Making of Big Blue

Big Blue is one of the soap that I like to make the most. Although I have a kind of love-hate relationship with the fragrance oil I choose for it, I still keep on making the soap. The history of this soap is different than my other soaps.

When I think about the design, it can happen that I already have a certain idea and then search for a fragrance oil that I believe it would complement my idea, or I can really like an FO and then spend weeks in composing, writing and drawing possible design solutions. As a starting point for Big Blue, I had following ideas on my mind:

• I wanted to make an ocean inspired soap
• I wanted to make a blue soap
• I wanted to make a scrubby soap

The main concept was that the soap has to transmit the message of a summer holiday on a beach with its color that would depict the blue waves, fragrance that would remind of salty water and fresh air, and scrubby layer that would remind us of a sunbathing on a beautiful tropical, sand beach.

As you can see, in this case, I had a previsioned design idea before I went on a search for correspondent fragrance oil. Although people sometimes tend to think that soapers buy FO’s randomly, I can attest that at least in my case, that is not true. I spend hours and days in research of fragrance oils alone. I read a lot of reviews about their characteristics and performance during the soaping process and after. The company from whom I order has also to be a respectful leader on the soapmaking supplies market. To conclude, it is not that simple to incorporate all the ideas and quality aspirations into creation of soap and if you admire a certain soapers work that is because usually the soap itself hides hours of most detailed and hard creative and practical work behind it.

The first version of my Big Blue was this:

Big Blue #1

It had shredded soap with crushed walnut shells throughout the whole log. Originally, I thought that it will be a good idea, but although it looked good on the finished product, it was a bit too scrubby for my taste. I decided then to modify the look leaving the half layer without shred addition. 

This is how it looked like: in the second round:

Big Blue #2

I was satisfied how the FO sticked in the cold process soap. It did not morph nor fade out which a great plus. On the other hand, it gave me a headache while soaping. I accelerated the trace and warmed up the mixture significantly which had its impact on the final look of the soap. I was tending more to the creamer, deep blue instead of a bit translucent smoky blue. I made all the precautions necessary and soaped on a low temperature, but it still did not changed the outcome. Therefore I also got a few tiny air bubbles.

For the third time, I decided to cut even more on scrubby shreds, but to elevate the bottom layer. Here is the outcome: 

Big Blue #3

I received yesterday a bunch of resin soap stamps that I ordered few weeks ago and I present you here premiere of fully finished soap before packaging took place. This one is may favorite so far!

If there is a disease called 'stamp-mania' I am suffering from it at the moment...

For the time being, I am satisfied the most with this look and probably will keep it for the future. But who knows, maybe I’ll get tired of it and decide to change something again…

You can see on the photo that I managed to get the creamy blue, but that was only because the percentage of shredded soap to the new soap mixture was 50/50.

My recipe is a bit eccentric for this one, i went a little wild with the butters here. Next to the virgin olive, sweet almond and avocado oil for moisturisation, coconut and castor for bubbly lather, you will find And loads of mango, shea AND pistachio butter. Isn’t that yummy or what? The soap is popular enough despite the design changes I made, so I decide to keep it in my regular line.

This will be the final batch of Big Blue for the summer. As you already know, all my batches are very limited and I have only 14 bars of this one available. If you live in the Netherlands, you are welcome to join my super summer sale on June 2nd in Utrecht. You can find more information on my FB event, so check it out and definitely come if you can. My friend will be hosting the event in her fanbulous historic house at Utrecht downtown and we will be serving some seriously delicious handmade cakes and tea!