Posted on October 9, 2017 by Vicki — 8 Comments

The Week in Soap: 8th Oct ’17 (Blogtober 9)

It’s been a quieter week on the soaping front. I was grateful for that to be honest – we had family visiting for the first half of the week, and I’ve been getting into the swing of Blogtober. Day 9 today, almost a third of the way through the month already!!

On Monday I made two double batches, both restocks, of Welsh Rose and Blodau:

Welsh Rose & Blodau (Flowers) in the mould

The Welsh Rose wasn’t my best – it accelerated a little and the colours weren’t as bright as they usually are, but it’ll be fine. The Blodau on the other hand, turned out great – this is a closeup of it in the mould which proved to be really popular on Instagram:

On Tuesday I made more restocks – double batches of Clarity and Traeth Craig Du (Black Rock Sands):

The new wire for my cutter arrived on Tuesday, and it would appear I ordered the wrong one again. AARRGGHHH It was a coiled string (?) and slightly thicker than I expected it to be. Well, we fitted it onto the cutter anyway (taking a bit of a risk but by Wednesday morning I had 12kg of soap to cut and I couldn’t risk it getting too hard) and although it IS a little too thick, it did the trick. I did a bit of research and discovered that I probably need 20 gauge wire, so I’ve ordered some and it should be here soon. What a flippin’ palaver!

On Wednesday evening I gave my regular weekly soapmaking presentation. I can’t tell you how much I enjoy giving these. It often turns into a bit of a conversation rather than a ‘talk’ and I get to indulge in waffling on about my favourite subject to a captive audience. AND then I get to sell them soap too! I’ve only got another two or three weeks to go before they stop for the winter, but the manager has already asked me to go back next season – hurrah!

Thursday was another completely soap free day, and Friday was spent in the office, cutting soap, labelling soap, wrapping soap, photographing soap etc etc….

I took some better pictures of my Christmas specials, which I’ll be sharing with you this week, and of the mountain soap (from yesterday’s post) and this one – the Blodau from earlier this week:

I realised that the reason I don’t get round to sharing cut pictures as much as the ones in the mould is that I don’t usually tidy them up until they’ve been curing for a couple of weeks, so I made and effort to try to tidy up the freshly cut bar and take a picture, and it worked ok I think:

Towards Friday evening I started to develop a sore throat which worsened as the evening went on and meant I got very little sleep on Friday night. Saturday was spent feeling ill, lethargic, weak and sorry for myself generally, and Sunday was mostly spent in bed, trying desperately to kick whatever it was that was making me feel so rubbish…

I’ll be back tomorrow, come what may, hopefully with a clearer head and body that’s more willing to co-operate!!

Vickx

Posted on October 3, 2017 by Vicki — 3 Comments

September Goals Reviewed (Blogtober 3)

I had three goals for September:

Website
Christmas Soaps
8-10 blog posts

Website

I’ve made a lot of progress, but it’s still not there. I’m really been struggling to find the time to sit down and focus on getting it ready for launch (just see yesterday’s post for how busy I was last week) but I can’t fret too much about it, I just need to keep going. It’ll get there.

Christmas Soaps

YES! 60 bars each of Candy Cane, Frosted Christmas Tree and Warm Gingerbread made last month. Last year I only made 30 bars of each, which wasn’t quite enough, so I was aiming to double that this year – boom! BUT there’s been so much interest thus far that I’ve decided to go for 90 bars of each. It’s a bit of a leap of faith, but considering the big Christmas fair I have the first weekend in December, I’d rather have too many than not enough. I’m lucky that I started making them early enough that it won’t be a problem to make more during the next couple of weeks and still have them ready for the start of the festive season.

I still haven’t taken ‘proper’ photographs of these three, but this is what I do have so far in case you’ve not seen them yet:

Publish 8-10 Blog Posts

I published 7 posts last month. Didn’t quite hit my target, but, if I’m completely honest, I was holding back a little, knowing that I would be trying to post 31 times this month. There were a few times I thought, “Ooh, that would make a good blog post” and then immediately thought “Ah, no, I should save that for next month…” Basically self-sabotage, ha!!

Back tomorrow with my goals for October – no prizes for guessing what at least two of them will be 😀

Posted on September 18, 2017 by Vicki — 9 Comments

The Week in Soap: 17th Sept ’17

It would appear that Autumn is well and truly here. There’s a chill in the air in the mornings, and we’re lighting the fire every evening. It’s also a reminder that Christmas is coming, and with it that big, three day Christmas Fair I’ve committed myself to at the beginning of December – eek! To that end, this week’s soapmaking was all holiday based: Double batches of Candy Cane, Frosted Christmas Tree and Warm Gingerbread:

Frosted Christmas Tree, Candy Cane & Warm Gingerbread in the mould

I’ve not taken ‘proper’ photographs of the cuts yet, but here’s a sneaky peek at the Frosted Christmas Tree:

And a quick (and rather rubbish – sorry!!) snap of the Warm Gingerbread (this is the previous weeks batch – this week’s moved even more quickly and I didn’t even attempt the drop!)

