Where do you make your CP?

[MirandaH]

MirandaH, you could make the shelves yourself. Do a little research, go shopping for materials and have at it. You can do it.

It's a matter of principle at this point Arthur! I take care of our five kids, do all the cooking, laundry, cleaning and run his business for him. I was told I had to keep everything in a closet and if I cleaned out it (not a single thing in it was mine, all his) and found a home for everything in it, he would build the shelves. The closet is cleaned. I even went to the hardware store and got all the materials. At this point, I wouldn't build those shelves if my life depended on it.

 

[Arthur Dent]

Ah, I see.

 

[shunt2011]

I too soap in my kitchen. I mix my lye in my sink and just keep an arms length away from the container and hold my breath for a few seconds then walk away. We have a faily small house but fortunately all our children are gone so I've taken over the spare bedroom for all my soaping stuff. I so wish we had a basement. I'm hoping to be able to build a new soaping cottage in the back yard this summer but time will tell.

 

[Lion Of Judah]

I'm currently living in a small rented space, with 2 dogs and a boyfriend.
I have been doing research on CP for a while now and would love to start making some. Unfortunately I don't have the space to do it. I was think I could start making MP in the mean time until I move out. I was just wondering where do you all make your CP? And if anyone has the same circumstances but has found a way to make it work?

i am posting a link [ http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=31449 ] showing what one of our members had to work with. a small room . you would be surprise of the possibilities before you . i work in the living room on a small card / gaming table that i set up and break down .

 

[marghewitt]

I use my dining room and kitchen. I melt the oils in the kitchen but do everything else (except washing everything) in the dining room. I have metal shelves on 2 of the walls and a metal counter to work on one the third wall. Our table is in the middle so when I am soaping I use it too. It makes family dinners fun and the whole room smells wonderful.

 

[Lin]

Yea my bf and I have been using a long table that folds in the center, set up in the living room. Then all the soap supplies (everything, equipment, oils, molds, etc) has been separated into 2 large storage totes. One that goes home with me and is all my stuff, and one that's a mix of his stuff and mine that I've been leaving here. I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to get all my stuff home, plus the soap I'd been leaving here to cure! On top of him now hating making soap he was laid off and I don't know when I'll be able to come stay with him again. He lives 90 minutes away, so it will be too expensive until he finds work. So I need all my supplies at my place. Where they have to stay in the garage anyway. Plus like I said no room to safely soap indoors. I live with hoarders, no joke. At least they aren't dirty hoarders, it's just way too much stuff.

 

[user 12568]

I soap in the basement (my wife dislikes the added mess & clutter in the kitchen). I mix my lye in the laundry tub, and purchased a single electric burner to heat my oils. I set up a nice little soaping station to hold all my pots, molds, oils, fragrances, scale, stick blender, etc. This also allows me to soap later at night (once everyone else is in bed) as the noises don't carry to the upstairs.

 

[carriebee]

I make soap in the kitchen.
Children and cat have to go to the living room when I'm soaping and nobody is allowed to be around me.
I have few spare storage rooms and shed where I keep most of my supplies and where the soaps are drying. Lye is always stored in the shed which has padlock and keys are hidden from everyone.
I only make soap on a small scale, few batches every 2-3 weeks. However, I am thinking of maybe selling and making more but I'm not really sure where will all the stuff be stored then. I am in a process of ordering few big drums of oils and have to find place for their storage inside the house. It's still very hot here, so only after maybe March they might be able to go into shed.

Cats would be a challenge for sure, their nosey, clingy and like to jump on counters, as cute as they are I'd be paranoid of it just jumping up near the lye. ..their so quiet. Looks like your doing a good job at keeping the cat and kids at bay haha.

 

[Lin]

Just need to train the cat to not jump on the counters. Its easy to train them to not jump on counters when you're around, the hard part is training them to stay off them when no one is home!

