Soap Archives

Posted on March 4, 2018 by Vicki — 14 Comments

Hot Process – First Attempt

On Monday I decided to try my hand at making Hot Process (HP) soap for the first time. It’s been on my list of things to do for aaaaages, and I even bought a fancy pants slow cooker / crock pot before Christmas in readiness, but the time was never right. Recently however I was contacted by Plastic Free Snowdonia, a group who, as the name suggests, are trying to reduce the amount of plastic being used in this area. They were interested in solid shampoo bars, which I’ve not made for a while, and I decided that this was the perfect opportunity to try out the HP method. My starting point was this tutorial by Sarah of Sas-Oki Soap and while clearly I am in no position to write a HP tutorial, being an absolute beginner, I did take a load of photos and so I thought I’d share the experience with you.

In the past I’ve used Liz Ardlady’s shampoo bar recipe, but used water instead of the apple cider vinegar (ACV), and left out the sodium lactate. I should confess that I’ve never used the original recipe as written, but I’ve always been really happy with the final bars without the ACV, so I decided to use the same recipe for my foray into Hot Process.

I put all the fats into the slow cooker and while they were melting down I made up the lye solution.

Off I went to do something else, and of course by the time the lye solution had cooled down, the fats were waaaaay to warm, so I popped them out into the snow to cool down 😀

Once everything was cool enough I added the lye to the oils and gave it all a quick stick blend to emulsify:

Lye added and stick-blended to emulsification

I turned the crockpot onto ‘medium’, covered the top with some cling film before putting the lid on to keep the moisture in (a tip I got from the Modern Soapmaking HP tutorial) and let it do its thing. Another tip from the Modern Soapmaking tutorial was NO STIRRING. So all I did was take a photograph every ten minutes or so.

This one was after 10 minutes cooking – the soap is beginning to saponify round the edges. Apologies for the quality of these photos, there was condensation forming on the cling film over the pot:

After 20 mins cooking:

The soap continued to cook, and change colour as time went on. This was what it looked like after 40 mins, and it didn’t really change appearance for the next 10 minutes or so. I decided it might be ready. All tutorials I’ve read have recommended using an infra-red thermometer to check readiness, but I don’t have one, so was winging it…

After 50 mins cooking — After 40 mins cooking

So a the 50 minute mark I removed the lid and the cling film, gave it a good whisk, then did the zap test. For the uninitiated, the zap test is the process whereby you remove a small amount of soap from the pot and touch the tip of your tongue to it. Yep, you LICK potentially caustic soap. Sounds crazy I know, but it’s a time honoured method of checking whether soap has fully saponified. If it simply tastes, erm, soapy, it’s good to go. If it zaps (and trust me, you’ll know what I mean if it happens to you) it’s not yet ready. Oh, and please don’t put the licked soap back into the pot!! 😀

I then added some grapefruit essential oil, and whisked that in thoroughly before the soap was spooned (actually, plopped and stuffed) it into the mould… It was very thick, and solidifying very quickly. I’ve read that adding yoghurt, (or coconut cream/milk for a vegan version) can be added at this point to help fluidity – I’ll be trying that next time.

Solid shampoo freshly plopped into the mould

I scraped the last bits out of the pot and rolled them into little balls – with my bare hands!!! I know, I know, I wouldn’t normally do it but these balls at least are for my own personal use only. And the novelty of being able to squidge soap that’s straight out of the pot with my bare hands was irresistible 😀

Two days later the soap has become even more opaque:

Shampoo Bars in the mould after 48 hours

I unmoulded the bars, and then cut them in half. These bars are going to be sent out as testers as, although I personally love this recipe, I want as many opinions as I can get before I think about selling this solid shampoo.

There seems to be conflicting opinions regarding how long Hot Processed soap should be cured for. Strictly speaking, it’s safe to use straight out of the mould, as the process of saponification has completed in the pot. I did use one of my little balls of shampoo on the same day as I made it, and it worked perfectly. However, as with CP soap, the bars were still somewhat soft when they came out of the mould, and I’m definitely going to give them an as-yet-undetermined cure time to dry out and harden up a bit. I’ve weighed one of the bars and I’ll monitor the weight reduction on a regular basis and report back when it’s ready.

I’m surprisingly thrilled with the result. It’s not very pretty. Not pretty at all actually. But it’s quick & easy and the clean up process is an absolute doddle and I’ll definitely be doing it again. If you have any tips I’d love to hear them – pleeaaaase 🙂

Thanks for reading,

Vickx

Posted on February 25, 2018 by Vicki — 9 Comments

The Week in Soap: 25th Feb ’18

Happy Sunday folks! Hope you’ve had a good week? It’s flown by here – can’t believe it’s Sunday evening once again…

So, as it’s already 8.30pm and I still have a mound of ironing to get through, I’m going to make this fairly brief.

I made another 8 loaves of soap this week. This was on Tuesday, as once again my regular Monday making needed to be postponed as the children didn’t go back to school after their half term break until Tuesday. These are four loaves of Luscious Lavender and four loaves of Blodau (Flowers):

This follows on from the previous week’s enforced trial, and it truly does save a significant amount of time. I was a good 90 minutes faster making those eight loaves this week than it took me a fortnight earlier when I made two loaves each of four different varieties. Now, you know by now don’t you that I LOVE making soap, but when I’m making restocks I just need to get them done as quickly as possible, so this is a big win for me. A couple of close ups of this week’s makes:

I’ve finally hit my goal of having 1000 bars in stock (as I write the exact figure is 1041 bars) but I’ve realised over the last few weeks that it’s not enough, and I need to have at least 100 bars of each variety in the core range made at any one time. I don’t ever want to have to tell a wholesale client that they can’t have a particular bar, and whilst I’m prepared to accept that it may happen occasionally, it’s something I want to avoid if at all possible. Obviously those 100 bars will be at different stages of the curing process, and so I hope that if I do happen to sell out of a variety, it will only be a week or two at the most before the next batch is ready for sale.

