New Face Polish

The re-formulated Face Polish is now suited to all types of skin. Whether you have oily, dry, normal or a combination of these, it will gently scrub away those dead skin cells leaving your skin soft and smooth.

Face Polish is a creamy wash off cleanser containing gentle almond oil and olive esters along with cleansing castor seed oil. Powdered bamboo juice and Rhassoul Clay provide very fine exfoliating granules that won't tear at your skin like ground apricot kernel or ground walnut shell that some commercial scrubs contain.

Rhassoul Clay has been used for centuries as a soap, shampoo and skin conditioner. The finest spas across the globe currently utilize it for the therapeutic benefits.
It is mined beneath the Atlas Mountains in Morocco and it must be extracted under extremely special conditions. When first mined it appears as a polished brown, soap-like clay, chunky in appearance. After further natural refinement the end product is smooth.
Rhassoul Clay's most impressive properties in skin improvement are its capacity of absorption and adsorption due to its high level of ion exchange.
Clinical studies conducted in two different facilities in the US evaluated Rhassoul use for skin conditions.
The results of this study revealed:

• Reduces dryness (79%)
• Reduces flakiness (41%)
• Improves skin clarity (68%)
• Improves skin elasticity/firmness (24%)
• Improves skin texture (106%)
• Removes surface oil and oil from inside and around blocked pores 
• Removes dead skin layers, resulting in general smoothing of the surface skin.

It is for these reasons that I've incorporated this wonderful natural product into Skinflint Face Polish.

You can purchase it now on special for $18 at the Skinflint Online Store

Why Change?

That's the question many people have asked me when I've mentioned that I'm changing my brand name.

The answer is simple, yet will take a little bit of explanation. If you're interested, please read on. If not, just read the last paragraph!

When I originally began researching skin care products, I realised that the big companies were making millions of dollars putting sometimes questionable ingredients into fancy bottles and selling them for high prices. Their advertising budgets were enormous, using film stars as a selling point to promote their products.

In my quest to produce more natural products, using plant based ingredients, I researched a number of 'eco friendly' natural products already on the market. I found that these products, although natural and plant based, had very little in them that was of any benefit to the skin. They were little more than plant oil, water and emulsifier.

My formulation experiments included more advanced ingredients, such as the big companies were using, but in a natural base like the eco friendly companies. My ultimate aim was to educate my customers to ignore the fancy packaging and glossy magazine ads and look at the ingredients. In short, I wanted you all to be more discerning; to get the best value for money products. That's where my name came into being. Skinflint - it had the word 'skin' and its definition loosely meant to be careful with your money. Perfect.

As time has gone on and my loyal customer base were pleased with my products, I continued to research new ingredients. My products became more and more sophisticated with added 'super ingredients' and my customers liked the results they were getting.

Five years on, I look at my formula and I can see that I'm putting a top notch product into, in many cases, basic packaging and basic labelling. I would dearly love to use even more'super ingredients'. But, the fact is, they are very expensive. And so a decision was made to change my branding, making it more upmarket. Bottles and labels will reflect the quality of the product inside them. Innovative and highly regarded ingredients can be incorporated into specialist products such as an anti-aging serum and a repair cream. I don't feel that the brand name Skinflint is in synergy with this sort of product development.

My new brand name is simple and the labelling and packaging is still simple & practical, but stylish at the same time. I would like to have my products standing proud in the front of a hair salon or beautician's shelves, rather than hiding behind all the others. I know my products are good, I use them and love the results. My customers tell me how much they love them. Now, I want them to look great too.

The new brand name and packaging will be revealed in the very place where Skinflint began, my home town of Nyabing. If you'd like to see it and be in the running for a great prize, then come along to the CWA Market Day at the Nyabing Pavilion on Thursday 6th December. Doors open at 9.30 am. Morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea is available and is, of course, all home made.
See you there!

Re-Branding

If you've been following me on Facebook, you'll know that I'm changing my brand. The products will remain the same, but will be in different bottles and jars and with a different logo and brand.

I wanted my customers to be skinflints, but with a brand called Skinflint, it sounds like I am!
I've realised that I'm putting top quality expensive products into basic jars and bottles with a cheap sounding brand name.

So, in order to move on and go a little upmarket, I have developed my new name and logo. I will reveal all on my Facebook

I've designed labels, got my logo, getting my website designed and designing business cards. Whew! It's been hectic and exciting.

Regular customers who came to my stand at the Albany Show were given a sneak peek of my logo and labelled jar. All comments were very positive, I'm pleased to say.

