Sweet Scarlett Soap Co.

Hello Friends - Long time no see!  Life sure has a funny way of keeping us guessing, doesn't it?  My soaping has really taken a backseat to life in general, but I'm ready to start dipping my toes back in again.  Now that my husband and I finally have our house fully to ourselves, I've been able to devote an entire finished room in our basement for my soaping area.  It's not fancy, but it's a big space and it's ALL MINE!  I can't even describe how excited this makes me, but there's no need - you get it!   Since the first of this year, I've been struggling with my health; eventually anything beyond the daily basics had started to seem way too overwhelming to tackle.  We'd adopted a young shelter dog just before Christmas -  (Rhett Butler - yes... Rhett Butler! ) but despite how much I loved him, it became too much for me to walk and play with him every day like he needed.  Rhett was blessed, as were we, to go to anothe...

Hey All -  I want to share some pictures of the beautiful bridal shower my sister and I put on for my niece last weekend.  I've had the opportunity to make bridal gifts the past few years for my daughter's bridal showers, but "The Bubble Party" was a brilliant idea - courtesy of our bride, Lauren.  She asked me if it was possible to do a "create your own" bath boutique for her bridal shower.  YES!.. And it turned out to be such fun! Her idea was to have a hands on fragrance bar where her guests could create a personal gift for the bride, as well as something to take home for themselves.  I made three batches of CP soap and Lauren chose to make bath salts, sugar scrubs and body butter, with an assortment of fragrance and essential oil choices. We rounded out the theme with sparkling wines and adorable "bubbly" decorations! This was a party for all ages - both my grand mother and my grand daughter were each able to make something lovely. ...

 Hello All - Again, it's been awhile since I've posted, huh?  My life has taken some unexpected turns since January, that's for sure.  I believe in divine intervention, and I experienced one of those times in life that try your spirit. In January I made a job change that I believed would be a great opportunity.  Guess what? I could not have been more wrong ,  Within a few weeks, I knew I'd made a big mistake without a backup plan in sight.  In addition to the financial wake up call I was facing, my self confidence and gumption took a major hit. Although I had to give up my farmer's market gig, I refused to deny myself the physical pleasure and mental escape making soap provides me. It took me some time to believe something better was on the horizon, but it was and I'm so grateful!  I had been focused on money, but for me the true reward I've received has been the people.  What a difference it...

            Using Rendered Fats - 2016 In giving thought to reducing the amount of palm oil in my soaps, I've been considering experimenting with lard.  I will admit, yes, my very first thought was "I don't know...kinda gross!"   But I've had some good conversations with other soapmakers in recent months who have had super success with using both lard and tallow.  Some, like friend and colleague Amy Warden of Great Cakes Soapworks  are making the switch to rendered fats exclusively.  While I'm not ready for such an undertaking, I've been curious enough to give it a try.   I spent a day researching and playing around with Soap Calc and came up with a recipe using these percentages:     30% Olive Oil     25% Coconut Oil     20% Lard     15% Rice Bran Oil       6% Castor Oil       4% Palm Kernel flakes (ok..I was still worried they would b...

Goodness - November and December have just flown by for me this year!  As you can see, I am literally out of soap!!  I usually take a soap making hiatus in January to recharge, take stock of my inventory and get the creative juices flowing again after the busy holiday season. I've enjoyed the heck out of my farmer's market and sales events this year, and have a few changes in store.......  I love hearing from all of you so keep in touch - Please follow my blog and Facebook page for updates in the coming months!  I'm sure to be back at it again in a few weeks - or less :) Wishing all of my friends the Very Best in 2016 in all that you do!

Just thought I'd share the photos of my cut Christmas Soaps.  They turned out well and smell super!  I hope I sell them all tomorrow ! Happy Friday  Everyone  :)

So, this is what our little community looked like on Sunday night before the World Series finale.   And here we are today, gathered to welcome home and celebrate our Champion KC Royals team! I wanted to share a tiny bit of the contagious energy that's in the air today.   There is no doubt that this city is pumped!!!  

Last year my soap with embeds were a huge hit for the holidays.  These are mp figures that are embedded into a cp soap loaf.  This technique makes for a unique and fun bar of soap.  The poured loafs must be refrigerated to avoid the gel phase, so the mp embeds don't melt. I'm planning to cut these tomorrow and will post pics and ingredient notes.  Stay tuned!                                                                                                                                

Here's a fun poll for today (no politics!) What's your favorite type of dessert? Cake Pie Cookies Ice Cream Donuts (yes, they count) Chocolate in any form or  My favorite - "All of the above" Happy National Dessert Day!