I gained a brand new stockist this week. I was contacted by Zip World about supplying soap to their gift shop at Zip World Velocity in Bethesda. If you’re a bit of a thrill seeker, do check out that link, you won’t be disappointed!! By last Friday they had received their stock and the bars were already on display. This is a quick snap kindly sent to me by a member of staff…

Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were spent fulfilling orders and wrapping and labelling stock. I’ve also been in discussion with another potential new stockist, more of which at a later date, fingers crossed.

This weekend has been a complete work free zone. The weather was dry and bright, and although it was cold, it was the perfect opportunity to get out and tame a bit more of the garden. I use the term ‘garden’ very loosely – it was an overgrown junk heap when we first moved in, and we’re spending an awful lot of time and energy clearing it, but we’ll get there eventually. In the meantime I’m giddy to announce that I have ONE raised bed ready for sowing! Look at this beauty:

Want to know how much work that was? Every single last bit of soil in that raised bed was sieved, by hand, to remove every last bit of glass, stone and rubble, and I couldn’t be more pleased with it (well, until it’s full of edibles anyway!!) If I wasn’t so sore this evening I’d be happy dancing 😀

I have quite a long ‘to-do’ list for this coming week. I was contact recently by Plastic Free Snowdonia who were interested in solid shampoo bars. I’ve not made shampoo bars for quite a while, so that’s top of my list of things to do. I also need to make up bath bombs for a couple of orders, and for the craft fair I’ll be attending next Sunday in Abersoch (for which I also need to make up a load of gift sets – Mothers’ Day is coming dontch know! :-D) Finally, I want to make some shaving soap this week, this is a new one for me – the potassium hydroxide is on order and I can’t wait to start experimenting with recipes!

And I nearly forgot – look at this happy mail I received this week:

This rather suspicious collection of white powders was sent to me all the way from Ireland by Barb of, erm, well… I’m honestly not sure if I’m allowed to say yet as I suspect there may be a big reveal coming soon… Barb if you’re reading this do let me know if I can mention/link your new company name 😀 😀 Anyhow, she and I did a bit of a swap – I sent her some soap and she sent me this awesome selection of cream / gel / lotion making supplies, and these, together with Lisa’s e-book, are going to keep me quiet for a good while 🙂

Thanks for reading, back soon!

Vickx

Posted on February 18, 2018 by Vicki — 4 Comments

The Week in Soap: 18th Feb ’18

Last year, at the end of October, my day job came to an end and my soapmaking business became my full-time concern, and sole source of income. If I’m honest, that last point is still sinking in – during the run up to Christmas I was so busy that the bank balance was never a concern, but now – eeek!! Anyway, Christmas came and went, and it soon became very apparent that I needed to get back to soapmaking pdq. Stock levels were low, and while I was expecting a quiet period during January & February, I knew that I had to fill my curing racks ready for when things picked up again. As soon as the children went back to school after the Christmas holidays, Monday became my regular soaping day, and I’ve been making 8 loaves of soap ( 2 each of 4 varieties) every Monday since.

So, back to this week. I didn’t choose the ideal time to get back into the swing of things as far as the blog goes, as it’s been a very atypical week. The kids have been home from school for half-term, and to compound matters my husband was working away. I didn’t have the luxury of a full day’s soaping on Monday (I won’t contemplate soaping while the kids are around) so once I’d got them both to bed, I made four loaves of Clarity (Lemongrass & Clary Sage EOs with activated charcoal):

This was a bit of an experiment. I didn’t have an awful lot of time (if I wanted to get to bed before midnight!) and I wondered just how much time I would save if I made four loaves of the same variety, as opposed to 2 loaves each of 2 different varieties. Turns out it saves a significant amount of time, but no real surprise there. I could do it even faster if I had larger mixing buckets, but more on that in a future post…

On Tuesday I decided to repeat the process and once the kids were asleep again I made 4 loaves of Eryri (the landscape bar). I’ve been putting off making this one as I perceive it to be fairly time consuming, but I really need to stock up on it as it’s perfect for the local market, and it was hugely popular at the pre-Christmas fairs. Actually, I was pleased at how quickly I was able to make this lot:

So even with the kids home and husband away, I was able to make my (now) regular 120 bars this week. And I’ve a feeling that I’ll be making 4 loaves of 2 varieties every Monday from now on, rather than the 2 loaves of 4 varieties that I’ve been making up to now.

Wednesday was Valentine’s day, and with my other half still away, I treated myself to some beautiful red tulips:

On Wednesday I cut the Clarity, but was rushing and didn’t get a photograph. I did get a quick snap of the freshly cut Eryri on Thursday though:

This one is fragranced with a blend of rosemary, lime, patchouli, peppermint and a touch of eucalyptus – a fresh, outdoorsy fragrance.

On Friday my husband was home, and took the day off to look after the children while I spent time in the office bevelling and wrapping. That’s the problem with upping production – there’s more of all the other stuff to do too!!