I was planning on the 'reveal' in March next year, but due to the fact that I'm introducing some new products and have also run out of labels and containers for some of my products, it looks like it's going to be much, much sooner than that. Total switchover will be later, but the new brand will start appearing on labels shortly.

Keep an eye on my Facebook page for details and a competition to celebrate the launch.

Soap for Men

The latest soap on the shelf in the Skinflint workshop is Ocean Breeze, a new soap designed for the man in your life.

Scented with high quality Brambleberry fragrance, this soap is designed to be quite a hard bar. It has a high percentage of hard oils such as coconut and palm kernel, but is still gentle on the skin due to the extra 'super fatting' in the formula. Super fatting means extra oils are used over and above what is needed for the lye to turn into soap. It means less lye is used and the soap is very gentle.

The gorgeous fragrance makes it undoubtedly a man soap, though many women love this fragrance too. It's similar to Davidoff's Cool Water.

I'm thrilled with the way the coloured swirls turned out. You never know with soap, sometimes blue will morph into a dull grey, but this has stayed a pure sky blue.

Available in the online store now!

Shampoo Formula

As promised, the first in my series for the month of October in celebration of 5 years of Skinflint.

Shampoo isn't hard to make, though a lot of research was required into how it cleans the hair, what is needed to keep hair from drying out or from being frizzy, wet combability, the structure of hair and the needs of the scalp.

I spent many hours studying how surfactants work and how different types of surfactants work on their own and how they work together. Surfactant simply means surface active agent. Surfactants break the bond of water, or the surface tension, as we call it. Remember that science experiment with the paper clip floating on the water? Adding dishwashing liquid broke the bonds on the water and allowed the paperclip to sink.

A surfactant has an oil loving molecule and a water loving molecule.  This is why it can 'dissolve' oil and help it wash away. Without going into the chemistry of surfactants, suffice to say that different surfactants do different things. Some work as a water soluble emollient, some disperse oil in water while others simply emulsify oil in water, others act as mildness agents, and yet others thicken shampoo.

It is for this reason that a variety of different surfactants are used in shampoo formulations.  One type of surfactant you will never see in my formulations are the sulphates. Ammonium Lauryl or Laureth Sulphate, Sodium Lauryl or Laureth Sulphate. These are very cheap surfactants which are incredibly harsh, even if they are made from coconut oil as some companies claim. They act as degreasers and will strip hair of all of it's oil, leaving the scalp unprotected and liable to such conditions as dandruff or psoriasis.
Added to that, they are very bad for the environment.

You will battle to find shampoos without the sulphates on shelves today due to the great bubbles they produce. Bubbles are good, right? Wrong!!! Great in the sink when washing the dishes, but not so great when washing the hair. Bubbles mean that all the surfactant has been used in dissolving oil and it's now just having fun in the water.

Surfactants can be anionic, ionic, amphoteric and cationic. It's all to do with the charge they have. A mix of these is required to make a good shampoo. Anionics have a positive charge and the highest cleansing ability, but can be harsh on their own. Ionics have a no charge are very gentle, stabilising foam and acting as mildness agents, but don't have a lot of foaming ability.
Amphoterics can have both positive and negative charge as well as no charge! They are very mild and are secondary surfactants as they are lower foamers.

So, now that your eyes are totally glazed over, I'll leave it there and get on with the formula. All formula are measure by percentage. The total must be 100%. Convert to grams simply by multiplying by 10 to make 1 litre, or by 5 to make 500g. It's best to use very good scales. I use Wedderburn scales and  a jewellers scale for the smaller amounts.

Use glass jugs, stainless steel spoons and a stainless steel stick blender. Sterilise everything with either boiling water or alcohol and lay butchers paper or silicone paper on the work surface. I use Optiphen as my preservative in all surfactant formulae.
The following formula is for oily hair with a tendency to have oily dandruff build up. Most of the ingredients can be purchased from Aussie Soap Supplies in Perth, WA.

