What soapy thing have you done today?

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So I've learned today that the soap in the corflute mould hardens WAY QUICKER than silicon. I'm surprised this turned out kind of OK with how it accelerated

Oops. Here's the photo
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Yep this was my first try, and it did bow out a little but not terribly. I had a half hearted attempt at using some things already in the fridge to support it hahaha but they didn't really make a huge difference (and I didn't care that much). I have seen people put a strong elastic band around the middle which I think I will do as I don't tend to do high tops. A wooden box would work also. I mostly just wanted to try it out. I have more and am thinking of doing a slab mould. This is a tall and skinny

Try using books on either side. I stacked a couple of thick books on each side of a juice box mold and it turned out straight.

Oops hit enter too soon. If the corflute works well I may just make some standard loafs as well. I've been using silicon baking pans and it annoys me that they aren't straight with neat corners, they are rounded. I could buy some actual soap moulds, but I have heaps of free corflute, and I'm a scrooge [emoji14]

Out of interest, did you line the corflute mold with freezer paper?
thanks.
 
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Mulline, that a wonderful HP swirl!

Primrose, your corflute molded soaps look great!

Today prep for colonoscopy so until that prevents it, all on the agenda is a bit of soap dough practice and online action. I talked to the audiology folks about my hearing aid dome stuck in my ear, and they say given the current circumstances, it should be fine where it is until tomorrow when I am the doctor's office anyway. If it's not too deep the nurse can take it out, and if it is, then a physician will have to remove it. There is no way for me to know how deep it is, because obviously I cannot see into my own ear, but it's not causing discomfort. Then I have a regular appointment with audiology on Wednesday anyway.

edit: name correction
 
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Today prep for colonoscopy so until that prevents it, all on the agenda is a bit of soap dough practice and online action. I talked to the audiology folks about my hearing aid dome stuck in my ear, and they say given the current circumstances, it should be fine where it is until tomorrow when I am the doctor's office anyway. If it's not too deep the nurse can take it out, and if it is, then a physician will have to remove it. There is no way for me to know how deep it is, because obviously I cannot see into my own ear, but it's not causing discomfort. Then I have a regular appointment with audiology on Wednesday anyway.

I'm having my colonoscopy today; yesterday was prep day..... have fun (not).

Mulline, that is one gorgeous HP swirl... one of the nicest HP swirls I've seen.
 
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Claire and I made jelly soaps on Friday evening. I found a recipe using m&p and gelatin. She really likes the soap part of it, but they weren't as jiggly as the Lush ones. We're going to make another batch with more gelatin and see if that does the trick. While we were waiting for them to setup, Chris took "his ladies" out to dinner... which ruined the rest of my ambition for the evening. No salt bars for him! Hopefully tonight, although it is Manicure Monday (Claire and I do our nails and watch Zumbo's Just Desserts on NetFlix). Maybe after she goes to bed I will get those salt bars made. They'll have to go into cavity molds instead of a loaf - I am not staying up to wait to cut them! (I did that twice when we were dating, but now that we're married... ehhh... love ya, babe, but sometimes you annoy me so... no, lol)

[Warning: Rant] On Saturday I had a craft show. It was better than expected, I guess. It was in our mall, which is sadly a low traffic place. About 3/4 of the storefronts there are closed. There were 10 vendors total - I think the problem is that the organizer charges $45 booth space per day, which is very high for such a low traffic area. In my mind, if the fee dropped to $25 or even 30, there would be more vendors and possibly bring in more foot traffic. My mom used to do craft shows there in the late 80's and they were packed wall to wall vendors, and huge crowds. Even 14-15 years ago, I can remember taking my oldest in a stroller to one of the craft shows and I had to ditch the stroller because I couldn't get through the crowds with it. Now it's just sad. The only vendor who was busy all day was the going-out-of-business LulaRoe lady. Thank goodness that the lady next to me sold games, so we kept ourselves occupied when no sales were to be had! The only business I got was from friends who stopped by, so that was the better than expected part. Without them, I would have had a goose egg for the day. I'm sending the organizer an email today. I won't be trying it again there until she drops the booth fee. I'm sure that's a huge hangup for alot of potential vendors. I also need to work on my show table. I've outgrown my setup, so it looked really flung together this weekend, because I was hodge-podging things together on the table. I'm missing some height on the table, and I need to figure out a cohesive look that doesn't require a lot of pieces to haul and setup, but allows some flexibility for stock fluctuations. I don't want much do I? [grin] I follow Wagon Wheel Soaps (I think is what she is called) on Instagram and she has a really fun looking setup. I'm going to spend some time looking at other setups, and see what I can figure out. I'm working on re-labeling my products (a lot of people have told me they don't like picking up the soaps to read the name label, they would rather read the name and then decide if they want to pick it up to smell) so I'm flipping the label around to see if that helps.

