80 year young soap & candle maker

[Beatty]

Hello everyone

I'm new to this online community group sort of thing, but not so new to CP soap and candle making.

I first started into CP soap and candle making at about 6 years of age by learning from my mum, but I didn't do very much of either craft until after I got married, so I suppose I can only claim to have been making soap and candles for 60 years now as I just turned 80 in Novenber last year.

Since then I've taught all 3 of my own daughters both crafts and quite a few of my grandies, and now one of my grand daughters has a very nice business making and selling lots of both soap and candles of all sorts down in Victoria.
Oh, I live in Queensland Australia by the way lol.

I joined here after a dear friend told me about this group just yesterday, so now I hope I might be able to chat occasionally to other people who enjoy these crafts.

Best regards
Beatty
(Sorry for my typing errors but I'm not so good on tis computer of mine lol)

 

[Chay]

Hello Beatty and Welcome to the forum!

 

[soapbuddy]

Welcome!

 

[Hazel]

Hello Beatty,

Welcome to the forum!

I think it's amazing that you've been making soap for 60 years. I'm glad you found this forum and hope you have a wonderful time here.

 

[Marianne1]

Welcome! I hope you enjoy it here.60 years experience,wow that's so impressive,I'll bet you may have a few entertaining stories. I'm looking forward to hearing a few.

 

[Traceyann]

Hello again , great to have another Aussie around, especially one so close, I live on the NSW / QLD border ( am a NSWer )

 

[carebear]

Wow! You must feel great satisfaction at being able to hand down your craft. Is your grand kids business big? What about you? Do you sell?

I can only imagine know the knowledge base has changed over the years. Can you describe for us how you've experienced that? I bet tons of people would be fascinated!

 

[Beatty]

Wow! You must feel great satisfaction at being able to hand down your craft. Is your grand kids business big? What about you? Do you sell?

I can only imagine know the knowledge base has changed over the years. Can you describe for us how you've experienced that? I bet tons of people would be fascinated!

Thank you all for your kind words of welcome.

Yes Carebear, it is nice to know that others are interested enough in learning these age old crafts, and it's also nice to be able to be the person to start them on their way into them, although I would never consider myself to be any sort of leading light in them as I've always made soap and candles for the more pratical reasons of washing yourself and your clothes rather than making the really pretty soaps that many soapers go in for these days.
I have taught myself one or two tricks along the way but nothing that would shake the earth beneath your feet.

I think you'd laugh at me if I told you some of the things we used to have to do before we actually began the making of soap and many modern day soapers would most probably think us mad, desperate or downright silly, even turn their noses up at the idea of making their own soap if they were to do it now.
One such thing that immediately comes to my mind is when my father would kill a sheep for the family needs (I was born and raised on a farm) and we would have to render down the mutton fats to get the tallow we required to make our soap with.
It was a very messy and smelly task indeed, but without it there was no soap to be had for the family needs.
We even made our own lye/caustic 70 years ago as it wasn't readily available to us out in the back of beyond, but believe you me it's not something you want to engage in these days lol

Another thing we used to do was distill our own essential oils from things that were around us, Eucy, T tree, but both of those came in different scents too as we had the common forms of them around us as well as lemon scented and peppermint gums etc.
It was very hard work but oh how I can recall those lovely smells in the air all around the old still.

I have never bought a store bar of soap in my entire life so I can't comment upon the differences between those I make and thje store quality product.

My grand daughter earns a nice living from all the products she makes, but I can't truthfully say if it would be considered as being a big business or not as I have nothing I can really judge it against, so all I can say is that I heard her once talking about making profits of five and six thousand dollars per month from it, but that was talking in all her natural products together, not just soaps and candles.

Yes I do still sell me soaps and beeswax candles, but not on the scale that Chrissy does.
I only do a couple of farmer's markets per month where I sell only cut bar soaps that I make in my wooden loaf molds and the beeswax candles I still make.
I always take the same amounts and sorts of things to each market as have regular customers waiting for them as well as a few tourists that buy some and I never bring one single candle or bar of soap home again with me.
I don't make a fortune out of it, but that's not my intention anyway as I do my soaping and candle making for the joy of keeping myself active and alert of mind while meeting nice people.