Otherwise it’s been a fairly quiet week as far as The Soap Mine goes. I’ve had a few small wholesale orders, and a couple of wholesale enquiries for which I’ve sent out some info and samples, but I can’t wait to get back to a proper routine again on Tuesday when the kids start back to school. Hopefully next week will give a more accurate picture of what I do as a (nearly) full-time soapmaker 😉

Thanks for reading, back soon,

Vicki

Posted on January 17, 2018 by Vicki — 7 Comments

A (very) Belated Happy New Year

Well hello 2018! I’d like to say you snuck up on me there, but nope, I knew you were coming, and. while I planned to welcome you much sooner than this, it just wasn’t to be…

Happy New Year everyone! Yes, I know it’s late, and most of you are so over it, but I wasn’t sure how else to start this post, it’s been so long! During the run up to Christmas I was seriously busy with soap selling, rather than soap making, and then Christmas came, and I more or less stopped all things soap related for a couple of weeks and had a proper break with the family. I’m a little ashamed at how long it’s been since I last posted (almost two and a half months) – this blog is supposed to be all about building a business, and I failed to post anything at all about what I was doing during my busiest time of the year. Oops! Ah well, a learning curve, and I plan to be more organised next time. In hindsight perhaps trying (and succeeding, to be fair) to complete Blogtober wasn’t the best idea in the run up to such a busy period 😀

So anyway, I’m back! I’m into the swing of things, have lots of plans, and will be sharing more of the business side of things on the blog in future too (selling at craft fairs, gaining more wholesale accounts, demos & classes, and generally more facts and figures about what I make / sell and the time I spend doing various things) If there’s anything you’d like me to cover, please don’t hesitate to ask and I’ll share what I’ve learnt. Just remember that I’m no expert, I’m learning a lot as I go along, and winging it a lot of the time!!

There’ll be some more posts very soon covering how I got on with last year’s goals and those for this coming year (both business and personal) and also what I’ve been up to since the beginning of 2018.

I did get to make some soap during that quiet week between Christmas and New Year. I realised that my stock levels were seriously depleted and I would need to crack on with making more sooner rather than later, so I made four double batches of (clockwise from top left) Oatmeal Milk & Honey, Welsh Rose, Scrubby Peppermint and Bewitched:

Thank you so much for staying with me even during my period of absence – I’ll be back again very soon

Vickx

Posted on November 5, 2017 by Vicki — 6 Comments

The Week in Soap: 5th November, 2017

Sometimes a week goes completely differently to expectation. This last week the kids have been home from school for the half-term break (already! Yikes…) and I honestly thought it was going to be a toughie. I’m right in the middle of the pre-Christmas rush and I knew Dean was crazy busy with his work and not able to take any time off, so was resigned to night time working. I was able to arrange one reciprocal playdate with a friend who has similar aged children, so i had a houseful of children on Tuesday, and Thursday was to be my one and only ‘work’ day.

Still, on Monday and Tuesday I managed to escape over to the office at 4pm when Dean finished work to pack up a few orders. When I got back, I found out that he’d managed to take the following day off as a holiday so that I could work. He’s a good ‘un.

So of course on Wednesday I took full advantage of an unexpected work day and made a load of bathbombs, as well as making a serious dent in the orders that needed to be packed and dispatched.

Thursday was my kind of day. Once the kids had been safely delivered to their friends’ house, I made over 16kg of soap – the first time I’ve ever used all my moulds at once:

I think I may need more moulds! Clockwise from top left these are Serenity (Patch, Ylang Ylang, Lemon & Sweet Orange EOs), Botanica (Lavender, Lemon & Lime EOs). Blodau (Lavender & Ylang Ylang EOs) and Luscious Lavender.

Later on Thursday Dean said he’d managed to get the Friday off too – result! I managed to get another few batches of bath bombs made, and then I indulged in a little experimentation I made another test batch of lip balm – this time in packaged in a tin:

This one was made with beeswax, cocoa butter and rice bran oil, and turned out harder than the last test – this one would probably have been better in a tube rather than a tin. I didn’t flavour or fragrance, and I think I prefer it that way…

I also tried making whipped body butter – two separate batches, both made with unrefined shea butter and coconut oil, with a touch of evening primrose oil. I added lavender and rosemary essential oils to the first batch, and ylang ylang and benzoin essential oils PLUS 1tblsp of arrowroot powder to the second batch.

Amazing how much final product came from a relatively small amount of oils – these are far from dainty containers (I popped a pound coin in the photo to give some idea of scale):

I used unrefined shea butter, and I’m definitely not a fan of the fragrance – I’ll use refined next time, which is what I usually use in my soap. I also didn’t add enough fragrance, although it might be that the shea was overpowering the essential oils.

On first trying it I found the body butter to have quite a greasy texture. Being used to commercial body butters, this version does feel oily on the skin, but having used it for a few days now I find I’m liking it more and more – it sinks into my skin quite nicely. The arrowroot is supposed to reduce the greasiness of the body butter but I can’t discern much difference between the one with, and the one without.

On Saturday I took over family duties while Dean did some work on the house – the children and I visited the library and went swimming, then had fish and chips at the beach.

On Sunday Dean and the children went to visit friends for the afternoon while I went to the office and unmoulded, then cut, the soap from Thursday’s soaping session. I’m conscious that I often share photos of freshly poured soap and then forget to share the cut pictures, so I made a special effort to get a snap of the freshly cut soap – do bear in mind that they’re still soft here and haven’t been tidied up yet. Clockwise from top left – Luscious Lavender, Blodau, Botanica & Serenity:

Finally, some exciting news on the home front. Since moving into this house over three years ago now we’ve lived with a really grotty bathroom while we upgraded other parts of the house and it’s meant that I haven’t been able to share the kind of in-use product photos I would have liked. This week work begins on our new bathroom – woop! I can’t wait to share pictures, just as soon as it’s done.

Thanks for reading, back soon!

