Soap Making Speed... We Better Move It

It's so hard to know how much soap to make, really. I just haven't been doing it long enough, but I'm guessing that if you are a seasoned soap maker, you probably have the same dilemma if you make cold process soap due to the lengthy cure time.

Curing soap takes 4-6 weeks with the cold process method. To make Christmas holiday shopping deadlines...hmmmm...that makes the deadline for making cp soap ...ummm... Okay, if you made a loaf of soap today, you can sell you soap on December 2nd (4 weeks), but if you are like me, and wait 6 weeks, we would have to wait until December 16th which means, we'd better get CRACKING!

photo by Birch Bark Soap

I have orders of soap loaves for wholesale customers of mine and I have to make a ton of soap for the Product Body gift set we are offering in a couple of weeks. Good thing I made plenty of cp soap ahead of time for that. I will be making hot process soap as back up because the scent is so intoxicating, this stuff will fly off the shelves. Oh, it's a secret... and if you know (and you know who you are, ladies) don't squeak a peep on this blog.

Anyway, with work and other things I have to get accomplished I get squirmy and stressed because I should be making at LEAST 2 loaves of soap a day. More. I should be making more, but I just don't have time! grr.

Funny....I started soaping SO far in advance - - extra soap, more soap, lots of soap...I was SO on the ball folks. Really. This time, ME, this one, Joanna, right here, I was so prepared. And then one day a wholesale customer called and asked me what I had in my curing cabinet and claimed loaves and loaves. Oh, it's all good. I can't complain. The soapy business is good and my soaps are getting more and more popular. I am selling a lot of soap. Love it! But my soap stock is down and now I don't look quite as prepared as I once was. My cabinet is full, but my excess is not bulging. Yet.

So ... I will be on a soap making spree as I am sure some of you are already on or will be on very soon.

Tell me about YOUR soap situation this holiday season... :)

Crayons

Just a personal Halloween photo...

My daughter and her friend were crayons. My daughter is the "puke green" one (yes, she chose the name for her color). They made the costumes themselves. Oh, oh... didn't you think they bought them at Target? ;)

My Ocean Titanic

Made it yesterday...

Steel Cut Oats for "sand" (maybe I should have gone for regular oats, copper mica, blue mica, purple soap balls, then previous batches shredded and made into sea plants.)

Ocean Titanic
Scent: Beach House


by me at Product Body

Amber Soap Porn

Here are some Etsy finds: soap scented with amber. I am digging the amber scents these days. The mystery, the sultry lure, the history... there are some new soap makers featured here that I have not seen yet.

Eden by vervainsavon
scented with Essential oils of Amber, Patchouli, and Jasmine.
Also included resins of amber, patchouli, rose and vetiver.

Cracked Amber soap by bedickens
Scent: combination of rustic cracked amber, satiny white lavender and deep earthy sage.

Crystal Skull Soaps, 12 heads by Fig Leaf Soap
Scented with an ancient, mysterious black amber fragrance

Amber soap by Hartley
fragrance: amber

Smoked Balsam Soap with shea butter by naiad
Features pine green and billowing white peaks, fresh pine scent with notes of
campfire smoke, patchouli and amber!

Mayan Gold soap - exotic golden cocoa butter by swan mountain soaps
Fragrance is a mix of rare woods, spices and amber including several essential oils such as Sandalwood, Patchouli, Clary Sage, Vetiver, Mandarin, Lemon, Grapefruit, and Neroli.

Ruby The Rock Star Has Her New Color About Her And She Is SEXY

S E X Y Ruby Red Rock Star

Coming to you mid- November

Uphill, Barefoot ... Both Ways

{this was an email sent to me, which I edited a little to add my own personal touches to and being that I fit into to the OVER 30 crowd, reluctantly and so obviously , I lay it out....}


When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were. When they were growing up; what with walking 25 miles to school every morning....

Uphill... barefoot... BOTH ways….Yadda, yadda, yadda

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on my kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it.

But now that I'm over the ripe old age of thirty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today.

You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a Utopia!

I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have The Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalogue.

There was no email. We had to actually write somebody a letter with a pen... Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox and it would take, like, a week to get there.