I had a bit of a mishap with the Candy Cane – there was a knock on the door mid-pour, and instead of ignoring it I went to answer it, thinking that the soap batter was nice and fluid and I could leave it a moment or two… There’s a lesson learnt – I was away from the soap just that little bit too long and when I came back it had thickened up too much to finish off the drop swirl, arrghhhhh….

Bath bombs are a relatively new thing for me and I’ve always found them a little tedious to make to be honest. Last Friday I made 90 of them, and I seemed to be quicker this time. I guess practice does make perfect (still need a LOT of practice though :-D) They were pretty trouble free, except for one variety, but that’s a story for another day…

I also packaged up another 100 guest soaps, and bevelled a load more – there’s confetti soap on the horizon I reckon:

On a personal note, the highlight of the week was earning my green belt in kickboxing on Monday night:

Unfortunately I didn’t feel quite so kickass when I got to training on Wednesday night and discovered exactly what I’m going to have to do to earn my blue belt – there’s some hard work ahead of me!!

If you have a soap (or bath & body) blog, please do join our Soapmaking Bloggers facebook page (and maybe even consider taking part in Blogtober Soapers? ;-D)

Have a great week everyone, I’ll be back soon.

Posted on September 13, 2017 by Vicki — 8 Comments

Introducing… Sugar Drops

One of my soaps used to make me a little sad. It smelled divine (no, I know I say that about all of them, but trust me on this one…) but it just didn’t sell well. It’s fragranced with a dupe of Aquolina’s Pink Sugar perfume: think candy floss, caramel, vanilla blended with strawberry jam and musk with top notes of lemon drops and brown sugar. It really is lovely.

The high vanilla content in the fragrance oil means that it will naturally turn the soap brown, so while I use my regular drop swirl design, I only add FO to two thirds of the soap batter (one third with Titanium Dioxide, one third with no colour) and leave the pink portion fragrance free:

I became convinced that the reason it wasn’t selling was because of its name: First Kiss (so called because it’s so sweet, *groan*) It was cheesy, and the feedback was that it wasn’t something that older people would want to buy as a gift, even if they liked the scent.

I needed some help to come up with something better, so I asked the good folk of Instagram, and was lucky enough to be given load of great suggestions. The one I went with was Sugar Drops, suggested by @nightwingbeth. I liked that it still implied sweetness, and also referenced the Drop Swirl design.

So there we go – First Kiss has been relegated to history, step forward Sugar Drops.

Thanks for reading, back soon!

Posted on September 12, 2017 by Vicki — 1 Comment

An Outdoor Adventure – The Week in Soap 10th Sept, ’17

It’s Tuesday eve, and I think I’m pushing the time limit for posting a round-up of last week, so I’m going to make this a quickie…

The main focus of the beginning of last week was ‘Back to School’, which didn’t actually happen until Tuesday, when both kids headed into school with a quick kiss and barely a look back. I gave a little jump for joy, and headed straight into the soap kitchen to make soap. Mostly restocks (double batches of Bewitched & Luscious Lavender) but also made some progress on the Christmas stock – a double batch of Warm Gingerbread which, as per the test batch, moved really quickly, but I managed to get a small drop element in there. Cut photos to come next week I hope…

Bewitched, Warm Gingerbread & Luscious Lavender

I added a little mica swirl on the top of the Warm Gingerbread, just for some added interest:

Wednesday and Thursday I was at the (part-time) day job, but managed to find some time to start on cutting, bevelling, wrapping and labelling a big order of mini guest bars.

The rest of the week was spent doing the usual soapy stuff, including spending as much time as I could uploading info and photos to the website – I think I’m still on track to launch at the beginning of October *crosses fingers*

Friday… Friday was kind of special, and had been planned for a while. Before having children my husband and I used to do a lot of hill / mountain walking, but we’d not been to the top of a mountain for about eight years. With both kids in school, we packed a lunch and off we went. The weather wasn’t great and we got a good soaking on the way up, but the weather cleared at the summit and we were rewarded with a lovely view. We descended in sunshine and were dry before we got home. It was absolute heaven, and we’re already planning the next one…

Posted on September 12, 2017 by Vicki — 1 Comment

An Outdoor Adventure – The Week in Soap 10th Sept, ’17

It’s Tuesday eve, and I think I’m pushing the time limit for posting a round-up of last week, so I’m going to make this a quickie…

I added a little mica swirl on the top of the Warm Gingerbread, just for some added interest:

Wednesday and Thursday I was at the (part-time) day job, but managed to find some time to start on cutting, bevelling, wrapping and labelling a big order of mini guest bars.

Posted on September 3, 2017 by Vicki — 7 Comments

A Soapy Disaster – The Week in Soap: 3rd Sept, 2017

The last week of the school holidays didn’t give me much time to devote to the business. I made some soap, wrapped a few bars and uploaded a few items to the pending website and had one, massive, disaster. But more of that later.

