What soapy thing have you done today?

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A friend called and asked if I could make some soap for her daughter's wedding in 5 weeks! Fortunately, she just wanted some for welcome bags for out of town guests (25 bars or so?) and I had enough cured that she liked for that. I made a batch of white cold process (eek- y'all keep your fingers crossed, I'm not too good at that) just in case. I used a fo bottle of cucumber mint which it turns out I don't like- I'll be glad to give them away. Hope she likes them....
 
Soapy stuff from Sunday: Shrink wrapped another 45 bars of soap.

May I ask @earlene what you did to your hand. Hope it gets better
First I had surgery on April 7th to repair my skier's thumb & removal of ganglion cyst in pinky finger (@ second joint). Ongoing therapy for the hand has been going quite well, but thumb takes months to reach optimal function. Then a week ago (actually 10 days now) I fell forward while running up the basement stairs (yeah, I know, stupid action - running up stairs) and jammed the 4th & 5th fingers straight-on against the stair step. Jamming fingers is bad enough, but the surgical pinky is the 5th digit, so you can imagine how excruciating this was. Bad strains such as this can take a long time to repair, but thankfully nothing was broken, and I can still use my fingers, but the post surgical swellling that had finally gone away has now been replaced by this new injury swelling. So all the bruising and swelling and pain from the new trauma is making use of the hand uncomfortable.

So I am actively working the fingers in spite of the old school rest & immobilize advice because I know how difficult long-term immobilization makes recovery of the affected parts once movement is re-initiated. A month in a cast had made my hand, wrist and fingers so weak and allowed deep scar tissue to form in my thumb & pinky finger that I am unwilling to subject my fingers to long-term immobilization again. My Occupational Therapist added some exercises back into my regimen to deal with the re-injury and fully encourages this plan of action.

Edit: spelling
 
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Soapy stuff from Sunday: Shrink wrapped another 45 bars of soap.


First I had surgery on April 7th to repair my skier's thumb & removal of ganglion cyst in pinky finger (@ second joint). Ongoing therapy for the hand has been going quite well, but thumb takes months to reach optimal function. Then a week ago (actually 10 days now) I feel forward while running up the basement stairs (yeah, I know, stupid action - running up stairs) and jammed the 4th & 5th fingers straight-on against the stair step. Jamming fingers is bad enough, but the surgical pinky is the 5th digit, so you can imagine how excruciating this was. Bad strains such as this can take a long time to repair, but thankfully nothing was broken, and I can still use my fingers, but the post surgical swellling that had finally gone away has now been replaced by this new injury swelling. So all the bruising and swelling and pain from the new trauma is making use of the hand uncomfortable.

So I am actively working the fingers in spite of the old school rest & immobilize advice because I know how difficult long-term immobilization makes recovery of the affected parts once movement is re-initiated. A month in a cast had made my hand, wrist and fingers so weak and allowed deep scar tissue to form in my thumb & pinky finger that I am unwilling to subject my fingers to long-term immobilization again. My Occupational Therapist added some exercises back into my regimen to deal with the re-injury and fully encourages this plan of action.
Oh, that doesn't sound like fun at all... the pain from falling up stairs (something I'm good at - falling up stairs) and landing on hand would be excruciating. Keep the OT up. I agree that immobility seems to make things weaker. child#3 broke wrist last year and took a while to get her strength back. She's fallen (roller skating - obsessed with Roller Derby) on same wrist since and has had to do exercises to build strength up again. No comparison to such an acute injury though.

I do hope you have no more falls and sending you healing, strength, light and rainbow energy for recovery. 💪💥💛🌈🙏🙏💛💚
 
Didn't make any soap yesterday, but I did Master Batch 40 lbs of Oils/Butters and 13 lbs of 33% Lye Solution. Unmolded and cut the soap from Saturday, scrubbed my cart down inside and out, reorganized my scents and colorants, did a partial inventory and washed all my soaping equipment (since it had been awhile since I had used it).
 
Finally found the time to make my Aleppo soap yesterday it took a while to achieve trace but I enjoyed the fact that you can relax while stick blending. After unmolding it was already hard and ready to be cut and stamped. I just love the scent
 

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Soapy stuff from Sunday: Shrink wrapped another 45 bars of soap.


First I had surgery on April 7th to repair my skier's thumb & removal of ganglion cyst in pinky finger (@ second joint). Ongoing therapy for the hand has been going quite well, but thumb takes months to reach optimal function. Then a week ago (actually 10 days now) I fell forward while running up the basement stairs (yeah, I know, stupid action - running up stairs) and jammed the 4th & 5th fingers straight-on against the stair step. Jamming fingers is bad enough, but the surgical pinky is the 5th digit, so you can imagine how excruciating this was. Bad strains such as this can take a long time to repair, but thankfully nothing was broken, and I can still use my fingers, but the post surgical swellling that had finally gone away has now been replaced by this new injury swelling. So all the bruising and swelling and pain from the new trauma is making use of the hand uncomfortable.