Vicki

Posted on October 31, 2017 by Vicki — 8 Comments

Made it! (Blogtober 31)

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween

I hope you’ve all had a spooktastic evening (or managed to avoid one, whichever you prefer!) But there’s another reason to celebrate tonight – Happy End of Blogtober!

Having completed Blogtober in 2016 without too much trauma, I was a little blasé about doing it this year. What I failed to take into account is how much busier I am this year. I have more customers, more retail outlets, and I needed to make (and wrap & label) far more Christmas specials too. I won’t lie, it’s been a squeeze some days to get my posts written and posted by the midnight deadline.

I’ve been trying to work out exactly WHY I wanted to do it again this year. I know blogging is good for SEO, but given that I don’t have a live website yet, that’s kind of immaterial. I like writing, and blogging every day has given me an excuse to do that, and of course, I LOVE a challenge. I like goals, lists and challenges. Hmmm…

Have there been any benefits? I’ve picked up 10 new followers during October, which is a few more than the monthly average. I’ve had 2.5k views during this month (the next highest monthly views was LAST October, at 1.7k, and I’ve also seen my highest number of views in a single day this month, on the 12th October when I posted my top tips for giving a soapmaking demo.

There were some downsides though. I didn’t complete a single other of my October goals NOT ONE! I didn’t do ANY work on my website. I didn’t make a lotion or a cream and I ran a grand total of 3.5km – a far cry from the 50km I wanted to complete. I struggled sometimes with finding something I wanted to write about. I had plenty of ideas, but it wasn’t always the right time to tackle that subject, or I didn’t feel I had the time to do a particular subject justice. That was another concern to be honest, lack of time led to some superficial posts that I probably wouldn’t have been posted had I not had the pressure of daily deadlines.

So would I do it again? Probably, yes. Maybe not Blogtober though. This October has been my busiest month EVER in the business. I’m rushed off my feet, and I think the challenge of daily blogging for a month is better suited to sometime during the first half of the month – Bloguary anyone?? 😀

So that’s me done for Blogtober 2017. If you stuck with me thus far, thank you SO much! I can’t close before giving a shout-out to my partner in crime Sarah of Sas-Oki Soaps, one of only two others who started the challenge with me, and the only other one who completed it. A special mention too has to go to Hayley of The Pamper Kingdom who got to day 17 before family had to take priority. If you enjoy soaping blogs and haven’t yet checked out theirs, please do!

Thanks for reading, back… *ahem*… sometime soon 😀

Vicki

Posted on October 30, 2017 by Vicki — 3 Comments

The Week in Soap: 29th Oct ’17 (Blogtober 30)

This week is half term here in in Wales, a week later than the rest of the United Kingdom it seems. This means, of course, that there’s no school all week, and I’m left wondering how I’m going to fit in everything I have to do while entertaining two energetic children. It also means that this is going to be a whistle-stop post as every minute counts this week!

On Monday I made two double batches of Candy Cane and Frosted Christmas Tree. I’ve been caught by surprise somewhat at how well (and quickly) these soaps are selling, and seeing as I still have time, I made some more…

Tuesday was a write-off, work-wise, thanks to that power cut.

Wednesday was my last-but-one day at the day job, followed by kickboxing and then my last Wednesday night soapmaking demo of the season. I have been asked back for next year (yey!) but that won’t be until the hotel opens to guests again at the end of March.

Thursday was bittersweet. My last day at the pre-school was lovely – we took the children for pizza and ice-cream, and then to the park and everyone had a wonderful time. It was sad to think that I won’t be working closely with them again BUT I can’t wait to be able to focus properly on this business from now on (well, after this week anyway!!) As soon as Dean finished work at 4pm I headed over to the office to put together orders for the following day’s deliveries and ended up feeling elated and just a little bit in awe at how quickly the Christmas soaps are heading out the door!

Friday morning was spent making soap deliveries, including to a brand new stockist – always exciting! The sky was clear and it was a joy to drive around beautiful Snowdonia in the sunshine, delivering soap and chatting to the stockists. I had a load of wrapping and labelling to do in the afternoon, in preparation for the Porthmadog Craft Fair the following day but by 7pm I’d had enough and took the evening off.

Up and out early the next day for the end of month craft fair in Porthmadog. Honestly, I think it was the quietest day I’ve ever had there in all the years I’ve attended. I suppose it’s that lull between the end of the summer season and the start of the Christmas shopping, but given that I’m busier than ever with wholesale and online orders I really didn’t mind. While I was there I managed to put together a long list of places I want to approach in the new year with a view to becoming stockists, and also worked on plans for new projects, so it wasn’t wasted time.

I spent most of Sunday with Dean and the children on a Halloween themed day out. The plan was to have a completely work-free day but during the drive home I started getting anxious about my low stocks of bathbombs. Arrghhh! I couldn’t help myself, I made 5 different varieties – 75 in total. Ho hum… the life of a business owner 😀

Back tomorrow for the last Blogtober post of 2017 – woo hoo!!

Vicki

Posted on October 28, 2017 by Vicki — 4 Comments

Social Saturday #4 – Instagram (Blogtober 28)

The fourth and final Social Saturday, at least for a while, features my current favourite social medium – Instagram. I was a bit of a latecomer it and if I’m totally honest I couldn’t initially see the point of it. That soon changed once I jumped in and started sharing photos and following other accounts, and believe it or not I’ve gained most of my wholesale customer through Instagram. I’ve found that there is a lot more interaction on IG than other social media – follow, like and comment on other accounts/photos and it’ll often be reciprocated.