I didn’t make a lot of soap this week but I did make a double batch of Tutti Frutti. Here it’s in the mould, before and after the top swirl:

And the cut. I think I tried to be a bit too clever this time. I wanted the colours to more strictly follow the order of the colours of the rainbow (so how did I get red next to green lol?) but to do that I had to be a little more ordered in the pouring. I think I prefer the more randomly poured swirl so. Apologies for the rubbish photograph…

I also learnt my lesson and made a TEST batch using a new fragrance. Warm Gingerbread FO is one I’m hoping to use for Christmas, and I planned small batch with a simple design just to see how it handles. I’m glad I did – the website testing notes said it would accelerate, and accelerate it did. This pic is immediately after the cut – the two bottom layers should turn a lot darker over the next few weeks because of the vanilla in the fragrance oil. I left the top layer fragrance free:

It smells delicious, and I really want to use this FO to make a drop swirl bar for Christmas, so I’m going to have to use all the acceleration-reducing tools in my arsenal – and keep my fingers crossed!!

As I’d already made a start on the Christmas bars during the previous week, Candy Cane, Star embeds for the Christmas Tree bars, and a couple of batches of Dinosoaps, I’m confident that I’m on track time-wise.

And that disaster. Urgh… I was making more of the Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon) soap. The last version was ok, but the bars weren’t uniform enough and the mountain itself didn’t really reflect reality. I intended to use the sculping soap technique (I was recently reminded of it by the incredibly creative Danica of Seife und anderes – if you like soap blogs you really should check it out), but the soap batter riced on me in seconds. I’ve used this fragrance before (and besides, the testing notes say no acceleration) so I REALLY wasn’t being reckless.

Anyway, just for the giggles :-/ I decided to try to squish it into the mould anyway. I actually had to get my hands in there to mix in the colours and colour squishing IS now a technical term. Was there the slightest possibility that it would come out acceptably rustic looking? NO. No, no no NOPE!! The soapy gremlins were well and truly esconced in my kitchen that day lol:

No, I didn’t rebatch it. Yes, I trashed it. I know, I know, one of these days I’ll have to give rebatching a go but I don’t currently have spare a slow cooker that I could do it in, and, really, I just don’t feel the rebatching love…

Thanks for reading, back very soon!

Posted on August 31, 2017 by Vicki — 10 Comments

I seem to have lost a month…

I had an inkling August would be busy. I hadn’t planned on posting often on the blog, but abandoning it for a whole month really wasn’t on the agenda either. The kids have been on holiday of course, but the soap business doesn’t stop for the summer (if anything it is busier than any other time, bar Christmas) and I’ve been frantically juggling childcare and keeping on top of the business for the last month.

I won’t dwell on it here, but the weather during August was utter pants. Seriously, it was rubbish. I had so many plans for picnics by the river, and lazy days on the beach, but it just wasn’t going to happen. We took walks in the rain, visited castles in the drizzle, and went geocaching under stormy clouds. The kids even climbed their first (small!) mountain, and loved it. Ha! Take that, weather! We had fun anyway…

As well as keeping retailers stocked up, I’ve made 330 bars of soap during August. Not as many as I would have liked, but with BOTH (finally!!) kids back at school all day as of next Tuesday, I’ll able to get back on track fairly quickly. I’m not making any Halloween bars, so it’s restocks and Christmas soaps all the way… Candy Cane proved very popular last year, so that’s what I started with:

I’ve also started on the star embeds for the Christmas Tree bars:

And Dinosoaps are back!

It really doesn’t seem right thinking about Christmas in August but last year I got caught out when retailers wanted Christmas stock in store right after Halloween (eek!) so this year I’ll be better prepared.

Oh, and do you remember that marmalade I made back in January? I entered it into our village show a couple of weeks ago, and it only went and won first prize! I knew it tasted good but absolutely didn’t expect to win anything. These aren’t the best photos but I also won firsts for my Viennese fingers, Melting Moments and Swiss Roll plus second prizes for my Victoria Sponge and Coconut & Lime Loaf:

Village Show Successes — Village Show fun!

These are the Viennese Fingers, which get their own photo because, frankly, they were bloomin’ delicious. Excuse the wonky one – only three were entered – that wasn’t one of them! If anyone wants the recipe let me know and I’ll post it – it’ll give me a great excuse to make more!!

It’s been a great month, but things will be getting back to normal here over the next few days and I’ll be glad to get back into a routine – the blogging schedule will be back on track – I promise!

Thanks for reading – all being well I’ll be back tomorrow with my goals for September.

Posted on July 21, 2017 by Vicki — 4 Comments

Want to know more about me…?

Just popping in really quickly to say that I was honoured recently to be interviewed by the fabulously talented Bee of Sorcery Soap. Check out this link to find out what we talked about!

Back soon with a full post 🙂

Posted on July 18, 2017 by Vicki — 2 Comments

The Week in Soap: 16th July, ’17

Erm… these weekly updates are getting later and later! The idea is to get these posted on the Sunday evening, but here I am tapping away at my keyboard late on Tuesday. Never mind, I suppose as long as I get it done before I forget what the heck I did last week it doesn’t really matter. Anyhow, last week was blessedly quiet – there was a bit of a lull between wholesale orders and I actually took a few evenings off, so in all honesty this is going to be a fairly quick update.