Yesterday I had a rare weekday out of the office - it was awesome!  The weather was gorgeous here in KC and I was able to get out and enjoy it. But of course, I couldn't let any free time go by without making some soap.  I had to get home and get it cut before the baseball game got started - GO ROYALS!!    So, here is Good Juju and Smoke & Mirrors. S&M (haha) is a very woodsy, masculine scent from BeScented.  It's a mysterious sexy fragrance that I hope gets richer as it cures.  Crafter's Choice  Americana Red  oxide is the base color.  I was going for the brick red with smoky blue swirl, but it's a bit pink right now.  I hope it darkens a little. Good JuJu is a fragrance mash up that was created accidentally.  I usually like to try my fo's out in lotion to get an idea about the aroma before soaping.  So I had some  "It's Karma, Baby"  from BeScented and, although I liked it, it was too much patchou...

"I love packaging my soap bars almost as much as I love making them"....said NO soap maker - ever!  As we all know, it pretty much sucks up a lot of time and energy we'd much rather spend on making more soap.   But reality stinks sometimes - good presentation is as important as the soap itself.   So today I thought I'd share the basics of my method. In the beginning I was super opposed to using shrink wrap, because I felt it went against the true appeal of natural soap.  Don't you hate it when you fret and worry over something only to realize it doesn't matter to anyone else in the least?  What I've found is that people really like the tidy, shiny look of the shrink wrapped bars, and not a single person has admonished me for using plastic as opposed to all natural packaging like I had feared. I print my labels myself, which took a lot of tweaking to get to this point, but I really like them now.  With the holidays drawing closer, I'm trying to ma...

 Hi there - time is really flying by for us these days.  My son is getting married in October (!) so we are in wedding prep mode again.  That means I'm not taking enough pics for everyone to see, so here are a few quickies.  I had an event this past weekend, so these are already packaged. L) Cranberry Woods, made with CW fragrance from Be Scented...it smells fantastic!  Fruity and rich - love it! LL)  The Twilight Zone, made with The Comforter from Be Scented...I will have to unwrap one because this is my A-game.  It turned out awesome.  The fragrance is not what I was expecting.  The first thing i got out of the bottle was root beer.  I didn't like it.  I tried a few drops in my bathwater anyway, and wow - what a difference!  You truly feel enveloped by this fragrance, like a favorite comforter ?  I don't know, but I love this stuff. LR)  Apple Harvest, this was a mash up of some left over Apple Spice from WS...

I've been busy making some custom soap batches the last few weeks, so I used the opportunity to try out a swirling technique that's new for me.  If you haven't seen any videos by  Clyde at Vibrant Soap , you are missing out on something really special!  He has a superb eye for color, and gives lots of great advice about developing your own "vibrant" color choices for your soap.  Clearly I need a little schooling on obtaining truly vibrant colors, but it's his unique take on swirling that I'm infatuated with. And I'm not the only one -   Amy Warden's soap challenge  is featuring the "Clyde Slide"  for September.  I'm not a participant - not yet! - but  I took a stab at the technique and these are my results. On top we have a batch of lavender (all essential oil) soap using some new micas from Mad Oils.  Here I used Guava Lava and Tempest micas.  The pink is very soft and feminine, but wish I'd used more of this incred...

In keeping my word about blending fragrance oils I already have on hand, here is a batch of soap I made last night.   It is a literal "mash up" of four scents:   A tiny smidge of Honey & Shea from WSP A bigger smidge of Tom Ford Black Orchid by Sweet Cakes Tahitian Vanilla by MMS   2 parts to Cashmere Woods by WSP 1 part I have had this bottle of Cashmere Woods for two years, and absolutely hated it from the first sniff.   But, with a more open mind, I felt a vanilla background might make it much more pleasant. So far so good!  I added quite a bit of titanium dioxide to the entire batter bowl, then mixed the green and midnight blue micas after. These fos all have a lot of vanilla, so I hope the td will keep it lighter as it cures.   As for the scent - it's very pretty!  The smokey wood component is definitively softened by the rich, fruity TVanilla, and the orchid adds an ever so slight floral note in the background.  Now w...