It’s undoubtedly the best social medium for soap porn. Follow the right accounts and you’ll get photo after photo of beautiful soap (or whatever floats your boat, lol). Using the right hashtags to search (eg #handmadesoap #coldprocesssoap #soapshare) will help you discover new accounts to follow.

If you don’t yet have an account, this article is a handy guide to getting started. If you’re already all set up, there are more advanced tips here and this page is really useful for finding craft based hashtags.

Follow me here: The Soap Mine, and if you share your account in the comments section below I’ll follow you (and others might too :-D)

Thanks for reading, back tomorrow!

Vicki

Posted on October 27, 2017 by Vicki — 3 Comments

A New Stockist – Siop Ogwen (Blogtober 27)

I’m so excited to be able to share today that I have a brand new Stockist – Siop Ogwen in Bethesda, Snowdonia. I delivered a selection of bars and gifts sets there this morning, and by the time I’d got home they’d already shared a pic on social media:

They started out as a book shop (my other passion):

but they’re diversified their range and now have some lovely, locally made gifts like this jewellery:

and these utterly glorious Welsh lady prints and bags by Twinkle & Gloom:

I’m honoured to have been asked to supply this lovely shop, so if you’re not near enough to be able to pop in and check it out (33 High St, Bethesda), then please take a look at their website or social media: Twitter, IG and Facebook.

Thanks for reading, back tomorrow!

Vicki

Posted on October 26, 2017 by Vicki — 5 Comments

Throwback Thursday (Blogtober 26)

As the Blogtober juggernaut trundles on, I thought it would be interesting (and easy!) to make the most of the fact that it’s Thursday and do a quick #throwbackthursday post. I’ve kept photos of every single batch I’ve ever made so I dug out the earliest incarnations of some of the varieties that are still in the current range to compare them to today’s version…

Original Bewitched

First Bewitched

Current Bewitched

Bewitched

Original Blodau (Flowers)

First Blodau (Flowers)

Current Blodau (Flowers)

Blodau, tidied up

Original Clarity

First Clarity

Second Clarity

Second Clarity

Current Clarity

Clarity (lemongrass & clary sage)

First Delicious

First Delicious

Current Delicious

Delicious

Original Luscious Lavender

First Luscious Lavender

Current Luscious Lavender

Original OMH

First Oatmeal, Milk & Honey

Current OMH

Oatmeal, Milk & Honey

Original Serenity

First Serenity

Current Serenity

Serenity (Ylang ylang, Patchouli, Lemon & Orange

Phew! It’s becoming clear that I can’t keep this ‘blogging every day’ business up for much longer – I’ve gone from writing posts a few days before (organised huh?) to posting them less than an hour before deadline…

Just 5 more days to go, I can do this 😀

Thanks for reading, back tomorrow!

Posted on October 25, 2017 by Vicki — 5 Comments

A Spanner in the Works (Blogtober 25)

I had plans for today. Big plans. Important plans.

Today was the day for finishing off the wrapping and labelling of the first batches of Christmas soaps which had emerged, at the weekend, from their curing confinement

Today was also the day for delivering/dispatching said soaps to all the lovely people, both wholesale and retail clients, who had pre-ordered them.

I got up, and started making breakfast for the kids (pancakes, from scratch, in case you cared). I made my husband a coffee and took it up to the bedroom. He works from home and I take him a coffee in bed every. Sodding. Morning. Mind you, I can’t complain. I get a cup of tea in bed at the weekends. If I nag enough…

I digress. I should have known it was going to be a strange day. Most days my kids are awake before me – they were both utterly rubbish sleepers as babies (my eldest was over 18 months old before he slept more than 2 hours at a time) and have always been early risers. Today, for the first time in our family history, I had to go in to each of their bedrooms and WAKE THEM UP!! (*Ahem* capitals are for effect – I didn’t actually shout – how mean would that be?!!) Seriously though, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve ever had to wake one, or the other, up in the morning. Never, ever have I had to wake them both.

So, they were up a bit later than usual, and I was hurrying them along to eat their pancakes and get ready for school. At 7.45 the electricity went off. Complete power outage throughout the village. Never mind, teeth still got done, faces still got wiped, hair was still brushed and we put on layers of waterproofs to brave the howling wind & rain for the arduous 45 second walk to school (have I mentioned how close we live to the school?)

Did you see it coming? We arrived at the school door and were turned away. No school today – ‘Health and Safety’. Can’t do school without electricity. “Arrrrgggghhhhhhhhhhh!!!” (I might have said, under my breath)

So home we go. I couldn’t go to work, and I couldn’t even take the car to make deliveries as my husband, at a crucial point in his current project, needed to use the car to go hunt for the to nearest reliable wifi connection (which, it turns out, is to be found parked up outside our nearest Tesco (8 miles away), laptop balanced on knees – who’d have thought??!!)

So I spent an hour trying valiantly to do ‘housework’ (but mostly boiling a pan of water to make cups of tea). The kids spent an hour not knowing what on earth to do with themselves until I remind them that they have some toys that don’t have screens…

Mum turned up at about 10.30am, saw the wild look in my eyes and took the kids for a couple of hours. I ran (literally, the rain was still an issue) over to the office and wrapped and labelled as much as I could in the gloom. These are about half of the orders that were supposed to go out today:

It was dark, really dark, and although I had so much to do my eyes did get sore and I was glad when 12.30 came around – time to collect the kids.

The electricity finally came back on at about 5.30, just in time to illuminate our meal of fish and chip suppers that Dean brought home, in full-on hunter-gatherer mode. The family was fed.

