For most, the holiday season is a time of entertaining. From dinner parties to having drinks with friends to family members visiting for a few days, the time can fly by in a blur of events. It can be too easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of both attending and preparing for all that is happening over the holidays. The details of getting everything ready can take away from actually enjoying your own event.

Of course, if you’re the host, you want everything to be perfect, everyone to feel welcome and comfortable during their time with you. By incorporating some handmade soaps into your preparations, you can ensure that everyone who is a guest will feel special during a stay at your home.  Nothing is more welcoming than being greeted by fresh towels adorned with a beautiful bar of handmade glycerin soap after a long day of travelling, shopping, visiting or attending other festive events.

With so many different colors, styles and scents to choose from, you can provide a unique handmade glycerin soap for each of your guests. You can choose a soap based on the person, or with the wide range of holiday soaps, you can easily find some that will match with your overall decor. Peppermint, cranberry, cinnamon, orange clove and myrrh are just some of the different soaps you can choose from. There are even snowmen and snowflake shaped soaps if you have children visiting or you want to add a little whimsy to a stay with you.

No matter what you decide, not only will the handmade glycerin soaps be appreciated when they are first received, but they will act as a subtle reminder of this special time of year throughout the following months.

Orange Clove Glycerin Soap

It’s really no surprise that the Orange Clove Glycerin Soap is one of our most popular holiday soaps, if not the most popular. In 2007 and 2008, it was the top selling soap for the holidays and when you breathe in the fragrance of this soap, you’ll know why. The combination of cloves with oranges, and a hint of nutmeg and cinnamon, are traditional scents used during the holiday season. If you hold this soap under your nose, close your eyes and inhale, you’ll think it’s that time of year already.

Although some soaps and candles have an orange fragrance that can be a bit sweet and overwhelming, this isn’t the case with the Orange Clove Soap. By using orange scented fragrance oil, the soap has a fresh, sharp orange smell. It’s almost as if you had peeled an orange yourself or poured a glass of cool Florida orange juice.

Saying that, the sharp zing of the orange scent, makes this an ideal soap for starting your day. While the cloves have a smooth, sultry fragrance, especially when combined with nutmeg and cinnamon, it’s the orange that will get you moving. The combination of scents used in this soap is something to experience, as the initial smell is of the cloves and it ends with the orange.

As with all our soaps, this not only smells great, but it’s handmade using vegetable glycerin, so it’s pretty to look at and great for your skin. But remember, this is a seasonal soap, so it isn’t made all year round. We currently only make it from September to March, so don’t miss out on your chance to enjoy this popular glycerin soap!

Note: It is our Featured soap of the month in November. It is also featured in our Mini Holiday Gift Set, next to Myrrh. On the website, it can be found under our Holiday Soap Collection or Fruity Glycerin Soap Category. Buy yours today!

Check this out: BeautyXpose.com has featured our Cranberry Designer Glycerin Soap:

“If you’re one for luxurious, sweet-scented body products that come in funky-shaped designs, you’re sure to swoon over the delicious Cranberry Designer Glycerin Soap by Magic Senses. So yummy smelling you want to nibble on it (it’s hard to resist!), this handcrafted cranberry soap is twisted into a unique trapezoidal shape and is translucent to see the bright swirls encompassed within its red base. Because I’m a girly girl at heart and a sucker for scented products, I fell in love with this tangy soap and ended up spending half an hour more than usual in the shower (my flat mates weren’t too happy about the situation)!

A soap bar handcrafted to perfection, the Cranberry Soap is one of the many specially-designed body products by Magic Senses that have their own personalities and a certain allure that makes a girl want to grab them and run her hands all over them. I say, rub all over and savor the smell in the shower all you can ladies, because you don’t want to be caught secretly whiffing yourself in the elevator!

The Cranberry Designer Glycerin Soap makes a great gift, and with the holidays coming up, you just found yourself an amazing deal! A reasonable price of $6.75, the Cranberry Soap as well as other creative Magic Senses bath and beauty products can be ordered online on www.MagicSenses.com.”

Thank you, Sana, for such an awesome review!! We are glad you loved our product!

Glycerin is a key ingredient in many soaps, but what is glycerin and what are the benefits of using glycerin soap?

photo courtesy of foxiq

What is Glycerin?

Glycerin is actually a by-product of the industrial soap making process. It is a colorless, odorless liquid that is very thick at room temperature with a sweet taste. It has a high boiling point and it can be frozen to a paste-like substance. The industrial process of making soap involves reacting a fat or oil, such as olive oil, with lye. During this process, glycerin is produced, which is often removed to add to lotions and creams. Most handmade soaps differ from industrial as the glycerin is not removed, and in some instances further glycerin is actually added.

Why Add Glycerin to Soap?

Glycerin is known as a humectant, which means that it attracts water. It is said to be hygroscopic as it can absorb water directly from the air. Pure glycerin will remove water not only from the air, but from anything it is placed on. Should you place pure glycerin on your skin, it would actually dry out the area since was removing the water.

When glycerin is diluted with water and other products, it has the opposite effect on skin. Instead of drying out the skin, it acts as a moisturizer. It is unclear whether the additional moisturizing results from the fact that glycerin attracts water to your skin or it is due to some other unknown property of glycerin. Either way, the result is that glycerin is highly moisturizing, which is why many companies remove it from their soaps and add it to their higher priced lotions and creams.

