It's Christmas!

[kwahlne]

I came home yesterday to see THREE packages at my door. All soap supplies, yea!

I received my cutter, 2 log molds and some fragrances! I hope to soap again this weekend!

 

[Mandarin]

MERRY CHRISTMAS! What are you going to make first?

 

[Guest]

Am I the only one that thinks of the UPS guy and the FedEx guy as Santa Claus embodied?

I'm waiting for my durned micas and can't even tell if they've shipped yet. (Order placed Tuesday)

 

[kwahlne]

Mandarin, I'm attempting my first coloring this next batch. I've got a chocolate raspberry and also a chamomile recipe in my plans but I'm not sure which one I'll do first. At this point, I'm only doing one small batch on a weekend. Nervous about coloring, but it's my next step in my soap learning process!

Lovehound, I totally get your affection for those delivery guys! Funny thing, I'm STILL waiting on MY colorants. They haven't even shipped yet either! Where did you order from?

 

[Guest]

Ya know - I never grow tired of receiving new supplies. Especially new scents!

 

[hawleyroadsoapworks]

You can try coloring the chocolate raspberry with a cocoa powder swirl, that would look awesome!

 

[Guest]

Lovehound, I totally get your affection for those delivery guys! Funny thing, I'm STILL waiting on MY colorants. They haven't even shipped yet either! Where did you order from?

TKB Trading in Oakland. They took 2 days to ship and USPS says delivery takes 2 days and today is the 4th day so my stuff should get delivered today by an official agent of the United States government.

My order is colorants and I'm a bit less than totally thrilled with my first attempt at color (my 2nd batch) which used annatto powder and I'm afraid I got carried away and may have used too much. I washed my hands with a scrap and it appeared the suds are slightly colored. So I'm excited by the mica because I expect it to be a stronger colorant and might be able to use less for the same effect, and also realizing that overdoing the last batch I should try for less effect. I'm planning on doing my third batch this afternoon after the postman gives me my Christmas present.

BTW I really think that mineral colorants are where it's at. They have few or little side effects, unlike spices, and can be shown (by the distributor's data) to be safe for cosmetic use, safe to put on your skin, safe in soap. While I might try a few experiments with other stuff (crayons?) I want to formulate my soap so that one day perhaps I might want to start selling them. You can't go selling stuff to the public unless you're sure it's entirely safe or you might end up in the wrong end of a bodily injury lawsuit. One allergic reaction is all it takes.

 

[Guest]

Yay! Santa Claus brought my colorants! Actually it was Santa Clausette, but I'm making colored soap this afternoon!

 

[kwahlne]

YEa! Good for you! Mine STILL haven't shipped... :-( Getting a little pissed. Considering I ordered them a WEEK ago and they still haven't even SHIPPED! I ordered from esoapsupplies.com.

However, I went to Michael's and bought some liquid colorants. Not what I wanted but I can't NOT do soap this weekend simply because I don't have my color...

Kristin

 

[Guest]

That depends. I've finally got my colorants although I have only one EO in stock and it's smelling a bit too medicinal to me (sage oil).

But anyway, I've made square bars with milk carton molds, made round bars with a 3" diameter ABS pipe, and I have been thinking the last several hours that I'd like to produce some rectangular bars. I've also been wondering what pure Castile is like instead of my EVOO 70 coconut 15 palm 15, which turned out very nice. So I'm thinking of making a 100% olive classical Castile with natural color and no scent, and see how regular and rectangular I can get the bars. Probably use either a cardboard mold or if the handyman urge strikes I'll knock out a wood one.

Perhaps it's all "been there done that" for you and natural unscented soaps, but with only three batches I'm still expertise challenged.

Greg

 

[digit]

Am I the only one that thinks of the UPS guy and the FedEx guy as Santa Claus embodied?

I love these guys/gals. Even more so when they stop at my house!!! I have been known to casually be outside by the curb when I know there is a package for on the truck.

My mailman rings the bell when he brings packages because he says he likes to make my day. DH told him he was my favorite person on those days.

Digit

 

[Guest]

Durned lazy Santa Claus took Monday off so all my shipments are going to be one day late.

Stearic, beeswax, bentonite and CB (refined) from Mountain Rose Herbs arriving tomorrow (don't need any of them right away). Multiple FOs, a few EOs, TiO2, GMP, CB (natural), hemp seed oil (refined and natural) and sweet almond oil from WSP, arriving Monday. Drat, I really need that stuff! Select Shades from Tradewinds arriving on Tuesday, but I've got plenty of minerals to pay with until then. Already got my 95% etoh, maybe I should hit it while waiting?