I’m back at the day job tomorrow, so I have a lot of soapy catching up to do somehow but one thing’s for sure – I’ll be back with Blogtober 26 😀 #blogtobersoapers

Posted on October 24, 2017 by Vicki — 7 Comments

International Soap Swap, 2017 (Blogtober 24)

Earlier this year I hosted a second International Soap Swap (You may remember the last one, back in 2015, which I wrote about over three posts: Post 1, Post 2 & Post 3). We had fewer participants this year (we started out as a group of 14 but unfortunately a few had to drop out and the final count was 9 participants in total) but they are all wonderful, highly respected soapmakers, and if you have an interested in the soaping world I’m sure you’ll recognise at least some of them.

Here we go – the final haul. This was a truly international swap, with participants from Europe, the USA, Canada & Australia, don’t they look amazing?!

I’ve been procrastinating over this post for quite some time, but I’ve come to the conclusion that you probably just want to see the bars, and the packaging, and to know who made them. You don’t really need me to wax lyrical too much about them. Suffice to say that as well as looking stunning, they all smell flippin’ wonderful too.

Heavenly Bubbles

Wendy of Heavenly Bubbles is based here in the UK. I love the unique cuboid shape of these bars, and the utterly fabulous packaging. You can find Wendy on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and on her website.

Wendy of Heavenly Bubbles is based here in the UK. I love the cuboid shape of these bars, and the fabulous packaging. You can find her on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and on her website

Kangaroo Apple Soap

Lisa of Kangaroo Apple Soap is based in Australia, and sent these beautiful rainbow bars. Sadly Lisa’s return parcel with all her soapy goodies was lost in transit 🙁 Some of us sent extra little parcels individually in an attempt to make up for her disappointment. You can find Lisa on Facebook.

Melinda’s Naturals

Melinda is based in the United States, and is currently on a break from soapmaking, so we were really lucky to get ourselves a bar of Blossom Dreams when we did. Perfectly natural and scented with a sweet frangipani fragrance.

Mimi & Boo

Look at this gorgeous packaging! Linda is the face behind Mimi & Boo, and these wonderful bars are scented with her own custom blended fragrance. You can find her on Instagram, and also on her website.

Shieh Design Studio

Emily of Shieh Design Studio was a soapmaker who’s blog I devoured when I first started making soap – she’s a really innovative and interesting soapmaker. Sadly her blog hasn’t been updated for a while but if you’re not familiar with it out you really should check it out. She’s also on Instagram and Facebook.

Sienna Lily Soaps

Carolyn of Sienna Lily Soaps is based in Spain, and has the most amazing imagination. These ‘Sailor’ themed soaps each came with their very own maritime based quote and hand decorated packaging. Find her on Instagram, Facebook,Twitter, and her website

Soap & Soap

Zacil once made and sold soap commercially under the ‘Soap & Soap’ company name. She no longer makes soap to sell, so again we were so lucky to have her as part of the swap group. The photos don’t really do justice to her bars – the piping on the top is exquisite!

Soga Artisan Soaperie

Louise, the owner of Soga Artisan Soaperie, is based in Canada. She sent these gorgeous ‘Frozen’ themed bars, who’s cool scent was a perfect match for the design and colour. You can find Louise on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and her website.

What do you think? Aren’t they gorgeous? A huge thank you goes out to each of the participants, it’s a real honour to be able to experience the creations of all these amazing soapmakers.

Thanks for reading, back tomorrow

Vick

Posted on October 23, 2017 by Vicki — 2 Comments

The Week in Soap: 22nd Oct 17 (Blogtober 23)

Blimey it’s been a busy week! It started on Monday with two double batches of Luscious Lavender and Warm Gingerbread:

and continued on Tuesday with two double batches Welsh Rose and Clarity:

I was so SO pleased that the Clarity turned out ok:

The two previous batches failed (I wrote about that trauma here) and I still need to try my hand at rectifying the failed batches with the oven method. Soon, soon…

Wednesday was my regular weekly soaping presentation. I only have one more to go this season before the hotel closes for winter, but I’ve been asked to go back in the spring which I’m really happy about. That’ll be my fourth year so I must be doing something right!

On Thursday (after the day job) I spent the late afternoon / most of the evening wrapping and labelling soap for the Beddgelert Craft Fair the following Saturday. I spent all day (and evening) on Friday doing the same.

Saturday was the fair itself and, being the organiser, I needed to be there before anyone else to set up, and was the last to leave after the clear up. Despite the (relatively) poor turnout, which was entirely down to the rubbish weather, it really was a good day. The stallholders and customers left happy, and I breathed a sigh of relief – it’s definitely going ahead again next year 🙂

Sunday, yesterday, was a family day. I needed a breather, away from work, so the kids and I baked and generally spent the day relaxing. Well, as much as one can relax when one’s dear husband is taking apart the bathroom… Yep, the next phase of home renovation has started, the reno-rollercoaster has begun again and we should have a shiny new bathroom by Christmas. I’ll share pictures when I can.

Thanks for reading, back tomorrow!

Vick.

Posted on October 21, 2017 by Vicki — 8 Comments

Social Saturday #3 (Blogtober 21)

Happy Saturday guys! I’m now officially two thirds through this blogging marathon, and I seem to be noticing more articles online about why you shouldn’t post on your blog too often (like this one!) I’m committed, I’m not giving up, but there’s no doubt that I can’t find the time to write in depth, well rounded and well researched pieces at the moment, so my writing does feel a little superficial. I guess it’s all part of the challenge 🙂

This is the third Social Saturday of Blogtober17, and today it’s Facebook’s turn. Ah Facebook. Is it losing popularity? Is it becoming the social medium for an older demograph? My number of FB followers has grown slowly but steadily over the years and I get more engagement on there than I do on Twitter, but less than I do on Instagram. Insterestingly I have more business followers on Instagram – that’s where I’ve connected with most of my wholesale customers / stockists, and Facebook is the place where I find I have the most personal, individual customers.

