Creativity and New Designs

I am a lost soul in search of the magic package that will render my soaps irresistible to would be buyers...

Ok that was overly dramatic, but I am still not happy with my packaging.  I have struggled with my current logo - and I have to admit I want to move on to something else.  The logo is difficult to work with and I really want to have something that reflects more of the feeling of country cottage than an actual building.  Packaging is so important.  It is what makes somebody pick an item up to investigate and decide if they want to discover more about the product or not.  I already know that once my customers try my soap they love it.  But they have to love the packaging first!

Today I tried my hand at some shabby chic, grubby, distressed, vintage tags - whatever you want to call the style.  It's not easy for me.  I like order.  This is the polar opposite of orderly.

But, I kind of like it.

So, I have uploaded a picture of the tag I worked on today - if you want, you can let me know what you think.  I need feedback.

Allow me to get up on my soap box (pun intended) for a moment

I love making soap!

More importantly, I love making natural soap.  The old fashioned way, with lye.  There, I said it.  Lye!  Truth be told, you cannot make soap without lye, but unlike the old fashioned days when soap was made with wood ashes and rendered animal fat, we have calculators, and high quality scales that measure down to a single gram, that make sure that every bit of lye is used up, converting high quality oils into gentle, skin-friendly soap. My soaps are calculated with a 7% lye discount which simply means that after all the lye is used up making oils into soap there is 7% of high quality oils left in the bar of soap to condition your skin.

I take great pride in my soap and sometimes have difficulty convincing folks who are used to paying only a couple of bucks for a bar of soap at the grocery store to shell out a few more dollars for my natural soap.
I am told that they love the new "Dove" bar, after all, "it has 1/4 moisture lotion in it", and who can forget the ads that make us fear all the gunk left behind on our skin when we dare to use another's soap?

Hmmm...

Without getting too technical, lotions are waters, oils and emulsifiers.  Emulifiers are needed because oil and water do not want to mix all by themselves.  However, if you were to put lotion into a pot making soap, the emulsified lotion would simply break down into its parts (oil and water) and becomes part of the soap making process.  So, technically, any bar of soap could claim to have lotion added.  Even mine.

However, one has to wonder about the quality of that "lotion" Dove claims to add to their soap.  One of the main ingredients listed is Sodium Tallowate - that is a scientific way of saying saponified beef fat, or, rendered beef fat made into soap with lye!  Doesn't sound so yummy after all, does it?

Need I mention that my soap is made with high quality, food grade, vegan oils such as olive, coconut, soybean, palm, castor, avocado, jojoba, shea butter and mango butter?  All are selected for their unique properties in making a high quality bar of soap that is good for your skin.

Of course using the term soap for what is sold in the grocery stores is a misnomer - most commercial soaps are really what is called a syndet, or synthetic detergent.  The term soap is used loosely because it cleans.  Further, most commercial soaps remove the glycerin, a natural byproduct of soapmaking, and a natural humectant, found in their soap.  They then resell the glycerin for other uses, leaving behind an inferior bar of soap.

I hope this clears things up a bit.

When baking and soaping mix

How fun it is to have time to indulge in experimentations!

Today  I created a soap I have been planning for some time, but never had the opportunity to try out.

I  have yet to name this soap - either "Insomniac Soap" or "Mocha Java".  Either way, it is meant as a scrubbing kitchen soap - the coffee and coffee grounds help remove cooking odors from one's hands.  However, the delicious aroma of chocolate and coffee might send you back to the kitchen to make brownies or other delectable chocolate treats!

The soap recipe reads more like a baking recipe and here is why:  I started out with extra, extra strength brewed coffee and created a cocoa butter heavy recipe - that in itself will make the soap smell like chocolate.  Added to my recipe came a healthy heaping of cocoa powder, and another heaping of freshly ground coffee, mixed with ground cloves and ground cinnamon.  I topped this off with a fragrance that smells just like a cup of Mocha - really delicious!

The soap turned out to be a really deep, almost black brown.  It looks like the most decadent chocolate fudge brownie!  I will posts some pictures - hopefully by tomorrow.

New recipes are always exciting

Hmmm... Quite some time has passed since my last post, and while I had good intentions to keep my blog fresh, I see that once again time simply slips away.  Good intentions give way to either mad dashes of creativity or the need to fulfill other mundane, yet necessary, tasks such as cooking and cleaning.

This week I have taken some time off for myself.  Having recently cleaned and reorganized my soap and candle kitchen, and having taken careful stock of all the fragrances and essential oils I have, I am freshly motivated to finally put on my apron and make all the creations that have been rumbling around in my head.

Today I made a castille soap I had been thinking about making for a while:  A mild baby soap made with olive oil that has been infused with chamomile blossoms.  Chamomile has wonderful skin healing properties and is very mild - perfect for baby's tender skin!  The soap is currently curing - it already has a wonderful mild chamomile fragrance and a delicate yellow color.  I am excited to see how it turns out.

For those of you who are not quite into soap as I am, a castile soap traditionally is made with only olive oil.  The problem with this is that while the soap is very mild, it does not suds much, is very soft, and has a tendency to develop the "dreaded orange spots".  It's really only a cosmetic blemish, but I know that most people would not want to risk bathing their babies with an "orange spotted soap".  One of the ways to combat  a purely olive oil soap's deficiencies is to add coconut oil.  Coconut oil adds hardness and suds - but add too much and you can't call it "Castile" any more.

 Much time was spent agonizing over the correct balance of olive oil and coconut oil, when I stumbled upon the holy grail of soap calculators.  I have used various soap calculators in the past, checking results from one calculator to another to ensure my results were accurate.  This soap calculator provided me with instant feedback on the properties of my newly formulated recipe.  I am truly impressed!  I feel confident my new recipe will be wonderful!