Holidays are Coming!

I am now preparing new soaps and new designs for gifts for the holidays.  I am excited to be soaping again, it is really a great passion for me.  I have also been trying out different things that I will be able to sell in the future, but as for now I am sticking with soaps only.  I love to experiment and try new things as I learn my craft better.

I would like to apologize for slowing down after my summer rush.  I haven’t been feeling up to par and as soon as I am back on my feet I will be back in a better swing of things.  Thank you for your patience. 

I have been rethinking how to take the soap orders.  At this time I am unable to keep up with the demands of custom soap orders.  I know in turn this will require me to making soaps available for purchase at all times, but it will be easier for me right now.  I am hoping that this will be better for everyone.  I will have everything that is available updated here and on my Facebook page. 

Thank you for all of my wonderful supporters and customers.  I appreciate everyone that has given me feedback to help me to make the best products that I can.  I hope everyone has a safe and happy Thanksgiving next week.  Happy Holidays!

11 oz. Soap Bar!

I had a recent order for bars that are around 10.5 oz. +.   I had a bit of trouble finding the perfect mold to meet this criteria, but I settled on one and they are perfect.  I did have a bit of trouble popping them out, but I think that if I had just given it a little more time that they would have come right out with no trouble at all.  I made another set this week and I am trying to exhibit more self control in waiting on these before unmolding. 

These bars are so large that I couldn’t wrap my hands around them comfortably.  They are great for those who want to use them daily in the shower, and they will last a long time.  You can cut them to the size you prefer if they are too large for you.   This is also a great way to order a larger quantity, faster.
I love the fact that these bars are unique.  They can be customized and that they will allow my customers to have great soap for a longer period of time then the normal sized bars would provide.  I am now happy to offer this size to anyone that requests them.
Thanks for checking out my blog, if you have any suggestions or comments please let me know.  Have a great day.

Adirondack Storm didn’t take us out… completely.

Thursday I worked hard at creating 4 new soaps to offer.  It was storming outside, and the whole time I was nervous I was going to lose power and get caught not being able to finish.  Luckily our power only flickered.  Our poor next door neighbors transformer got hit directly and they lost power , though.  Our phone line got hit as usual, we lost our phone for 1 1/2 days.  With all things considered we faired nicely, for a change. 

That is the price you pay for living in the Adirondacks!  It is the way it always happens, but your learn to roll with the punches and take it all in stride.  We love it here too much to be bothered by Mother Nature flexing her muscles from time to time. 

Sorry, here I am rambling.

I made 4 new soaps to add to my Curing Rack.

Jasmine Bastille

 

 

Lilac Bastille

 

 

Bay Rum Bastille

 

 

Fresh Cut Roses Bastille

 

I hope everyone had a safe week with all of the storms raging through.  The rain today was massive again, I just cannot believe how hard it was coming down.  Stay dry everyone, it looks like tomorrow is going to be worse.   

Having Fun with Cold Processing

In June I had made a lot of Hot Process Soaps due to a deadline needing to be met.  I am so grateful for the opportunity to “play” around with Cold Process again.  I am by no means an expert, and even when I have an idea of what I want to do, there is a major turn in the road and I have to change my plans fast.  I am completely fine with that, I am still learning and it will take time.
The most recent Cold Process soaps that I have worked on are these:

“Beach Bum”  

I was going for a sandy and brown effect with a nice swirl design.  Hmmm.  I got the coloring correct (using natural ingredients), but the swirl lacks, well, swirliness ( I know not a real word).

 

“Dragon’s Blood”

Here I was going for a purple, blue and tan spoon layered swirl.  I think the swirl effect came out awesome here, but the colors are darker than I had first intended.  I am still hoping that they lighten up with the curing process.  My fingers are crossed. 

“Goat’s Milk Coconut Lime”

Ah!  This one was a remake of a Melt and Pour I had done in June.  Now of course you have so much more control when working with Melt and Pour, but I personally prefer to make my soaps from scratch.  So this was my first attempt at making a Goat’s Milk Soap.  I am impressed with how it came out, very pleased…  I used parsley as my natural colorant and that also I am very pleased with, so over all I think this one turned out well too.  I would have liked to have had the green only in the center of the soap, but when pouring onto another layer, I learned that it sinks through that bottom layer.  So I will need to spoon on the second color so it goes on top of the other color lightly.  Live and Learn, but still it turned out nice.

“Palm Island”

This is another one that I am redoing from a Melt and Pour soap design.  This looks completely different from my first.  I didn’t have any orange pigment powders to make this one pop like my last one.  But I did learn to use a spoon so that it would be stripes not a pour through, and I see that was a helpful lesson to learn, lol.

My vision was to have beach towel striping effect with colors that faded into each other.  I wanted blue, aqua, green, yellow and sand.  I accidently put them in the wrong order, but I still like how it turned out.  I think it looks awesome for my first attempt at the “gradient” coloring technique. 

So there it is.  I have learned a lot, I won’t get discouraged, and I will continue to love what I am doing.  They are still awesome no matter what.  I am pleased.  I hope this gives you a glimpse of the planning and designing that it takes in creating soaps.  Let me know if you have any ideas on what you would like me to try in the future.  I would be more than happy to try them out for you.  Thanks for reading, I appreciate it.