Today’s post is a real quickie. For the last couple of months I’ve been organising the second annual Beddgelert Craft Fair. It happens today (woop!) and I have an awful lot to do, so, with no further ado, this is my Facebook Page. Do pop over and say hi, or share your link in the comments field and I’ll come to visit you!

I’ll be back tomorrow with a run down of the Craft Fair – keep your fingers crossed for me today!

Vickx

Posted on October 20, 2017 by Vicki — 13 Comments

A Change of Circumstance (Blogtober 20)

**Waffle Warning** I’ve just reread this post before pressing publish, and it’s rather text heavy and lacking in pretty pictures. While the turn of events is a little sad, it’s exciting stuff in terms of growing the business and so I just had to share.

When I decided to take The Soap Mine forward as a bona fide business, I knew it would be a slow burner. It was 2010, I had a small baby (I was still on maternity leave) and I had just discovered that it would cost me just shy of £1,000 a month if I went back to my full time job. Neither my husband nor I were happy with the prospect of putting our baby into full time childcare (I was a project manager in a Manchester ad agency – crazy long hours) and so I gave up paid work to become a Work At Home Mum and set to making a business out of selling soap.

I practiced and experimented for months and months, and finally applied for SAs (Safety Assessments – professionally certified documentation that proves that my recipes are safe), organised insurance and dealt with all the other legal admin that needs to be done in the UK before you can sell soap.

I spent a couple of years selling at markets and fairs in and around Manchester, and then we took the big decision to move back to my childhood home in Snowdonia, North Wales (well, not actually my childhood home, I don’t think my dear mum would have been too impressed at that, but the same village) This was the turning point for my business. I was able to slowly increase the number of wholesale customers that I deal with, start giving soapmaking demonstrations and talks, and supply local visitor accommodation with guest soaps.

Throughout most of this time I’ve also had a part-time job in the village pre-school. For the last 2.5 years I’ve been the Assistant to the Setting Leader – just the two of us and up to ten 2-4 year olds. Happy chaos!! To be perfectly honest it would never have been my first choice – working with children had never been a dream – but I was offered the job when my youngest turned 2, and I could take her to work with me. There aren’t many jobs out there where you can take your child to work so it didn’t take me long to accept.

BUT, as I got busier and busier on the soaping front, I had started thinking about giving up the pre-school role and running the soap business on a full time basis. My youngest started school full time this September, and so, with some trepidation I told my employers that I would be leaving at the end of the Christmas term. Then fate decided to move things on just a little bit more quickly. Last week, the Leader of the setting handed in her notice – 4 weeks notice. She has another job, and we can’t replace her. Not for want of trying, there’s just nobody out there with the appropriate qualification who wants the job, and so she is literally irreplaceable.

So, sadly, we have to close the pre-school. We’re shutting our doors for the last time a week today – next Thursday, and I’ll be officially out of work. Except I won’t be. I have more than enough to do with the business, but now I need to think seriously about growth, and increasing revenue. It’s extraordinarily exciting, but ridiculously daunting too. I have so many ideas and plans, and now I’ll have the opportunity to put them into action – wish me luck!!

Thanks for reading, back tomorrow!

Vickx

Posted on October 19, 2017 by Vicki — 13 Comments

Saaaaaaaave!! (Blogtober 19)

°OMG I’m so relived today. Remember a couple of day ago in my last Reader’s Questions post where I confessed that I’d recently had two failed double batches of Clarity? The ones that looked like this when cut?

6kg / 12lbs of soap that I don’t know what to do with (except I might have a plan, which I’ll come to in a moment..)

Anyway, it was with much trepidation that I decided I had to attempt making it again. It’s a REALLY good seller, and I can’t afford to run out, but I was nervous – wasting more precious oils (both regular and essential!) wasn’t an option. I had decided that it was probably down to a partial gel situation, and it would appear that, contrary to what I said here about changes in the weather not affecting my soapmaking, recent changes in the weather had indeed affected my soapmaking (Gah! This is where making bold statements in a blog post gets me!!!!)

I decided to try the CPOP (Cold Process Oven Process) method. I made the soap with the oils and lye solution just a little warmer than room temp (I usually soap at room temp) and preheated both ovens (on the dough proving setting) to just 40°C. I had to use both ovens as I make two loaves at a time but can only fit one in at time:

I did actually try to take a pic with the door closed but it didn’t quite come out as planned :-D:

So, I left the moulds in there for an hour, then turned off the heat and left them there for another hour.

When I took them out the tops definitely looked different to my non-CPOPped batches:

And then, a mere 24 hours later (I usually leave them in the mould for 48 hours) I cut the first one loaf, practically holding my breath as I brought the wire down for the first slice…Success!! (but do bear in mind that these are freshly cut and not yet tarted up…)

Cue a little happy dance…

And what to do with the other 6kg of spoiled soap? Well, in the comments section of this post where I also shared my ‘fail’, Sly of Soaps by Sly was kind enough to share a video of Tania of Soapish showing a method that seems to ‘fix’ a partial gel. This could be a gamechanger, and I’m definitely planning on giving it a go (just don’t ask me when!!)

Thanks for reading – back tomorrow!

Vickx

Posted on October 18, 2017 by Vicki — 6 Comments

Wet Soap Wednesday (Blogtober 18)

As another Wednesday comes around, I give a little cheer (yey!) because I can use #wetsoapwednesday as an excuse to share more of my favourite soap in the mould pics!

