Raven Moon - Coconut Whipped Soap

I received a bar of coconut whipped soap from Nikki of Raven Moon Soap.  I have a thing about coconut.  I think it is one of the finest smells on the planet.  My all time favorite scent, but as a body products maker (is that what I am?) I have tried coconut fragrance oil from umpteen suppliers and haven't found a coconut scent that actually smells like coconut. The bar didn't really smell like true coconut but lightly sweet and soothing, nonetheless.

So the other day, I get in the shower and open her soap from the plastic shrink wrap.  The color was a soothing light brown with a pinkish brown top, lightly scented and clearly whipped. With whipped soaps, there is a "fluffier" look to the bar which I find to be so appealing to look at.  I am a very visual person, so looks matter when it comes to soap, but it is only one part of the whole experience obviously.  Then there is slip, suds, shaving abilities and scent....the 4 S's.

I took the whipped soap under the water and there was instant lather, big and full bodied. Ooooooh.  It felt great, the slip action was perfect so I slid it down my legs in hopes that this could be a good soap for my legs.  If you don't already know about my leg issues, I'll share.  My legs are so so sensitive and shaving or choosing not to shave (having stubble) has a tendency to irritate my entire lower legs so badly, I start scratching out of control, then my legs welt and then finally, I look as though I am a 9 year old who climbs trees all day.  It's just not a pretty sight.

I hate shaving cream smells, so I use soap to shave, always.  Otherwise, I would be hairy like a beast and my husband would be bummed out.  

So back to the soap.  I went to use it for shaving my lower legs and right away I knew there would be plenty of lather to make the shaving experience a nice one, but then there is the after shave dryness/irritation that can often occur after a soap shave.  Not this one.  This whipped soap performed so well I think this will be my staple shave soap.  It was moisturizing enough that when I completely dried off and got dressed, but legs didn't feel tight and dried up.  I suggest to anyone who has lower legs shaving issues, like myself, should definitely pick up a bar of this for shaving.

This was a great all around good soap, for the body, face and shaving.  Bravo Nikki!

Nikki also makes cupcake and cake soaps for the holidays.  Don't they look good enough to eat??

Squishy Soap In The UK

Soap Flakes

Found this great ingredient at TTS Group, an educational products site in the UK.  Above is a picture of Soap flakes, which they claim is environmentally friendly, enzyme and bleach free and I am assuming that because their are children in the header of every page that is must be non-toxic and safe for children.

They also have Crazy Soap which looks a lot like shaving cream (which no doubt has the best texture but worst scent on the planet).  Says nothing except that it is fun.

Reviews To Come

The next 3 soap companies will be getting reviews this week.

Fraiche
- Soaps and Swizzles

Swizzle : Dewy Cactus Flower

Herbaria
- Soaps

Pink Grapefruit Soap

Raven Moon Soaps
- Whipped soap!

Whipped loaf ready for action

FLOAP Soap

Vegan FLOAP by Gudonya (pronounced good ON ya).

Unfortunately, I didn't photograph my Floap before I used it, but this is what it looked like except that the chunks embedded in the top of mine were pink. My bar is called Chocolate Truffle Razz. The smell really smelled truffle-like and the texture was light and fluffy, but not soft. I felt like if I wanted to I could smoosh my finger through it. It reminded me of fudge. I love the whipped soap thing, though. It is so unusual and a very different experience in the shower.

The first time I entered the shower with my Floap, I rubbed it on my wet skin as I do with any bar of soap. But some of the raspberry embeds crumbled right off. The funny thing is that my lip actually went out to pout (if you can imagine my sad face pouting because 2 raspberry floap bits scurried down the drain). Some exterior crumbles began to happen and I was sure that my bar would disintegrate and that would be that for my Floap experience. But NO, wait. I think it needed to get more wet and become accustomed to me. After the exterior disintegration issue that lasted a whopping 20 seconds, it was over as quickly as it started. My Floap was intact and ready for the cleaning challenge. The smell was chocolate truffle with red raspberry notes. A dessert shower treat, for sure. It was pleasant and not overwhelming and it felt so smooth sliding across my wet skin displaying the perfect amount of lather and lovely slip. My first shower was a success once the "issue" we had resolved itself. The next 2 showers were perfect and smelly good. Unfortunately, my bar is going quickly. Physics would state clearly to me that if you whip a bunch of air into a bar of soap, the density (or lack of) will keep it from staying on this earth for an extended period of time.