Additions to the Curing Rack

Since I received my supplies, I have to get busy making soaps again.  I have two new additions to announce for my “Curing Rack”.

 

Lavender Shea Butter

 

 

 

 

Bedtime Bath Shea Butter

Don’t forget to like me on facebook to keep up with everything going on over there too.  Thank You again for checking out what I have been working on.

Supplies are in…

I just love it when I get supplies in the mail.  It’s like opening up a box of goodies, every time.  Two shipments came in at the same time and I am delighted to share that I have 2 new fragrances.

• Fresh Cut Roses
• Bay Rum

I love both of these, I won’t carry a fragrance that I don’t personally love. 

I have expanded my colorants, so in the future I can design more interesting looking soaps.  I cannot wait to start exploring this.  I love playing with new techniques and trying different things.  Keep a look out for some new designs in the near future. 

I can now offer Shea butter soap.  I was amazed at how popular the melt & pour version was so now I am going to be making it myself, today.  I will post pictures tomorrow of my new creations. 

Thank you for your interest in my company, I appreciate feedback if you want to leave any comments.  See you tomorrow.

Lights, Camera, Action!

Ah!  One of my struggles this week has been, how to get the best pictures!  I was trying hard to use only natural lighting, which really ends up being a shifting game following the sun so that it didn’t cast shadows, how completely frustrating.  I was stretching fabric across my desk, because it was a well sunlit room, but disrupting my desk every time I needed to take pictures was becoming a nuisance.  

I was using my camera yesterday to do a test film on my process of making the gradient “Palm Island” soap, I realized there was terrible lighting in my kitchen for filming.  My husband picked up this awesome LED light bar and I decided to take my pictures today using it.  It turned out a lot better than my usual way, and it was so much less stress.  So I am excited to say that this is a wonderful solution.  I know that means more pictures, I get it.  Well it will be a joy to do now, and I promise more pictures, more often. 

Thanks for checking in on me today, I would love to hear any ideas you may have for lighting up an area to get great photos.

Small Natures Garden Fragrance Haul

Yesterday I received my fragrances, 10 in all.  I am looking forward to adding these to my list of fragrances to offer.  Yay! 
I received:

1. Bogeyman
2. Palm Island
3. Mango Papaya
4. Clean Cotton-New
5. Seaside Cotton-New
6. Happy Type-New
7. Green Irish Tweed
8. Lilac-New
9. Jasmine-New
10. Oatmeal Milk n Honey-New

I am waiting still on another shipment of other supplies to come to be able to finish off some of my orders still.  But I will keep plugging along until I just cannot do anymore.  I was just excited to let you know.  Thanks for checking in on me, I appreciate it.

My Soaping Addiction

I started soaping in February of this year, and I did it just as a little project to do with the kids. 

I had gotten a Melt & Pour kit and made a few batches of soap.  It was a quick and easy, but it wasn’t much of a challenge for me.  I really wanted to someday try making soap from Lye and Oils, but didn’t know when I could jump into such a large project.

When my father in law told me that I should sell these, I told him that I would think about it, that if I did sell them it wouldn’t be the Melt and Pour kind, I wanted to try it the old fashioned way.  After a few weeks of reading books and watching a ton of tutorials I felt ambitious enough to try making soaps using Lye.  I spent a lot of time using the Lye Calculator to come up with my own recipes.  I Cold Processed my first two batches (one lard based, one shortening based)

                                               

Then I played around with Hot Processing (a bastille base).

                                                    

I attempted  Rebatching, using the Cold Processed Soaps that I didn’t think turned out so great (the shortening and lard soap).

     

I even tried Cold Process Oven Processing soaps(Shortening and Custom Soaps).  Which turned out great too.

I had expected to not be able to accomplish all of these so fast, but with the avenue of rebatching a possibility for any soaps that didn’t have even fragrance, color or additives, I felt this craft was flexible enough for me. 

By this time it was May and I was scrambling for people to take the soaps that I made to try them out.  I wanted there input as well.

 

I tried a few packaging ideas to play up the packages that I was sending out to family and friends around the country.  I loved the challenges each step posed and I was able to throw myself into each endeavor without a large investment on our household budget.  Our soaps soon dwindled down to a scarce few.

I set myself a large and crazy goal at the beginning of June to have enough soap to sell in a town wide garage sale a month later.  If I was able to sell quite a few I would start a business and jump in otherwise it would have been a fun job for a month at least, with little pay.  I was honing my craft….

                                          
                                                          
                                           
                                                                  
                                          

                                                          

In a month I made over 70 soaps (my original goal was 50), I had so much fun (and the by Grace of God) everything  I made seemed to come out awesome.  I was using Lard,  M&P and Bastille soap bases for these, all the Lye soaps were Hot Processed due to the time crunch.  I sold more than half of these and I thought that I did awesome. 
Last month I got requests from all over for more soaps, I knew I was starting a business so I made it official.  I have placed some of my soaps in a store and I am now taking orders personally for customers out of the area or for customers who want custom made soaps.
I will be journaling my achievements and failures to everyone on here.  But as of now the only failure I feel that I can make is from not learning from my errors.  I look forward to letting everyone know my day to day trials and errors and sharing with you my journey.  Thank you for joining me and reading how I got started.