Child Protective Services didn't care if our parents beat us.

There were no MP3' s or Napsters! If you wanted to steal music, you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning of the song. There were no CD players. We had tape decks in our car.

My grandpa had an 8-track. Oh yeah. Did you even ever see one of those? In A CAR?

We didn't have crap like Call Waiting. If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal.

And we didn't have Caller ID. When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was. It could be your school, your mom, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, a collections agent, you just didn't know. You had to pick it up and take your chances.


We didn't have any fancy Playstation video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics. We had PONG. Pong rocked. Of course nowadays, if you put Pong on the tv, kids would look at you and be like, "what is this lame game?"

Then came Atari with games like Space Invaders and Asteroids. Your guy was a little square. There were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen. The game just kept getting faster and faster until you died!

You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on TV. You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your ass and walk over to the TV to change the channel. NO REMOTES. A lot of TVs were still black and white. At least in my house.

There was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I'm saying!?! We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little rat-bastards!

And we didn't have microwaves, if we wanted to heat something up we had to use the stove.

You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled. You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1980 or before!


What do YOU remember??

The Coconut Challenge Winners!

The Winner is..... drum roll, please

Amber from Amber's Ambry!!

coconutty goodness hot process soap

Amber's soap was the clear winner. Even though her soap's coconut had a slight lemongrass hint to it, it smelled the most like coconut to me. In fact, it was so yummy, I almost keeled over when I cracked that baby's paper wrapper back! She sprinkled some real coconut on the top, which added some visual appeal, but don't think the eye candy stole me away. It was the smell that won me over. Also, if you take a closer look, you can see the sections of darkness here and there throughout the bar. It almost looks as if the bar was toasted a bit. Overall, the bar is a winner and I am ready to go take a shower with it.

As the winner, Amber will receive 2 months of advertising on The Soap Bar for FREE!

There was a tie for the runners up slot.

Figures.

Debbie Chialtas, of Soapy Love, for her creative coconut shaped soap and Heidi Goldberg, of bodygoodies, for the most beautiful soap with what looks like coconuts embedded in her soap! Take a look:

Soapy Love coconuts

surfer girl by bodygoodies

light coconut and refreshing lime scent

Debbie and Heidi will both get 1 months advertising for free on The Soap Bar blog.

Oh yeah. (Heidi, get me your graphic ad) ;)

All of the straight coconut scents, as I had feared, left me wanting more, desiring that nutty milk that I could almost smell but that turned into a plastic-y sad something else. The soaps smelled very nice, but all of the soaps that I received had a common cousin, so to speak. Do not get me wrong. Every soap smelled good. Just not quite like a coconut..... Like the inside of a Mounds.

You know what I mean.

Here are the lovely soaps that came to my door. Every soap maker was kind enough, brave enough and generous enough to get their bars to me for the challenge and I take my fancy hat off to them. Thank you, thank you.

di Palermo Body

Burnt Mill Candle & Soap

Sturgis Soap Factory

Alchemic Muse


Paradise Body Shop


Body By M


La Bella Donna


Polka Dots and Posies


Bubbles Variety Shoppe

Thank you, nuts!

Coat Hanger Swirl Tutorial

I received an email last night from Gabbie of The Soap Dish in Australia offering to share her coat hanger swirl tutorial. Her soap came out so beautifully, I just had to share! Check out her blog after you've had a chance to peek at this post.

Yesterday l tried coat hanger swirling for the first time. I've used a chopstick, a skewer and a wooden spoon to swirl my soap, but never a coat hanger. l think the beauty of it is that you can get to the bottom of the soap easily while it's in the log mould, and pull it upwards & downwards; and because you're swirling 'side on' instead of the normal way, you get some really interesting patterns. Having said that though, there are so many people who do it better than me! I was a bit chuffed though with my first attempt, it turned out much better than l had dared to hope.

