The North Street Bubble For Christmas

Marianne Rice of The North Street Bubble sent me an array of gorgeous soaps about a year ago to try and possibly review and I just loved them.  I loved the way each one looked and smelled.  They each had a distinct look about them, and were mindfully handcrafted and sent individually in paper bags ink stamped with the TNSB logo on them.

Sadly, I waited so very long to actually get into my shower with them.  Why did I wait so very long to use them??  Have I been so consumed with my own life that I could not muster unveiling one of those suckers for my own use?  Ugh, I kick myself!  You know why??  Because they were pretty darn stunning soaps, I say!

I am choosing one to talk about.  The prettiest one I had in the bunch.  Layered with red?? 
O h  y e a h .  Two thin red lines of perfection.  Absolutely stunning and that baby performed seamlessly.

This soap had huge bubbles and it felt smooth as silk on my wet skin.  And it wasn't like the huge bubbles cancelled out moisturizing qualities, either.  In the past, I've received soap bars that produce big, big bubbles and when I've gotten out of the shower, my skin feels like I've been shrink-wrapped in plastic and THEN, I bend and my skin feels like it cracks.  Not so with Marianne's soap.  I have no need for lotion afterwards, which is my telltale sign that a soap is well balanced.

Sadly after a year, her soap's scent faded and I didn't experience the BOMB smells that I initially got when I opened her package, but her soaps did not disappoint.  She is spot on with her recipe and graceful artistry.

Thank you, Marianne.  Sorry it took an ion to get to it.  Well worth the wait.  Peace out!

The North Street Bubble. (FB)    Web

Photo Of The Day

 

TANGO

Nubes de jabón - Clouds of soap

Soap In The Raw

Soap porn in the raw.  Yes!  It's true, I have a love relationship with raw soap.  It is so beautiful in it's own dessert-pudding-like way.  The final product is even more exciting, but when one finally takes their raw soap creation and puts in in a mold to become soap, it leads to me to a happy place of raw.

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Christmas Warmth "batter" by Kinder Soaps

sandalwood vanilla by Bella Fresca

Carrot Buttermilk Soap By Soap Foundry (only found his blog)

Calendula + Chamomile by Dragonfly Dew

Triple Milk Vanilla Buttercream Luxury Shea butter Soap by My Planet Earth Soap

(my soap) Mar Bar unscented goat's milk soap by Product Body|Absolute Soap

Sweet Pea by Great Cakes Soapworks

Elixir by Amathia Soapworks

 Carrot Something by Revive

Yum....what's up YOUR sleeve today?

* FIMBY *

I stumbled upon a blog tonight that I just have to share with you. It's called FIMBY (Fun In My Back Yard). Renee is the blog author, and she writes her blog with raw honesty and what seems like deep love for her family, all things pure, real and adventurous. She's not only a writer, but also a photographer, soapmaker, homeschooler to her two children and even harvests her own veggies.

I am in love with the soap photography, which is how I found the blog in the first place, of course. Not only does she make soap, she gives tutorials, offers recipes and supplies soap supplier names and locations, book resources and all kinds of things. I strongly suggest you wander over to FIMBY to see what's blooming - to there is something just for you. I found many things I will have to go back again and again for.

Now for the eye candy, or rather, soap porn. ;)

Summer Shoo-Fly Soap

Peppermint Patty Christmas Soap

Orange Clove Pomander Soap

Lavender Lemonade Soap

Autumn Spice Cake Soap

NOMS!

Doesn't that just make you want to go make some soap right now with nourishing ingredients? Thank you Renee for spending countless hours (I know... I do it here) writing your blog. We have taken notice and appreciate your efforts!

go see:

FIMBY Homemade Soap and Body Care

I Love Orange So That Must Mean I Like Carrots!

Carrots are everywhere. At our house, we eat the baby carrots by the bag, every week. They're delicious, and good for you! The nutrients in them are apparently good for your skin, too. Here are some soaps with REAL carrots inside.

I think I have to start making fruit and veggie soaps. I'm all curious about it. How wholesome and luscious it all seems.

Carrot Soap

Made by Rocky Top Soap Shop

Carrot Soap

Made by macsoapy, Dresden, Germany

Carrot and Honey Granola Soap

Contains pureed carrots, honey, finely-ground oatmeal and buttermilk.

Scented with an essential oil blend of tangerine, fresh ginger, and clove bud.

Made by Get Lathered in Indiana, USA

Carrot Mint

Pure organic carrot juice is in this bar, no water at all. Beta-carotene boosts skin health, so please drink natural carrot juice daily as well.This is a healing bar!

Made by Curat in Indiana, USA

Vegetable Juice Cold Processed Vegan Soap

...vegetable juice of tomatoes, carrots, celery & watercress as the liquid base.

So the color is a true reflection of orange from tomatoes & carrots

Made by Joy Soap Works in California, USA

Carrot & Urucum Oil Soap

Carrot Tissue oil, carrot juice and puréed carrot are loaded in this bright

nourishing bar with a mild, sweet fragrance of spiced carrot cake.