I have sold out of the 38 bubble scoops that I made on Thursday, so I have to make more. Then a lady who is opening up a float spa contacted me about making soaps for her to sell in the spa. Fortunately, she only wants a small amount to start with for her opening in March, so I can sell her some stock I already have and get the specialty soaps made this week (she wants a vegan option) and hopefully have her fully stocked by the first week of April.
 
I chatted with Mom (98) yesterday. They're moving her from a 2-bedroom apartment to a one-room assisted living efficiency unit. She's not happy but reconciled to the move. She ordered some MSM Emu Oil Cream and another bottle of Hair & Body Shampoo (all natural; not syndet). She says she likes it; makes her hair feel soft. All this from a mother who used to say, "Oh, that's too much trouble for you!" LOL She's finally placing orders instead of my having to guess what she might be out of!
 
I chatted with Mom (98) yesterday. They're moving her from a 2-bedroom apartment to a one-room assisted living efficiency unit. She's not happy but reconciled to the move. She ordered some MSM Emu Oil Cream and another bottle of Hair & Body Shampoo (all natural; not syndet). She says she likes it; makes her hair feel soft. All this from a mother who used to say, "Oh, that's too much trouble for you!" LOL She's finally placing orders instead of my having to guess what she might be out of!

Hopefully your Mum will enjoy the assisted living facility - she might be pleasantly surprised at how much she can focus on enjoying herself (I reckon at 98 a person deserves a bit of a helping hand!).

And ... your Mum can use shampoo soap too? That's interesting ... probably ties in the with the idea that hair structure plays a part in how peoples hair reacts to lye-based shampoos. Mine can't stand it, unfortunately (I would really like to use it, but no ... dry and broken hair outcome for me unfortunately).

I'm off to play with some soap dough at a friends place today ... I made a test batch of soap dough that isn't perfect (ever so slightly bumpy, too much stearic I think), so I reckon some rough clay pieces and silly fun are the project for today :)
 
Finally! The night was derailed a bit by the son's text message at noon "oh btw I have a concert tonight at 7" but I did get half of my dirty soap dishes washed AND made Chris's salt bars. Manicure Monday was postponed to tomorrow night.
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so the salt bars are 80% CO, 20% AO and 50/50 AVJ/CM and 30% salt. I used an Ed Hardy for Men dupe (which I only use for Chris). I realized only after I had poured white batter into all of the cavities that I have never used these before and really don't know how much they hold. At the end there was a lot of scraping to clean out the unused cavities. I did end up with 8 bars perfectly, so noted for next time so that I can adjust the recipe to fill all the molds. Hubby was happy that I got them done. He's been hoarding the last bar so now he can use it. And y'all can stop listening to me procrastinate! At least until I get behind on the soap dough challenge...
 
I took an order for 72 salt bars and 228 bubble scoops! She also wanted hand soap and lotion, but I am not comfortable enough with making either of those things to be comfortable selling it. I explained that to her and she was like "well we can test it in the store"... um, no. No we can't.

Soap plans tonight will be working on the soap dough challenge. I should be able to work on that while Claire and I watch Zumbo's Just Desserts. Oh, and I have to finish my dirty dishes.
 
I'll be lucky to do anything soapy other than wash dishes & watch soapmaking videos today, both of which I have done some of already. And laundry. So much laundry, but I am so worn out. If at all possible, maybe I will just try and go to sleep early tonight.
 
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All of these soaps are made with 33% reclaimed canola oil. From food truck in my City. the soaps all have Chinese cedar eo and cream vanilla so..

The ones in the upper right hand corner with the "desert" tops have been remilled with balsam of Peru, sea salt, "theives oil"
or
citral, palmarosa, Geranium,marjoram, cinnamon

I have 20 litres of oil and would like any suggestions for new recupies

Canolla 33
Coconut 33
Olive 27
Clairified Bacon Greese. 7

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Half and half carton soap.

I kept all of my used tea for about 2 weeks. Dried it and turned it into a powder in the coffee grinder.

Gleened some local mud. That I boiled to sterilize and then strained.

Put a cardboard divider down the middle. I poured it into a used half and half milk carton

Did the pour simultaneously on both halves.

My heating pad was too hot and actually turned the soap into hot process Soap by accident.

However today it was amazingly hard and wonderful. I cut it up

The cubes are from an silicone ice cube trays
 
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Very nice.
Yesterday we had a snow/Sleet storm so I let DD say home from school. I didn't do any soaping as the BB I was going to do would not be good in higher moisture days, but DID get to the gym.

TODAY is play with BB recipe and see what I like.

wardbond,
Not sure soaping with Used oils is good, nor with bacon grease?
 
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