Natural Balance Shampoo
Phase 1
10          Sodium Lauroyl Sarcosinate - mild, anionic, imparts lubricity for a soft, silky feel.   Often used in toothpastes and mouth wash formulations.
 6           Lauryl glucoside - gentle, biodegrades quickly
14          Cocamidopropryl betaine - mild, secondary cleanser
  4          Decyl glucoside - non ionic and very gentle made from sugar
5.5         Sodium lauryl sulphoacetate (SLSa) - excellent foalming, wetting and emulsifying agent producing loads of bubbles.
 3           Shampoo Ultra Thick Liquid - thickener and foam stabiliser
 1           Hydrolised Oat Protein - humectant , coating and protecting hair shaft.
 1           Liquid Pearls (optional) - thickener, pearliser and humectant
 1           Glyceryl Cocoate - emollient, anti irritant
 2           Polyqaternium-7 - conditioning agent helping with wet combing. Silicone substitute
60          Distilled water

Boil distilled water and add to remaining ingredients. Stick blend to dissolve and mix together. Spritz with pure alcohol to reduce bubbles. Cover with plastic wrap. Allow to cool to 50C.
Stick blend the following additives into the mixture, spritzing with alcohol to reduce bubbles:

Phase 2
0.5        d-Panthenol
0.5        Optiphen
0.5        White Willow Bark Extract
0.25      Rosemary Extract
0.25      Neem Leaf Extract

Add the following:

Phase 3
0.5        Essential Oil Blend (lemon myrtle, rosemary, cedarwood, sweet birch, birch tar)

Pour into new containers and cover with paper towel. Seal when completely cool.

Can add food colouring if desired. I add a few drops of yellow to this one. Experiment with the EO blend. I use about 3 times as much lemon myrtle as the remaining oils.

If you do make this, please let me know by commenting below or on my Facebook page. I'd love to hear how you go.

Megan

Fifth Birthday

Since beginning the Skinflint brand and selling my first product at a market day, I haven't celebrated any milestones.

I realised recently that this October will be the fifth birthday for Skinflint. The day I started was a fund raiser for Pink Day, held by our local community. I did Hand Spas for a gold coin donation to the cause. I can't remember how much I made for the Pink Day, but I was still going well after every other stall had packed up for the night. It was the warmest October for a very long time and my Sugar Scrubs were starting to melt by 2pm! My daughter helped me and we sold hundreds of dollars worth of products.

The most popular were the gift packs with Mineral Salts, Sugar Scrub and Body Butter. They looked and smelled wonderful. And boy, were they a pain to make! I had about 8 different fragrances and would make two sizes in each fragrance. I was forever making these products in small quantities to get the stock of fragrances on the shelf. It was a nightmare and led to the deletion of the Body Butter being made in a variety of fragrances.Then, finally the deletion of the Sugar Scrub and Mineral Salts.

The Sugar Scrub melted in summer and set like a rock in winter, so I had to have a different formula for each season. One time, ants got into the bucket of sugar while we were away on holidays as the lid wasn't completely sealed. I had to throw away about ten kilos of ant infested sugar!

The Mineral Salts would take me so long to make and I was constantly buying the special sea salt, picking it up from Perth because it cost too much to deliver kilos of the stuff by post.
I went through litres of expensive fragrance oils, always changing fragrances as people kept asking for different ones. I would listen to one or two people who would ask for a particular fragrance and twist myself in knots finding it and introducing it!

I was always influenced by people who would ask me to make something - a substitute for Dencorub, a substitute for Vaseline or Vicks Vapour rub, or a peppermint foot cream, something to heal eczema, anti dandruff shampoo, nappy rash cream, sunscreen, insect repellent, the list goes on and on. Some of these products made it on to the shelves, but weren't big sellers. The people who asked me to make them would suddenly forget the need they had at the time.

I love looking back at my old formulae and notes. In this business, you must notate everything. Sometimes, in the early days I'd forget to write down the essential oil blend used in a particular product and it would be lost forever. I now write it all down. Every success and every mistake is noted in my trusty book. Every batch is recorded and notes are kept if necessary.

Prior to starting the selling process, I spent two years making and researching. When I thought I had a good enough product, I'd ask for testers to trial and report back to me. Some people were fantastic, filling in the forms I sent and writing notes on their opinions. But, I can't count the amount of people who I sent test products to who never ever responded, just kept the (full-sized) products and carried on.

So much has changed for my little business. The products have changed, the logo, the colour scheme, the online store, the workshop and display areas. I have a very loyal band of customers who have supported me by buying my products for years as well as telling their friends and family about them.

Word of mouth is, by far, the very best method of advertising. I've spent countless $$$ advertising in various ways to find no real return for that money. Facebook is a great way to reach my customers quickly and my blog is a permanent record of what's happening in the workshop.

So, to celebrate five years in business, I've decided to give some thing very valuable away. Not a product, not a gift pack or anything like that. Instead, over the next month I'll be posting my precious formulae for the products I no longer make. Now, I know that not many of you will want to go out and make these products, but there are a few who will and this is a way to share the gift around. Another way I will mark this milestone is to donate money to the National Breast Cancer Foundation on behalf of all my customers.