Made by Aroma Ville in High Wycombe, United Kingdom

Look how cool that last one is... I'm trying to figure out what kind of mold they used to get that effect. Very cool....

I want one!

*

Saboo Thailand

I was looking for soap made with real carrots for some soap porn and I found this site, Saboo Thailand. They make all kinds of soap. Cold process (CP), Melt and Pour (MP) and Hot Process (HP) soaps. All are really beautiful.

Take a look and go check out the site. Cool, huh?

Vanilla

Latte Coffee

Bamboo Charcoal & Goat Milk

Carrot & Tamarind

Carrot

Yogurt

Tamarind

Mmmmm, coconut. You know how much I love coconut.

:)

Thank you, Saboo!

Lustbirne Has Me Lusting

As I mentioned in a previous post, Miss Gabriele Kappes, a.k.a. Macsoapy, of Einfach Seife, sent me soap and I must do a review immediately because the first and only bar I've tried, put my entire family into a shower frenzy.

I was sent 3 bars (oh, the lovely Gabriele. thank you!): Smoky, Lustbirne and Sportsfreund. I grabbed Lustbirne and went in for an evening shower only to be delighted on so many levels. Mm, the smell was new to me. I don't speak German, so I couldn't interpret Lustbirne. "Fragrance" is the only clue I get in the ingredient list, so before I go looking online at Google Translate for what I'm smelling, I try to test my smelling abilities. Eh'hem... I know I'm going to fail because I'm not well versed in the florals, and I think this one is...... Honeysuckle..? Oh my flipping head, it's a gorgeous and gentle scent!

So I'm in the shower and the bar is on the small side of normal, but works beautifully in my hand, as if it were made just for it, and I get it wet and start the lather process. GOLD! Dang - - that sucker batted it right out of the field! Über lather that made for great shaving and it washed off nicely, too.

I'm sad, though. My husband doesn't usually like the soaps I get because the scents are too much for him. Well, he really likes this one and he takes two showers a day. TWO! My son has also decided he really likes the soap! So now he is starting to shower in our bathroom instead of his. So my beautiful soap is going quick because it is being manhandled and showered with 4 times a day. Poor thing.

I love the soap I am using. Lustbirne. I haven't tried the other two but they smell wonderful. I did a Google Translate on Lustbirne and it says: pear relish. Guess my nose is WAY off. Hmmmph. But now I go back. Ah, yes, I can smell it now. How wonderful! So mild and delicate. And a beautiful bar to look at, yes?

Gabi, thank you SO SO SO much. I love your soap!! And my family does too. I'll have to divvy out my other bars for safety reasons. No fighting amongst the siblings...

:O)

xoxo jo

Balls!

Mahmud al-Sharkass creates soaps sculpted as grapes in Aleppo

visit this website to read the story behind the soap

Soap Balls made for a good cause at Global Orphan Outreach

visit their website for more information

Soap Trio by Gippsland Gift Baskets

Peas In A Pod by Great Cakes Soapworks

Spaceballs by Fresh Cut Soaps

Soaperstar and The Buzzzzz

When I first found Soaperstar, I found the website and it was full of bright, cheerful glycerin soaps. I think glycerin soaps can be so pretty and a true art in so many cases, but generally, here, at The Soap Bar, I focus on the hand crafted "from scratch" soap so I never pursued obtaining a bar for review.

Celine recently moved her craft to making cold process soap and created some interesting bars that piqued my interest. So....

I got a bar of Butterbee Silk. Unscented straight looking bar. When I opened the bar I smelled it and I was surprised by the scent. It smelled like something I knew well, but what was it? It did not smell like any soap I had ever smelled before.... I looked at the ingredients to see if there was something unusual in there: Sweet almond oil, organic palm, coconut oil, cocoa butter, castor oil, pure silk, pure buttermilk, and turkish honey - unfragranced.

I smelled and smelled until it hit me ---- a light hint of curry! Curry?? I emailed Celine right away. She said she didn't smell that.... she smelled caramelized honey, so I popped in the shower and got the soap wet and showered with it, and sure enough, the curry faded away and it started smelling more like a faint caramelized honey sugar. Thank goodness because a curry soap review would have been really hard to do. I LIKE Celine!

As far as the soap's performance: lovely bar. It is cut for smaller hands. Sadly, I did not weigh it or measure it, but I'd guess it's under 4 ounces, the bar lathered well, moisturized wonderfully and worked well for shaving. I think cocoa butter and honey are a nice combination, although I wonder if the buttermilk was the challenging factor in causing the curry smell before the bar got wet. Once wet, however, Butterbee no longer smells like Masala Saag in any way. ;)

The soap lasts a nice long time, especially being a small bar, it needs to stick around, and it does. I'd love to try the Cream Bee next. I've never tried a vegetable puree soap, with fresh Irish dairy cream... sounds dreamy.

