What soapy thing have you done today?

Also took a stab at making a rim for the soap challenge
Spent 4 hours looking for my last two sugar scrubs
Spent 2-1/2 hours cleaning half of the office and organizing shipping supplies

Another busy week, but...
Edit photos and videos
Send out email newsletter
Finish rimmed soap
Make 12 ugly sweater soaps (will finish the last 6 during the weekend)
Finish 22 bars of the 40 I had started when my FO gets here on Thursday
Print brewery labels

 

Today, I trasferred 6 mica powders from ziplock baggies to plastic jars and partially filled a mica sprayer (fairy duster). I didn't start using the face mask until after the 2nd or 3rd bag, and by then I had a headache. That doesn't want to quit. I know better and it was right there within reach, but I just didn't. I have labeled two others that I want to transfer to jars, but I may postpone that until this evening or tomorrow.

Made soap, tossed more stuff (recycle & some actual trash), put up some trays of soap for cure. Cut a few bars, planed & beveled. Some mess clean-up, some photographs. Sorted through & organized some of my soap video clips into folders, still more to do on that.

Still need to upload some photographs. Need to rest & make dinner, maybe take something for the HA. Done. Head Ache is gone.

Worked on updating some of my recipes (adding photos & notes).

 

Bought some oilcloth to make reusable mold liners so I don't have to cut them every time! Should be here tomorrow. Hoping to get a batch or two made tomorrow, we'll see what I decide to do.

 

Here’s the cut pics. I’ll upload a photo to the gallery once they are prettied-up a bit. Definitely a technique I’ll use again. They kinda remind me of Mexican pottery.

 

What a great idea! Let us know how that works.

 

Tiggy from FuturePrimitive does it and has good success!! Here's her video about how she did hers.

 

I just watched Tiggy’s video on oilcloth and I’m psyched! I just so happen to have a couple yards of oilcloth left over from some tablecloths I made. Thanks for the info!

 

Hubby is off work for two days, so my soapmaking is mostly on hold. While he went in for a conference call, though, I did manage to transfer 3 more micas from baggies to jars and consolidated some duplicate colors from Nurture Soap into 1 jar. So 4 mica colors transferred.

Also put all the Nurture Soap mica jars into a single small tote rather than the super large plastic baggy they've been in for the last 2 years. I have 5 small totes (like this). I've been using these plastic jars for putting the micas in that came in plastic baggies. I really like this set-up. Sometimes the jars are on sale, but even at the regular price of 3 for a $1.00, it's a pretty good deal.

I also finally got a picture of my ugly looking Beet powder soap. The only reason I wanted a picture was to show what happens with beets in soap for future reference. Otherwise, it's about the ugliest soap I've made in a while. I don't even like the smell that much either. I used plumeria, but I think it interacted with the beet powder in a bad way.

And I cleared more soaping stuff off the DR table.

And I organized a smaller tote with the glitters & fairy dusters.

 

I did the motherlode of soap dishes today and started cutting my oilcloth mold liners. I have a batch of soap with confetti and soap curls in the mold under some blankets to test them out! Also I've put in an order with WSP for some supplies to make my own deodorant. Baking soda does not vibe with my pits and Tom's of Maine was sooooooo sticky and icky feeling.

 

Failed horribly at rimmed soap. I'm going to acknowledge that I will not master this technique and just admire others who do it well. I do now have a batch of lovely confetti soap waiting to be cut. Or at least I hope it will be lovely. Tonight will be making ugly sweater embeds, and printing brewery labels. I can clean more of the office while I print, thanks to the file storage boxes I ordered from Amazon came today.

 

I'm right there with ya girlfriend! My failed rim is hardening up now waiting to be cut up to use as'something else'. Not sure what yet.

 

These arrived today


To be honest, I’m not so keen on individual soap molds, butI used these “massage soaps” a couple of years at a resort and Janice and I both loved them. I think many people in my life will enjoy using them as well. Can’t wait to rev up the old stick blender and get to mixing...but probably not until this weekend

At least you ladies tried... I gave up before I even started.

 

I made a test batch of rose clay soap early on that turned out to be very nice. It’s the smooth and even looking pink cube in the front here. I used a monoi de Tahiti infused coconut oil and it still smells nice a couple of months later. I gave the madder a break while I’m on vacation . I’ve been missing your fun posts and look forward to seeing your pink soap with clay and madder!

 

Not sure if it counts as soapy, but I recently got a shipment from BB and made my first test batch of some lotion. Since I was mostly working at tweaking a basic recipe, I failed to realize that I used too much water so it's a little less thick and creamy like a wanted. Not only that, it smells mostly of the tea tree EO I added to it. Other than that, it works well -moisturizes well and rubs in with only a little work - so I'll probably just be editing the recipe only a little. (Original was 75% water, 15% Sunflower oil, 8% BTMS-50 Conditioning Emulsifier, 0.5% Honey and Oats FO, 0.5% Tea Tree EO, and 1% Optiphen.) I'll just have to rethink it, maybe actually buy some Stearic Acid to co-emulsify and thicken it up. Regardless, I have about 12 ounces of product I can't really do much with other than hand to family members to try out. On another note, I'm planning on making some soap rounds out of a pringles can but I can't figure out how to line it. Any suggestions?

 

1st complicated soap...was so rushy bc I didn't want it to setup before I got it together forgot the FO and forgot Sodium Lactate smh...also didn't set the embed in the right layer...when I realized I for the fo I decided this was a play soap...what do you guys think.

 

I have been hoping for photos of ugly sweater soap. You keep dropping hints about this soap here and there. I do hope photos will be forthcoming!

 

I was gifted some hemp seed oil and leaf lard by my friends in Vermont. The oil came from a local grower and the leaf lard is from the Farmor Farm’s pigs. The leaf lard is probably destined for pies, but that hemp oil is going in some soap!

 

I have those molds and no one seems to like the soaps made in them. I don’t know why.

 

That's really interesting. Maybe it's because we got the soaps at a "spa" resort, (could that sound more snooty?) so our expectations were high, but we both loved them. My wife was crazy excited that I got them. I got them for $11, so I have no doubt they will pay for themselves. I can foresee that many of my friends and family would love them as a novelty if nothing else.

 

Ask and ye shall receive @earlene ! I'm doing two sets of 12 for a customer - one for men and one for women. Here is the men's soap.



I have a bit of cleaning up to do on the edges, and you can see some sweaters that the m&p started to cool as I was pouring. The customer ok'd using those embeds, otherwise the perfectionist in me would have repoured the darn things. I didn't get as clean of layers as I had hoped. I think the customer bought the sweater mold on Aliexpress, I only have two of them so it's a bit painstaking making the sweaters. It's not too bad though on days where I can come and go in the soap lab, but this week is proving difficult. I blew off making any embeds last night in favor of reading in the hammock with a beer (or three... oops...). These soaps are a whopping 7 oz with the embed.