Bewitched in the mould (Love Spell type)

Serenity & Oatmeal, Milk and Honey in the mould

Posted on October 17, 2017 by Vicki — 7 Comments

Reader Questions #2 (Blogtober 17)

I’m back to those questions that were posed on my appeal for post ideas back in September.

Today’s four questions are courtesy of Barb of Scrub Me Down – Happy Skin. There was going to be a fifth from Lisa of Aquarian Soap (see link below), about time management, but I’m going to give that subject a post all of its own!!

Question 1 is ‘What are my favourite blogs to follow?’ Well that’s an easy one – go to my homepage and down the right hand side you’ll see a list of some of blogs that I follow (I don’t know how it chooses which ones to display – Lisa’s Aquarian Soap blog doesn’t show up but I LOVE her posts, and Sarah of Sas-Oki Soaps too. Oh, and Danica’s Seife und Anderes) I went through and did a bit of a cull just recently as I realised that many of them hadn’t been updated for the longest time. Are there any glaring omissions there that I really should be following? What are your favourite blogs (not necessarily soapy ones!)

Question 2 – If you could carve out half a day and make something other than soap, what would you make? A cake. Always, a cake. I might not be the best cook in the world, but my baking usually goes down quite well. I’m going to post another couple of recipes before the end of Blogtober I think! I also really REALLY want to learn how to crochet, and if I had any regular free time I think I’d give that a go…

Question 3 – What’s your favourite fragrance for soap? My favourite fragrance oil of all time is a Pink Sugar dupe from Gracefruit called Pink Kisses (used in ‘Sugar Drops’), but I’m also in love with their Warm Gingerbread at the moment – it’s all ginger, cinnamon and vanilla and is mouthwateringly delicious. I’ve recently received a little sample of a fragrance called Tabac Vanille which I think is a dupe of a Tom Ford fragrance which is really intriguing me and can’t wait to try in a test batch. My favourite EO blend at the moment is the one I use in Botanica – lavender, lemon & lime. I could stand and sniff a bar all day…

Botanica (Lavender, Lemon & Lime) — Botanica

Question 4 What was your worst batch of soap? Hahahaha there have been loads of them over the years. I’ve forgotten to add fragrance, or added to much. I’ve miscalculated and made lye heavy soap, and made soap that never set up. Luckily these days ‘bad’ batches are few and far between, but I did have that one a month or two ago – when I tried to make ‘Snowdon’ with a new FO that I hadn’t tested – rookie mistake!! I’ve still got it carefully stored in the hope I can use it to experiment with rebatching – and report back my thoughts of course!!

Unfortunately I had another couple of disasters just this last fortnight. I mentioned it in yesterday’s post so I won’t go on about it now but Clarity, with activated charcoal has been proving problematic too:

Thanks for reading – back tomorrow!! If you have any questions please comment below and I’ll do my very best to answer them.

Posted on October 16, 2017 by Vicki — 10 Comments

The Week in Soap: 15th Oct ’17 (Blogtober 16)

So, Blogtober rolls on and, to be totally honest, here at the halfway point, I’m suffering from a bit of blogging apathy. I’m certain it’s temporary, and I’m absolutely not giving up (are you cheering or groaning?? 😀 ) but I am glad that today is my usual weekly update day and I don’t have to come up with something new!

Despite only having a few more weeks in which to squeeze in Christmas soap making, I only managed to make two double batches this week – Clarity & Tutti Frutti:

You probably won’t remember that I made two batches of Clarity the week before too. Unfortunately they proved, shall we say, problematic – the first one I cut had developed soda ash throughout the bar (or is it a partial gel?) which in a black bar is really ugly. How bad does this look?!

I’ve seen photos of this before, but never experienced it, and I was absolutely gutted – it’s throughout BOTH loaves. I had read that it could be because the oils & butters weren’t completely transparent when I added the lye (ie too cold) – which is perfectly possible as I soap at room temperature, so for my second lot this week I made sure that the oil mixture was completely, utterly, thoroughly, melted… And the same thing happened again. 6kg of soap spoilt… Gahh!! I’ve ALWAYS made this the same way – nothing has changed. Anyway, I’ll be upping the temps for the next batch and hope that that does the trick.

I released the Christmas soaps (Candy Cane, Frosted Christmas Tree & Warm Gingerbread) for pre-orders this week – they’ll be ready by the 21st October and orders, both wholesale and retail, have started coming in…I KNOW it probably feels early to many of you but I got caught out last year – retail outlets wanted to stock Christmas items immediately after Halloween, so really, I’m only just ready…

The rest of my time has been spent wrapping and labelling LOADS of bars for the *crosses fingers* Christmas rush.

Oh, and I think I have redesigned my labels. I’ve not been totally happy with mine for the longest time, and I’m quite excited about the new look, but all will be revealed in due course.

Thanks for reading – I’ll be back tomorrow, hopefully reinvigorated and ready for another fortnight of daily blogging!

Vickx

Posted on October 15, 2017 by Vicki — 7 Comments

The 2017 Christmas Line Up

There are three Christmas specials this year, Candy Cane, Frosted Christmas Tree & Warm Gingerbread:

Candy Cane is fragranced with a buttery/vanilla-y peppermint, and smells just like the Candy Canes that decorate the tree at this time of year:

Frosted Christmas Tree is a cooler, ozoney scent, with hints of pine & fir (of course!) and green leaves, topped with a star, just like the real thing 🙂

And finally we have Warm Gingerbread. Smells mouthwateringly as you would imagine – freshly baked ginger, cinnamon and notes of vanilla:

Each bar will be decorated with a festive ribbon and will be available from the end of October.