Soaperstar Handcrafted Irish Luxury Body Products

Soaperstar Wins!

Well, I got home yesterday evening after a long hard day, and jumped online to check my emails ... and what did I find in my inbox? A fabulous email! Yes! But fabulous how? Fabulous because I'd just been told that I've won the Mr Site Website of the Month!! I was thrilled, such good news.

And, even better news... they've also asked to use my site on their sample pages, to show people how a Mr Site website can look! I am really honoured about this ... when I started out, I didn't have any idea at all how to make a website, what information I'd need, or even what to do about those funny websitey languages?? But I did know I wanted to make it myself, I knew how I wanted it to look and I wanted to be able to update it myself, whenever I needed to.

For those who don't know, Mr Site is a template driven site ... you choose a template that you like and you can input your own content on it; but you can also change almost every aspect of it to make it your own (because who wants a website that looks like everyone else's?!) and, if you learn a little HTML coding, you can certainly change a lot of the format of it. The content is all down to you of course!!

Mr Site publish a monthly newsletter and Soaperstar will be featured in this - can't wait to see it!

Don't forget, if you like any of our fabulous Soaperstar products, check out our Soaperstar Online Store - we'll be delighted to see you!!!

© Soaperstar, April 2010

Mmmmm.... Summer Sunshine.. Pineapple Beach anyone?

With the hope of some fabulous Summer sun, I've added to my Summer range by making a fabulous new fruity, delicious soap - Pineapple Beach another of our luxury handcrafted goatsmilk and glycerine soaps. To keep with the tropical theme, I've added pure Organic Coconut Oil, which has been called the healthiest oil on earth - it has incredible abilities to moisturise your skin and is particularly good with dry or mature skin.

To increase moisturisation and to give you even more fabulously soft skin, I've also added my usual skin hydrating Ecocert additive - you'll know by now this is a vital ingredient in all my soaps as it adds yet another vital luxury element. This summery soap is fragranced with a delicious, fresh, sweet & juicy pineapple scent - for a real tropical Summer! And I've used a blend of two different natural micas, specially imported from the US, to create a true juicy pineapple colour. These micas glisten gently in this wonderful soap - perfect for those warm Summer days!

If you are interested in purchasing this truly Summery soap, check out our Soaperstar Online Store - we'll be happy to see you there!!

© Soaperstar, April 2010

Colour Bomb!

With the delivery of my fab new POP micas (from TKB Trading), I have been wondering how I could incorporate all the colours together in one soap... and I did it this weekend! I haven't tackled stripes in the past and this was fun to do, if not a little scary!!! Colour Bomb is another luxury handcrafted pure glycerine soap which is perfect for all skin types, especially those suffering from dry skin conditions.

To the naturally moisturising soap, I have added pure Coconut Oil, which has been called the healthiest oil on earth - it has incredible abilities to moisturise your skin and is particularly good with dry or mature ...skin. Along with that, I've added a skin hydrating Ecocert additive that increases the level of moisturisation in your skin. Colour Bomb is fragranced with a soft aldehydic scent with citrus top notes, a floral heart with base notes of musk—a really soft & clean perfume.

I used six different natural micas to create our Colour Bomb; from the top - Lemon Drop Yellow, Tangerine Orange, Apple Green, Raspberry Pink, Blueberry & Grape! These micas glisten brightly in this softly perfumed soap which will gently scent your skin throughout the day. I really love this soap and I'm hoping that you do too!!! If you're interested in purchasing, don't forget to check out our Soaperstar Online Store today.

Two new Summer Soaps from Soaperstar

I've not soaped in a while and I really wanted to get started on my Summer range - I also really wanted to use the new POP micas I have specially imported from the US, a great range of seven fabulous brightly coloured mica powders that I have been drooling over for quite some time (not literally of course, that'd be gross!) Both soaps have a blend of the purest, highest quality goatsmilk and clear glycerine soaps (which are natural humectants - they attract moisture from the air into your skin) to which we've added our special additional skin hydrating element which provides your skin with increased hydration and provies excellent moisturisation.

Mango Island is wonderfully fragranced with the sweet exotic tropical fragrance of Mango - a beautifully perfumed, not too sweet fruity fragrance. Reflecting the natural yellow and orange fresh sweet Mangoes, we have coloured this luxury soap with tones of yellow & orange glycerine and white goatsmilk soaps - we've also added natural mica, specially imported from the US, to give a glittery sheen, reminding you of sweet delicious mango juice.