 

[Tienne]

My soaping room is in the basement. It's made out of the old kitchen that used to be upstairs and that came with the house when I bought it. I have a dog and seven cats, two of whom are still kittens. They're just 6 months old. I have trained all mine to not jump on tables or countertops. I simply make other places more attractive to them. They have a cubby hole under my work area and another over by where the oven is on top of the Esky that I use to insulate my soaps in. My washing machine is behind me and the top of that is higher up than the countertop and there's a quilt on there too so it's way more desirable for them to be there, than where I'm working. Then they still get to look and see what Mamma's doing, without getting in any trouble. If you look to the left on the first photo, I have a jar of treats there. When the cats come in and go somewhere "desirable", I reward them with a treat. The little ones are only newly trained and especially Phoebe can't be entirely trusted yet, so if she jumps up, I promptly remove her and set her somewhere she's allowed to be. Then she gets a treat. She's starting to understand what I want from her. All the others will automatically go to the "right" places and if they want treats, they will just stay there and stare me down until they get some. The dog couldn't care less and she'd rather stay upstairs, so she's not a worry. (The red boy on the Esky is Murphy and the calico is one of the kittens, Penny.)

 

[Ancel]

That's a kitten? She's huge! Nice soaping space!

Really interesting hearing where you all get your fix We have a dual purpose chocolate / soap workshop. It's a converted single bedroom with a nice view. I use an outdoor sink for the lye and clean up. On Sunday and Monday I soap, on Wednesday and Thursday we temper and mold chocolate. On Friday I wrap choc bars and soap bars. It's small and busy, but it's the only place in the house with glass windows and ac, so it's comfortable.

 

[lsg]

Nice use of space. Those are big cats!

 

[pamielynn]

Kitchen here too I keep trying to take over the garage, but hubby thinks that is his "mancave". It's so full of his crap, that my invasion may never truly come - but someday I shall conquer!

 

[Ruthie]

This is a very sore subject in my house right now. He has been in the process of building my shelves in the closet for almost two months. Until then my "soaping supply area" is below. Take note of the giant pile of crap I want to use for mold later, next to the five gallon buckets full of various bottles, and the bags of clays and acids, next to his shoes and work boots that he chucks on my stuff.

Miranda, I feel your pain. Have been through those types of projects many times. I finally found a solution that worked for me. You know your guy so consider if it might work. I wait til he is home and not in the middle of any other project. I then start dragging out all the saws, wood and other stuff like I am going to do this myself. All the time I am talking about how I have watched enough so I should be able to figure out how to do this myself. With my DH this works every time.

ETA: Guess I should have read on to see why you were waiting on him. But I don't go for those divisions of duties, so I'll leave my suggestions at that.

 

[MirandaH]

Miranda, I feel your pain. Have been through those types of projects many times. I finally found a solution that worked for me. You know your guy so consider if it might work. I wait til he is home and not in the middle of any other project. I then start dragging out all the saws, wood and other stuff like I am going to do this myself. All the time I am talking about how I have watched enough so I should be able to figure out how to do this myself. With my DH this works every time.

Oh, that may work. And since his business is tree work, he has plenty of expensive - very expensive saws that I am certain he does not want me touching. The sad fact is that my husband's company uses every bit of every tree that they take down, and doing my shelves would probably only take a few minutes. Especially since I didn't have him make the boards, and bought them. When someone calls for a tree job, my husband offers them the opportunity to have the tree made into a picnic table or a bench or just boards to make something from it themselves. A lot of people are sentimental about their trees, especially if they are having it removed for some reason that was unexpected or more than just purely cosmetic. We had someone yesterday have a tree removed because it was harming their pipes and they were devastated. If the people don't want parts of the tree and it is a kind he can get decent money for, like black walnut, he makes boards in all kinds of sizes. He even has one guy who has him make board big enough that he can carve gun stocks out of. Anything that is not used in this way gets split for firewood and what can't be used for firewood gets chipped for mulch. It might work to just ask him for the keys to the shop. He really doesn't want me in there!

 

[Tienne]

Those are big cats!