(basic instructions on the coat hanger swirl were first found here, what follows is merely my interpretation.)

l'm not usually very good at swirling because l always soap too warm, and use the stick blender for too long. This makes for a quite thick 'trace' that doesn't lend itself to swirling, but rather being 'heavily poured' into the mould, and spread around. Sometimes l halfheartedly poke around in it with a chopstick or skewer, but there's never really been much point, and l much prefer the 'in the pot' swirl where you blend the two colours by hand and then pour the lot into the mould and hope for the best. Patience is a virtue, especially in soapmaking, and mine is still developing, what can l say LOL.

But yesterday l was VERY patient, and l let the oils and lye go almost stone cold before making the soap. l didn't want to give it any excuse to thicken up too quickly.

l diluted my colour beforehand, and set it to one side.

I'd already altered my coat hanger with a pair of pliers, the straight sides are so it would fit into a smaller log mould:

I then mixed the lye and oils and got out the stick blender. As soon as the soap emulsified or got to that beautiful glossy 'almost trace' like stage, l put the stick blender down and didn't touch it again. The batter was still quite thin, there was a very faint pour line if you lifted the spoon above the soap & drizzled, but nothing like what l normally experience. l guess you could say it was like very thin cream.

l added my fragrance (lavender essential oil) and stirred with the spatula. It was still thin, thankfully.

I then split the batch in half and coloured one half purple - this was using purple ultramarine from Heirloom Bodycare - l premixed it with water in a bottle and had it ready to go. Stirred it in with the spatula, and things were still thin. (l was a little amazed, because normally by now l am at the 'slamming it in the mould and cursing loudly' stage LOL.)

l then started pouring the purple and white soap into the mould. l used my wooden log mould, and had it lined and ready to go. First up was a thin layer of white soap along the bottom, about a centimetre's worth. Because the soap was still very runny, when l started the purple layer, l poured it over the back of a spatula, as if l'd poured straight into the mould l think it would have sunk completely to the bottom instead of forming 'stripes'. I continued pouring, alternating colours and always over the back of a spatula so that the stripes stayed roughly 'on top' of each other. (apologies for not having photos for this stage, l didn't have an extra set of hands but l will try and get more photos next time.) I just kept layering the two colours until l ran out of soap mix. They weren't neat stripes by any means, more just rough layering of one colour on top of the other.

It was still quite thin, but l could tell it was starting to thicken slightly at this point, so l grabbed the coat hanger.

(here's a pic of how it goes in, just pretend there is soap in the mould!)

Because it was only my first time, l wasn't sure which way to swirl with the hanger, should it be from side to side, or up and down? l decided on mostly up and down, and zig zagged in a /\/\/\/\ pattern from one edge of the mould to the other. l then added in ONE 'side to side' 'Z' movement just in case, and pulled the coat hanger out. Overall l didn't swirl too much at all, l'm no expert, but l figured the more l fiddled around with it, the more l would be blending the two colours, and l wanted them to be quite distinct, not a muddy third colour.

Then l put the soap to bed as per usual, and cut it this morning. The anticipation!

Overall l was really happy with how it turned out. My favourite bar is in the second row on the right hand side

Next time l think l will do the layers a little thinner, and maybe try a few more of the up and down zig zags, it would also be fun to introduce a third colour, but l will need to work on keeping my soap mix thin consistently first!

On a different soap note: Here are Gabbie's other soaps:

So so pretty!

*

Thank you for sharing your tutorial, Gabbie. We always appreciate the time it takes for you to put it together and the knowledge you share with us all.

Etsy Finds :: Soap of The Milky Goat

...And A Bit of Soap Porn, Too

I have never tried a glass of milk squeezed from a goat, although I have heard it is quite tasty and even healthier than cow's milk. I really like goats. I don't like the butting part of their personality, but they are sweet. Goat's milk also does wonders for your skin when you put it in lotion or add it to soap. I have tried it once in powder form, but I need to go all out and get a quart of milk from the grocer and go crazy for my next batch of goat (milk) soap. C'mon! No goats in my soap. I promise!

Okay, so I did some eyeballing on Etsy and found some lovely soaps that I've posted here. There is one in particular that has caught my eye because f the method used. Cold kettle processing. I'd love to know if anyone has tried this. In the comment section, if you will, please let me know if (a) you have heard of it and (b) if you have tried it.