So I am actively working the fingers in spite of the old school rest & immobilize advice because I know how difficult long-term immobilization makes recovery of the affected parts once movement is re-initiated. A month in a cast had made my hand, wrist and fingers so weak and allowed deep scar tissue to form in my thumb & pinky finger that I am unwilling to subject my fingers to long-term immobilization again. My Occupational Therapist added some exercises back into my regimen to deal with the re-injury and fully encourages this plan of action.

Edit: spelling
I hope you feel better soon and heal quickly!

I updated my inventory and posted new soaps to my website. I hope to get a few soaps made soon, but trying for packaging the ones I have this week, and making some bath bombs.
 
Finally found the time to make my Aleppo soap yesterday it took a while to achieve trace but I enjoyed the fact that you can relax while stick blending. After unmolding it was already hard and ready to be cut and stamped. I just love the scent

Pretty Aleppo!
May I ask what percentage of Laurel Berry Oil (LBO) you used and what your lye concentration was? I've been experimenting with Aleppo using a 50/50 LBO/OO with various lye concentrations and it traces unbelievably fast for me. I started with a 40% lye con (barely got it in the mold) and have since tried 37, 33, 30, and 28% The 28% is still in the mold after 11 days so I won't do that again. I like the way the 50/50 feels on my skin and the lather is great, but the scent first thing in the morning makes me gag. The last three batches I started experimenting with some EO blends and EO/FO blend. So far the EO/FO blend (NS Earth Meets Sky & Spearmint FO) is covering the LBO quite well.
 
Experimenting with Zany's No Slime Castile using Playalinda Beach seawater.

I made up some of the faux seawater but decided to go to the beach and get the real deal. I was planning to meet up with some family members and thought I could just leave my house early and swing by the beach on the way to the meet. I packed up some very large Bunn coffee filters, two jugs and a funnel and off I went. Unfortunately, I wore capris instead of shorts and couldn't get them pulled up high enough to avoid the waves so my pants got soaked. Needless to say, I got the water but had to drive all the way back to my house in my underwear before I could meet my family!!

Next time, I'm going to take a water collection bucket in addition to the containers I filter the water into. The collection bucket needs to have a large mouth to collect the seawater fast. I wouldn't have gotten so wet if I didn't have to stay in the water so long filling up a small-mouth jug. I'm also going to take a chair or towel to sit on so I can enjoy the clean ocean air and listen to the waves for a bit.
 
Pretty Aleppo!
May I ask what percentage of Laurel Berry Oil (LBO) you used and what your lye concentration was? I've been experimenting with Aleppo using a 50/50 LBO/OO with various lye concentrations and it traces unbelievably fast for me. I started with a 40% lye con (barely got it in the mold) and have since tried 37, 33, 30, and 28% The 28% is still in the mold after 11 days so I won't do that again. I like the way the 50/50 feels on my skin and the lather is great, but the scent first thing in the morning makes me gag. The last three batches I started experimenting with some EO blends and EO/FO blend. So far the EO/FO blend (NS Earth Meets Sky & Spearmint FO) is covering the LBO quite well.
I have a verry sensitive skin and have used a 50/50 Aleppo soap before wich was too much for me so I made this one with 21.62 percent of laurel fruit oil at a 27.59 lye concentration
 
A random side note: Lauric acid, the main fatty acid in coconut, palm kernel oil, babaçu…, is named after laurel. Laurel is also the only major source of lauric acid that isn't a palm tree. (There were experiments with genetically modified canola to produce lauric acid in temperate climates, but they were abandoned because coconut and palm kernel oil are so cheap.)
50% laurel oil equals about 25% coconut oil in the content of lauric acid, which is considered the main irritant in high-“cleansing” soaps.
 
I lost track of how many soaps I shrink wrapped yesterday. I was at 24 when I stopped counting and took a morning break. Later I boxed up a bunch to move them to the area where they will wait until I can finish the labeling process. I did more shrink wrapping as the day wore on, but I never consciously added up the day's count, and now I just have no clue. I already started more this morning & decided to accept that yesterday's total is irrelevant. However, I do now have two boot boxes full of shrink wrapped soaps that I need to label and I am not done yet.

Later today, the electronic fence will be installed over at the other house, so I'll be there for a good part of the day & doing less soapy stuff.
 
Only soapy plotting going on here at the moment, nothing to show for it yet!
I have at least one idea to try out for the confetti un-challenge, and I designed a small soap/shampoo bar single mould which I'm going to make when the printer gets through its backlog of chicken door components...
 
Only soapy plotting going on here at the moment, nothing to show for it yet!
I have at least one idea to try out for the confetti un-challenge, and I designed a small soap/shampoo bar single mould which I'm going to make when the printer gets through its backlog of chicken door components...
Chicken door?!
 
Chicken door?!
Another non-soapy project unfortunately! Making an automatic door opener for the chickens:
IMG_20210710_163140.jpg
So far you still have to press a button, but it beats going through the run to open the door manually (and risking the rooster gauntlet). Next version will hopefully open automatically when it gets bright in the morning, after I figure out how to hook up those sensors...
 

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