A Newbie's Rant

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MrsSpaceship

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Last week I held off soaping because I was expecting my shipment of supplies. I really must learn how to time my orders so they arrive prior to a holiday, not after. So finally it arrived yesterday, but while I was out and about, so my assistant texts me that I have a box that smells lovely waiting under my desk for me. Not only am I denied the instant gratification of my package, but Smells Nice?!? My package shouldn’t smell nice! it should smell of warm cardboard and diesel exhaust at best.

When I get back into the office, sure enough, my desk is smelling lovely and sweet, and my box looks like it would be on the postal services watch list of suspicious packages with oil stains galore, I guess this is why they declined shipping it in the first place leaving Brown to do their worst. A leaky bottle which should hopefully be rectified by the supplier is the aromatic culprit, but now I have a constant reminder for the rest of the day that I’m at work and can’t go home and soap.

I make myself feel better by running around the office shoving my FO’s at people saying “Smell this one! Now smell this one!!” (Well not really running around part, but I do offer up my smellies to anyone that pauses long enough to comment on the fact that my desk is the best smelling place in the office. “What else did I get?! Well I thought you’d never ask! Blah blah blah.” I go on, imune to the deer in the headlight stares of my peers as they listen to me talk about “these new colorants, and omgosh, you have to feel this oil, doesn’t it just feel amazing on your skin, oh, and this is avocado butter, isn’t it just amazing too, and...” pause for breath JUST ONCE, and they run back to their desks and pretend to work. Whatever, I so know they’re not!

So finally it’s quitting time. I drive home with all the windows down to avoid the fragrance headache that is starting to come on from my box and me being in a confined space together on a quite warm day. Upon getting home I lay out all my new treasures. I’ll fawn over them, showing them off yet again, this time to my dear husband. He doesn’t last long before disappearing into the depths of his office, “leaving me to it.” as he says. “Ah, alone at last!” I’ll just pop online and check out what’s going on at the forum and run my recipe through Soapcalc. Several hours later I come up for air and realize that my evening is gone,

So the whole point of this rant is this. How in the world am I supposed to narrow down and perfect a holy grail recipes when there are so many different things to try?!?
All you enablers aren't helping, because with almost every thread I open I get about 10 more ideas. I could spend a month or more just trying variations of lard recipes. I know that a true soaper is always tweaking, but this is ridiculous! :crazy:

:sigh: Ok, rant over, thanks for listening, I'm going to go pretend that I'm making soap tonight.


Edited for words.
 
Last edited:
Ahhh...this is the curse of the newbie. So many oils, butters, exotic ingredients, clays, silk, botanicals, micas, oxides, ultramarines, glitter, fragrance oils, essential oils, tiger swirls, butterfly swirls, spinning swirls, in the pot swirls, layers, pencil lines, decorated tops, tall skinny molds, slab molds, individual molds, all so seductive and enticing. And when you're a newbie, you want to try them all. And so you should. Or as many as time and money will allow. By doing this, you will find some that you love, and some that you're just not so crazy about, and eventually you will settle into a groove that feels comfortable to you....ingredients and techniques that you love, molds that are your favorites. You'll develop your very own soaping identity. It's a shame that when we're newbies, we can't see into the future a bit, and save ourselves some money on ingredients and supplies that we will eventually decide are just not for us. But as far as recipes go, I've always felt that trying recipe after recipe, tinkering and tweaking, paying attention to the result, keeping notes, making small adjustments.....THIS is what makes you a soapmaker. Doing this, you eventually come up with your own recipe, one that no one else has. It's uniquely yours. And this is why many of us will share techniques, suppliers, knowledge that we've accumulated along the way......but not our recipes. So enjoy the ride, it will take you to some very interesting places! :smile:
 
So the whole point of this rant is this. How in the world am I supposed to narrow down and perfect a holy grail recipes when there are so many different things to try?!?

Yeah been there doin that...
I ordered a 5 pound tub of shea only to find a better recipe that doesn't do well with shea...
Wait till you start with the silk...
 
Ahhh...this is the curse of the newbie. So many oils, butters, exotic ingredients, clays, silk, botanicals, micas, oxides, ultramarines, glitter, fragrance oils, essential oils, tiger swirls, butterfly swirls, spinning swirls, in the pot swirls, layers, pencil lines, decorated tops, tall skinny molds, slab molds, individual molds, all so seductive and enticing. And when you're a newbie, you want to try them all. And so you should. Or as many as time and money will allow. By doing this, you will find some that you love, and some that you're just not so crazy about, and eventually you will settle into a groove that feels comfortable to you....ingredients and techniques that you love, molds that are your favorites. You'll develop your very own soaping identity. It's a shame that when we're newbies, we can't see into the future a bit, and save ourselves some money on ingredients and supplies that we will eventually decide are just not for us. But as far as recipes go, I've always felt that trying recipe after recipe, tinkering and tweaking, paying attention to the result, keeping notes, making small adjustments.....THIS is what makes you a soapmaker. Doing this, you eventually come up with your own recipe, one that no one else has. It's uniquely yours. And this is why many of us will share techniques, suppliers, knowledge that we've accumulated along the way......but not our recipes. So enjoy the ride, it will take you to some very interesting places! :smile:

I think this is actually a beautiful explanation as to why recipes aren't just given. (Not to mention a good to do list) This should be the stock response for the the frequent recipe requests that come from newbies.

Yeah been there doin that...
I ordered a 5 pound tub of shea only to find a better recipe that doesn't do well with shea...
Wait till you start with the silk...

...got the silk, here we go.

Might as well stand up and say your name, because you are (or soon will be) a soap addict!

Hello, my name is Mrs. Spaceship and I'm a soap addict... but I don't really have a problem, no really! See it's like this...
 
Thank you for that, MrsSpaceship. We learn so much from our failures and experiments, it's really valuable work that leads to a broader knowledge of soapmaking.
 
I'm in deep too! I started writing out ideas so I could keep them organized, then choose which ones I want to try next. Without organizing they are just jumbled, soapy flights of fancy spinning around in my head!

The challenge is waiting for one order to arrive before placing the next!!
 
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