Enjoy the the sign of the goat. U

milky tea goat milk soap by Long Winter Farm

nag champa goat's milk and honey soap by Hendrick's Hearth

goat (milk) soap by Primitive Earth Soap



grapefruit gourmet goat's milk gourmet soap by Wicked Pen

oooooooooooooo. aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.......

Orange Clove primitive goat's milk soap (cold kettle process) by Orange Cat Soaps

I don't think I've actually SEEN soap come from this method. It almost looks like overly toasted handmade marshmallows to me. I am loving the rustic look of these and wish I had one myself so I could touch and smell this unique bit of bar!

So, if you have tried this cold kettle process and are interested in sharing a photo tutorial, I would love to post it here for us all to learn. What fun to learn new things!!

:oD

Soap Shop Across The Big Blue

Sara Phillips is the founder of The Natural Soap Company in Wells, Norfolk, UK. She started making all natural soap in her kitchen (sound familiar?). She outgrew her kitchen quickly after falling into the common soap addiction and ended up with more soap than she could handle. Craft shows helped unload some of the soaps piling up but....finally her shop had to open.

The soap addiction must be fed, folks! I know.

The shop itself is a stone building... absolutely adorable and I wish I was close enough to actually stop by for a visit. I love the way she's set up her place. Her soaps are wrapped beautifully, the shelves are back lit and everything looks so neat and tidy and well organized.

I would swoon if I had a chance to enter that building, FOR SURE!

I love the stacks of wrapped soap. Very colorful and sweet looking. Kudos, Sara! Your shop is amazing and it looks like your addiction made you a savvy shop owner. =)

If you need to be in touch, their contact info is here.

The Natural Soap Company Limited
2d Maryland, Wells next the Sea, Norfolk NR23 1LY, UK
Telephone 01328 711717 Fax 01328 711747

My Camera Has A Beef With Me

This is why the coconuts aren't appearing here for you to see. I know you are coming here and checking in to see the coconut finalists --- to see who has taken the gold, but NO, you don't get to because my crappy point and shoot has decided to die on me and the one at work is in RAW fancy mode for photographing website photos and I don't really know how to reset it for regular shooting because I'm kind of technically stupid like that. It IS my camera and I could probably figure it out, but to be perfectly honest, which I am always to a fault, I tend to make things even more bad. Or broken. Or make my husband huff and puff which makes me tense up and bite my nails and really, do I need the extra stress of that!? Ney. I truly do not. He is funny. Have you read his blog? Funnier than anyone I have ever met, in fact. But when he isn't funny and he is irritated with me for breaking the damn camera because I messed with technology which he is a goddamn genius at? Well....then, he is not so funny.

So that is my coconut soap excuse and I hope you understand my camera dilemma. I will say, that I still am pretty sad with the coconut scent situation. I love that the people who participated made beautiful soaps and made the efforts and I will show you and your soap off because of it. You know it. Sadly, though, some of the scents, were almost plastic-ey and non-coco-nutty and pretty much what I have found over the many years of my search.

Fragrance companies: Do you hear my ROAR???? Send me your best! You will have customers. There isn't much out here for us! There is a market for you!!!!

So until then, I will continue to come and talk to you until the camera will please us both. The coconuts will sit and await the photo shoot, yes?


*

Ahhhh, I Seeeee

photo credit: Acai Berry Discovery

Naaah, It's Acai. (ah-sah-eee) Not only does it taste fantastic is a fruit smoothie, but it's good for you, too.Acai berries are beautiful, are good for you and are packed full of antioxidants which are both good for your insides and good for your skin. Some of these soaps actually have the berries in one or another in them. If you like just the scent, great, but if you want the topical benefits, seek out the actual acai berries in the ingredients.

Here's the Acai soap porn of the day...

The first one I found was from Charlene of Bathhouse in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Look how pretty those two colors go together!

acai and papaya soap

antioxidant power punch soap chunk - acai, pomegranate and raspberry
by tashamspa


Acai and Mangosteen Dead Sea and Alean Sea Salt Bar
By Mountain Mama Chic



Hibiscus and Acai Luxury soap
at VI (Virgin Islands) Locally Grown Market

I couldn't find too much out there, but honestly, I didn't spent the kind of time I normally do to bring to your the soap porn you SO deserve every week. It's been crazy-busy in my life for the past week. It'll still come, perhaps in small bursts and bubbles.