Aww! They're not that big! It's the soaping kitchen that's small!!
It's got to be at least 40 years old and back from when the house was first built, I'd reckon. Folks were a lot smaller and shorter back then and the countertops are at least 10-15 cm lower than a "normal" kitchen would be. Penny is an ordinary moggie and will probably end up at 5-6 kgs, but Murphy is an Aegean I found in Greece and they're small cats. He's fully grown and only about 3-3½kgs and that's not big for a Tom. I have another fullgrown Aegean (also previously homeless and found in Greece) and she's only about 2½ kgs! She's a tiny little thing. The six month old moggie kittens are already bigger than she is!

Conclusion? The camera is screwing up the proportions and I need a bigger soaping kitchen.

 

[Lin]

My cat Ziva is a tiny little thing. As a kitten I joked about wanting her to stay small forever... Now I worry about her because she's so small! When she went to be spayed I was so paranoid thinking she might be given too much anesthetic or have a bad reaction. She's more like the size of a 6 month old kitten, in fact I think thats when she stopped growing lol. Her mum was my and foster cat and very small as well, and Ziva was the only kitten that wasn't stillborn. The plan was to adopt out Ziva as well but I quickly realized she wouldn't be going anywhere lol. And she's even smaller than her mum.

 

[mkstylessoap]

My wonderful boyfriend redid our never used dining room into my soaping room. He just put up shelving yesterday since it was definitely getting cluttered!!

 

[seven]

Aww! They're not that big! It's the soaping kitchen that's small!!
It's got to be at least 40 years old and back from when the house was first built, I'd reckon. Folks were a lot smaller and shorter back then and the countertops are at least 10-15 cm lower than a "normal" kitchen would be. Penny is an ordinary moggie and will probably end up at 5-6 kgs, but Murphy is an Aegean I found in Greece and they're small cats. He's fully grown and only about 3-3½kgs and that's not big for a Tom. I have another fullgrown Aegean (also previously homeless and found in Greece) and she's only about 2½ kgs! She's a tiny little thing. The six month old moggie kittens are already bigger than she is!

Conclusion? The camera is screwing up the proportions and I need a bigger soaping kitchen.

Tienne, I didn't know that you're a cat lover! I used to have 12 strays, some were kittens that i grab when they were wandering the streets (we have quite a huge stray cats problem here). Sadly, I had to gave 'em all up. I can't even keep just 1, coz my mom hates cats. I miss having pets, my dog passed away on 2012 (had him for 13 yrs), and i miss him terribly, like every day.

Back to topic, this is where i make my soaps:

as you can see, the space is TINY (like 2x2m). the kitchen is already tiny to begin with, and my mom said i can have one side as my soaping kingdom. i even had to use the top of the stove for my bowls, mold, etc. i am about to make soap, thus the mess!

and this is where i put my molds, FO/EOs, colorants, packaging, whatever.. my house is already a mess as there are curing racks everywhere, lol.. i am a messy person, but i do know where i put each and every item, and i absolutely hate it if someone tries to tidy things up for me and i begin losing things.

 

[Tienne]

Seven, I guess I shouldn't complain about my small kitchen, eh? Even though you don't have much room, you still manage to produce soaps that are absolutely top notch, but it's like my dear Dad used to say, "Where there's a will, there's a way!" Soaping takes up way more room that one would think, doesn't it! I could easily use more space, but if I had it, I reckon even that wouldn't be enough. There's always room for just one more mold and one more bucket of oil and one more curing rack and, and , and.... . LOL

And YES! I am a cat lover! I adore the little critters to bits! I've worked many years at a cat sanctuary in Denmark and I also used to be a "flyer" for a Greek/Danish rescue organisation. Then there's all the strays I have personally found and taken in and rehomed as well. All of my pets are rescues. Two of the cats and the dog, I found on the streets in Greece and I have brought maybe 25-30 other dogs back too that I have adopted out to new homes and SO many cats that I can't even count them. I could keep them all!! BUT, I have made a promise to myself to keep my clowder to 7 at the most. That number of cats always seem to go well together and I don't want to end up as a hoarder. 7 is a good number to have and as long as I can get the others off the streets and placed into homes of their own, I'm happy. How sad that your Mum doesn't like cats! She doesn't know what she's missing! One day you'll have cats again, Seven. They have a way of sneaking themselves into one's life and once a cat lover, always a cat lover.