It Not Gocket

Have you ever been deceived by appearances? When I was a little girl I used to sneak into the kitchen while mom was baking and had her back turned I would sniff and poke at whatever dessert she was cooking up. One day she was working on a cake and had whipped up some good old fashioned Crisco in a bowl and was preparing to add the powdered sugar. I peered curiously into the bowl, my eyes widening at the thought of a finger full of that delicious looking frosting. She casually warned that it was NOT frosting but when she turned her back, I quickly took a finger full and stuffed it in my mouth. When she turned back around and saw the look on my contorted face, she laughed and said, "I told you it wasn't frosting". It definitely was not frosting.

You would think I would learn from my mistakes but, yet again, I took a mouth full of unsweetened Bakers chocolate while mom's back was turned. It certainly did not taste as good as it smelled or looked. A friend of mine had a toddler that was notorious for taking off his diaper and playing "Poopcasso" as we called it. The first time she found him covered in poo she screamed and said "What is that???" to which he simply replied "It not gocket." To borrow from Lemony Snickets, here the word "gocket" refers to a toddlers pronounciation of the word chocolate.

As I shaved the chocolate soap for the topping on this latest masterpiece, I had to keep reminding myself, it not gocket. My girls even came into the kitchen wide eyed and wondering. Thankfully, they listened to my warning and didn't take up a mouth full of soap shavings. I have to pat myself on the back on this one. It is decadently indulgent both in appearance and ingredients. I added quite a bit of cocoa butter and real cocoa powder. The cocoa powder actually makes a nice exfoliant. I cannot wait to try this one out. Hopefully, nobody will be tempted to take a taste.

Funnel Soap

What do you get when you mix a funnel, cold process soap, and colorant? A cool swirly pattern of course. This was my first foray into funnel soap. I read about it at The Soap Bar . I think I needed to make my pours from each color longer. Next version will be pink and purple for sure.

I had a time getting the hole drilled in the scrap 2x4 to hold up the funnel. The tutorial says to use chopsticks and rubber bands or some such nonsense. I figured I could just get out hubby's drill and make my own version of a funnel holder. It wasn't that I could not use a drill. After all, I am not a wimpy housewife. It was that the neighbors dog has adopted us and wanted to play fetch. So I would drill a bit, throw the ball, drill a bit more, you get the picture. Finally, I enlisted my girls to throw the ball while I drilled.

I also learned that I should drill the bigger hole first. I drilled the 5/8" hole all the way through and was so proud of myself until I put the funnel in the hole and realized that the funnel didn't exactly fit all the way down through the 2x4. The top part needed to be a little wider so I got the 3/4" drill bit and soon learned that that did not work and I was surely going to injure myself. In the end I just left it as is and it worked beautifully. My funnel stayed very securely on top of my mold. I also have to mention my new favorite soaping tools...2 $1 pitchers from Wal-Mart. They have the oz. measurements inside so I can see exactly when I have half the batch in the pitcher.

I also have to mention my latest kitchen mishap. We'll call it Mission Jalapeno Hands. I made the foolish mistake of cutting jalapeno's without gloves. It wasn't too bad until I scratched my eye, picked my nose, and tried to put in contacts. I googled it in search of a cure and realized there really wasn't a cure. The poison ivy soap maybe helped a little. A scrub brush and some of my face soap with bentonite seemed to help the most and I was finally able to put my contacts in this morning. My thumb was still burning a bit last night (24 hours post chop) but at least it was bareable.

My tip of the day....Whether soaping or chopping jalapenos, wear gloves.

Soap-rise!

Get it? Surprise, soaprise. Ok, maybe that wasn't funny but it got your attention did it not? I was showing my mom my boxes of soap squirreled away in the corners of my dining room. She was excited and wanted to try them all. I opened a shoe box hidden in the corner of the cabinet in the dining room. The cabinet once held my extra dishes and bowls. They have been relegated to a cardboard box destined for the basement. My soap supplies now overflow onto the floor and lurk in the corners of the room. There are big bottles of olive oil, tubs of palm oil, and now a rather large and unwieldy box of coconut oil. Now back to that shoe box. Mom swooned over the contents, as any good mother should do for her only daughter. I shrugged and said well, it was a batch of crock pot soap that was rather soft and the color is kind of odd. She excitedly grabbed it and gave it the sniff test which it passed with flying colors.

As I picked up a bar I remembered my first beginning steps into cold process soap making. The first bars were nothing special and some even landed in the trash. I put these odd colored, rather mushy bars aside because they seemed better than any previous batches even though I was not altogether satisfied with the outcome. As I felt them and sniffed them I realized that they had hardened up rather nicely and the colors that once seemed so hideous weren't so offensive after all. It was these bars that left me disappointed with crock pot soap. The results just weren't as pretty as true cold process.