Because I buy all my soaping and candle making needs in bulk my bars of soap only cost me between 30 and 35 cents a bar to make (100gram/4oz bars) and I sell them for $1.00 per bar as I think that's reasonable.
Half of my profits go to help the little kiddies in a Veitnam orphanage that I visited a few years ago on one of my travels and I keep the other half of my profits for my little extras of life, things like my two bottles of whiskey per month etc.
Oh, yes, I'm a very naughty old lady who loves her glass of whiskey and soda every evening before I go to bed, but I swear it's for health reasons as I haven't suffered a single cold or anything like that in over forty years now.
I still live on 7 acres of land and milk my goats twice every day and do everything that needs to be done like growing my own veggies and fruits as my hubby passed away six years ago now but it's no real; hardship when you love the life I live as I do.
I use my goat milk in soapmaking as well as making my own cheeses, yogurt and of course I never use anything else but goat milk for anything.
When people tell me that I don't look a day over 50 I tell them the secret is the goat milk.
Oh, I sell some cheese and yogurt as well, but not a lot as I only have 30 milking girls now.

Oh, I do seem to be chatting way too much here so best I end this now or I'll drive you all insane with my chatter, but it's so nice to be able to talk to people from different parts of the world this way I'm getting a bit carried away with myself.

Take care all
Beatty

 

[Hazel]

Beatty -

I can assure you that you wouldn't drive me insane with talking about your experiences. I think it's amazing.

I can't even imagine a life where I would have to render tallow and make my own lye so I could make soap for my family. And to have to distill your own essential oils, too! It makes me appreciate how easy it is to be able to order oils online. Please don't be shy about telling us about your experiences. It is very interesting. :!:

By the way, I totally believe you that the whiskey is for medicinal purposes only. :wink:

 

[Beatty]

Beatty -

I can assure you that you wouldn't drive me insane with talking about your experiences. I think it's amazing.

I can't even imagine a life where I would have to render tallow and make my own lye so I could make soap for my family. And to have to distill your own essential oils, too! It makes me appreciate how easy it is to be able to order oils online. Please don't be shy about telling us about your experiences. It is very interesting. :!:

By the way, I totally believe you that the whiskey is for medicinal purposes only. :wink:

The main problem with making your own lye is in keeping it stable and consistant quality and that's not very easy to do no matter how many times you do it, so I find it lovely that I can buy it as the same quality these days without having to worry about it all the time.
It also makes life so much easier
I can still remember the very first time we could buy ready made caustic soda, oh what a gift from heaven that was

I never did like rendering the tallow, but it had to be done, just like so many other things years ago when I was young.

 

[sandyfootfarm]

Welcome! I think it is great to have someone with so much experience here who can pass on knowledge to us younguns I'm over in country SA, so doubly excited to see a new Aussie on the board

 

[Sibi]

Beatty,

It has been absolutely fascinating reading all about how you live your life! My dear grandmother who passed at 96 used to tell me all about her days as a young girl in the early 1900's and I loved hearing all about it. I miss her terribly. I'm always all ears for some knowledge about a time that was so much more simple than nowadays, where everything is always rushed. So, please, don't be shy!

Sibi

 

[Beatty]

Beatty,

It has been absolutely fascinating reading all about how you live your life! My dear grandmother who passed at 96 used to tell me all about her days as a young girl in the early 1900's and I loved hearing all about it. I miss her terribly. I'm always all ears for some knowledge about a time that was so much more simple than nowadays, where everything is always rushed. So, please, don't be shy!

Sibi

Thank you for your very kind words Sibi

I was born in November 1931 so your dear grandmother would have been able to teach me a few things no doubt, but while life was simpler in many ways it was very hard work too and I certainly don't miss that part of things, although sometimes I think things are a little too rushed these days for everyone's good.