To make it even more luxurious, we've also added exotic Mango Butter (what else could we have used?!) which is rich in beta carotene and Vitamins A & E. Mango Butter is highly moisturising and has excellent softening and regenerative properties, with the added bonus that it is thought be protective against UV rays. It is claimed that it can help to reduce the degeneration of the skin’s cells and help to restore elasticity, so makes an excellent ingredient in products for mature skins.

Lazy Summer Sunday is wonderfully fragranced - a heart of jasmine, orange blossom, lilac & rose, supported by a woody base of cedarwood, patchouli, vanilla & musk. The floral elements appeal to women and the cedarwood/patchouli to men (or vice versa!) .. this is very clean, almost "soapy" fragrance (and it's my husband's current favourite!).

We wanted to use colours to represent the concept of a Lazy Summer Sunday, and choose deep tones of blues and purple natural mica, specially imported from the US, to create a luxury soap that is reminiscent of your favourite lazy Summer Sunday afternoons.

To make this an extraordinary luxury soap, we have incorporated the finest Organic Unrefined Nilotica Shea Butter which is considered a premium shea butter and is the creamiest, most luxurious version available. This butter is superb in helping to retain skin elasticity and is incredibly useful for treating very dry, cracked and sun damaged skin as well as psoriasis and eczema.

I hope you love these soaps ... I adore their vibrant colours and I have to admit, my kitchen smelt just fabulous after making them! If you're interested in purchasing either (or both) of these soaps, please don't hesitate to drop into our Soaperstar Online Store - we'd love to see you!

Soaperstar introduce new Sheer Luxury Body Butters

Today we are delighted to announce the launch of our new Sheer Luxury Body Butters!

Our new Body Butters are lightly whipped to create a soft and creamy butter that glides onto your skin, giving you that silky sensual feel whilst gently fragrancing your skin. We use a blend of the highest quality Shea Butter, Organic Coconut Oil and a mix of both Cocoa Butters - the creamy white coloured version plus the dark unrefined organic version (a chunk of which smells exactly like pure chocolate!). We add oils and whip carefully in order to create a light, airy, creamy butter that will hydrate, soften and protect your skin.

So what is different about Soaperstar Sheer Luxury Body Butters? They contain 100% butters/oils which give you 100% protection, hydration and softness and treat your skin to the total luxury it deserves! There are several fragrances available including some using natural Essential Oils .. check out the images below for more details:

Our Belgian Chocolate Sheer Luxury Body Butter blends the best quality Shea Butter and Organic Coconut Oil with a divinely decadent milk chocolate aroma, wonderfully rich and creamy and reminiscent of the deepest, smoothest Belgian Chocolate that money can buy!

The fragrance will softly linger during the day, bringing you all the pleasure of chocolate without all the calories!

Our Citrus Sunshine Sheer Luxury Body Butter blends the best quality shea butter and organic coconut oil with a sunshine blend of essential oils including Mandarin, Tangerine and Litsea Cubeba (May Chang).

Essential Oil fragrance elements:

Mandarin - Sweet, citrus aroma with slight floral undertones

Tangerine - Citrus fresh, tangy yet sweet aroma

Litsea Cubeba (May Chang) - Fresh, slightly sweet but strong lemon aroma

This is such a warm, sunshiney, happy and uplifting fragrance, perfect to wake your morning up!

Our Rose Geranium & French Lavender Sheer Luxury Body Butter blends the best quality shea butter and organic coconut oil with a wonderfully floral blend of Rose Geranium and French Lavender Essential Oils.

Essential Oil fragrance elements:

Rose Geranium - A green, sweet fragrance that be sometimes rosy and sometimes softly minty

French Lavender - Fresh, clean and floral/herbaceous aroma with woody undertones

Rose Geranium is a particularly good choice for more mature and is soothing to dry and sensitive skin. It is also thought to stimulate sensuality!

French Lavender is a healing oil which can help to prevent scarring and is good for all skin types, in particular dry, sensitive skin. It is particularly good for sunburn.

This is very soft, floral/herbal fragrance - calming and soothing with a wonderful perfume that will softly linger on your skin throughout the day.

