I figure it's about high time I introduce myself since I've been stalking this forum for ages.
My name is Lynnsy and my DH and I live in beautiful southern Colorado. He's stationed at Ft Carson and as a result I've been here for nearly 9 years (with an unaccompanied 3 yr PCS to Germany tucked in there). We have 3 beautiful fur babies that are far too spoiled rotten for their own good. Right now I work full time (50-60hrs/week), getting my Masters at night, and somewhere between studying and sleeping I have to find time to make soap.
As for soap making, I suppose I'm an accidental soap maker to some degree. A while back I was given a soap recipe from my great grandma and after buying hand poured soaps from several shops around here I figured I would give it a go myself - without fully knowing what I was getting in to. I had no idea about forums, hadn't really considered books on the subject and knew no one else that made soap apart from the few stores around here. So for almost a year I was making ONE soap recipe (seriously, only one!) and any time I wanted to change the volume I was hand calculating all the values for lye and water from this crazy old recipe. If only I had known about soap calculators!!!
Initially I started making soap for just myself and DH but obviously an entire loaf is a lot of soap to go through so I started giving it out to friends. One friend turned into dozens and then I had complete strangers emailing or calling me (yes, I have lovely friends who give my info out.......
roblem asking me for soap. I've always had extra so I never had any real issue with just giving it away and it was super flattering too that people wanted something I made!
Fast forward a hot minute and my cost was getting out of control, my time more limited. I started getting so many requests, and then special requests that I started consuming everything online that I could - hence where I found this forum (which has been an invaluable tool, so thank you everyone!!), and a soap calc! (who knew I didn't need to calculate everything by hand...ugh).
So for the last several months I've been reading, experimenting and learning a lot of what DOESN'T work as well. The first time I realized I could really cover my costs was when a friend came to me and asked for a very specific type/look of soap and offered to pay whatever I wanted to charge (seriously!?! people would pay me for soap!?!? That was a foreign concept for me :shock. So I've recently taken a bit of a step back and acknowledged that in order to keep up at the rate I've been going that I'm going to have to start charging for soap, though I've started to feel a bit guilty about it since I've always given it away for free.
I've been reading this forum for quite a while now, well before I even got around to signing up for an account and you all have been so invaluable!! I can't even begin to tell you how much I've learned. I will probably still have plenty of stupid questions but I feel a little better prepared for what I'm walking in to because of resources like SMF.
My name is Lynnsy and my DH and I live in beautiful southern Colorado. He's stationed at Ft Carson and as a result I've been here for nearly 9 years (with an unaccompanied 3 yr PCS to Germany tucked in there). We have 3 beautiful fur babies that are far too spoiled rotten for their own good. Right now I work full time (50-60hrs/week), getting my Masters at night, and somewhere between studying and sleeping I have to find time to make soap.
As for soap making, I suppose I'm an accidental soap maker to some degree. A while back I was given a soap recipe from my great grandma and after buying hand poured soaps from several shops around here I figured I would give it a go myself - without fully knowing what I was getting in to. I had no idea about forums, hadn't really considered books on the subject and knew no one else that made soap apart from the few stores around here. So for almost a year I was making ONE soap recipe (seriously, only one!) and any time I wanted to change the volume I was hand calculating all the values for lye and water from this crazy old recipe. If only I had known about soap calculators!!!
Initially I started making soap for just myself and DH but obviously an entire loaf is a lot of soap to go through so I started giving it out to friends. One friend turned into dozens and then I had complete strangers emailing or calling me (yes, I have lovely friends who give my info out.......
roblem asking me for soap. I've always had extra so I never had any real issue with just giving it away and it was super flattering too that people wanted something I made! Fast forward a hot minute and my cost was getting out of control, my time more limited. I started getting so many requests, and then special requests that I started consuming everything online that I could - hence where I found this forum (which has been an invaluable tool, so thank you everyone!!), and a soap calc! (who knew I didn't need to calculate everything by hand...ugh).
So for the last several months I've been reading, experimenting and learning a lot of what DOESN'T work as well. The first time I realized I could really cover my costs was when a friend came to me and asked for a very specific type/look of soap and offered to pay whatever I wanted to charge (seriously!?! people would pay me for soap!?!? That was a foreign concept for me :shock
. So I've recently taken a bit of a step back and acknowledged that in order to keep up at the rate I've been going that I'm going to have to start charging for soap, though I've started to feel a bit guilty about it since I've always given it away for free. I've been reading this forum for quite a while now, well before I even got around to signing up for an account and you all have been so invaluable!! I can't even begin to tell you how much I've learned. I will probably still have plenty of stupid questions but I feel a little better prepared for what I'm walking in to because of resources like SMF.