On Monday night I made a couple of double batches – one of ‘Delicious’ and one of ‘Oatmeal, Milk & Honey’

The ‘Delicious’ moved way too quickly. Entirely my fault – I had two batches of lye water – one cool, which I should have used, one still cooling, which I used in error, while it was still a bit too warm. A really silly and frustrating mistake – I wouldn’t say the whole batch is ruined but I don’t think I’ll be able to sell it at full price, which is an annoyance. I didn’t even have the heart to photograph it when I cut it, so I don’t have an image of it to share here. Maybe I’ll do a post dedicated to bloopers at some point!! I did photograph the Oatmeal, Milk & Honey though. I’ve given it a little colour make-over and swapped out the dark brown for gold – I think it better reflects the fragrance this way:

I spent some time during the week wrapping etc, but in all honesty nothing of any note happened soapy-wise until Sunday evening, when I made soap again, this time two double batches of Welsh Rose and Clarity:

I had thought to cut these today but things have picked up again and I’ve had a few wholesale orders to put together, so hopefully I’ll get some time tomorrow morning to cut and photograph them.

This is the last week of school before the summer holidays start, and I’m really looking forward to having six weeks of fun in the sun (fingers crossed!) with my two little monkeys. It shouldn’t affect my soapmaking capacity too much, as I’ve always soaped in the evenings, but we’ve got a few extended camping weekends planned which might put a spanner in the works (and will definitely affect my blogging routine) but hey ho, I’ll try to keep on top of things 😀

Don’t forget, if you have a soap related blog, or you just like reading them, why not join our Soapmaking Bloggers Facebook Group to share your posts or find new bloggers to follow.

Thanks for reading – back soon!

Posted on July 14, 2017February 26, 2023 by Vicki — 28 Comments

10 (Yes 10!) Reasons my Soap is Better than Commercial Soap

Ever since I started making soap, I’ve been asked why? Why do I bother making soap when it can be bought so cheaply in the supermarket? Clearly, first and foremost I love doing it. You know what they say – ‘Find a job you love and you’ll never work a day in your life’. There’s much more to it than that though. Traditionally crafted, handmade soap like mine is superior to commercially made soap in so SO many ways.

*Please note, the reasons listed below apply specifically to MY soaps – they may apply to many other handmade soaps, but I can’t speak for the ingredients in anyone else’s handmade products

It is vegan- (and therefore by definition, vegetarian-) friendly. I use no animal fats or derivatives, not even beeswax (which can be used in soap to give a harder bar). According to Vegan.com most commercial soaps contain some degree of animal fat derivatives (look for sodium tallowate or sodium lardate on the ingredients list)

I never use palm oil. Palm oil is a popular ingredient in both commercial and handmade soap (for good reason – it’s cheap, and makes great soap) However it is also extremely contentious, as palm oil production stands accused of the destruction of the South American rainforest, and of human rights violations due to the forced relocation of indigenous peoples. There are, of course, two sides to every story, and some soapmakers who do use palm oil have been able to source sustainable, ethically produced palm oil. There is also an argument that cutting out the use of palm oil completely could cause economic harm to those people who are employed within the palm oil industry. As I’ve never used it, this isn’t a concern for me. Palm oil will appear as sodium palmate on the ingredients list of a bar of soap should you wish to avoid it.

My soap is never, ever tested on animals, just (very!) willing humans.

Glycerin. GLYCERIN! Yep, I’m shouting. This is important. Glycerin is a byproduct of the soapmaking process, and is fantastic stuff. It’s a humectant, which means that it draws moisture from the air and helps lock it into your skin. It’s not technically a moisturiser, but it has moisturising properties. Commercial soapmakers almost always extract the glycerin during the production process for use elsewhere (eg lotions or nitroglycerin production). Glycerin is found naturally within every bar of traditional handmade soap and is one reason that people with sensitive skin CAN use handmade soap but can’t use commercial soap

Traditional, handmade soap is…. soap. Obvious right? Well yes, except that some commercially produced soap isn’t soap at all. It’s detergent. Take a look at the packaging on a Dove Beauty Bar. You won’t find the word ‘soap’ on the label because actually, it can’t legally be called soap. It’s a combination of various ingredients put together to create a detergent that closely resembles soap in appearance. Clearly all those ingredients have been approved for use on the skin so it’s not necessarily inherently bad, but many of those ingredients can cause skin irritation.

My soap does not contain parabens, sls/sles, phthalates. As above, these ingredients have been approved for use in skincare products, but they can cause skin irritation (and worse) to those with skin sensitivities, and many people will avoid them at all costs.

My soaps do not contain triclosan or any other antibacterial compounds. The use of triclosan in soap has been banned in the US, but is still permissible in the UK/EU. It was claimed in the US that antibacterial soaps were no more effective than regular soap and water and they could even play a part in increasing antibiotic resistance.

For many of the reasons listed above, my soaps are FAR gentler on your skin than commercially produced soap. If you are one of those people whose skin is sensitive to commercially made soap and you ‘can’t’ or ‘never’ use bar soap, please contact me via The Soap Mine FB page for a sample (UK only) – you may well find that you can use it without any of the problems that commercial soap can cause.

Your skin WILL notice the difference. Do you need to use a moisturiser after washing your hands with commercial bar or liquid soap? You probably won’t after using my soap. The generous amount of cocoa butter and shea butter in each and every bar, along with all that lovely glycerin, will ensure that your hands feel clean, soft and moisturised after every use.