Our Silky Cocoa Butter Sheer Luxury Body Butter blends the best quality shea butter, organic coconut oil and dark unrefined cocoa butter (which smells like a hunk of chocolate!) with a smooth, seductive cocoa butter fragrance, rich but light and delicately chocolate-y.

The fragrance will softly linger on your skin during the day - you'll smell so sweet and sensual!

Our Vanilla Caramel Sheer Luxury Body Butter blends the best quality shea butter, organic coconut oil and dark unrefined cocoa butter (which smells like a hunk of chocolate!) with a fragrance that is reminiscent of vanilla, rich and creamy with tiny hints of cinnamon and deep, rich, luxurious caramel.

The fragrance will softly linger on your skin during the day - you'll smell so sweet and delicious!

If you are interested in trying out our new Sheer Luxury Body Butter, check out our Soaperstar Store.

Guild of Craft Soap & Toiletry Makers - Soaperstar is the first Non-UK Member!

The Guild of Craft Soap & Toiletry Makers was formed by a group of dedicated crafters in September 2007 and was officially launched in September 2007. It has two specific aims:

To raise awareness of the legislative standards that are in place that apply to craft soap and toiletry makers
To register as members of the Guild crafters who work in compliance with this legislation and who hold relevant public liability insurance

EU legislation is in place to set specific standards of practice for those who make handcrafted soaps and other bath & body products. They help to ensure that every ingredient we, as handcrafters, use in our formulations is safe for consumers - they also help the consumer because you will know that what you buy from a Guild member, and, therefore, what you use on your body, will be safe for you to use. Soaperstar is very proud to announce that we are the first non UK soap handcrafters to be accepted into the Guild - it is a hugely positive statement of the care we take to ensure that our customers are uppermost in our minds when we carefully formulate our products. We take huge care to ensure that we abide by all EU legislation in terms of quality of ingredients, the processes we use to manufacture our products, taking care that all our labels are fully compliant and that all of our products have been fully safety assessed by a highly qualified cosmetic chemist. There still are, unfortunately, handcrafters out there who do not abide by the legislation - it is a real pity that others don't consider the safety of their customers as one of the most important elements of their business. You can be totally assured that all Soaperstar products are fully EU compliant and that the safety and care of our customers is a vital concern for us. I'm so proud to be the first non-UK soaper ever to be accepted into the Guild and I will wear the Guild badge with pride on my website and my blog. If you'd like more information about the Guild, please check out their website here. I'd like to thank Mike at the Guild for all his support and help. If you are interested in purchasing any of our Soaperstar products, please don't hesitate to drop into our website - we'll be delighted to see you there!

Spring has Sprung ... Hawaiian Blossom is here!

The sun is shining and the evenings are getting longer - yes, I still have to scrape the ice off the car windscreen every morning before I go anywhere but still, the sun is shining! We have sun! It does exist after all!!! So, in celebration of the fantastic feeling of Spring in the air, I made a fabulous new soap - bright yellow sunshine with a fantastic glisten of natural mica!

We have taken the purest, highest quality goatsmilk and clear glycerine soaps (which are natural humectants - they attract moisture from the air into your skin) and added exotic Mango Butter which is rich in beta carotene and Vitamins A & E. It is highly moisturising and has excellent softening and regenerative properties, with the added bonus that it is thought be protective against UV rays. It is claimed that mango butter can help to reduce the degeneration of the skin’s cells and help to restore elasticity, so would make an excellent ingredient in products for mature skins. To this we have added our special additional skin hydrating element which provides your skin with increased hydration and provies excellent moisturisation. Hawaiian Blossom soap is wonderfully fragranced with the sweet exotic tropical fragrance of frangipani - this flower can be found in areas of Asia and is native to Hawaii is a stunningly beautiful white and yellow flower, with a beautiful floral fragrance. Reflecting the natural yellow and white of the Frangipani flower, we have coloured this luxury soap with tones of yellow glycerine and white goatsmilk soaps - we've also added natural mica to give a glittery sheen, reminiscent of the sun shining on moisture drops on the flowers. This is really a luxury soap - perfect for all skin types, deeply moisturising with added ingredients to treat your skin to the quality it deserves, wonderfully coloured and deeply fragranced with an exotic floral scent .. a perfect gift to anyone you love.

If you'd like to purchase this fabulous new soap, click here to go direct to our online store!

Hawaiian Blossom handcrafted luxury goatsmilk & glycerine soap - from Soaperstar

New March Special Offer!

