Castile soaps are back!

Soap made with 100% Olive oil is a most gentle soap, is a hard long lasting bar and has a creamy soft silky lather! These soaps get praise from my clients so I am once again offering the Unscented Castile and the Lemon Geranium Facial soap in addition to my Tea Tree facial soap. All three are made with Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil and are 100% natural.

find them in my shop!

For oily skin I recommend the Tea tree soap or the Lemon Geranium
For normal/combination skin I recommend the Lemon Geranium or Unscented castile
For dry skin I recommend the Unscented castile

 Traditional Castile Soap

The Geranium facial soap has been revamped to include ground oatmeal ground calendula for a gentle exfoliation and lemon essential oil to brighten the skin. I also added honey, a humectant, and pink clay to help draw toxins out of your skin.

 Lemon Geranium facial soap

For the face I recommend to lather the soap on and let it sit for a minute before rinsing so the ingredients have time to do their magic! Be sure to wash your face with cold water. Hot water will strip moisture from your skin. To finish apply two drops of extra virgin olive oil to a cotton pad and smooth over face. Use your fingers to rub it in!

Tea Tree Facial Soap

Olive oil has been used for thousands of years as a skin ointment and modern science tells us that indeed olive oil is beneficial for the skin whether applied or ingested. Olive oil is rich in antioxidants including Vitamin E, Vitamin A and Hydroxytyrosol, said to slow the aging process by stabilizing the cell plasma membrane with can break down as we age*.

Though I do promote these as facial soaps they are wonderful for the whole body! Enjoy!

*sources

the Pink and Green Sale

In Honor of over 200 fans on the Naiad Soap Arts Facebook Fan Page, and my favorite color combo, I am having a sale!

For the PINK and GREEN sale - anything in my Etsy shop that is either PINK or GREEN or BOTH with be marked 20% off starting April 1st through April 5th! For Instance:

Happy Shopping!

naiad.etsy.com

Pure, Fantastic Pepo Park

At last year's HSMG Conference I had the privilege of hanging out with Kim Wilton, the little lady behind Pepo Park . Not only is she super cool but she is a super talented soap maker as well! Her products are all natural, simple but elegant, in fresh scents like Ylang Delight, Ginger Spice and Lavender, Lime + Grapefruit. I am using the Ginger Spice now and it makes taking a shower in the morning pure bliss with a heavenly scent and bubbly moisturizing lather!

Oh, and she makes a must have salve for dry weathered skin with Tea Tree and lavender essential oils called No More Rough Patches, as well as bath salts, lip balms and room sprays!

When she isn't making soap or donating soap to Clean the World and other charities you can find her on facebook, Etsy, and her website!

Winner of the Sunset Cliffs Giveaway!

Congrats to Adrian - the second commenter! Just send an email to me at erin@naiadsoaparts.com with your shipping info!

Thanks to everyone for the comments and compliments!

Join me at the Soap Weekend Intensive at Otion!

If you haven't seen on the Soap Queen blog yet I am happy to announce that I will be teaching glycerin soap techniques at the Otion Soap Weekend Intensive August 13th, 14th and 15th in Bellingham Washington! Other classes are Cold Process soap, Liquid soap and Lotion Making! It will be a jam packed weekend of learning and fun, not to mention beautiful Pacific Northwest summer scenery!

It is my first time teaching at the SWI (so go easy on me) and I am so excited, absolutely giddy really, that I will be teaching this summer! A big thanks to Anne-Marie for inviting me!

Here is one of the projects I will be teaching

 You can register here: 2010 Soap Weekend Intensive

I hope you'll join us!

FINALLY! Geeeze! Presenting Sugar Whipped Soaps (again)

New Sugar Whipped soaps have arrived! (Just in time to still have them up March 15th, at least PST, so I don't look like such a slacker!
Just $11.00 for a 10oz tub! Look for them in the Body Scrub section of my Shop!

Six Yummy Scents, Bubbly Lather, Saturated with fine Sugar for a gentle scrub! Run Down:

~ Key Lime Pie ~ Buttery sweet graham cracker crust filled with sweet, citrusy Key Lime custard and sugared meringue!

 ~ Cardamom Vanilla ~  Warm buttery vanilla custard and fresh ground spicy green cardamom! 

~ Lemon Poppy Cake ~ Mouth watering Lemon butter cake drizzled with buttercreme icing!

~ Orange Sherbet ~ Cold and tangy orange sherbet filled with vanilla bean ice cream - just like an orange creamsicle! You will want to lick it! (but don't!)

~ Very Berry ~ Luscious, tart Acai Berry, Raspberry and Black Currant mingle into a perfect juicy sweet scent!

~ Brown Sugar Pumpkin Crunch ~ Sweet baked Pumpkin with golden crisp brown sugar and butter crumb topping!

French Macarons First attempt!

You have all seen them - those delightful pastel confections in gorgeous colors and flavors that intrigue and tempt, and are notoriously know for being difficult to make! Did I mention they are my favorite cookie? (thank you Debbie at Soapylove) Well, I had to try making them of course! It all started when I got my daily email from Rare Bird Finds featuring "I (heart) Macarons" by Hisako Ogita. I immediately followed the link and bought the book! It is filled with beautiful pictures and easy to follow photographed instructions making the whole endeavor seem possible, so this weekend I dove in!

I pondered over the myriad color/flavor combos and came up with a simple Pistachio macaron with a Framboise buttercreme filling! All of the ingredients were easily found at Trader Joes and luckily I have a scale since I measured the ingredients by weight to be precise!

Readying the ingredients was a snap - but them came the "Macronnage", the step where perfectly stiff egg whites are mixed with the dry ingredients: Ground almonds and powdered sugar (and ground pistachios in this case). This is the make or break step, mix too much or too little and the tops of the macarons could be cracked, they could lack feet (the little ridge at the bottom which it MUST have to be classified a macaron) or could have a dull appearance instead of a shiny hard shell.  The instructions said to do 15 strokes with a rubber spatula to mix the batter to the right consistency - I did exactly 15 strokes and the batter looked perfect.

When I piped the batter however it looked thin whereas in the pictures from the book the batter looked stiffer - perfectly round dots with a little height and dome to the top. I thought I was finished but I moved forward! They dryed for 45 minutes and then I popped them in the oven. The directions said a 375 degree oven for 15 minutes. I did this and the first baking sheet was overbaked (but with feet to my delight!). The second baking sheet I dropped the heat to 300 and baked for 7 minutes and they were underbaked. The third sheet was the charm at 300 degrees for 10 minutes with a rotation half way through baking! The hardest part was getting them off of the parchment paper so next time I will use silicone baking mats for sure!

 

Notes for next time:

1) the directions did not say this but while doign research I found that you should use dried egg whites, that is you separate the whites and let them sit out for 24-72 hours to reduce the moisture while still maintaining the protein bonds. I cheated and microwaved then for 15 seconds. Next time I will do it the right way and hopefully the batter will be a bit more stiff. (wish the book would have mentioned that)

2) use silicone baking mats.