Ta for now!

Time Keeps On Ticking Into The Future

It is officially flying. What is it, Wednesday evening? It's garbage night, tomorrow's a half day for the kid's AGAIN, I have 9 loaves of soap on order which I can't make until tomorrow because I am waiting for my 50 lb. shipment of coconut oil. I also got a phone call from my mother tonight about Monday. Apparently it's another holiday... Columbus Day. Are you crapping me negative!? By golly I think it is official that I have lost all concept of space and time. I taught a private soaping lesson on Sunday and I worked on Monday so I didn't get any days off this week (normally I try to take at least Sunday to hang with my kids and Monday to catch up...use the day unofficially unless I have wholesale orders I ned to crank out.)

Lately I feel like my brain is swimming, I am having a hard time focusing, charging from one task to another getting so many things worked on but getting nothing completed.

Right now I am so sleepy I am actually light headed, so I should probably get up, wash up and put myself to sleep before I fall out of this bed and drop the laptop on the floor. I am going to share with you a secret I have that only my family knows: I sleep with a N*A*P pillow. I love it. It is brown and snuggly.

You can see it here it you want to. But that's not how I sleep with it. See? I fluttered to a weird insignificant topic!

Sweet Soap Porn Sunday ***warning

****Warning. Eat before looking at this post. I take no responsibility for anyone fatting up due to these images!


I woke up today thinking about the cinnamon sugar mix I'd sprinkle on top my buttered toast back when I was younger. I haven't done that in years. So as I sit here drinking my coffee trying to wake up, I thought I'd go find some sweet soap porn and share it. It's pretty unbelievable how real some of this stuff looks.

Baked Brown Sugar Pears: shea butter dessert soap
by the dirty housewife



Creamy Coconut Chocolate Cake Soap by layla



Honey Galore Soap Truffles by soapychica


Cutie Pie soap slices "midnight mint" by sudstress


S'mores by Dirty Ass Soaps
Don't these look edible? mmm.


Cinnamon Coffee Cake soap by Bubbles Up By Bethie B


Delizioso Exfoliating Bar in orange spice
(orange, cinnamon, clove, ginger and brown sugar) by bonghinatura

Now, go eat something healthy and walk past the bakery!

*

Melt And Pour Wizardry At Its Finest

Soapylove:: the book

A how-to guide for making glycerin
melt and pour soaps with pictures GALORE!

Debbie Chialtas is THE W i z a r d of all things soapy in the melt and pour world. Really really. Instead of keeping the beauty all to herself, she has decided to share her oh-so-crafty-talents with the world. In this rockin' book that I was so fortunate to receive, Debbie demystifies the "bite" from the Popsicles, cookies, and her jelly donut soaps. I always wondered how those bites were made. I mean, I'm no dummy, but I never could get past the thought...."what could make that bite shape?" Then I'd be stumped and move along with my day. Although, I hate to admit this, I have to tell you that if you asked me today how to make that bite shape and I hadn't open this book and learned how Debbie made them, I'd probably say: "Dentures?"

So....back to the book: Some of the fun soap projects include embedding cool shapes like dots, stripes, scenery, cameos, balls and aliens in rocketships, creating "bites", adding fragrances, colors, swirling, blending, layering and cutting. In the book, Debbie makes the most intricate and difficult looking processes look super easy with step by step instructions with plenty of big, bright, colorful pictures showing exactly what to do and how the final outcome should look like. Some projects are harder than others. There are beginner projects all the way up to more advanced ones. Using a craft knife, for instance, and carving out intricate designs like a flame, might be hard for some (ahem). You know...eye hand coordination/patience with detail... That sort of thing. What is great about this book is that there is something in it for everyone. The crafts are fun, inspiring and beautiful! Following these steps can make you a pro!

