Been a minute!

Oh my gosh, you guys! It has been a while.

I am so sorry that I suck so hard at writing these. I also accidentally deleted the post I wrote back in January. :( It showed up as blank and I thought it was a draft. It was not. D'oh!! I put in a ticket for recovery, but that was a no go. Not starting this post out great!

Anyway, back to the topic at hand. Though I haven't been writing that much, I *have* been busy making some soaps! One of my customers at my day job invited me to come sell my soaps at their market next weekend. Eep!! I took them some samples a couple weeks ago and they really enjoyed them. They asked about packaging last week, which I provided samples of today. They really liked it and thought it looked good, so I am happy to say I am definitely joining them next Saturday. I am so excited! And nervous. But mostly excited!

The fragrances that I've made were requested to be "spring-y," so I started with one that is definitely springy - a little twist on Brambleberry's "Fresh Bamboo" FO. First off, let me tell you - what a ricer, holy lawd! It was crazy, I definitely didn't get done what I wanted to get done with that, but fear not! I overcalculated my 9 bar mold volume, so I ended up with super chunky bars that I later cut into individual bars. They smell...amazing. Just...fresh and clean and soooo good. Even with the trouble the FO gave me, those bars will be totally worth it.

The second batch I made was a combo of Brambleberry's "energy" fragrance oil and another citrus. ;) Trying not to give everything away, here. I can say that said citrus is more tart, and was sooooooo yummy in the soap. It has been sticking pretty well, too, which is really really nice. I tried a new recipe from Nature's Garden for that batch, but so far I am not sure how I like it. The soap is significantly softer than I am used to, and I'm not sure if I like it or not. The colors, though - amazing. Since the fragrance is named "energy" and smells bright and happy, I felt like I should make something that reflected that. I looked at sunrise pictures, and then sunrise yoga pictures - and found the most lovely photo of someone doing yoga on a beach during sunrise, and based my color palette off of that. I tried to do a black base with a drop swirl on top to mimic the layers of sunrise, and I am really pleased with how it came out. It's also REALLY bright, which is super fun and reflects the fragrance.

The third batch I made was a new twist on my Lemon Drop Martini bars - same recipe and colors, but with a little less white, and in my tall and skinny mold instead of the normal small, squat one. Left off the pink Himalayan sea salt, as I've learned that the salt actually discolors my soap, which is sad. It came out a bit more yellow than I wanted it to, and I think next time I will scale back the yellow and add more white back in. It still smells AMAZING, though, and is made with coconut milk.

The fourth batch is the ever-popular oatmeal milk and honey with colloidal oatmeal and goat's milk. I wanted to add honey, but also wanted time to pour a drop swirl and didn't wanna compromise, so I left the honey out (since it would speed up trace like whoa because of the sugars). It has to be added at such a small percentage anyway, I decided it wasn't worth the sacrifice of work time.

Finally, my fifth batch is a dupe of a famous lingerie store's fragrance, which is VERRRRRRRY good. Like......spot on, perfect match. I called it "Under Your Spell" and it didn't come out how I initially envisioned it (because it kinda started to accelerate on me, whoops!), but it's still cool. And it smells AWESOOOOOOOOME!

I am so excited to share these soaps with customers next weekend, and I really hope that people will enjoy them! I haven't taken many pictures, as classes for school have been reallllllllllyyyyyyy haaaaard!! But while I'm packaging and labeling this weekend, I will definitely be taking some nice pictures of the final products! 

​Until next time! 

3/30/17: Edited to add pictures of soaps that I took while wrapping and preparing! Note that most of them were taken before I beveled and steamed the soda ash off of them.