In October, I always donate products to raise money for the cause close to my heart, Breast Cancer Research. My mother was a Breast Cancer survivor and I dedicate my business to her and to the fight she put up for most of her life battling cancer in a number of different guises, finally succumbing at the grand age of 81. This year, I'll be donating half the proceeds of every sale of soap in the month of October. I will keep a running tally on Facebook, so be sure to check in. If you would like to increase the donation amount, you only need to purchase some Skinflint Soap, easy as that.

Enriching Cream

Little Tubs of Magic

I had such success using Mum2B Belly Butter on my face. I tried it after I had a run in with some Mineral Makeup that didn't agree with my skin. There were dry, flaky patches on my cheeks and around the lips. In desperation, I grabbed the Belly Butter (which I often use on my legs and arms) and slathered it on before bed.
In the morning, my skin was soft and clear. I'm determined to finish this tub of Mineral Makeup because it was ridiculously expensive. It's made locally, so I really wanted to support this business. Unfortunately, there's something in it that just irritates my skin. So, I apply Mum2B well before I do my makeup and it's protected my skin.

Which leads me onto the topic. I'm experimenting with this formula to create a cream for very dry skin on the  face. I have a batch in tester tubs and would like some interested volunteers to try it for me.

Please comment below or respond on the Face Book page. You'll need to email or message me with your address so I can send the tub to you to test for me.

New Replenish

A reformulated Replenish Hand & Body Lotion is now available on the Skinflint Website.

Replenish Hand & Body Lotion is a blend of two formulae - Hand & Nail and Replenish. These are now deleted and replaced with the new product. I've researched for many months to create the perfect formula for this product. It's an all-in-one hand and body lotion, so there's no need to clutter up your bathroom with lots of different products.

Replenish is scented very lightly (though the first batch is a bit strong) with a unique blend of essential oils that I've been working on for weeks. It contains light Ricebran oil which is blended with Shea butter and Rosehip oil.

Rich in Vitamins B and E, Rice Bran oil increases elasticity of your skin and keeps it hydrated and soft. Rice bran oil is unique in that it contains different kinds of both vitamin B and vitamin E, making it a more complex ingredient for your skin.
Shea butter is renowned for it's ability to soften and soothe. The traditional use of the butter is to reduce the appearance of fine lines, scars and stretch marks, and to ease a variety of skin irritations, such as psoriasis, eczema and sunburn.
Rosehip oil is a source of essential fatty acids that include omega-3, 6 and 9. They are vital for the health of our skin but our bodies are unable to produce them. Essential fatty acids help to regenerate skin cells and to repair damaged skin tissue. It is the essential fatty acids in rose hip oil that quench dry, sun damaged skin and help to improve the appearance of burns, scars, wrinkles and stretch marks. It is also a good source of vitamin A, which is important for skin regeneration.
A myriad of other fabulous ingredients make this a wonderful moisturiser for your whole body. Due to it's urea content, it has the ability to soften calloused skin areas such as elbows, knees and heels. It will also soften cuticles. Oat Protein provides the necessary protein building blocks for skin cell renewal and Calendula Extract is a soothing botanical for irritated skin.Scientific studies find that extracts of calendula can speed the healing of skin wounds and burns.

Check out the website for the introductory special for the rest of the month of August or until stocks of the first batch last.

Back in Business!

The Skinflint Workshop is finally tidy and clean and ready to begin production once more.
It's been a long wait for me as repairs have taken place following the ceiling collapse New Year's Eve 2011.
The kitchen ceiling has been replaced as well since it could well have collapsed at any time.

What a mess! I had dirt, dust and grime from one end of the shop to the other. It's taken me three weeks to clean it all up. I've had a good clean out and re-organise so I'm all good to go on Monday making products that are out of stock right now.

Some products are no longer in the range as I'm condensing the product line to make the business more manageable for me.

Hand & Nail Cream is no longer available and has been replaced by Replenish Hand & Body Lotion. The formula is a blend of both and the fragrance will be a light Essential Oil Blend.

Olive Gardener's Balm and Body Butter will be phased out over the coming months and will be replaced by Body Balm. This will be a blend of both Gardener's Balm and Body Butter and will be packaged in the large 250g PET jar. I will trial the option of a few different fragrances to choose from and may also include a fragrance-free option if this proves popular.

