A Fitting End...

A big thank you from Sandbar Soaps. 2009 has been a really wonderful year. Packed to the brim from beginning to end. 2010 is shaping up to be every bit as exciting if not more!

Feeling A Little Bloated?

We've all been there, friend.

This bath fizzy is super cute, even though he turned out looking a little more like a marshmallow peep than a ginger bread man. But he smells heavenly. I can hear some of you out there though. Grumblers and mutterers. "Why isn't he brown?"

He is not brown, because nobody likes to bathe in brown water, mate.

Next up, the bar version on the doggie bone soaps from the other day.

Would you believe this is a hot process bar? Beautiful. - H

Sweet smelling soapies.

Way too much fun. Two totally different soaps for custom orders.


These cute little bones are for a dog loving family. Gingersnap scented with oatmeal and a smidge of cinnamon. It's a really nice bar that gets a real boost from some really great oils including cocoa butter, apricot kernel and shea butter.

Cute little jelly beans. They smell just like them too. - H

Extreme Makeover - Soap Edition

I have been working hard on an order for a local customer. Part of the fun of this soap is that I am using an all natural colorant called Alkanet Root.

My first loaf was supposed to turn a dark purple.



I'm sure you are familiar with the color purple. But just in case... this bar of soap is not purple. Not in the least. This loaf isn't going to be delivered to my customer. Which is a shame.

Now, soapmakers everywhere have the mixed blessing of having soap ends, scraps etc. **coming out of their ears.** On the bright side, I always use my own soap. But, you know, sometimes you want to use the really good stuff... and not just the ends. And not the unpurple ones either.

So we gave this baby a makeover:

The Reveal



Ummmm... how cute is that?
Super cute.

I got a bunch of autumn colors and I'm sure I'll be sharing more! :) - H

Lots of catching up to do!

Well, I've been having loads of fun in soap-land. But the blog has been neglected.

So here is the roundup of my soap fun to date:

I have a new wholesale customer, and I end up with teeny tiny pieces of soap leftover. So... I turned the scraps into a lovely pink grapefruit, lime loaf with undertones of lavender (the scent in the scraps.)


Then, we have a photo of the 5 lb loaf of lavender cold processed soap.


And finally... the party favors I made for my daughter's birthday party. Scented Almond Biscotti. The kids loved them. :)


Enjoy! - H

Getting jello with it.

Got creative this week with a mold. I figured out how to make a barrier using wrapped jello boxes to make three different kinds of soap in one log mold. This soap is all natural lavender colored with alkanet root.

The whole log...
Here's a swirled bar from the middle section. Lovely! - H

The eyes have it!

Don't for a minute think that I thought of this myself. Check out http://soapylove.blogspot.com. Soapylove is Debbie Chialtas. She is super creative and has a new book out with tons of ideas for melt and pour soap projects.

And if I'm lucky... I'll win a signed copy. You're like butteh Debbie. (And I'm like cheese.)

Up to my eyeballs in eyeballs. Har. These are for the crazy kids at Compost It. - H

Pure white soap goodness

This lovely soap is going to be shredded, dried, and turned into a natural laundry detergent.

These beauties are a lavender swirl with lavender buds.



Happy Weekend! - H

p.s. - The molds didn't work out. Yesterday was trash day so... no pix.

Mold. The Good Kind.

Hi friends!

Today, I'm trying my hand at mold making. This is my first try and definitely an experiment.

The first layer of this mold is curing and will hopefully be ready for me to finish in about two hours. I hope to be able to test this in the morning.



Stay tuned! - H

Marbled? Or Jackson Pollock, you decide.

I had lots of extra colors that needed to be used so I tested out Anne-Marie's (aka The Soap Queen) marbling tutorial. Found here. :) - H

More layered soap

Tomorrow is the first day of school! That means I'll have nothing but time to myself!

WRONG!!

WRONGITTY WRONG WRONGO!

But I will be turning my personal ship (my life, people) and I'm a gonna get back on a schedule. That means an 8:30 workout whether the 2 year old approves or not. (I'm predicting that I get screamed at by said 2 year old while I'm trying to get my heart rate up. But that's ok. My new mantra is "you can come back when you're ready to be happy."

Meanwhile... I've managed to squeeze in a little soap. I've actually been veeery busy working on prototypes for a potential client. Which has been very fun and informative. Sneak peek below. - H

Kid Stuff

School starts next week so I'm monkeying around and making prototypes and things.

Here you have half an eyeball...

It's my take on a Soap-Queen tutorial posted today!

I want one for myself!

Here's today's project, and frankly, I'm amazed. I loved this soap so much, that I filled up my pot with water... let it soak up the soap left over in the pot... and I bottled the water to keep for myself. That's insane. But true.