Having used up my recent new test bars in the shower, I stopped off in the dining room for a new bar. I decided to try out these forgotten bars. Much to my surprise, they are actually quite nice. They produced a great lather and were harder than I ever expected them to be. They left my skin feeling soft and clean. Perhaps I had dismissed crock pot soap too soon. Maybe I will try again.

If nothing else, I now have a box of soap that is worthy of distribution. Maybe I need to dig through the cabinet more often.

The Sweet Smell of Success

I am delighted with the latest 2 batches I made. All right, I will be honest, I cannot tell whether they are really great or not because I just made them yesterday, but they are cut and beautiful looking. The round bar on the left is a kelp/spirulina swirl. I think it will make some great face soap. The lighter blue bar is another round of salt soap.

I ordered some new fragrances from Brambleberry . My hubby loves my soaps so much and actually takes a bar to the gym. I have to tell you a few things about my hubby to understand why this is funny. First, I make my husband boxers. They are not your run of the mill solid colored or even plaid boxers. They have strange things on them like peanuts, flames, big lips, nails, and the best, Dick & Jane sayings. So here's a man in the gym shower carrying around his fruity, flowery smelling soap wearing boxers that say Look Jane Look and on the front and Run Dick Run on the back. Top that off with the fact that he is executive level at a major worldwide company and you can see why I just had to order him some manly smelling fragrance. He's tried a bunch of my soaps and he likes the salt bar the best. In fact every man I have given it to, likes the salt bar the best. I changed up the recipe of the last salt bars I made and hubby just didn't like it as much. I turned to my ever ready soaping notebook and realized it must have been the bentonite. The first bars had bentonite in them and less salt. The second round was more salt and no bentonite. They were a crumbly mess. I actually like the second round better but maybe because I have dry skin. They are so ugly I cannot possibly give them to anyone anyway.

My soaping has gotten so much more successful. I am producing beautiful bars that have my friends ooohing and aaahing. The process is finally familiar and relaxing rather than a stressful race to the finish line. I absolutely love taking a new bar into the shower to assess it's lather, feel, and finish. I've converted many friends and family members lately too. My mom teased me about making soap. "Why would you want to make soap? Can't you just buy a bar?". She said that until I sent her some and she tried it. She called me the next day and told me she had used it and just went on and on about how different it is than "regular" soap. A week later, half way through her moisture bar (I sent her about 6 different bars of soap), she complained that it was almost gone and didn't know what she would do if she ran out!

There really is nothing like homemade soap. I encourage everyone to try it.

To Sell or Not to Sell

This is my latest masterpiece. It's made in a 3" PVC pipe with a whole loofah. Cutting it was a challenge because of the loofah. My girls cannot wait to try it out and neither can I.

I intially started this hobby to make beautiful soaps for my family. I have succeeded to that end but now have soap piling up around the corners of the dining room. At some point, I'm going to have to sell it just to make room for more. Being a child of a small business owner, I fully understand the implications of running a business. My dad worked a lot when I was growing up. Having a business is like having a 2 year old child that never grows up and nobody wants to babysit. As an adult, I hear people fantasizing about running their own business. They dream of being free of a boss and being able to do things their way. They truly believe life will be easier and they will be wealthy running their own business. My dad has been running a business for over 35 years and I can tell you he is neither wealthy nor free and it's a relatively successful business.

Knowing these things doesn't dampen my thoughts of venturing into the realm of entrepreneurship. I have attempted at various points in my life to run small little hobby businesses. One never even got out of the starting gate before it fell over. Perhaps there is some genetic component. It is in my blood. The problem is that I want to start it but then I do not want all the headaches that come with ownership. There are taxes and business licenses, pricing and advertising, and craft shows. What is a soap seller without craft shows? Do I really want to travel that road?

All business ownership aside, there is the market saturation. There are soap sellers by the hundreds on Etsy. The craft shows and farmer's markets are also laden with the fabulous fruity aromas of homemade soap. What can make my soap any different from the masses? Surely I do not want to sell at a discount. Maybe I can persuade people that my soaps are better and sell at a premium. That's laughable in today's economic turmoil. I think people are more likely to buy Ivory with coupons than pay top dollar for my special soap. However I could ride the coat tails of the everything organic trend. My soap is locally made, even though the raw materials are trucked in from all over the country. The ingredients are all natural save the fragrance oils and fun colors.

Perhaps I will forgo business ownership and just use it as barter. Maybe my business will grow organically like the tomatoes that offer themselves up every year in my garden.