Celine, you are definitely on the right track! I think you are a sweet and lovely person and I wish Soaperstar the absolute best.

Follow her blog to keep up with what Celine is up to :) She just posted a new soap: Fresh Orange soap with Tussah silk, shea butter and cocoa butter. Here's a mini pic to drool over:

Voluptas... Dreaming Tree Soapworks

My experience in the shower yesterday was one I hadn't had in a long time. I shared my shower with a nice big bar of wonderful. Let me see if I can describe my experience with My Bar so you can be with me in the shower.

Voluptas by Dreaming Tree Soapworks

Oh, My Lather

I got in and the water was very warm, verging on too hot (I can almost never get it quite right in that damn shower). I pick up Voluptas and pass it through the water as I bring it towards my other hand and it already starts to create bubbles from the friction in my hand that's holding on to it. Good sign. I start rubbing the soap between my hands and big bubbles grow, but(!) underneath, the tiny, itty bitty shaving cream type bubbles emerge with great density.

Ohhhh, heavenly dense lather.

They are so soft and moisturizing, that I move away from the water so this lather doesn't wash away. I figure what fun it would be to cover my self from head to toe with this vanilla-y-dense-a-love and experience it totally. I did - and my body thanked me for it. What fun it was to not only feel luxurious but also to get a chance to play with so much lather for a while. I rarely give myself time in the shower because I am on the go, it seems, all the time.

Usually when a bar is this dark, the lather is a dark tan and leaves dark bubbles all over, but this one is only a light tan and doesn't leave the shower looking like poop was splattered around by a pissed off monkey. Also, the soap washed away clean off my skin, but not a dry squeaky clean. A soft clean. I do this little thing with every soap I try: I rub it against my lips to see how smooth it is. This one is super smooth, no bumps at all. love!

Smelly

I love vanilla but I really despise faux vanillas. I am usually extremely unhappy with vanilla overall. That is hard to be coming from someone who loves the smell of real vanilla. One of my problems is that I keep thinking this will change because I keep reading descriptions that are written so perfectly and then I receive product A or B and then I want to vomit, so I was nervous to receive this vanilla bar.

This is no typical vanilla. It's no vanilla extract or vanilla ice cream folks. There is some real vanilla hearty stuff in there. Dreaming Tree's description is:

Named for the Goddess of everything sensual and pleasurable; this is a blend of two of the most amazing vanillas. Made with creamy coconut milk, and loads of organic cocoa butter making Voluptas a sensuous shower treat.

I smell vanilla bourbon, although, I could be wrong, whatever these two vanillas are, they are not vanilla as they say. It is far more of a serious blend for the nose that is super comforting to me, that along with the skin benefits of the bar, it felt as if I was perhaps using the best bar of soap I could be using for my skin.

The soap was only lightly scented and that could be a bonus for some and a negative for others. Though I will say, this is an incredibly heavy scent and if it were to be scented more heartily, it could be overwhelming... I don't know. (I know that I have lightly scented soaps and heavily scented soaps in my line.)

Coconut milk, apricot kernel oil & organic cocoa butter? Vanilla? Mmm. I want to make a cake with that and then bathe in it!! It's not cake, but I bathed with it, and my skin loves me for it. And I love Meghan Runyon of Dreaming Tree Soapworks for making it.

I don't give points or stars or thumbs up, but I will tell you to go buy a bar before it disappears. I'm not sure if this is a limited edition, but if it is, I hope she at least keeps this formula in her line. Meghan, pleeeeeeeeaase.

Not only does Meghan make soap, she makes a lot of bath and body products but she researches like crazy and can take up to a year in research and development before introducing a product to her line.

Thank you, Meghan, for allowing me to review your soap!! Maybe I should interview you next!

;)

Magic Hands Soap Porn

Jackie, of Magic Hands Workshop, makes beautiful soap and has been since well before I started a couple of years ago. Sadly, I have never tried her soap even though I have been drooling over her salt bars for years. She is one soaper who always has a variety of salt bars available to her customers and they are always cut beautifully, never imperfect like many of mine and many others I have seen.

Magic Hands used to run their business out of California and now out of Pensacola, Florida. Too bad that is still like 8 hours away from me, or I'd go have a soapy pow wow with The Magics. A meeting of the soap pots. Oh what fun we'd have! Jackie writes a funny blog which I visit often, but is rarely about soap, which I like even more ;). She has a great sense of humor so I think we'd get along really really well. I get her.

I thought you'd like to see a small gallery of her soaps, so I bring some to you. It TIS my job as The Soap Bar lady. To see her entire collection, go to her Etsy shop here. You will see all her creations.

Maui Sunrise salt bar

Gardeners Scrub Shea Butter soap

Zen Tea Shea Butter soap

Blueberry Sea Salt bar

Lemony Snickets Shea Butter soap

It's true that she makes other things like lotion and bath bombs and lip balm, but you have to forgive me for focusing on her lovely soap. They are just so lover-ly..... :O)

Hi Jackie!! (((((waves)))))

luvvvz the soap!