My soap is made by hand, in small batches, with an awful lot of care and attention to detail. Yes, you will pay more for it than you would a bar of commercially made soap, but you know what? You absolutely get what you pay for.

There you go, 10 really good reasons why I believe my soap is better than commercially produced soaps. Try some 😀

2 bars of Pineapple Handmade Soap — Pineapple Handmade Soap

Posted on July 3, 2017 by Vicki — 2 Comments

The Week in Soap: 2nd July, ’17

I need to start keeping a diary of all the business related things I’ve got up to during the week. It’s Monday today, and can I remember what I did last Monday? Erm, nope…

I do of course keep a track of each soap I make for the Product Information File (PIF) so I can tell you that last Tuesday I made two double batches of soap – Bewitched and Traeth Craig Du (Black Rock Sands)…

And I even got round to photographing one of them. It traced faster than normal (or perhaps I was less careful with the stick blender, who knows?!) so it’s more a camo pour than a drop swirl, but it’s still pretty:

Bewitched, freshly cut — Bewitched freshly cut

I had two wholesale orders go out, as well as a load of mini’s for a local guest house:

On Thursday evening I made a load of bath bombs:

Saturday was a frenzy of making… My (have I mentioned how long suffering he is??!) husband took the kids out for the day, and I made soap, yet more bath bombs, another batch of facial soap AND made my first ever batch of lip balm. The soap was a couple of double batches – Luscious Lavender and Super Scrubby Peppermint:

Super Scrubby Peppermint in the Mould — Super Scrubby Peppermint

The lip balm was incredibly quick and easy – beeswax, shea butter and avocado oil with a little honey cosmetic flavour. To be honest I think I’ll leave out the flavour next time. I deliberately added very little, but it still had a bit of a synthetic tang to me. I made six tubes worth – one for me, one for Dean, and four to go out to testers. Make sure you follow my FB page if you want to be in with a chance of being a tester in the future – I have LOADS of ideas for things I want to make, as and when I have time, and they’ll all need human testers 🙂

I posted a question on Facebook and Instagram to try to find out whether people prefer tubes or tins and surprisingly it’s fairly equal between the two – if and when I do finally offer these for sale it looks like I’ll have to offer both options!

I’ve got a busy week coming up – all those bath bombs I made? All but six have gone – gone! So, there’s more bath bomb making in my near future. I’m also giving a soap making demonstration to a local branch of the Women’s Institute on Tuesday, giving my regular soaping presentation on Wednesday night, and Thursday will HAVE to be spent making more core range soap. I also need to find the time somewhere to bevel, wrap and label a load of bars. Roll on September when I’ll finally be able to work on the business during the days!

Thanks for reading, back soon!

Posted on June 20, 2017 by Vicki — 1 Comment

Slow Down World! The Week in Soap: 18th June ’17

It’s been a crazily busy week. And it’s not letting up, hence why I’m starting to write this at two minutes to eleven at night when I really should be going to bed! It’s going to be short 😉

Monday evening saw me out at a community meeting, so I couldn’t get any soapmaking done, and then Tuesday night was kickboxing grading night.

I got my orange belt – woop!

Wednesday night was kickboxing class followed by my weekly soaping presentation, but I did get the opportunity during the day to cut the Welsh Rose and Yr Wyddfa that I made last week:

Thursday night I had to spend catching up on paperwork and then finally, on Friday night, I managed to make something – a shed load of bathbombs for a wholesale order going out next week.

On Saturday, Dean took the kids out for a few hours and I finally got to make some soap – two exclusive custom batches for a local retailer. I LOVE making these two. The customer chose the fragrances and concept for them both, and they’re different in design to my regular restocks so I get to do something a little more interesting.

Potters' Soap — Potters’ Soap for Glosters

Saturday night we were invited to some friends’ house for dinner (I always try to take Saturday night off, regardless of what else is going on) and the Sunday was Fathers’ Day, so we all went out for breakfast and spent the day together.

Sunday night I made the rest of the bathbombs for the wholesale order – phew!!

Now to get them all wrapped for delivery on Friday!!

So although I’ve not been particularly productive this week, it has felt extraordinarily busy – I hope your week has been calmer. If it has, send some my way please?!

Thanks for reading, back soon.

Posted on May 15, 2017 by Vicki — 4 Comments

The Fortnight in Soap: 15th May ’17

Good afternoon from a very wet Monday in Snowdonia! We’ve had some glorious weather recently, but this morning we awoke to pouring rain and it hasn’t let up all day. Ah well, the gardens will be all the happier for it!

I didn’t post a round up last Sunday, as, to be honest, there wasn’t that much to tell you. I’d made one batch of soap – yet another two loaves of Tutti Frutti (I’m selling out as soon as it’s cured, and I need to get stock levels back up):

And last week I only soaped twice – another restock of Welsh Rose:

and the second time was some wedding favours for my friend who gets married at the end of June. I’ll share those in another post as I’ve not got round to photographing them yet.

I’ve been really busy with orders for my mini bars. These are really popular with holiday accommodation owners in the village and the surrounding area. Three lots have gone out over the weekend, and there’s still more to do.

