What soapy thing have you done today?

[AliOop]

@Zing many thanks to you and @Misschief for the compliment; most people use other S-words about my personality (sarcastic, sassy, smart-aleck) so I will treasure those.

Regarding the blue and brown soap, I will just assume you are egging me on to re-display my 2nd-place finish in the January 2022 SMF Challenge.

 

[The_Emerald_Chicken]

ETA: Oh yeah, and I also wrapped and labeled all my V-day soaps for our upcoming Ladies' Luncheon.

View attachment 64374

I like these wrappers, and the black & white swirl on the right is so elegant!

Today was my mom's family's annual hog butchering day. Yep, we rendered some lard. I haven't used "homemade" lard in my soap yet, but I'm eager to try it.

 

[Zing]

I made a batch of lotion bars today. I started the year doing "Operation Empty Cupboard" (where I use up ingredients before purchasing new). The good news is I used up an ingredient. The bad news is is that that ingredient was mango butter I barely had enough for a whoppin' 5 bars. Mango is a recent discovery that is a game changer. Also used equal parts beeswax and jojoba, scented with clove bud essential oil.

 

[KiwiMoose]

I revisited the tall and skinny shimmy challenge today! About a year ago I entered the challenge but was hindered by an accelerating fragrance oil, so this time I used a slow-mover. The pour was a success! So now we wait until tomorrow for the cut to see what it looks like. I'm not convinced it will be right - because the pour of each 'shimmy' tends to go right across the bottom of the mold as you switch the tilt from one side to the other. We shall see...

 

[TashaBird]

Did all the prep for a quadruple pull through tomorrow. (Master batching was done earlier.) it took all day, at a chill pace, but still! I’m not sure where I found the energy. I think it’s cause I ate chicken livers. I do enjoy this part, sort of. It’s not stressful at all. No racing time.
Then I made this TikTok, cause the song is cute. And it’s true! I should actually calculate the hours, including master batching AND clean up, packaging etc… “that’ll be $100 for your bar of soap”
(TW: naughty word.)

 

[LynetteO]

Finished gluing & assembling 36 little Valentine’s Day gifts for teachers & staff for Monday!

 

[KiwiMoose]

Looky look what I got today! A new soap stamp!

 

[scmorgans]

Looky look what I got today! A new soap stamp!
View attachment 64394

Curious, at what stage/timing, can you use your stamp successfully? I have one for my soap but have had limited success.

 

[ResolvableOwl]

Yesterday I succumbed the relentless propaganda of a certain person around here, and made my first lotion bar! 33% of each beeswax, mango butter, and mustard oil (in lieu of meadowfoam). The last % is a lovely blend of tea tree, lemon tea tree, and juniper EOs.
The smell is somewhat citrusy-coniferous, with not the slightest hint of the medicinal tea tree or pungent mustard odours, nor the gin vibes of overdosed juniper EO.

@Zing To comfort you a bit: my mango butter reserves have declined to a lousy 131 g. Not planning to use it all up any time soon, though.

When does your self-imposed “beginning of the year” end? Black Friday? (Or, inversely, who decides when the cupboards are empty?)

@KiwiMoose That stamp isn't exactly T&S optimised, or is it?

 

[LynetteO]

Looky look what I got today! A new soap stamp!
View attachment 64394

It’s FANTABULOUS!

 

[Zing]

Finished gluing & assembling 36 little Valentine’s Day gifts for teachers & staff for Monday!

This child of and relative of educators thanks you!

Looky look what I got today! A new soap stamp!
View attachment 64394

The stamp is incredible and so it the psychadelic tie-dyed design!

Yesterday I succumbed the relentless propaganda of a certain person around here, and made my first lotion bar! 33% of each beeswax, mango butter, and mustard oil (in lieu of meadowfoam). The last % is a lovely blend of tea tree, lemon tea tree, and juniper EOs.

When does your self-imposed “beginning of the year” end? Black Friday? (Or, inversely, who decides when the cupboards are empty?)

LMAO!! At first I thought you were referencing your spouse/house mate and then I realized, oh wait! Congrats on your first lotion bar! I'm intrigued by mustard oil and your eo blend. I do like citrusy-coniferous blends, too. Glad to have one more convert!