Our previous monthly special offers have been very successful and I wanted to continue with them for March - so I want to introduce our new special offer.

Introducing our new organza gift bags - in our signature purple, these beautiful organza bags are absolutely perfect as gift wrapping for one of our Soaperstar soaps. I've shown some examples in the picture to the left - I think they look really excellent. The price of these bags will be 75 cent each but, as a special offer to our customers, we'll be offering these at a reduced price of 50 cent per bag for the month of March! That represents a 33% reduction in price from the regular retail price. These would look really excellent for any gifts - with Mothers Day coming up in the EU (14 March everyone, have you got your pressies ready??), they'd be fantastic as gift wrapping - they also really add to the luxury element of our handcrafted soaps - anyone would be delighted to recieve one of these! Check out our Gift Packaging page at http://www.soaperstar.com/userimages/Gift-Packaging(1854787).htm

Copyright Soaperstar March 2010

Fabulous new Soaps... Oriental Crush & Rain Shower!

As I said in my Facebook/Twitter post, I've been a little poorly lately but I've still managed to go ahead and make two stunning new soaps... I'm really proud of these. Both are made with our excellent quality goatsmilk and glycerine soap, which, if you're a regular reader of this blog, you'll know I'm completely in love with! I just adore them because they are so excellent for your skin - glycerine is a natural humectant... a what now? I hear you say.... it simply means that it draws moisture from the air into your skin, which means that it helps you have silkly soft skin. As usual, I also add an Ecocert skin hydrating factor - I find this so incredible to increase your skin's moisture levels - honestly, I've made lots of soaps, some with this and some without and there is NO way on this earth that I'd make any without this in it. As you know, I will NEVER sell anything I wouldn't use myself and I wouldn't not add this hydration factor (you know what I mean, I never said I had a degree in English!).

First up, we have our new Rain Shower goatsmilk glycerine soap - unusually for me, it's actually quite a muted coloured soap (you know me, I do love my colours) but I had a beautifully fresh fragrance oil and had been trying to design a soap for an age that'd do it justice. Then I thought ... pastel, muted, calm, clean, soft ... and here we have Rain Shower.

Rain Shower - what can I say about this fragrance? To me, it's such a fresh and light scent and it reminds me of the smell of a garden straight after a rain shower - you know that clean, fresh fragrance that smells like the world's worries have been washed away and everything's all clean again? Along with the excellent qualities of the goatsmilk and glycerine soap, we've added pure Avocado Butter - this is a very rich and moisturising butter cold pressed from the pulp of the avocado. The soap is wonderfully pastel coloured and calming with a hint of glisten provided through the used of natural mica. It has a blend of soft turquoise (THE colour of 2010) with cool green and pure creamy white and a soft glisten. Our Rain Shower Fragrance Oil is a fresh aquatic blend of lily of the valley, gardenia, raindrops, mist & clean green countryside - so reminiscent of the fresh scent of a spring day, after a rain shower. I think this is such a wonderfully uplifting and fresh soap - a perfect start to your day.

Then I decided to go crazy and make my next soap, Oriental Crush - this one took a minimum of 4 hours! I stopped counting after that!! Each of the soap "bubbles" is moulded seperately and have to be hand trimmed before embedding into the goatsmilk white soap. It is really perfect for all skin types, and especially those suffering from dry skin conditions. Along with the usual skin hydrating factor, I have also added pure Coconut Oil, which has been called the healthiest oil on earth - it has incredible abilities to moisturise your skin and is particularly good with dry or mature skin. Oriental Crush is fragranced with a blend of zesty lime & mandarin, leading to a base of basil with warm accords of precious woods & amber. To match the scent perfectly, we've used glistening brightly coloured spots of glycerine soap in co-ordinating colours. The soap is wonderfully citrusy with a herbal background - a very beautiful blend and a perfect oriental influence. This really is a wonderfully fresh and zesty soap and will gently scent your skin throughout the day.

I hope you're enjoyed a glimpse of our two new soaps ... I just loved making these (even if they took ages to make!) and I LOVE LOVE LOVE the fragrances. If you are interested in purchasing either of these soaps, or in fact any in our ever extending range, don't hesitate to check out our online store at http://www.soaperstar.com/ - we'll be delighted to see you!!!