I only sell these on a wholesale basis, with the minimum order being 50, they’re just too fiddly and time consuming to wrap to make them cost effective in smaller amounts. I’m considering doing a selection pack of one of each of the core range, but I need to think a little more about the practicalities (I’m back to whether or not I can make them cost effective again)

The other big thing taking up my time over the last week or so has been trying to get some quotes for soap boxes. I currently wrap in cellphane bags, but I’m looking for something a little more professional, and which will give the bars more protection in transit / on shelves. I’d like plain white boxes with a window, so that the soap can be seen (and smelled!) and early indications suggest that they’re not cheap!! It’s a work in progress, and I’ll keep you updated.

But the main reason I’ve not made soap for a while? I was all out of Olive Oil, and had been for a week. I strongly suspect that there’s a shortage at the moment as, although I could buy plenty of Pomace Olive Oil, I’m struggling to get regular olive oil at a good price. I know many soapmakers use pomace without any problems, but I find it accelerates trace compared to regular olive oil, and that’s no good for my drop swirls. I usually get mine via Amazon’s subscribe and save facility, but they didn’t deliver April’s order, and when I went online to check what was going on, they’d cancelled the order without so much as an email to let me know ARRGHH May’s order is still in place so I’m hoping that turns up as planned. Anyway, I ordered some more from another supplier last Monday evening, and it finally arrived today…

Oh, and this blog was featured in Feedspot’s 100 top soap blogs last week. I’ll be honest, Feedspot was new to me, but it appears to be very similar to Bloglovin’. If you’re interested in soapy blogs (and of course you are, right?!) do have a look through. There I am, right down at No. 62 😀 (and it seems my location is wrong – I’ve not lived in Manchester for over 3 years, so I’ll need to find a way to change that – I’m guessing it’s here in my settings somewhere?)

And don’t forget, if you have a soapy blog yourself then why not join our Soapmaking Bloggers Facebook Group?

Thanks for reading – back soon!

Posted on April 24, 2017 by Vicki — 6 Comments

The Week in Soap: 23rd April ’17 – A rainbow, a birthday and a rather good read

After a lovely couple of weeks off for Easter, the kids went back to school today and we’re almost back to normal. I say almost as today was the little one’s fourth birthday, so nothing normal about that :-D. We threw a party for her and her friends yesterday (Sunday) so today was a little more low key. I picked her up after her two hours at school this morning (she won’t be full-time until next September and neither of us can wait haha!) and went into town for some mum/daughter time and a BIG bowl of ice-cream. Do you think she enjoyed it?

I usually get to go to work for an hour or two at four o’ clock when my husband finishes work, but today my mum came over with a birthday gift so we had some birthday cake and played with kinetic sand (that stuff is AMAZING – I wonder if the recipes on Pinterest are any good?). We’ve had lots of fun but tomorrow is definitely ‘back to normal’ day and I’m looking forward to getting back into the swing of work again.

I only managed one evening of soapmaking this last week – a double batch of Tutti Frutti. It was these batches that I photographed to use in my rainbow drop swirl tutorial:

Tutti Frutti ready to set up — Tutti Frutti in the Mould

Tutti Frutti mid-cut:

In other news, I’ve finally found a novel to end my reading drought and I think I’ll actually be able to say I’ve read a whole book by the end of the month. Now this is a big, huge, MASSIVE deal for me given that I’ve been whingeing on to anyone who’ll listen about how much I miss reading, but what’s at the back of my mind? Oh, only the fact that I didn’t bother with that perennial ‘read a book’ goal this month – gah!! Anyway, I’m a bit late to the The Girl on the Train party, but I picked up a copy for pennies at a table-top sale recently and I’m LOVING it. It’s an easy read, but it has me hooked, and I find myself glancing over at it at various times of the day, wondering if I could get away with hiding in the corner for half an hour for another fix…

Thanks for reading, back soon!

Posted on April 21, 2017 by Vicki — 27 Comments

Rainbow Drop Swirl – A tutorial in pictures

There’s been a lot of interest in my rainbow drop swirl (Tutti Frutti) soap recently, so I thought I’d put together a little pictorial tutorial for anyone who’s interested in how it’s done (I really, REALLY should start making videos shouldn’t I?).

Many of you will already know how big a fan I am of the drop swirl technique. Almost all of my core range is made using either a full or partial drop swirl, and Tutti Frutti is no exception. I made another couple of batches recently, and took some photographs along the way…

**Please make sure you’re familiar with the basics of soapmaking before you try any advanced swirls (Soap Queen is a good place to start) and always wear protective clothing / gloves / goggles. Safety first!!**

I generally make soap at room temperature, so I’ll mix up the lye solution in advance and put it to one side to cool down (I don’t discount the water for this one). I’ll also melt the hard oils and butters and combine them with the liquid oils and butters and allow them to cool down to room temp.

Next I measure out the seven different micas straight into the pouring jugs (actually here you’ll see six different micas and one liquid colourant. It’s notoriously difficult to get a good red in CP soap, but I use a liquid colour from Gracefruit which is rather good. They appear to be out of stock of the red at the moment, but hopefully it’ll be back in soon.)

colourants ready for mixing into the soap batter

Next I add my fragrance oil to the room temp oils and butters. Many people add their fragrance AFTER adding the lye and tracing the soap, but my preference is to add it before.

