Catch-up!

I'm playing catch up here lately! We are having some family issues that have definately slowed me down. Eventually everything will get back to normal but for now I'm just doing my best to keep moving forward! ;)

I have gotten a couple of things made up since my last post. I made some Coconut lotion/lip balm stick, some neem tree oil soap, and some goats milk peppermint soap.

I hope all of you guys out there had a wonderful Father's Day yesterday!

Coconut Lotion and Lip Balm

First off I have to talk about the Coconut lotion/lip balm! It's so nice, I love it! It's half ounce tube of balm that can be used as either a solid lotion or a lip balm! I used coconut flavoring that smells divine so it's perfect for this stick! It makes me want to go to the beach. Too bad here in Iowa even the "beaches" that we do have are lost under all the flood water!

Neem Tree Oil Soap

I also have make up some Neem Tree Oil Soap. It came about for a customer who has ongoing issues with yeast. Neem tree oil has antifungal properties along with many other amazing properties. This soap also has lemongrass, tea trea, peppermint, lavender, rosemary, sage, and clove essential oils to help boost the antifungal properties. This soap should be amazing for other skin conditions as well. Many of the ingredients in this soap are also good for acne. This last weekend I was at an outdoor wedding. Wearing makeup all day out in the heat is almost a surefire way for me face to breakout. I had a couple of spots where it looked like pimples were about to form and so I used the Neem Tree Oil Soap that night and again the next morning. I don't know if it was just chance but my face never broke out. The red spots that looked like they were going to be pimples by the next day weren't even red any longer! Like I said, it's possible it was just a fluke but I'm thinking I might have to use this soap for my face in the summer when I'm more likely to have breakouts!

Goats Milk Peppermint Oatmeal Soap

The other night I also made up some more of my Goats Milk Peppermint Oatmeal soap! That stuff goes pretty quick! It seems like I just can't make the peppermint soaps quickly enough! LOL! I was very excited because with it being a larger batch than the Neem Tree Oil Soap, I was able to use my new slab mold! It worked very nicely! I hate cutting soap because I am such a perfectionist that if the bars get cut all wonky, it really drives me nuts! So the new mold prevents all of that since the dividers mean I don't have to cut each bar!

The Spotted Box

I participated in The Spotted Box again this month! My box just arrived today. I love getting these things and checking out all the goodies inside. Thank you to all the others who contributed goodies!

St. John's Wort Soap

This soap was a custom order. It is a 100% olive oil castile soap. The olive oil was infused with a St. John's Wort blend. This olive oil has sat infusing for a couple of months now so it should turn out really nice! I can't wait to see how the finished soap turns out!

A slab for mother's day...

Look at the beautiful mold that I just ordered from Kelsi's Creations! I'm so excited! My husband asked me what I've been wanting for soaping within a certain price range and told me he would get it as a mother's day present. So because I hate cutting bars of soap so I had to get a slab mold with dividers. I see a lot more experimentation coming up with swirled soaps! ;)



I made a batch of swirled soap last week. It was cupcake scented and I added in cocoa because it's cocoa and because I could see the swirl forming right away. The cupcake fragrance oil would have turned the soap brown while curing because of the high vanilla content. I am a little to impatient to wait that long to see my swirl though!

I've been kind of wrestling around with the idea of coloring my soaps. Thus far I have only done colors that are as a result of herbs or oils that have been used. I would like to keep my soaps as natural as possible. I have made the exception of using fragrance oils though just because I love all the different options out there and I think there are a lot of others that do as well. I love a natural colored soap and it definately appeals to my desire to keep things natural. I'll be the first to admit though that if I see a pretty colored bar of soap I have to go check it out! I've looked at the oxides and ultramarines for coloring because they sound like they would be more natural. However, because of the toxins that can be present in them naturally they are all created in a lab now. This creates a further dilema. These definately have more "label appeal" but I would have a lot more control over the effects I was able to acheive with some other options that are currently available. I'm still going to think about this some more before I invest in a bunch of colorants but I think I will eventually add some of one kind or another.

I feel that so long as I have lots of options available that everyone will be able to find something they love. I definately want to keep plenty of options as far as soaps that are completely natural. Those are the ones I use on my son and that I recommend to others with little ones and sensitive skin. That was my main focus when I started this journey and I refuse to lose focus of that!

Happy Mothers Day!

Ok so I didn't really do much today for soaping but I did work on my blog so that it looks like my site does. That did take a while though because I don't know HTML very well, let alone CSS! I learned a lot about it though and was able to guess close enough on the rest that I got it to do what I wanted. LOOK! I'm so happy that I got this up and going, it's one more thing I can scratch off my long to do list!

I had a great Mother's Day today and I hope all of you did as well!

Out of the bag...

Or make that in the box! I got my shipment of soap boxes yesterday! I'm so excited, they look so nice and they will really cut down on production time. I had been holding off on labeling my soap for a little while now in anticipation of the boxes. So yesterday I spent the better part of the day (and night) boxing up soaps! Now I need to order more boxes. LOL!

I also got some supplies so that I can start to add a few more items to my inventory. I got some really pretty soap decks, some tubes for solid lotion, and bags and scoops for laundry soap!

I've also made up several batches of soap, lip balm, and bath bombs the last couple of weeks. I'm exhausted from not getting nearly enough sleep! Regardless, I'm still really excited that things are moving along and that I've got a decent start on my inventory.

Some of the things on my to do list:
Finish boxing and labeling cut soaps.
Bag and label soap samples.
Bag and label lip balm samples.
Get samples sent in for The Spotted Box.
Make up some more lip balm.
Make up some more coffee kitchen soap.
Finish a couple of custom orders that still need done.
Mix and pakage laundry soap.
Take pictures of all the new items and better pictures of some existing ones.
Work on solid lotion.
Mix up some more regular lotion.

Of course there is always more but this is a good chunk of the higher priority stuff that I need to get done.