 soapmakers all over the world involved. How brilliant is that?

Please leave me a comment, I'd love to hear what you think and pass it on to your mates via the facebook and twitter buttons below or on the side bar above, the more comments the better. If you sign up to this blog at the top of the page, you will ensure that you wont miss any of the new from the next 4 weeks of The Great Soap Challenge. Thank you.

Puro Soaps is joining The Great Soap Challenge!

2012-03-20T18:22:00.000Z

Yup, this is very exciting. 65 soap makers from all over the world both amateur enthusiasts and professional makers have signed up to join the Great Cakes Soapworks Soap Challenge!

I am really excited as I have not made much soap for a while and am feeling very frustrated so to bring back a bit of challenge to me and my soap making I decided to sign up too. Basically over the next 5 weeks we are being set a series of soap making tasks, one each week. The final soaps will be cut up, photographed and displayed on a special blog with all the other people taking part, this will happen every Saturday and there will be a link so you can all have a look too. There are no prizes but that is not what it is about. Imagine how lovely it will be to get an idea of how everyone has tackled this challenge and how different the resulting soaps will look? I can't wait!

So, this is week one and the challenge is to produce a beautiful soap using the in-pot-swirl method. Sounds easy doesn't it? well, I have made many, many soaps over the last few years and lots of them have been quite technical swirls etc. but I have NEVER made an in-the-pot swirl, gulp. I have always used another method in which you swirl coloured soaps inside the mold itself. This time I have to swirl coloured soaps in the main mixing pan, the one where the oils are melted and mixed with the lye solution, then tip this into the mold and hope for the best. Of course, none of us will have any idea how our soaps will turn out until they are out of the mold and cut up, so its a nerve wracking 24hrs ahead. The following 4 challenges look like this:

Week 2: starts March 25 – Milk soap
Week 3: starts April 1 – Piping Cold Process Soap (you’ll need decorating tips and a bag!)
Week 4: starts April 8 – Making soap with alcohol
Week 5: starts April 15 – Mixing your own essential oil or fragrance blends

I have photographed my progress today, here goes......

Firstly I had to decide on the colours and fragrances I will be using. I have some lovely peppermint essential oil lurking in my fragrance cupboards since I made my Salgado Azule salt spa bar last year and I have been dying to use it again. I love the freshness of peppermint and using it meant that I can then work on using my bugbear colours in soap making, blue and green. I never seem to be able to get these right and I really love blue/green soap. This time I decided to use Ultramarine Blue and Green Oxide, both natural pigment colours and very vibrant. I know that they mix well and the colours usually stay true in cold process soap but I have not used them very often so it would be a challenge to come up with the right shades.

Mixed colours, fragrances and mold all ready

The two lighter shades to the left have been mixed with a little titanium dioxide and I have also added a sea green mica and pearl blue mica too, hopefully to give a little sparkle to the swirls. mica does not always work well in CP soap so it may be a bit wasted, we will see.

This is my oils and goats milk and lye mix waiting to be amalgamated.

Oils and lye mix added together. Notice how creamy it looks, that is the fab goats milk I use. I have, at this point, only blended the two together, they are not at trace yet and I want them to stay like that. I like my soaps to be nice and runny for a swirl. I have also added the essential oils, peppermint and bergamot.

All the colour pots blended with about 300ml of the soap and fragrance mix - still lovely and runny.

All the colours are now added to the oil mix which has been coloured with a little bit of titanium dioxide to make a really good contrast.

The mix is then swirled very lightly in the pot. I'm happy with the colour combinations at the moment, lets hope they stay like this!!

This is the soap now in the mold (it went a bit muddy looking so I hope there will be enough of a contrast when cut). I then dribbled over the remaining coloured soap, which is by now setting up nicely.

The top is them simply swirled with the point of a skewer, problem is, I don't like flat soap!! so I decided to carefully peak the top lifting soap up from well beneath the swirl on top so the peaks were still showing swirled sides. I think it has works, it looks a bit like waves I think. I then glittered the whole thing to give some sparkle and voila.......

I really love the way the top looks, just can't wait to see what the rest of it will look like cut up.
Hey, I have just noticed that this soap matches the blog!!!

You will all have to wait until Saturday, I will post the link to the challenge reveal site on this blog and our facebook page as soon as I get it from Amy.

So keep your fingers and toes crossed that it has come out well. I am so happy to be creating again, I really need to do things like this, it keeps me fresh and on the ball - so thank you Amy for organising this fun event.

Let me know what you think of this and also if you have any ideas on how I might tackle the next 4 challenges (shown above).