Pure Moisture Shampoo and Conditioner will only be available in the large 500ml container with a pump. The price will be slightly reduced, so that the two together will cost less than $40. Travel Sized Shampoo and Conditioner will be available in 50ml push top boston bottles.

Face Polish will still be available but will be suitable for those who use either the Clarifying or Enriching Range of Face Care products. It will be a similar formula to the Enriching Face Polish but will have added Rhassoul Clay for extra cleansing and exfoliating.

I look forward to an exciting time ahead and hope to catch up with many of my customers at the Albany Show this year.

Thank you all so much for your patience and continued support.

Megan

Product Revamp

While the Skinflint Workshop has been closed, the Skinflint Research & Development and Planning Department has been in full operation!

For some time now I've been wanting to condense the amount of product lines that I have available. Being a one (wo)man band, it can be difficult to keep stock levels up when there's such a range of products.

The proposal so far is to reduce the products to the following:

Home Fragrance
Soy Wax Melts
Soy Wax Candles in Baby Jars

Face Care
Clarifying Range - 100ml Toner & 30ml and 100ml Face Lotion
Enriching Range -  100ml Toner & 30ml and 100ml Face Lotion
130ml Cleanser - for all skin types
175ml Face Polish - for all skin types
100ml Eye Make Up Remover
30ml Rosehip Recovery Serum
Lip Balm

Body Care
250ml Body Butter
100ml and 250ml Hand & Body Lotion (based on the Replenish formula)
Hand Made Soap

Hair Care
250ml Pure Moisture Shampoo - reduced price
250ml Pure Moisture Conditioner - reduced price

You'll notice that Face Polish and Cleanser will be for all skin types. The difference between the Clarifying and Enriching Cleanser and Face Polish is quite minimal, so it seems sensible to simply have the one sort.

I've also deleted the Mother & Baby Care Range. I still have some of the range in stock and it will be on special until sold out. There are many good natural products on the market today so I feel that I don't need to provide these products any more.

I'm very interested to hear your comments on the reduced range for Skinflint. Please comment below or on the Facebook Page.

Megan

Online Store Closure

I must sincerely apologize to all my customers as I have had to close the Skinflint Online Store a couple of weeks earlier than planned. Repairs will be taking place shortly and I must pack everything away while this is happening. Please do email me if you have an urgent order as I may be able to assist. The store is likely to be closed for around three weeks, perhaps four. There will be some super duper specials on re-opening!

Mothers' Month

Yes, it's Mothers' Month here at Skinflint with 50% off all Mother & Baby products.

What's in stock is being discounted by half, when it's gone, that's it!

The Mother & Baby range is made with pure plant oils, plant extracts, minerals and botanicals. A safe, near natural preservative is used in all but the Baby Balm where no preservative is necessary.

Only available as an online special for the month of May.

Crio Soap and Crio Brü

Every afternoon around 2pm, I start to flag. I find it hard to keep my eyes open. Normally, I'll have a brewed coffee, but lately, I've been enjoying a cup of Crio Brü.
This wonderful drink is brewed in my Thermomix and is made from roasted cocoa beans. Nothing added, nothing removed.
Crio Brü has an amazing amount of anti-oxidants and high levels of theobromine, a natural stimulant.

Recently, Crio Brü Australia put out a challenge to customers to come up with a way to use up the leftover grounds. Naturally, I thought of and exfoliating soap. I've recently experimented with a chocolate soap, so used the same formula and design to create Spiced Crio Latte Soap.

I dried the grounds slowly in the oven and then blitzed them lightly in the Thermomix to make them more even in size. They were then incorporated them into the oil and lye mixture along with some cocoa for added colour and scent. I also added zeolite clay as this is also a mild stimulant.
Scented with Brambleberry's Spiced Italian Chocolate, the soap is topped with a creamy 'froth' layer that's sprinkled with cinnamon.

It won't be cured until 9th April, so won't be available for sale on the Skinflint website until then. Meanwhile, enjoy a cup of Brü.

Online Store Update

The Skinflint Online Store is much more than just that. It has loads of information on skin conditions, caring for your skin and a list of ingredients with explanations about their purpose and benefits.

Each product listed for sale now has a complete ingredient list on the information page. If you're not sure about the inclusion of a certain ingredient, please contact me for further information.

I'm constantly researching and exploring the different formulae and ingredients that are used in skin care products today. I can spend hours in shops reading labels and taking notes and many more online scouring different sites to find the latest information.

