Never say never.

When I started making soap, I thought I would never go into the sweet and fruity direction. Citruses yes, but not the whole fruit basket and bakery scents. But with the numerous delicious looking and sounding soaps that I see in other people’s blogs, I found myself slowly getting lured into this realm. It does not help either that I got addicted to shopping for scents!

Before I got sick earlier this week, I made 5 batches of soap last Sunday and another 2 on Monday, using new fragrances. I thought they all smelled great and I just kept on sniffing them whenever I had the chance. But when I got sick, I was totally repulsed by the smells, most especially Monday’s 2 carrot batches scented with cranberry marmalade and orange peel/kumquat. It appears to be that I got some kind of stomach flu which is going around. I am much better now and I can’t wait to be able to fully enjoy my fragrances again!

I was able to take pictures of the soaps from last Sunday, but not the ones from last Monday. I don’t know when I can bring myself to go near them to take photos because even from afar, I smell them. Everywhere! The spatulas, containers, notebook!

So here are the 5 that I was able to photograph. If they appear hazy, it’s because I accidentally turned on a filter feature which my husband found out after I took the photos, and I just didn’t have the inclination to do a retake.

1. Orange Raspberry Sherbet – made with coconut, olive, palm and avocado oils with powdered goat’s milk, and scented with wild raspberry and tangerine f.o.’s. I really like the fresh, tart scent. It reminds me of childhood summers spent with cousins eating Baskin Robbins’ orange sherbet. I wanted to do a Celine swirl but right after I added the raspberry f.o., the soap was setting up fast so I had to ditch my original plans.

2. Pear Almond Tart – This and the succeeding soaps below are all yogurt soaps with coconut oil, olive oil, palm oil, rice bran oil, and cocoa butter. The smell reminds me of a pear frangipane tart that I make and love. The bottom part is scented with an almond pastry fragrance, and the top part with bartlett pear.

3. Apple Almond Tart – scented with tart apple and almond pastry fragrances, this smells strong! I think I will like it better when it has mellowed out. I’ve noticed that yogurt warps certain colours like blue, but I didn’t feel that it did with green chrome oxide. However, this one turned bluish green, so it must be the tart apple fragrance.

4. Honey Bee – I finally got to use the bubble wrap design for my honey soap! This is certainly one of my favourites!

5. Peppermint Vanilla Noel – It’s the first time I’ve achieved rich vibrant colors and I couldn’t be more thrilled! I used brick red and green chrome oxides, using a scant 1/4 teaspoon per cup of soap batter following Amy Warden’s colouring guidelines. Of the 5 batches, my husband and I like this scent the best. The red, green and white top is scented with peppermint e.o., and the bottom part, which I left uncoloured thinking it would turn a darker brown, is scented with sweet smelling vanilla noel. This really smells like candy canes!

With this soap, I learned it is not a good thing to pre-empt soda ash. Originally there was much less soda ash than what you see in the photo. It was really just a slight sprinkling, so I thought I would arrest its development by steaming it. It became worse instead! I will have to observe if the soda ash thickens, and I will steam it again.

What are your favorite sweet and fruity scents? 🙂