Twitter & Facebook - Social Networking

Firstly, can I say a quick "sorry" for not having posted in a while? I've been under the weather and, in the main, under the radar. I''ve been working away quietly and slowly making some soaps and experimenting with lip balms and bath bombs too. I'll post about this tomorrow as I've to work on some photos beforehand.

So... the real point of this blog post to give you a tip about Facebook and Twitter. Lots of small businesses are focusing on social media to get their message out - it's a hugely powerful tool and it's free! You can reach millions of people via what is called "viral marketing". What is that I hear you say? Basically, it's marketing through networks. Let me give you a scenario - before I started Soaperstar I knew that I had to get a presence online and build up interest for the product and company before I could start selling.. otherwise who will buy something they don't know exists? Ok. So what did I do? I set up a blog firstly (you're reading it!) that just told of what I was doing - plain and simple English, just to say "hey folks, this is my stuff and this is what I'm working on now". Then I decided to set up a Facebook Fan Page. Lots of people already have personal pages on Facebook but you can also set up a business page too to promote your products to your network... who are they? Your friends and family that you've sent a link to and said "come and join us on our new business page".Ok, so now my friends and family have joined but I'm not going to take over the soaping universe through them am I? Well, yes in a way. You ask your friends and family to send an invite to your Facebook Fan Page to their friends and family. So .. how you've reached two layers of people. Then on your Facebook Page, say to everyone please feel free to invite your network to join.. so now how many people can you reach? Plenty! Loads more than the number of people you ever know. They invite their network, who invites their network, who invites their network.. see how it works? Ok, not everyone is going to be interested or join or even click the link - but imagine if even 10% do!I've just done a forum post on some tips arising from the use of Facebook and Twitter and thought I'd do a blog post on it also; it may be of some interest to people so I thought I'd share it.

Vanity URL's with Facebook: When you've built up at least 25 fans, you can change your facebook fan page to what they call a "Vanity URL". When you first create your Facebook fan page, pretty much just a string of letters and numbers and long and not very attractive. To make it more like your own site link, that contains the name of your company this is what you should do: Click http://facebook.com/username. At the bottom of the page, you'll see a link called "set a username for your pages". Click on it and then you'll see a drop down - click on this and you should see your "business fan page". At that point, you should put in the name of your company/fan page, ie Soaperstar. Word of warning, at this stage you have to make committment to using that name - you can't go back and change it later so make sure you've clicked the right thing!!! After doing all this, you'll have a nice simple Facebook Fan Page address ... example http://www.facebook.com/soaperstar - instead of a mass of jumbled up letters and numbers after the dot com. This is handy to quote on your business cards, the end of your emails, on Twitter, your blog, the end of forum signatures etc.

Twitter and how to manage your messages: If you're using Twitter regularly, download Tweetdeck, click http://www.tweetdeck.com; it's free and it manages the process far easier. You can set up columns for your friends or for specific people you want to keep a track on. If you want to use hastags (which are used for subjects of interest to people - if lots of people use it for the same subject, it's called trending) then add the hashtags #soap and/or #handmade to your Tweet. Then people can search for all the #soap tweets if they want. Also it makes it a more trending topic. I hope this information proves useful to someone - I am a big fan of social media and I think, for small businesses who don't have marketing budgets the size of the big guys (or any marketing budget at all!), then the social media route is so important to check out. Don't underestimate the power of a network!!!

You can find us on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/soaperstar or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/soaperstar.

Copyright Soaperstar February 2010

New February Special Offer!

We've decided to continue with our New Year resolution of offering our valued customers a free gift with their orders! In January, we offered a mystery soap with every order for 4 or more soaps and it proved hugely successful!

This February we've decided to offer our customers a free, 100% cotton washcloth with every order of 2 or more soaps - no need to add them to your order, we'll pack them along with your soaps. The cloths are made of the softest, white cotton and would be perfect to use in the shower with your Soaperstar soap! It will come tied in a beautiful purple bow!

Just a little "Thank You" to our valued customers - we hope you love this offer and we're working on ideas for continuing offers for the months to come.

Don't forget to order your Limited Edition Valentine soaps online soon! A perfect piece of practical art for the love of your life! Check out all our products online at http://www.soaperstar.com/.

© Soaperstar February 2010

Soaperstar gets a mention!

I just wanted to say a big THANK YOU to Babs at http://www.soapstuffdaily.com/ for featuring Soaperstar soaps on her wonderful blog.