My customer base is constantly growing and I'm humbled that so many people are finding my products are working for them. I'm always thrilled to hear that my customers are happy with their purchase. Please keep the emails coming, your comments help to make Skinflint products the best they can be without costing a fortune.

Megan

March Online Special

Enriching Face Polish                                                                          Clarifying Face Polish

Skinflint Face Polish is on special for all online customers in March.

Both Clarifying and Enriching Face Polish are reduced by 20%, so take advantage and order up!

Clarifying Face Polish has been designed for oily/combination skins and those who are prone to break outs.

Formulated with microfine particles of natural bamboo powder plus the added drawing power of Rhassoul clay, this gentle wash off cleanser can be used morning or night in place of your regular Clarifying Cleanser.
Convenient to use in the shower, washes off easily leaving skin smooth and clean without stripping the skin of its precious moisture.
Clarifying Face Polish is lightly scented with a clarifying blend of essential oils including Australian Lemon Myrtle.

Enriching Face Polish  has been designed for normal to dry skins and those who have combination and sensitive skin.

It has been formulated with microfine particles of bamboo powder and is a gentle wash off cleanser that can be used morning or night in place of your regular Enriching Cleanser.
Convenient to use in the shower, it washes off easily leaving skin smooth and clean without stripping the skin of its precious moisture. Lightly scented with a blend of moisture enhancing essential oils including Rosewood and Clary Sage.

Spiced Chocolate Latte

A new name for a new soap. This is a Limited Edition Soap and there are only 10 bars available.

Selling for $5.50, these soaps are large, around 170g each and have a lovely chocolate spice scent. The top is creamy white and is sprinkled with cinnamon.

They do look edible, so make sure the little ones can't have a go at them! They certainly won't be hurt if they do, but will be very disappointed at the flavour.

Spiced Chocolate Latte Soaps would make an elegant decoration in any bathroom.

These are only available for sale on my Facebook Page: HERE
Postage for one bar is Free!

Labelling Day

Today it's just too hot to make anything in the Skinflint Workshop. Instead, I'm catching up on some labelling in the air conditioning at home.

Yesterday, 5kg of Pure Moisture Shampoo was bottled, so needed labelling. Pure Lemongrass Soap had to be planed and labelled and Blackberry Sage Soap needed the same.

You'll notice that the 250ml Pure Moisture Shampoo is in the squat shaped bottles as my supplier is out of the tall ones. The label takes up most of the bottle!

Pure Lemongrass Soap

Skinflint Handmade Pure Lemongrass Soap is now ready for sale!

The bars look great with the ochre coloured swirl in a lemon background. Lemongrass is an astringent and has natural antimicrobial and anti-fungal properties.

Formulated with coconut, grapeseed and castor oils, Pure Lemongrass soap has kaolin clay added for it's cleansing properties. Kaolin is a drawing agent, so is excellent for those with oily skin or skin which is acne prone.

I've used Lemongrass Essential oil and added Lemongrass Fragrance oil to enhance the scent and to ground the essential oil which does have a tendency to dissipate over time otherwise.

Spiced Hot Chocolate

Sounds like something you'd have on a cold winter's day, but it's actually an experimental soap! It's in the freezer right now and if it turns out the way I'm hoping, it will not only smell delicious it will look fantastic!

Warm and chocolately with a creamy foam topped with cinnamon and scented with a blend of Brambleberry Spiced Italian Chocolate and a touch of Vanilla. I won't know what it's going to turn out like until the vanilla in the fragrances do their trick and turn the base chocolate brown. I'm just hoping that the top stays delicously creamy white.

Here it is out of the mould. It's not yellow, it's creamy coloured:

Day 2:

 Getting darker...

Day 7:

A little bit darker...

Day 14:

Beginning to look chocolatey...

As you can see I cut it a little too early in my eagerness to see what it looked like. It was still very soft and the white has dragged down.

I think next time I'll add some cocoa or Crio Bru to the base to help with the colour as well as the fragrance.

Pure Lemongrass Soap

The latest in the Skinflint Handmade Soap line up is Pure Lemongrass. It's a very pretty lemon coloured soap with delicate green swirls (now changed to a sort of khaki colour) throughout.

Scented, of course, with Lemongrass, it contains kaolin clay which is excellent for oily skin. Lemongrass essential oil is also anti-bacterial, making this soap perfect for teenage skin and for those who suffer from acne.

Made with coconut oil, grapeseed oil and shea butter, it's mild and conditioning, without being too cleansing. This batch of soap is still in the freezer, but when it's out and ready to cure, I'll post a photo.

Ready for use on February 11th.