Oils of palm, coconut, olive, shea, cocoa butter, sweet almond, jojoba, oatmeal, honey, calendula petals, chamomile extract and calendula extract. - H

Who knew soap could be so sassy looking?

But there you go. This was fun to make. - H

Knitting yarn soap

I tried a new glycerin soap yesterday. I love the mold (I got it from Bramble Berry) the bars are a lot bigger than I thought. Which is a good thing considering the detail on it.

Not the greatest picture, but I was in low light and I haven't had the opportunity to take more yet.



I scented it with Buttercream and Snickerdoodle, just because I thought is was fun. They smell yummy.

I almost forgot to update you on my cool treat from the Farmer's Market in Friday Harbor!




This is called "Bone Garden - Summer" I love it. Some people view this as "gothy" but I don't. It's more themed around Day of the Dead art than anything I suppose, but I'm not the artist so who am I to say. Anyway, I love it. It's one in a set of four. There is one for every season, and this one is the summer print. When fall hits I am going to get the fall print and so on until I have all four. (Collect them all!!!) Har. The artist is Rosa Blair who is here in Friday Harbor.

- H

The cupcake reveal...

I am really happy with how my cupcake soaps turned out. Two are already gone. And I think I want to give one to my mom... so maybe I should just plan on making another batch right away. I am not known for my cake decorating skills, so the frosting isn't perfect looking, but I'm satisfied.



If it weren't for the fragrance oil, these would be all natural. The bottom is carrot cake scented, with cocoa butter, cinnamon and honey. The top is cream cheese frosting scented with shea butter.



Think next time I'll do a swirl frosting. Looks better, I think. - H

Hello beautiful, and goodbye sweet babies.

I am attempting to make my version of cupcake soaps this weekend. So far so good.


This is the bottom. It's a really yummy, rustic soap filled with honey, oats and cinnamon. I did add scent to it for the whole "cupcake effect." The scent? CARROT CAAAAAKE! It gets better... I've got Cream Cheese Frosting scent that will go on top. Well... the scent won't go on top, but the soap that I pipe onto the cupcakes to frost them will be. Oh yeah.

Now, I need to calm down a little, because this is my first try at cupcake soap. And let me tell you, there are some pretty amazing cupcake soaps out there. And if I have a disaster trying to get the frosting "just right" well... we won't go there. Yet.

Next up...



These lovelies are going to Compost It this weekend. If I can get the ingredient labels printed. the light-colored soaps in the back row are all natural Ylang Ylang. I'm not a fan of the scent, but the soaps turned out great. The small brown bars are all natural oat and honey bars. The large bars just haven't been cut yet. Isn't the coloring interesting in the bars? I added the honey in the large bars a little later than I usually do in the soapmaking process, so they are a lighter color. And I have some Orca soaps going to Compost It as well. Fun!

I'll be sure to post when I get the "frosting" on those beauties. Stay tuned. - H

Cute as a bug.

Like my super-cute prototype ladybug?



Other cute things...

This jar of Peach Vanilla Bean jam I bought at the Farmer's Market.


And this tea! Hand blended by Amanda of Isla Botanica. I wish I would have taken a picture of the package it came in, but I forgot. I gave it to a friend. And saved half for myself. Yum.

It's a black tea called Vanilla rose. Real locally harvested rose in there. Amazing. Click on the image for a closer look. Seriously. There's a rose petal in there that looks like a seashell.

All for now. - H

Gah! I am like, so bisseh!

Or at least it feels that way.

So, you know when you are looking through your pictures and you think, "oh, I need to blog about that." Or, "oh, I totally forgot to blog about that." Those are the times when you've been ignoring your bloggy duties.

Granted, blogging isn't going to get my laundry done, or mow the yard so... I mow. Instead of blog. (Hey! Wake up out there! I'm talking!)

So this week, I'm working on soaps for Compost It. Compost It is a shop here in Friday Harbor that carries all sorts of neat stuff. Huge variety of things that are fun, handy, local goods, environmentally sound goods, you get the picture. Really good stuff.

I've been buying a good chunk of essential oils from them for my soaps. Did I mention that they are selling my soap in their shop? How cool is that? They carry mini bars of mine, and also my Orca Soaps.

The shop!

Look! A composter that says "Compost It!" Clever sharks.

So when you come to Friday Harbor, and I know you will, go to Compost It.

Did you know, that when I make an oatmeal soap, I hand grind the oats so that you get yummy exfoliation without getting too scratchy? Well. Know you know.

I know I've got much more to blog about, but I'm plum out of words. You know where to find me. - H

Surprisingly productive.