I then add a couple of teaspoons of the fragranced oils to each jug of mica and get them well blended. I know it’s common practice to skip this stage and simply add the traced lye batter directly onto the powdered mica (or add the powdered mica directly to jugs of traced batter), but I don’t always use a stick blender and this way I know I can get the colour incorporated well just by giving it a good mix with a spatula.

Pre-mixed colourants, oils and a jug of lye water

I get my moulds ready – notice my high-tech method of stopping the mould sides from bowing inwards 😀

And then we’re ready to go… I mix the lye water into the tub of (already fragranced!) oils and butters, and share the soap batter out equally into the seven prepared jugs. It would appear I forgot to get a photo of that stage – sorry! What we’re looking for is a really light trace as the soap will thicken up during the pouring process. Personally I don’t stick-blend this soap AT ALL. I find that by the time I’ve mixed up all the colours thoroughly it’s already at a light trace, but this will very much depend on how quickly your particular soap recipe traces and which fragrance you’re using. I’ve even found that certain micas can inhibit trace, so there are many different factors involved. It’s a case of using your judgement and, to be honest, trial and error.

Next comes the pour. First in this time was yellow:

First pour - yellow — First pour – yellow

What’s crucial for a nice drop is the height from which you pour the soap in to the mould. At the early stages my jug is quite close to the bottom of the mould as I pour a line of soap along the length of it. Here’s the next couple of pours:

Once the bottom of the mould has been covered with soap, I start to raise the jugs a little higher as I pour, so that the soap drops into the previous layer, rather than sit on the top of it. It’s very hard to give a precise height as it very much depends on how thick your soap batter is (the thicker it is, the higher you’ll need to drop it from)

I try to make sure I pour from the jugs in the same order on each round of pouring, and also try to make sure I’m not pouring a colour on top of the same colour in the mould.

I keep pouring until the moulds are full:

By this stage the batter is quite a bit thicker than when I started to pour, and looks none too tidy, but it doesn’t really matter once I start adding texture to the top:

Mid-texturing the top — Starting to tidy up the top

And the finished item:

I generally leave soap in the mould for 48 hours before I unmould and cut:

And that’s it. It’s cured for 4 weeks, bevelled and tidied up, cured for another 2 weeks then released for sale.

Some time ago I started using the Instagram hashtag #dropsaretops for some of my photos – please use the tag to share your own drop swirls and make this drop swirl junkie very happy 😀

Posted on April 8, 2017 by Vicki — 10 Comments

The Core Range – Soap

This is the core range of soaps. Each bar retails at £4.50, please contact me for wholesale prices. I have two main core ranges – soap fragranced with pure essential oils only, and soap made with fragrance oils.

Each bar weighs minimum of 100g, but in reality most are around the 110 – 120g mark.

Please be aware that as these are handmade items and no two bars will look alike. Fragrances will remain constant, but designs may vary slightly from bar to bar.

Essential Oil Soaps

Clarity

Fragranced with Lemongrass and Clary Sage essential oils, Clarity is a real unisex fragrance, and one of my best sellers.

Blodau

A feminine, floral scent comprising of a blend of Lavender, Ylang Ylang and Rosewood essential oils.

Botanica

The newest variety in the essential oil range, Botanica is fragranced with a gorgeous blend of Lavender, Lemon and Lime essential oils. A fresh scent, reminiscent of summer days.

Luscious Lavender

Simply fragranced with pure Lavender essential oil, loved by all ages.

Serenity

‘The one that smells like a spa’. That’s how customers describe Serenity, and with good reason – the heady blend of Patchouli, Lemon, Orange and Ylang Ylang essential oils will have you relaxed in no time.

Peppermint Scrub

Fragranced with pure Peppermint essential oil, and chock full of oatmeal (to soothe) and ground apricot stones (to scrub), this soap is PERFECT for gardeners or mechanics who might need a bit of extra oomph to get their hands clean. Also great for feet which need a little attention before sandal season!

Fragrance Oil Soaps

Sugar Drops

A sweet, warm, caramel, vanilla fragrance, reminiscent of Aquolina’s Pink Sugar designer perfume.

Bewitched

A fruity, floral fragrance with notes of peach, cherry blossom and white jasmine. Reminscent of Victoria Secret’s Love Spell perfume.

Oatmeal, Milk & Honey (OMH)

The ultimate comforting scent, OMH has strong almond notes with honey and creamy oats.

Tutti Frutti

Tutti Frutti is fragranced with a juicy jellybeans scent. Loved by children and adults alike.

Welsh Rose

A classic fragrance, the luscious scent of fresh rose petals.