It's great to get a mention from anyone but from a fellow soaper, it's great to be recognised for my work. She featured my two new Valentine Limited Edition soaps - Velvet Heart and Midas Touch.. I'm so delighted.

You can read her post here - thank you again Babs, I really appreciate it!

© Soaperstar February 2010

10 Reasons to check out Soaperstar Soaps!

I've been spending time thinking about all the good things about Soaperstar and our soaps and I thought I'd share these with you ... Soaperstar and our soaps are our passion and it's important to us that our customers understand how much we want to produce the very best quality soaps so that we can share this passion with you. Here are 10 reasons why you should check out our Soaperstar Soap:

All our soaps are wonderfully fragranced using only the finest quality fragrance oils sourced from EU suppliers
Our soaps are completely suitable for use by vegetarians - we do use goatsmilk in our products because we find the soap it produces is of such a high quality and is exceptionally kind to your skin
None of our products are tested on animals - we deplore such practices. We do test on guinea pigs though... human ones of course!!!!
Our products are fully safety assessed by a qualified cosmetic chemist - you can be assured that they are entirely safe for you to use
We source all of our raw materials from the highest quality suppliers only - lots of time (and money) has been put into finding the best suppliers so that we can categorically say our products are of the highest quality
We are continuously testing and experimenting in order to bring you new types of soaps - we love to come up with new, creative ideas to present to you!
All our soaps are fully compliant with EU regulations regarding the correct labelling of cosmetic products - unlike some companies, we do not fudge our words in order to make you think you know what's in the soap, we just tell you what's in the soap!
We use only the finest quality soap safe colourants, and, in substantial quantities, natural mineral micas in order to colour and add a wonderful glisten to our soaps
We can categorically say that our soaps will help to clean, soften and hydrate your skin. We add eithers butters or oils to all of our soaps and an additional skin hydrating Ecocert approved ingredient to ensure that your skin is as soft and silky as it deserves to be. Since we opened for business last year, we have received only positive feedback and compliments from our customers
We are totally committed to providing the best customer service ever - we keep in touch with our customers via email and always confirm delivery.

We love designing, making, producing, wrapping, labelling, photographing and selling our soaps - this business is our love, our passion and we wanted to share this passion with all of our customers! I hope you enjoyed this and, if it's given you inspiration to check out our soaps, please do not hesitate to visit our website at http://www.soaperstar.com/.

Two new Soaperstar Soaps - Indian Rainforest & Lavender Champagne!

Introducing two new Soaperstar soaps! I got back to some post Christmas soaping on Saturday and made the following two soaps, I'm just adoring the fragrances used and the subtle modern colouring... here come the details!!! Both of our new soaps, Indian Rainforest and Lavender Champagne are handcrafted luxury Goatsmilk & Glycerine soaps with added Apricot Kernel Oil for extra skin moisturisation and an additional skin hydrating factor to ensure your skin in treated with the luxury it deserves!

On the right hand side, Indian Rainforest is designed as a soap for men - it is deeply fragranced using a wonderful blend of cedarwood, giving a warm woody masculine base, alongside the deep earthy scent of patchouli, a fragrance element used in many commercial aftershaves for men. However, many women will just adore this fragrance too!

The soap is coloured using two different natural micas, a deep forest green and a lighter green gold, alongside the white goatsmilk - giving an impression of dark deep Indian Rainforest.

Our Lavender Champagne is wonderfully fragranced with our Lavender Champagne fragrance oil, a blend of uplifting lemon against a background of calming, soothing lavender. This beautiful blend is perfectly balanced - neither scent overtakes the other, the lemon adds a wonderful freshness against the more comforting lavender.

The subtle colouring is enhanced with the use of natural glistening mica - a truly modern take on a traditional theme. I hope you enjoy both of our new soaps - both are now available to purchase from our online store - just check us out at http://www.soaperstar.com/ - we'll be delighted to see you there!!!!

Happy New Year!!!

I just want to say Happy New Year to all my blog followers, cusstomers and readers - I really hope that 2010 brings us all joy, happiness, health and, who knows, maybe a bit of wealth too? I hope Soaperstar goes from strength to strength - I am planning on introducing several new products in the coming months, things I'm working on at present - I like to fully test all my recipes and send out samples for people to use; there's nothing like honest feedback on performance from your human guinea pigs! And don't forget that all Soaperstar products are suitable for use by vegetarians, nothing at all is tested on animals (other than the human kind!), all products are fully safety assessed and I ensure that all my raw ingredients are purchased from the highest quality suppliers ... this is how I can ensure that all Soaperstar products are the very best I can supply! Have a great New Year everyone - I honestly hope that this year will bring us all our dreams come true!