Operation Empty Cupboard goes until, um, the cupboards are empty in my soap shop! It's the time to use up the dribs and drabs of various ingredients before purchasing new ones. Time to use up the silk, hydrogenated castor oil, carrot extract, etc. I've explained before that Mrs. Zing starts the new year with Operation Empty Cupboard in her kitchen and gets real creative with recipes and combinations. She has one friend who likes to sneak in an exotic (to us) product into the cupboard -- like canned quail eggs or mustard oil -- just to push the envelope on her creativity.

 

[Catscankim]

Just got back from my first market. I learned a few things, and I don't know how to say most of it without cursing

People are jerks. I get there about a half hour before set up start time because I wasn't sure of the "seating arrangement". Found our spot. Instructions specifically said...unload your car and move your car, then come back and set up..so that other people can get in.

Literally being the first ones there, we were the last ones to set up our stuff, because we obeyed the rules and moved our truck. But then this jerk stuck his truck right in our spot to unload AND set up his entire display. So playing nice, I just sat and waited. He took almost an hour to unload, plus he was setting up his spot the entire time. I turned around to John "am I gonna get into a fight tonight?" (I can get a little mouthy , but i didn't lol).

Finally the coordinator came over to tell him to move his OVERSIZED DIESEL truck out of the way. dont get me wrong, it was a really nice truck, but the diesel smell was getting to me. He starts arguing with her. His wife was really nice though.

Otherwise I did ok as far as sales. I sell more to people otherwise. A lot of work for it though LOL. I dunno that I'd ever do another market again. Definitely not quitting my day job for it...

A lady walked up to my table early on (while I was still nervous), and started harrassing me about micas, palm oil and child labor, and orangutans ...first of all, I didn't have any soaps with palm oil on display. All lard bars. Shes like "don't you know you can use clays??" So I showed her two bars made with only clay and a few AC bars. She is really trying to pick a fight, I was good though LOL.

Eventually she moved along..after she said she makes soap and wants to make sure we all knew about "this stuff" (clays). You guys would have been proud of my non reaction to her shenanigans LOL LOL. She didn't have a table there. Just making trouble

But there were two other soap makers there, we shared stories etc. Neither heard of smf so hopefully they'll be along soon.

I did learn a lesson about my packaging though. I shrink wrap them and put labels front and back, which sucks because it hides the swirls and you can't smell them. I do put a sniffy spot, but it clearly wasn't enough to keep peoples noses off of them because they tended to REALLY stick the soap up to their nose to get a whiff. I noticed that the vendor (who had really awesome soaps btw, I even bought one from her), who had a cigar band on them...people tended to either lean in to sniff or picked the bar up by the wrapper. My totally wrapped soaps didn't pass the nose test LOL. In fact when I unwrap them to redo them, I'm going to plane off where the hole was LMBO. Plus a lot of people walking by just picked up a bar, sniffed, couldn't smell anything off the bat, and walked away. If I caught them soon enough then I would have the opportunity to show them where they could smell from.

I had quite a few people that just bee-lined for the table asking for charcoal bars. So I guess I will get busy making more of those.

I had a couple come to the table asking for something like Dr. Squatch soap. I have 3 pine tar soaps left and I actually talked them out of it. ONLY because she said she hated the smell of the squatch soap....I'm like "if you hate the smell of that, then you are REALLY gonna hate this, your whole house is going to smell like it once you unwrap it, let alone get it wet". She kept smelling the hole in the wrapper and said they actually smelled good. I offered to unwrap one for her "trust me I couldn't wait to get them re-wrapped last night". They ended up buying some barber shoppe bars for him instead. That scent was a hit for the guys.

I know I asked on here before, so I'm just gonna do a search for cigar band templates. I really think that's the way i'm gonna go, plus I despise shrink wrapping. You just couldn't smell the soaps that well. And I spent more time trying to show ppl where to find a hole in the wrapper than anything else all night. And watching people pick up a bar in passing and keep going because they couldn't smell anything was depressing, because obviously there was an interest, just not any instant gratification.

edit: sorry for the book LOL. I started it last night, then finished it just now without realizing how long my post was LOL

 

[AliOop]

@Catscankim you are nicer than I am - I would have asked that guy to move in the first two minutes. And gotten the manager if he gave me any lip.