I came from a family of 8 children, me being one of the two girls of the family and being the eldest of the two of us I had to grow up fast and help my mother around the home a lot more.
I was very lucky that I was allowed to stay at school until just after my 14th birthday but I learned far more through the school of life later on so I have never thought myself hard done by when it came to education, but I've learned so much through all the books I love reading and through things I learn on the internet since I decided to buy myself a computer about 9 years ago now, and I've made friends with some lovely people through it since then, in fact it was one of them that told me about this community when we were talking about the old community we both met through some years ago that sadly closed down.
I would never have met Elaine any other way than through the internet as she lives in America and I am in Australia, but we are both long time soap and candle makers, or as Elaine often jokes about it, we're soap snobs because we both only ever make cold process soaps, never any other sort.
She sells her goods through farmer's markets over there just as I do over here so we have those things in common as well as many other interests such as our joint love of growing our own fruits and veggies.
The only thing is that Elaine is only a baby of 68 so I often tease her over it.
I don't know if she's a member of this community or just a regular reading visitor but she certainly seems to know what goes on here because I got an email; from her this morning telling me that she saw me recommending the book she told me about here.

The one thing I really love these days is that I can make my bars of CP soap so easily because when I was young all the soap we made was in liquid form because we couldn't get things right with our own lye making to make hard bars of soap, and even the liquid soap took so long to do when you had to stir the mixture with a big wooden spoon for ages and ages to get it to trace.
Candle making hasn't changed all that much apart from the new molds and things you can buy now, but because I only make beeswax candles these days things are still pretty much the same for me.
The thing about beeswax candles I find to remarkable is the price some people charge for them now and that so many people go crazy buying them from me at the markets.

My neighbour is a honey bee keeper and has several hundred hives scattered all over the place so I get all my beeswax from him after he's cleaned and filtered it from all the bits and pieces but it still smell strongly of honey so my candles have such a nice natural scent so I never add scents to the wicks.
I also only use natural colorants in my soaping and people seem to like that far more than the brightly coloured soaps another lady sells on the same markets I go to, but maybe the fact that I charge $1 per bar of soap and she charges $5 and $6 per bar may also have a lot to do with why I sell out every market while she has to take ages packing everything away to take back home with her again.
Her's are very pretty but I personally think she's overcharges people for them too.

I only ever use the plain goatmilk soap that I make myself to wash myself with and it doesn't have any scent or anything else in it.
It's what I've used for all my adult life and I make loads of it for sale too as other people love it as much as I do.
I'm afraid that I may be a bit of a silly old girl because I can't see the point of having my scent wash down the drain with the soap suds when it lasts much longer when I put it on as the perfume balm I make for myself that is so simple to make and use.
My very favorite scent is Boronia but only as an EO, never one of the not so nice FOs you can buy some places these days.

I only add EOs to the bars of soap I sell, but not to all of them, and my CP recipes are always the same that I've used for years now, most very basic veggie oil ones as I don't like the smell of tallow or anything like that in my soaps these days, but that's probably because I used to have to render it myself years ago.

Oh my, but I seem to be writing another book here so I better shut up again

Love and joy to you Sibi

Beatty

 

[soapbuddy]

Beatty,
How do you make any money selling your soaps for $1 per bar? I buy my oils/butters and lye in large quantities. I make up to 50 lb. batches at a time and by the time I pay myself for my time and add up all my costs, there is no way I could sell my bars for $1. My soaps average $5 to $6 per bar. If someone wants soap for $1, I usually send them to the Dollar store.

 

[Beatty]

Beatty,
How do you make any money selling your soaps for $1 per bar? I buy my oils/butters and lye in large quantities. I make up to 50 lb. batches at a time and by the time I pay myself for my time and add up all my costs, there is no way I could sell my bars for $1. My soaps average $5 to $6 per bar. If someone wants soap for $1, I usually send them to the Dollar store.