Locally Themed Soaps

Eryri (Snowdonia)

A stylised representation of the hills and mountains of Snowdonia, under blue skies and whispy white clouds. It’s fragranced with my own blend of pure essential oils, including rosemary, peppermint, lime, patchouli and a touch of eucalyptus, which give a fresh, outdoorsy scent to the bar:

Traeth Craig Du (Black Rock Sands)

As well as the mountains, Snowdonia has plenty of coastline and beaches too. Traeth Craig Du is named after the beach closest to where the soaps are made – Black Rock Sands. It’s scented with a marine, sea-salty fragrance, with hints of ozone and salt encrusted driftwood. The bottom third of the bar contains ground apricot stone, to replicate the exfoliating benefits one gets from walking barefoot on sand:

Posted on April 2, 2017 by Vicki — Leave a comment

The Week in Soap: 2nd April ’17

Excuse me… where did that week go? March flew by in the blink of an eye, and this last week seems to have done so too. Thursday evening saw the first of this season’s weekly soaping presentations at Craflwyn Hall. I’ll be there every Thursday evening from now until the start of November, describing the process of soapmaking and enthusing about my obsession. It’s always a pleasure to get out and spread the word about handmade soap.

That was really the only remarkable thing about this week in soap. I managed two soaping sessions – firstly making a double batch of Welsh Rose and a double batch of Castile:

and secondly making double batches of Blodau (Flowers) and Delicious:

And a closer look at the Castile in its mould, just because…

Tutti Frutti has been out of stock for a couple of weeks thanks to a couple of large wholesale orders a last month, but this week it came off the curing rack and I made a start on wrapping and labelling. Not before taking this photograph though –

which proved to be the most popular of all the photos I posted to Instagram this week.

You may have noticed a few recipe / review posts sneaking onto the blog occasionally, and you’ll definitely see more in the future. It’s just my way of expanding the focus of the blog a little, to include more of my day-to-day life, but don’t worry, it will remain predominantly a soapy blog 😉

And that’s it for today. I’ve got quite a few posts lined up (in my head) so I hope to be back very soon. Thanks for reading!

Posted on March 26, 2017 by Vicki — 4 Comments

The Week in Soap: 26th March ’17 – BATHBOMBS!!!

Yesterday (Saturday) brought the first craft fair of the year, and a lot of last week was spent wrapping and labelling in preparation. It also saw the first outing for my bathbombs, which are FINALLY available for sale. I’ve been so busy dispatching wholesale orders and restocking the curing shelves that creating labels for my bathbombs was never a priority – until the night before the craft fair 😮 I took just four varieties – Clarity, Serenity, Lavender and Bewitched (was LoveSpell):

I was busy Mon, Tues, Wed evenings this week, so couldn’t make soap until Thursday night, and then realised that I was so low on Olive Oil I could only make a two batches of Boho Baby (fragranced with Patchouli & Orange essential oils):

Boho Baby (Patchouli & Orange) — Boho Baby

Friday evening was spent wrapping bathbombs for the fair on Saturday, so I wasn’t able to make more until this evening, but I made up with it with two double batches of Serenity (Patchouli, Ylang Ylang, Orange & Lemon essential oils) and Botanica (Lavender, Lemon & Lime essential oils):

I now officially a yellow belt kickboxer! I went through my first ever grading on Monday evening. I had no idea what to expect and it was intense – I arrived home bruised, exhausted and ravenous, but I absolutely loved it, and I’m ridiculously proud of my yellow belt:

Orange belt, I’m coming for ya!!

Posted on March 20, 2017 by Vicki — 3 Comments

The Week in Soap: 19th March ’17

I missed last week’s weekly update completely, so this is me, trying to do better 😀

It’s been another busy week. I dispatched boxes of soap to not one but two new wholesale customers and delivered another order to a more local ‘new yet old’ customer. More on them all in a ‘Stockists’ update coming next week.

My new, double batch system of soapmaking is working really well. Last week I made soap on Tuesday evening last night, Sunday, making 8 batches, or 120 bars in all. This my absolute minimum for a week, and I’m still struggling to get stock levels back up to where I’m comfortable:

The lucky winner of the Facebook giveaway was announced earlier on this evening. I was overwhelmed by the number of entries and the lovely comments left on the page. I’ll be running another giveway at some point, so make sure you like and follow the page if you’d like to win some of my soap.

This was my most popular post on Instagram this week, with a whopping 473 likes. We got a bit of sunshine on Wednesday, so I took full advantage. It’s rained almost non-stop ever since 🙁

On Saturday I spent all day in the office wrapping and labelling while my other half took care of the kids, so today was more of a family day, though I did manage to fit in a 5km run. (we’re not having February happen all over again, ohhhhh no!!) This evening I cooked a traditional roast dinner, including Yorkshire puddings. I’m kind of proud of my Yorkshires, but I’m guessing they’re not eaten (or even known about?) much outside of the UK so I thought I’d share a quick snap:

They are, I promise you, delicious, and if anyone wants to know how I make them (and my recipe method will give you perfect ones EVERY TIME) then just let me know and I’ll happily share 😀

Coming up next week I will (of course!) be making more soap, and testing and reporting on the Castile I made a couple of months ago. I need to write a new ‘Stockists’ post as there are now a few more on the list, and I also have the first craft fair of the year coming up next Saturday, so bathbomb labelling needs to be a priority. Add into the mix my first ever kickboxing grading on Monday evening (the next time I post, I may well be a Yellow Belt – eek!!), and a pre-school committee meeting on Tuesday evening, and suddenly the week doesn’t feel so long arrgghhhhh!!!

Thanks for reading, back soon!!