For your cigar band labels, I highly recommend Onlinelabels.com. After calculating the cost of printing (both ink jet and laser), their pre-printed labels are very competitive in price. You still get the volume discount as long as you use the same label template across multiple recipes. So for instance, I used the same label template for two different recipes. I got the lower price for 100 labels of the same type, even though they were split into two batches of 50 each. I just left a blank to write in the soap name so I could have multiple scents with the same base recipe. Hopefully that makes sense?

And their online designer program is pretty user-friendly. Here is the link to one of their cigar band templates. ETA: here's the link for the one where you can design it online and have them print it for you.

As for charcoal bars, I've recently started having folks ask for those, too. Time to stock up on AC while it's available and affordable.

 

[Catscankim]

@Catscankim you are nicer than I am - I would have asked that guy to move in the first two minutes. And gotten the manager if he gave me any lip.

For your cigar band labels, I highly recommend Onlinelabels.com. After calculating the cost of printing (both ink jet and laser), their pre-printed labels are very competitive in price. You still get the volume discount as long as you use the same template across multiple recipes. And their online designer program is pretty user-friendly. Here is the link to one of their cigar band templates. ETA: here's the link for the one where you can design it online and have them print it for you.

As for charcoal bars, I've recently started having folks ask for those, too. Time to stock up on AC while it's available and affordable.

Well, I figured I had to spend the next four hours next to him so I didn't want it to be uncomfortable. We just stood there with our tent halfway extended and half in the grass and half in the street. He never asked, never apologized... I am glad I didn't fight with him because after it was all set up, he disappeared for the most part and it was just his wife manning the booth. We ended up talking a lot and she gave me one of her products and I gave her a bar of soap. She was really sweet, although the product that she makes are balloon centerpieces, what am I gonna do with that? LOL. I feel sorry for her, being married to a freakin loud mouthed water buffalo. I guess opposites attract.

 

[AliOop]

Dang, I just checked the price of activated charcoal powder - INSANE. The cheapest I found is $10/lb. This stuff used to be dirt cheap, like less than $1 per pound! I still have a bunch but am ordering more now because in six months, it won't be realistic to make charcoal soap unless I burn my own wood.

 

[TheGecko]

And of course, it came with a lovely surprise gift - some pretty pink mica called "Amaranth" and a funny little meme card.

My last two orders I got Iris Purple and Wanderlust. My card I kept...it says "Wash your hands like you're washing Jason Momoa" and has a picture of him from Aqua Man. Sigh...yum.

 

[Catscankim]

My last two orders I got Iris Purple and Wanderlust. My card I kept...it says "Wash your hands like you're washing Jason Momoa" and has a picture of him from Aqua Man. Sigh...yum.

And who the hell washes their hands with their tongue???

 

[ResolvableOwl]

hydrogenated castor oil

Might I ask your plans regarding this one? I have ordered the “small” package size (500 g) for a lab-scale thingie, and am be open-minded for the exchange of use cases.

realistic to make charcoal soap unless I burn my own wood.

The charcoal I've filtered off my wood ash lye is still sitting around here. I wonder at which point it'd become profitable to sell it to fellow soapmakers?

And who the hell washes their hands with their tongue???

Cats can, Kim!

 

[AliOop]

My last two orders I got Iris Purple and Wanderlust. My card I kept...it says "Wash your hands like you're washing Jason Momoa" and has a picture of him from Aqua Man. Sigh...yum.

Mine said, "I don't always open the door, but when I do, it's because my soap supplies have arrived."

I'm like, sheesh, are they watching me??

Cats can, Kim!

Well played, Owl!!

 

[KiwiMoose]

Here are my tall and skinny shimmy soaps, just cut. See what I mean about the line going right across? How do you get it to stay just on the one half of the soap - thicker batter? Or should I just not pour as much colour in one hit? I used less of the natural colour and this stayed in its corner and did as it was told.
Still - I'm not unhappy with it as my first tall and skinny shimmy.

@ResolvableOwl please note the stamp on my tall and skinny soap
@scmorgans I stamped these right after cutting - but sometimes I stamp after a month of curing. I think it depends on your recipe and how 'pliable' the bars are.