Soapmaking is therapeutic! Good news/Bad news

Well.. today has been bad and good. We went out yesterday afternoon to have a Christmas drink with my Father and we also ate out... lovely evening, lovely meal. However, when we got home we found that some ***** had broken into our house. According to our neighbours CCTV, he was only in the house for exactly 2 minutes and yet he managed to ransack most of the rooms and walk away with money and jewellery. Quite sick making and very upsetting indeed - it is one of the most awful thing to come home to. Anyway, despite taking to my bed for most of the day (as is my usual habit when upset), I decided at about 4.00 pm to make use of the rest of the day and cut and wrapped the soaps I'd made on Saturday. I decided that soaping is therapeutic for the mind and soul and so, on to soaping! Here are images and descriptions of the four soaps - the first are restocked favourites and one new one:

Aqua Haven is a handcrafted luxury goatsmilk & glycerine soap with added Golden Jojoba Oil, an extra skin hydrating factor and our Aqua Haven Fragrance Oil - a heady mix of marine scents with a soft woody, citrus & sea salt background. This just smells so oceanic and the swirls are so reminiscent of sitting by the sea - very calming and refreshing at the same time.

Orange Blush - a handcrafted luxury Goatsmilk & Glycerine soap, deeply coloured with bronze orange natural mica with added Apricot Kernel Oil, skin hydration factor and our Orange Blush Fragrance Oil - a fresh cologne blending bergamot and orange blossom with delicate cottony florals with a base of precious powdery musks. This soap is deeply orange due to the huge amount of glittering bronze mica used to create the swirls.

Zesty Citrus Cream - a handcrafted luxury Goatsmilk & Glycerine soap with added Apricot Kernel oil, an additional skin hydrating factor and all wonderfully scented with our Zesty Citrus Cream fragrance oil - an uplifting, velvety smooth tangy lemongrass verbena citrus scent. This is so fresh, so bright, so funky and uplifting - you can't help but feel cheerful after using this soap!

Mister Blue Genes - a handcrafted luxury Goatsmilk & Glycerine soap, laden with deeply blue natural mica, with added Golden Jojoba Oil, an additional skin hydrating factor and fragranced with our unisex Mister Blue Genes fragrance oil - a blend of apple and mandarin with a heart of exotic jasmine and violet on a deep musk base; not just a soap for the man in your life! This is a deeply coloured soap with a very unisex fragrance - very much suitable for men and also for women to steal from them!!! I hope you like the soaps I've made this weekend and agree that putting behind the bad news and looking to the future is the way to go.

We've restocked two of our most popular soaps!

On Saturday I got back to soaping (having missed it the previous week due to having to wait for materials to be delivered!).. and decided to restock two of our most popular soaps - My Sweet Love and Good as Gold. Both soaps are made with our trademark Goatsmilk & Glycerine soap with added Golden Jojoba Oil (an amazing oil that is almost identicial to your skin's own oils and so is wonderfully moisturising), and an added hydrating skin conditioner - just to make sure that your skin is as fabulous as it should be when you use our soaps! Both soaps are coloured using only the very best natural mica, I just adore using this material to colour soaps - it adds a wonderful depth to the colour and a fantastic glisten.

My Sweet Love, pictured on the left, is fragranced with a fresh, floral bouquet with fruity accents reminiscent of sweet raspberries based on a warm wood-musk foundation. This is a beautiful soap - quite a delicate fragrance that is both floral and fruity at the same time but excellently balanced because neither fragrance overrides the other.

Good as Gold is fragranced with a sweet, floral nectarine & juicy mandarin complimented by peach & plum on a creamy vanilla base - all beautifully glistening due to the natural golden mica. This fragrance is so fresh.. juicy almost! The goldenness (is that a word? It is now!) has to be seen to be believed! Both soaps are now available on our website at http://www.soaperstar.com - please feel free to check us out.

Soaperstar's Aqua Haven is featured on The Soap Bar Blog!