Not knowing what sort of recipes you use to make your soaps it's very hard to say why you have such a hard time making them cheaply as I do but mine are very basic recipes while I'm buying everything I use in large quantities, so it works out around 30 to 35 cents per 100gram bar for mine for materials depending on the EO I'm using in them when they are ones I buy in.
The most expensive veggie oil I buy is the Olive oil but again I buy that at a rate of 20 cases (4 x 5ltr cans each case) at a time from the Italian importer who lives a few kilometres from here and I don't buy Extra virgin, or Virgin, but only Pure grade Olive oil, that works out costing me $3,80 per litre.
Palm oil is so cheap buy by the barrel from the importer directly, although there's a bit of work invovled in breaking the barrel lot down into smaller lots and making sure that it remains mixed well during the process, but that's 205 litres at a time and one of my grandsons does that for me every time I get some in at 4 barrels on a pallet at a time.
He puts it into 20ltr sealable buckets for me so I can handle it easier.
I buy my castor oil in 25ltr drums, 4 at a time that have screw in taps to make it easy to use as I need it, as that's the cheapest way to buy it here.
My goat milk costs me nothing at all, nor does the rainwater I always use, I only use natural colorants from many of the things I grow here on my land such as tumeric etc. (I live in tropical north Queensland where everything grows so easily)

Many of the EOs I use come direct from the distiller and I make a little myself too and I also use the distilled water from the distilling process so I don't need to use as much EO to achieve the same level of scent as anyone using only EOs they buy.
My hubby made my steam distiller for me many years ago and it works wonderfully still and things like lemon grass that I have growing all over the place here for instance only uses the waste parts of the plant so I can sell the stems themselves, as I do my ginger for the most part.
It sounds like hard work but it certainly isn't because it's no harder to do than if I were to take the waste stuff out to the composting bins

Also I don't price in my labour time as you are doing because I'm not interested in trying to make a living from my soapmaking, just a bit of extra pocket money while selling the other things I make like my cheeses and yogurts, my pickles and preserves and excess fruits, herbs and veggies of the season that I grow on my few acres.

I often have what are called WOOFERS here to stay who help me a lot for only their food and bed so I don't have labour costs invovled to pay anyone and I grow all the fruit, veggies and things we all eat right here on my 7 acres and I trade in kind for some other things with neighbours who grow things I don't here.
My honey costs me nothing and I only pay 10cents per kilo for the beeswax for my candle making because otherwise my bee keeping neighbour would just throw it away because other people just don't want it from him.
All my milking goats mostly have twins every year and I trade nearly all the kids I don't want with the Italians in the area as they want them to eat as Capretto so I get paid in all sorts of other things for around 50 or so goat kids every year.
My late hubby was Italian so I have many Italian friends and if you know anything at all about native born Italians they know how to put everything to a good use
Plus it was the way I grew up myself, nothing that can be made into something useful gets thrown away and hard work is just a way of life that you don't even think about.

I rise every day of the year at 5am and go to bed about 9pm and I'm pretty much on the go all day long as I hate sitting around doing nothing unless I feel like the luxury of reading a book and I don't watch much TV at all.
The only time I really have off is when I go off for my yearly travels to somewhere overseas but I prefer somewhere where I walk lots or can ride a bicycle for miles and miles like when I go to places like Veitnam, Thailand or wherever and they are very cheap to travel to from here.

So all in all I do very well for myself where I live and I love the livestyle I live, so it's easy to do it all when you're still as fit as I am

I'm not boasting about anything because I know most people wouldn't like living as I do but I'm fitter than most people less than half my age and can see them exhausted at the end of each day trying to keep up with me.
My WOOFERS and many friends tell me I'm crazy doing all the things I still do but I tell them its why I will live beyond 100 years old when they will most probably die before their 80th birthday.
I have other friends who enjoy a very active lifestyle like mine too and they are all well over 70 years of age.
My very dearest and oldest friend is 97 and she still hand milks her 4 goats twice every day and does everything for herself, so I'm only a baby compared to her.

Live is for living, not for sitting around pondering on what might be and dying young in the process lol.

 

[soapbuddy]

Kudos to you that you can make it work. Your still sounds fabulous! I live in the desert, so I have to buy everything. I have no back yard to speak of, nor any trees that would work for my needs and be allowed by the HOA. My house is in a community with HOA (Homeowner's Association) rules and regs. No livestock is allowed here. If I want goatmilk, I have to buy it, as there are no goats around here.