Hi everyone!  Yep, I haven't shared any photos for quite some time - but I'm getting back into the swing.  I've been spending alot of time latley restocking my basic bars - Miracle Mud, Natural Oatmeal, Shaving and Naked.  These are popular and wonderful, but soapers know that experimenting and playing with new ideas is always how we want to spend our time.  Don't get me wrong - I'm thrilled that I'm developing a little customer base that I've got coming back for more - but you gotta let the creativity out sometimes, too. I'm really, really trying not to purchase more fragrance oils (no really - I swear!), so I'm attempting to salvage some of those bottles with just a smidge of oil left and blending them into something new.  I also ran out of coconut oil so I tried some babassau and decided attempt changing my water ratio " aka discounting the water".  I basically raided my soap pantry and jumped right in. So here are the results!  ...

http://soworthloving.tumblr.com/ Hey all!  It's been awhile, huh?   Here's one of those cute little quotes we see everywhere, but this one hits home with me today.  As of now, my website is not finished as planned and I feel so disappointed in myself.  Truth is extra time is a real luxury at the moment, and it's simply not a priority.  For a little business hoping to grow, a webpage should  clearly be a priority, but I've put it on the back burner - way, way back.   Surely, I'm not the only soaper who struggles tith this type of thing, am I  ???????????? Today it's time to stop focusing on all the "shoulds" in my head and just do my thing on my own terms. I happily accept the fact that I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be right now. We've been doing some home improvement projects, and I've loved painting and redecorating our living space.  I have one of the BIG birthdays coming up next week, and I'm getting some time off...

So life is kinda kicking me in the butt right now...the unexpected emotional  things that are tough for a family to deal with. (I'm doing a little venting here cause I know you my friends have all been there)   But real life keeps on flowing...demands of the necessary job and family responsibilities all on a collision coarse rocketing toward chaos!  That's what it feels like - so how does one work the additional demands of our soap busines successfully into the mix and stay on course?  I think I just need a little pep talk to get me closer to this:                                                             Other than massive sleep deprivation, can anyone offer some advice? 

Saturday was the first day of the farmer's market this year.  Of course here in Kansas City the weather is unpredictable, and it was pouring rain when I left home.  That's usually a bad sign, but it cleared up nicely within about an hour, and I had a great morning.  The first person to stop by my table said he's been reading my blog - so if you're seeing this post, please leave me a comment.  I'm planning a batch of Dragon's Blood soap especially for you.  :) The Parkville market is really like a little family, and they've welcomed me into the fold with enthusiasm - I'm so glad to be there.  I know many of my soaping friends and colleagues are working at various venues, and I wish them all great success this season. AND YES - I got all that soap wrapped with alot of help of my Mom, Jeannie Kreighbaum. Does anyone else out there have some helping hands when you bet bogged down, or are you mainly a one person operation?  I feel very lucky my Mom ...

My farmers market opens this Saturday in Parkville, Mo.  As you can see, I have a few bars still to wrap! (This is why Christmas stresses me out, too!) I guess it's time for me to come to terms and make peace with my procrastination issues.  The best way seems to be embracing it, and seeing it in a more positive light.  Is this possible?  I'm going with "works well under pressure" and "performs best with a deadline"! I don't think I'll ever change!  Lucky for me my Mom is coming to my rescue.  We're spending the day packaging on Friday. I'm looking forward to spending time together and just talking - and shrink wrapping!  Wish me luck, folks!

JUST SCENTS :  I broke down (again) and purchased "just a few" new scents from Just Scents.  This is my first order from this company.  They have a bunch of unusual fragrances, which is usually what catches my interest.  I have several more to experiment with in the future.   I was really excited about "Tattoo Parlor" and gave it a try in a one pound batch.  It accelerated right away, even though I added the fo to my warmed oils before the lye water.  I had to layer it in, but instead of the cool swirl I had planned, ended up with an even cooler "flag" design!  The scent is supposed to represent green soap that's used in - you guessed - tattoo parlors.  I don't know how it should smell, but this is clean, fresh and somewhat earthy and herbal.  It sort of reminds me of catnip and licorice, but in a good way!  It has not discolored at all, but the scent has faded a bit one week into the cure.  Overall, the scent is pleasant...