My daughter really wanted to be in the picture with the soap, so the soap picture below demonstrates the bar after 3 showers.
This is the next one on my list to get: Cow-Ma-Flage™ (vegan) by Gudonya. It looks like it would be licorice, but it is red clover: a "surprisingly simple blend of sweet, herbal clover and a smooch of berries. It's not real berry-sweet, though."

Go shop for Floap. I highly recommend it, just understand it is a bit temperamental for a few seconds at the start. Kinda like when dogs first meet and they are both alpha males.

Upcoming Soap Review: FLOAP

This is handcrafted whipped soap. Gudonya Too calls it FLOAP, floating soap. It really does look and feel like fluffy fudge. Click on the photo for a truly up close visual on the texture. Tomorrow, check out my review on how this "floater" performs. This soap in this photo is chocolate truffle with lemon sprinkles. The one I am reviewing tomorrow is with raspberry sprinkles.

Soaps And Such

When I was doing some poking around looking for whipped soaps, I found soapsandsuch.net. And as far as I can tell they only make one called Pink Sugar Aquolina Type Luxury Whipped Soap shown above. To me, this luscious treat looks like a very thick graham cracker crust delight with a colored whipped cream topping....maybe strawberry...cotton candy cream? So the first thing I did, was order the Pink Sugar Whipped soap and asked for almost all the soaps in sample sizes. Okay, get this. You can buy really nice sized soaps for $3 each (while her site is still under construction) AND you can order a mess load of samples for only $1 a piece so you can try them all without breaking the bank. Brilliant! I love it when everyone wins.

I get the box in the mail over a week later and every drop is so good smelling, I am having trouble not eating the sample slices. My full bar of Pink Sugar has exceeded my expectations. It doesn't feel whipped or light or strangely textured, but it looks a bit airy. I love it! The brown bottom definitely runs brown when it washes off, which is fine with me, because the soap is so yum I could care less what's dripping down the drain. The lather is great. Copious and perfect for my shaving-the-leg test and all around lather up the body. I didn't have to work very hard to work up a lather which is a sign of excellent soapmaking. I like that!

Unless you know what Aquolina Pink Sugar smells like, I can only describe it smelling like cotton candy - sort of, except it doesn't have that heavy sticky sugar smell.

I haven't taken my own photo of the partially used bar so you can see a close-up of one, so I'll add that as soon as I can. I just needed to get the post up. I will review some of the others I received from them as well combined in another post along with photos for you to see. In the meantime, here are a few pictures to make you drool. The greyish swirly one is Ocean Spray Luxury Salt Soap and the blue gorgeous lad is Texas Cowboy!! YEE HAW! I'll have more to report soon.

Correction - Nizzy Moulds

I previously wrote a post, Whipped Soap about a soap maker who was the first to openly share the art of whipping soap. However, I completely assumed he was a she. Nizzy is a man. My apologies to all who worked under him or knew him personally and to Nizzy himself. Nizzy, I love your soap.

Anyway, go check out his site. Everything he makes is so great! Here is a cute pic. More pics in previous Whipped Soap post.

Whipped Soap

Whipped anything makes me drool. In fact, I am a total confection nut! I love cupcakes with whipped frosting, I love homemade whipped cream, meringue, fudge..... oh, I could go on and on. So knowing this, it makes sense that I've been on a whipped soap kick lately. Cold process whipped soap. Something that's been around, but I've never seen or heard of before. Now look at these great bars of fluffy soap!

I found Nizzymoulds by accident. Nizzy, the Australian soap maker started the website and has shared her whole process of making whipped cold process soap. It's really a tutorial with photos. The pictures make it look so luscious and makes you practically want to lick the bowl. I have no idea how the final cured soap would feel like or act like, so I can't say too much about it....yet. Since I found Nizzy, the whipped soap seems to be everywhere!

The soap floats, of course, and looks so light and airy. I think my favorite looking one is the "Pink Aquolina Type Luxury Whipped Soap" on sale for $3.00 at Soaps and Such . It looks like really delicious thick graham cracker crust with pink whipped cream on top (below).

Soaps and Such just opened their site and haven't yet set up their ecommerce end of things, but I emailed and I will hopefully hear from them soon and get a review up as quickly as possible. This last photo I just couldn't leave out because, again, it just deserves to be published here with the other things I love the look of. It was made by David Fisher from the article in about.com here.

So if you make whipped cold process soap, send me some of your pictures and I can post them....we can have a whole series on the whipped soap and the soapers who make them. Or you can comment here and tell me all about it. Also, if you want me to have a small slice, I'd love to get one to try.

Now, I need to eat something sweet and cakey.