The desert doesn't get much rain at all and our water is very hard. So I have to purchase that as well. I could purchase raw beeswax, but nowhere near what you get yours for. So as much as I buy in large containers or buckets, my cost would not be comparable to yours. I don't use Palm oil and just never have.

My mother and grandmother made soap. My grandmother also made lye from ashes, but I was too young to be allowed to watch the process. I know about the floating egg in the lye solution once the lye was made.

My house is fairly small as property is expensive here. My soaping room is my large living room, which has been partitioned off. I also make other B&B products besides soap. This is what I do for a living.

 

[Beatty]

Kudos to you that you can make it work. Your still sounds fabulous! I live in the desert, so I have to buy everything. I have no back yard to speak of, nor any trees that would work for my needs and be allowed by the HOA. My house is in a community with HOA (Homeowner's Association) rules and regs. No livestock is allowed here. If I want goatmilk, I have to buy it, as there are no goats around here.

The desert doesn't get much rain at all and our water is very hard. So I have to purchase that as well. I could purchase raw beeswax, but nowhere near what you get yours for. So as much as I buy in large containers or buckets, my cost would not be comparable to yours. I don't use Palm oil and just never have.

My mother and grandmother made soap. My grandmother also made lye from ashes, but I was too young to be allowed to watch the process. I know about the floating egg in the lye solution once the lye was made.

My house is fairly small as property is expensive here. My soaping room is my large living room, which has been partitioned off. I also make other B&B products besides soap. This is what I do for a living.

It sounds as though you have the odds stacked against you before you begin Irene, little wonder that you can't make your soaps anywhere near as cheaply as I can, and of course the fancier your recipe is the more expensive it becomes to produce also.

It helps even less when you need to factor in every second of your time too, but I have found that by sticking to the same base recipes I can turn out very large batches of soap in a very short time, so labour costs are very low too as I only ever make bar soaps in my big wooden loaf molds which makes everything so easy to do.

The Australia government believes that I'm too well off to qualify for an old age pension so I still need to have a private income but I have no troubles living very well on the money I make every month out of everything I produce here without needing to bother touching the bit of a nest egg I have tucked away in the bank so I really have nothing to complain about.

I only do the two big weekend market days per month close to where I live because my driving license is a restricted one these days that says I can only drive a maximum distance but on average I can make a profit of around Aus$2,500 per month from all the things I sell on my stall, plus I still sell quite a bit directly from my little bit of land during the week, things like my chook and duck eggs, fruit and veggies, a bit of soap and I sell my neighbours pure honeys for him too and he gives me a small percentage of what I bring in for him, so all in all I probably have a monthly income of around Aus$3,500 with everything taken into account after all my costs are covered.
The only thing that still comes out of that money is the $500 per month I spend on kiddie's clothing and cases of nappies that the Rotary club ship out to Veitnam for me every 3 months to the orphanage I love to help out there.
Other than that I have my monthly bills to pay for electric and things and to buy the foods and things I can't produce for myself here so I can save money every month to pay for my little trips overseas every year.

The steam still my husband made years ago is very basic and works off the back of the old ute (Pick up I think you call them)
I just throw all the leaves into the hige sided back of it that I want to distill from then close the lid down on it before attaching the steam pipe that comes off the old boiler to the bottom part of it and connect up the pipe coming off the top that takes the steam through a cold water tank to condense the steam into water with the EO suspended in it to the catchment tank.
That may sound like a lot of effort but I assure you that it isn't and it only takes about 2 to 3 minutes to do very easily.

The water in the old boiler is heated by logs of wood that come from a friends property that he cuts up for me before bringing it here.
I trade his wood for things that I make here so no money changes hands between us and we're both very happy with our dealings.

 

[Marianne1]

Well my hat's off to you ,I told you I would love your stories.

 

[cthylla]

I'd like to spend a week with you. You seem fun. (But I think you would tire me out!!)

Welcome to the forum....very glad to meet you!

 

[Hazel]

Wow! I'm sure you could work rings around me. I felt tired just reading all that you do.