Oh well... My local supermarket has fresh GM. And maybe I'll drive over to my local oil supplier in Simi Valley and get 5 gal of coconut and 5 gal of palm. I won't be running out anytime soon but at least I'll be buying something, anything! Oh yeah, and the aloe vera juice at GNC.

Does this sound like anybody else's life? Scheduled around FedEx and UPS?

 

[CiCi]

Durned lazy Santa Claus took Monday off so all my shipments are going to be one day late.

Stearic, beeswax, bentonite and CB (refined) from Mountain Rose Herbs arriving tomorrow (don't need any of them right away). Multiple FOs, a few EOs, TiO2, GMP, CB (natural), hemp seed oil (refined and natural) and sweet almond oil from WSP, arriving Monday. Drat, I really need that stuff! Select Shades from Tradewinds arriving on Tuesday, but I've got plenty of minerals to pay with until then. Already got my 95% etoh, maybe I should hit it while waiting?

Oh well... My local supermarket has fresh GM. And maybe I'll drive over to my local oil supplier in Simi Valley and get 5 gal of coconut and 5 gal of palm. I won't be running out anytime soon but at least I'll be buying something, anything! Oh yeah, and the aloe vera juice at GNC.

Does this sound like anybody else's life? Scheduled around FedEx and UPS?

YES!!! Sounds like my life...to the tune of over $3,000 and growing.

 

[Guest]

YES!!! Sounds like my life...to the tune of over $3,000 and growing.

Uh... Wow??? :shock: :shock: :shock:

Actually I've been keeping my receipts and thinking of possibly putting them in a spreadsheet, but in reality I have only a vague idea how much I'm spending. I think maybe $200 in equipment and $500-$700 in materials... in 3 weeks (I just started 3 weeks ago, first batch May 13th). So to my best estimation I'm still under triple-digit territory, and much of the materials will last over many batches and of course the equipment is one time. I hope I won't be spending more than $100-$200 per month after the initial effort to get the equipment and get raw materials stocks up.

I'm considering possibly selling my soap at some point, and after all how long can you continue soapmaking as a hobby without trying to recoup some of your materials costs? At present my results are less than sellable quality but perhaps by batch 12 or 15 I might have my first sufficiently sophisticated product.

So is there a nice UPS, FedEx or USPS truck in your near future CiCi? And I hope your expenditures are so high because you're selling a lot of stuff.

 

[Guest]

Jeez, UPS finally delievered, and it's after 8 PM!!! That poor SOB has been on his truck since 6:52 AM, over 13 hours!!!

I don't know how they do it.

Well I got my bentonite, got my stearic acid (for transparent), got my bees wax and mind your own bees wax, and got my raw cocoa butter CB and honestly it didn't have much aroma. I thought it was supposed to smell like chocolate...

Those UPS guys... Couldn't pay me enough...

 

[kwahlne]

I ordered from WSP for the first time. Does anyone know how their turnaround time is normally? I ordered MOnday and I still haven't gotten an email stating that they've shipped! I was hoping to get it by the weekend, but it doesn't look like it's going to happen.

 

[Laurie]

I have only ordered once from them. Same thing, I never heard from them or got email so I phoned and she confirmed it was on the way. It came exactly when it was suppose to.

I'm in Canada but this was to an american addres where I was going to visit.

Laurie

 

[Guest]

I ordered from WSP on Friday the 23rd in the evening. They emailed an acknowledgment on Saturday the 24th. Monday the 26th was Memorial Day. They shipped on Tuesday the 27th. So in my opinion they shipped the next business day after they received my order.

Note that they DID NOT send me any notice that the order had shipped. The only email I got was that the order had been acknowledged.

Once shipped you can access your account at WSP and get the tracking number. Then you can use the UPS calculator to determine your arrival date. Or once UPS has the package your tracking tells you the expected delivery date.

WSP met my standards for getting my order shipped the next business day at the latest. I would typically expect that orders placed very early in the day should go out same day. Of course 1 or 2 person outfits cannot comply with that, but WSP is much larger.

My advice is that you should access your WSP account and see what's up.

 

[kwahlne]

Thanks guys! I did just check online through my account and it showed that it was shipped, scheduled to arrive tomorrow! yea! I will have it in time for the weekend!

 

[Guest]

Good! I'm bummed out because my WSP won't be here until Monday, not in time for the weekend. It has a bunch of EOs and FOs that I *NEED*!!!

If darned Santa Claus hadn't taken this Monday off I'd be getting my stuff before the weekend too. Hrmmm..... We have a game meat store here in the valley... I wonder if they have reindeer meat. Maybe I can have Rudolph for dinner. That'll fix old Claus.

I'm thinking of driving over to Whole Foods Market again for their expensive EOs. Otherwise I have very little to scent any batches before Monday, and I want to have another go at swirling.