Many many thanks to Jo at Product Body for her wonderfully generous mention of my Aqua Haven soap on her Soap Bar blog (which you can read here) - she's showing some great blue themed soaps from across the world in a post entitled "International Blues". My soap is featured alongside some other fantastic soaps (both CP by the looks of them) and mine is the only glycerine based soap featured (which is excellent as glycerine soaps don't always get the mentions they deserve). Thank you Jo, I really appreciate it! What a great mention, I'm really chuffed. I read Jo's blog all the time and I just love her interest and enthusisiam for soap. Aqua Haven is currently out of stock at the moment (unfortunately) in the online store but I'm hoping it will be back by next week! So great timing too!

Busy, Busy, Busy!

Sorry for no recent posts but I've been mega busy! We've been overrun with orders lately and I've been working evenings to get everything ready for customers. Our stock levels are quite low at the moment in the online store (http://www.soaperstar.com) but not to worry, I'm going to be making more fabulous handcrafted soaps on Saturday for adding to the store by Monday. So, if your particular favourite is out of stock at the moment, great apologies but please bear with us - the good thing is that Soaperstar, who are only 6 weeks in business at present, has proven hugely popular with many people this Christmas and I just love the idea that our products are going to delight someone on Christmas Day!!

Soaperstar for Christmas Shopping Ideas!

I just wanted to thank the lovely @MelanieDawn for her blog post mention of Soaperstar... so glad that she enjoyed the soaps and I really hope her Mother in Law loves them too! How exciting to think that something I made will be given to someone on Christmas Day, that's just fab!! Melanie and I met on Twitter and she's a really lovely person and I was delighted that I could help her out with Christmas shopping and especially for her Mum in law (who, I know from mine, can be rather difficult to shop for!). If you'd like to read the post, her blog can be found here. Thanks Melanie!

Remember, if you'd also like to purchase some Soaperstar soaps, please do not hesitate to check out our new online store - http://www.soaperstar.com/ - we'll be very happy to see you there!

You can also follow Soaperstar on Twitter by checking us out http://www.twitter.com/soaperstar.

Wonderful soaps - new Snowberry Truffle & relisted Christmas Glisten

Handcrafted luxury soap Ireland soap Dublin

We've just added an incredibly delicious new soap to our website - Snowberry Truffle is Cocoa Butter & Glycerine soap, with embedded mica "berries", added Apricot Kernel Oil, skin hydrating factor all wonderfully fragranced with a decadent blend of sweet, rich white chocolate and fresh, juicy raspberries! Incredibly fragrant, wonderfully good for your skin and zero calories! What more could a person want?!

We've also relisted our very popular Christmas themed Cocoa Butter & Glycerine soap, Christmas Glisten. This wonderfully skin nourishing soap has added Apricot Kernel Oil, an additional skin hydrating factor and is festivally fragranced with a blend of fruits, wine & warm sweet spices.

Great news is that both of these soaps are completely SLS free and are completely suitable for use by vegetarians.

Both soaps can be purchased on our new online store - check out http://www.soaperstar.com!

Soaperstar in Print!

Soaperstar has been featured in the Winter edition of De-Stress Magazine, produced by Catherine Connors-Bevalot, a holistic and stress therapist based in Paris. In a true reflection of how important online networking can be, we met via Twitter and Catherine kindly offered me a spot in the Winter edition of her magazine. At the time of asking, I hadn't even opened the online store and the thought of being featured was scary but very exciting at the same time! Check us out on Page 6!!!

The magazine contains fantastic information about how to de-stress for Christmas and how to avoid those stressy pitfalls we've all experienced over the Christmas period. Check it out - great articles and tons of information suitable for everyone. Catherine's company is called Stress Solutions 4 Life and her website can be found here http://www.stress-solutions4life.com/. Thank you Catherine!

Our three week anniversary!

Today is our three week anniversary! I am so happy to have the site up and working well (despite it having been down over the week due to the hosting company doing a bit of a dusting and polishing) - people seem to really like and are giving me great feedback. Also the orders are coming in which is great! I'm thinking of adding a special offer (over and above those already available on some of the soaps in our range) as an early Christmas present for our customers. I made some more Twilight Haze and Chunky Choc Delite soaps this weekend and they're all cut and wrapped now, just need to be labelled and photographed! That's more work for tomorrow though. If you'd like to comment on anything on the site, please feel free to email me at info@soaperstar.com and I'll get back to you!

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