So, the key benefit to using soaps that contain glycerin is that they will cause your skin to be softer and smoother, and even improve its appearance. Also, glycerin soaps are an excellent choice for those with sensitive or delicate skin as they dissolve a lot easier and are not as hard on skin as other soaps can be.

Welcome to our montly soap giveaway! This month we decided to offer some Strawberry Fields glycerin soap to two lucky winners (1 bar each).

About the soap: this is the quintessential berry as we experience it. Fun and whimsical. Definitely for the strawberry lover. A bar weighs approx. 6 oz. Handmade in a smoke free but animal friendly environment.

If you can’t wait to see if you won, or would like to purchase this gift for someone else, please visit MagicSenses.com.

GIVEAWAY DETAILS:

Open to US residents only.

Winners: 2 (1 bar each)

How to enter (required): Visit MagicSenses.com and then come back and leave a comment telling us the name of your favorite product.

For additional entries (leave a new comment for each additional entry):
- one additional entry if you grab our button from the sidebar and post it on your blog, please post the link;
- one additional entry if you sign up for our Newsletter (the form is on the sidebar);
- one additional entry if you join our Fan Club on Facebook (log in to see the page);
- one additional entry if you follow our founder on Twitter;
- one additional entry if you send a tweet about this giveaway, please post the link (once a day only);
- one additional entry if you fave us in Technorati;
- one additional entry if you StumbleUpon our Founder;
- one additional entry if you blog about this Giveaway with a link back to MagicSenses.com
- one additional entry if you follow our Blog via email.

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The giveaway ends on May 31, 2009 at 5pm, Pacific Standard Time. 

*Please make sure you leave a comment for each additional entry so you get credited.
*Also, please make sure you typed in the correct email address.
*The winner will be announced via e-mail and has 2 days to get back to us or other name will be chosen.

Thank you! Good luck!

I am delighted to say that we sponsor a Giveaway at BlogMania; they also reviewed our soap. Here is a part of the review:

This glycerin soap is not only gorgeous, it is wonderfully scented. Before I even unwrapped the soap, I could smell the fresh, floral scent.

This is now proudly displayed in my kitchen. My girls love it and have taken a renewed interest in washing their hands (which is always a good thing). Although they KNOW they need to wash their hands, I constantly find my self asking “Did you wash your hands?”. No more! Now I do not even have to ask… read more!

If you’d like to participate in the Giveaway, please visit BlogMania. Thank you, Mary Beth!

We are excited to announce that Magic Senses has been featured on SheScribes.com! Here are a few paragraphs from their review:

“I’ve added a bit of spring time to our bathroom. I’ve added a Cheerful Butterfly glycerin soap from Magic Senses in our shower. It’s almost too cute to use! I don’t know how they did it but the wings are really swirls of other soaps. It’s like they took a beautiful lavender soap and a lovely pink soap, shaved off some pieces, curled them and then added them to the butterflies wings. Even the body of the butterfly is made from a creamy yellow soap. They are all held together with a clear glycerin soap. It’s scented with Pulmeria and it smells SO GOOD!

As silly as it might sound having the Cheerful Butterfly soap in the tub makes me feel happy. I guess that is why it’s called the Cheerful Butterfly. I guess it’s the pretty colors and lovely scent that makes me feel that way.

I LOVE the soaps from Magic Senses! They are so funky looking. I love how they take different colored soaps and twist them and do unusual things to them to create colorful works of ART.”

To read the whole review, please visit SheScribes.com!

GIVEAWAY: We are also offering 2 Cheerful Butterflies from our Collection as a Giveaway. For a chance to win, please visit SheScribes.com and submit your entry!

Hi! I have good news! We have been branded on Kaboodle! If you are a Kaboodle user, please add us to your list! Be sure to check out our community’s favorite products and become a fan!

You can also VOTE in our POLLS and help us choose the BEST DESIGN and the BEST FRAGRANCES. While you are there, you can read and JOIN our group: THE HANDCRAFTED SOAP YOU LOVE. We have just started it so any help would be very appreciated! Thank you to all our friends who have already joined us and shared the love!

If you’d like to buy any of our products, please visit our online store at www.MagicSenses.com !

Designer Glycerin Soap by 1happyblogger

Today I would like to share some wonderful feedback I received from one of our customers. Here we go:

Thank you so much for the speedy delivery.Your soaps are fantastic! They smell wonderful and are creamy enough to shave legs with. My whole bathroom smelled so good from the apple soap sample you sent. Thanks very much for all the generous samples. I appreciate it.

This message came from Tanya, from Chicago, Illinois. Thank you, Tanya! We really appreciate you taking the time to email us!

Have you tried our handcrafted glycerin soap? If you did, what do you think? We are ready to listen to you! Tell us all about it! Good and bad!

Our latest design: Blue Musk Handcrafted Glycerin Soap!

Made with the best vegetable glycerin base, this soap belongs to the so-called “fresh&clean” category. The fragrance is mild; it almost resembles to Rain but is a little bit more perfumy.

The design: clear base with solid and clear blue swirls embracing each other. Not two bars are alike.

Each bar is handcrafted & handcut and weighs approx. 6 oz. You can buy it at Magic Senses for $6.75.