Debbie, thank you. I really love the book! Anyone who loves crafts, has children or wants to try a new hobby should get this book. And the price is crazy at $13.50 for 125 awesome pages.

The book is available on Amazon.com or at Brambleberry.

Soapylove, the website: where you'll find anything and everything about Debbie including where her stuff is sold, how to find more things she sells, how to get in touch with her...etc.


Debbie Chialtas blogs: Soapylove Daily Ditties and The Soap Lab

dreamy

A Little Help Here

Quickie question.....

I made cp soap last night.

The fragrance was a mix of Carrot Cake, Graham Cracker and French Vanilla (hungry yet?).
I covered two loaves with saran wrap and then a towel and left the soap"leftovers" in a silicone pan uncovered. This morning, I found the covered soap loaves to be brown and the uncovered soap an autumn orange. Sadly, I would have liked all the soap to be an orangey hue.

pourquoi?
warum?
waarom?
なぜ？
чому?

Did you know how pretty "why" was in all these languages?

:)

If I find my camera, I will post pictures later..... thanks in advance for posting comments if you have any ideas and if they will change.

A Longer Process

So I thought it would take me two days to determine a winner for the coconut contest. Boy, was I dreaming. Ha! Sorry folks, it's going to take me much longer. There were some last minute entries, and I want the opportunity to try each and every one to make a determination. Smelling the soaps right out of their boxes aren't necessarily fair.

Give me a week. I brought them all home and smelled them all again. I will lay them all out and start soaping up today, tomorrow and picture taking, too.

Thanks to all of you who spent the time participating.

Dye Porn

I don't have any soap porn for you right this minute. I have dye porn.

Yes, last night, along with 3 twelve year old girls watching, I bleached and dyed my hair. I had fun and I like my hair the way it came out. I have been dying my hair crazy colors since I was 14. Now, I still think I am 20!

My son saw me last night, did a double take and said, "Mom, you look cool. So beauuuuutiful."... And touched my hair like in the romantic movies. Does it get any sweeter than that?

Unfortunately, all I had today was my computer camera under florescent lights so you get what you get....in the dullest of locations. Yeah, baby! My undecorated side office in my shop.

So here I am, sans lipstick, being porn-riffic, dontcha think?

;)

yea-YAS, I am laughing out loud. No lols here!

The Coconuts Are In

Thank you to everyone who participated in the Coconut Challenge. I know it was pretty bad timing for most of you cold processors being that you all are probably trying to prepare for the holiday season and I had to go and throw a wrench in the works, or as I say it in THIS house, a bone in the fan. Yes, for those of you who don't know why my husband's blog is named bone in the fan, that is why. Because I can't ever remember idiomatic expressions and I come up with ridiculous expressions that imitate or try to imitate the real ones, except I think they are the real ones at the time.

Anyway, back to what I was saying, thank you. I received a small handful and I am pleased with the results. Straight out of the boxes I think I have a winner and a runners up, But I will examine more thoroughly and with my full attention tomorrow on my only real DAY OFF. Perhaps Monday or Tuesday I will have the winner results.

Stay tuned.... and in the meantime, I might surprise you with a bit of porn between now and then.

:)

Happy Saturday!

Pass The Fork, Please

Beware: Foodie soap porn.

I don't know about you, but the amount of soap pastries on the market have multiplied and I have been craving sweets the more I see them out there. Who's pants are getting tighter?

Halloween Cupcake Soap by Machine Gun Lullaby


Bubbles Variety Shoppe has Cupcake Soap in Cranberry Sugar.....

Strawberry Cheesecake from Australia at Funky Bunches. Mmmm. and another from Funky Bunches...
Chocolate curl muffin

Cupcake Soap and High Tea Cake Soap by b. Gentle soaps in Australia (woah, extraodinary!)
also in their line of goodies (had to include it because it's fantastic looking!!)

Block of chocolate:

Isn't that chunk o' choco unbelievably real looking? I love it and want that right now, thank you! So there you go. My favorite subject: sweets. Subjects: Soap and sweets. ;)

Enjoy your day. May visions of sugar plums and ooey gooey chocolate dance in your head.

muwahhhh ha ha!