I'm not going to gripe about the weather (right now) but I will say that it has been HOT!

Funny thing about soap and temperature... if you have the temperature wrong... bad things happen.

Have you ever seen a bar of soap sweat before? It ain't pretty. It's natural and all, it's just not aesthetically pleasing to most people. So making soap (and other things that melt really easily) was out of the question for part of this week.

Today, I put together some baby shower favor soaps for a friend of mine. I think they turned out pretty well.



Side view. So important.


My neighbors must think I'm so crazy. Always taking pictures of plates in the yard.

On Tuesday, I made up a batch of Oatmeal, Milk and Honey Soap. I cooked this one up this time so that it can be used right away.


Turned out really nice. - H

You're my favorite mistake...

It was such a great loaf. And sure enough... I sabotaged myself. You heard me. I loved it so much I was afraid to cut it. So I waited. Too long. And the layers split. Boo hoo. - H

Yum. That's it... yum.

So I've continued to play with my melt and pour soap. Last night... I made a yummy, yummy layered bar. It's amazing.

I afraid to cut it into bars and ruin it. So get this... the top and bottom layers are scented like fresh baked bread, the white layers are cream cheese frosting scent, and the other layers are chocolate espresso scented. This soap smells like those Italian Wafer cookies called Quadratini. - H

Panda, Peppermint and comparisons.

I had a good soapy day on Friday.

So kids, this is a great picture to point out the differences in soap types. Clearly, the panda is a different kind of soap altogether. It comes from a glycerin base, and although, there's still work involved, it's much less toxic when you're making it. I hate to compare it to fimo... but that's my mental comparison. The polymer clay of soaping, if you will. You can do a lot creatively with it and the end product depends on the individual making it. I make skeleton guys and pandas. There you go.

Now notice there are three bars of green soap in the picture above. The two on the left are a cold processed peppermint soap.

I mixed a lye/water mixture with palm oil, coconut oil, shea butter, olive oil and apricot kernel oil. Then I blend it until it reaches a thickened state.


I do this when the kids aren't around. Once it's the right consistency, I add peppermint essential oil colorant, and poppy seeds for mild exfoliant. then they get poured into molds.

After three days, they look great like in the first image. They come out of the molds and dry out for about 4 weeks. I've tested the pH levels and they're good! They drier your bar of soap is, the longer it will last. And make sure you have a good draining soap dish. Nobody likes a soggy bar of soap.

The soap on the right side of the image was cooked instead of being poured into molds. Hot Process. Once it reached the right consistency and pH levels, I put it into a paper lined mold. It's a pain to mold. It's really thick and sticky... and I have to pound the mold against the floor for a while to get as much air out as I can. I bevel the bars once they're done & they can be used right away. But they aren't as fine grained as the cold processed bar. Still great, just different.

So there you have it. Soap 101. - H

Eerily Cute.

Don't say I didn't warn you.



I'll explain how this little guy cam into being in a day or so. Those berries are white currants, by the way.

- H

Prototypical

Well, I should be working on a couple of bars of Peppermint soap for a friend, but this melt & pour stuff is all new to me, so I can't help but to play with it.


Cool, huh? I was thinking maybe sometime I'd do a blue shell on a white background. Whoa. - H

Anybody got any good Orca jokes?

Alright! So my next challenge is Orca Soap! This is unlike the cold process/hot process soaps made from scratch that I'm used to. It's a molded soap using a melt & pour glycerin soap base.

I made a bar last night that was... meh. This morning's attempt turned out much better.



It took a few tries of figuring out what color gets poured when... but I'm really pleased with the end result. - H

And that's a wrap!

Phew! Got the wrapping all done! Thanks so much to all of my friends who gave me input. It really helped. If all of the pieces fall where they are supposed to... I'll get these delivered today!

Not sure if I'll have anything to post until Monday at the soonest... so enjoy your weekends! - H

Round two of the label vote

Ok! So We're going with door number two! Seemed the consensus was to try out a different font. I got all of these fonts at fontspace.com.

Here are our beautiful contestants:

This lovely font is my favorite. It is called "Teaspoon" and it was created by Haley Fiege. Her website is called kingdomofawesome.com. It is. Check it out.

This font is called "Rickles"... so I had to get it. Created by Font Diner.

"Lemon Chicken" by Crack-a-Jack Studios, www.crack-a-jack.com. I think they're in Australia.

"akafrivolity" by James Milligan (akaType.) He has some other cool fonts too.

I like to call this A Very Brady Font, but it's called "Cheri."Created by Ben Balvanz (Font-a-licious.) He's got a bunch fonts on there. And by a bunch, I mean pages & pages. And they're all good. So thanks for helping me. I need all the help I can get! LOL -H