Workshop was Kickin!!

My conference weekend was sa-weet! Won a great raffle prize, scored a super duper swag bag, chatted with some cool guy and gal soapers, then and stayed home all day on Monday and - what else - made soap! I had planned on making a beer soap this weekend for the first time, and guess what the first demonstration of the day was?? Yep, beer soap... So I tried it today - here's how it turned out:

If any of you have ever attempted this type of soap, you know that the beer smells absolutely horrible when mixed with the lye! Seriously - it's BAD. But..I have been assured it will cure out and I will be left with a "nutty wheat" fragrance. I added some Bay Rum and black cherry (just a touch) to the batter, hoping for a nice rich and fruity scent. We shall see, because it's still pretty stinky (my hubby said it smells like an old dirty wash cloth! Nice.) I have to say, the soap batter was a silky smooth caramel type consistency and was a dream to play around with.

This is what I turned out of the open lab portion of the workshop. We had a little instruction on the "drop swirl" and I like the result. The fragrance is "Rhubarb Sugar Cane" from Majestic Mountain Sage, who had several reps present and donated many of our soap lab ingredients. You should check them out - they have some cool and unusual items in their catalog.

I had an idea I want to try, along the "soaping with alcohol" theme. We have a little local winery close by and I'm wondering about trying a soap with one of their wines. If it turns out I might bring it in with a little sales pitch. So I want to know - have any of you tried experimenting with wine in soaping? Or any other type of unusual liquid or alcohol product? I could use some sound advice on this!

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Balancing the Possibilities

Many soapers like myself aren't living the dream of operating a full time soap business. We have other types of work and careers that must remain top priority to pay the bills and keep our families going. Those of us who are taking a shot at soaping as a side business have to squeeze out the extra time for it in rather creative ways. We can't be profitable if we aren't working at it several hours a week. I'd venture to say many of us are in that same boat. I've done alot of thinking this weekend about moving forward in a new marketplace this season, and had another wonderful opportunity offered out of the blue. Lots of exciting things are happening, but this also brings with it a degree of fear and anxiety for me. I have a wonderfully supportive husband, but why do I immediately worry about failing? I swear I have a dozen batches of soap curing right now and lots more already packaged and waiting, but still I fear I "won't have enough"! When I

Lots of experiments

Today I got the chance to indulge in soaping for most of the day. I did four batches today, using a technique I've never tried before, courtesy of a great Youtube tutorial from SophiasNaturals . She demonstrates an interesting form of thermal transfer that I haven't seen, immediately mixing the lye water into the hard oils until melted. The liquid oils are added after. I used this method for all my soaping today and it seemed to work well. I didn't need to use the stick blender very much at all, which helped me tremendously as I often tend to overmix. I wanted to attempt the "Holly Swirl", which is basically an in the pot swirl done twice. Sorta.. I had a lot of half bottles of fragrances, so I did some custom scent blending, too. It was a day of experimenting. Top: Small batch trying Sweet Cakes "Aria" . I used a some ruby mica for a cute little swirl. It smells so good right now. Middle: This was my attempt at Holly Swirl. I have

Happy New Year!

Reorganized Supply Closet :) My oh my how the time flies - it's really been over two months since my last post..! November and December had me hoppin with holiday craft and sales events, not to mention the entire Christmas season's activities. And as usual, I was sick in bed for a few days, too. I'm just now catching my breath and starting to dream up some new soap ideas. Today has been the first quiet day I've had at home in weeks, full of coveted unstructured time. After finally getting the Christmas tree and decorations put away, I started a much needed revamp of my soap supply closet to make this small space more functional. Tomorrow I start on the curing room...it's a bit of a disaster, but it feels sooo good to get things in order and start fresh for the upcoming year. I don't normally set New Year's resolutions for myself, but this year I've been inspired by Kenna of Modern Soapmaking . She posted a wonderful example of her own planni

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