Worst Blogger Ever? Probably . . . .

I am a terrible blogger. For reals. It has been about 15 years, give or take, since my last post and there is absolutely no excuse!! None at all, I say.

One could argue that I have been busy, however I have weekends off, and if I have time to explore aliens and werewolves in The Sims 2, I could probably set aside some time for soap. I’ve been making soap. I’ve been making it like a mad woman. My kitchen is full of it. My soaping room is full of it. Yes! I have about a half of a room dedicated to soap making!! Woohoo!! I’ve launched the Etsy store, I have a Facebook page that I keep updated, and I talk about soap to anyone who will listen, however the sitting down and typing out a blog post just hasn’t been happening.

One could argue I type all day at work (one does not get reimbursed by MaineCare if one does not write progress notes). I drive a long way to work and back. One could argue many things, however they are all excuses. And the fact remains that soap is far more than a hobby for me, and if it means so much to me, I need to make the effort to share this soapy adoration with the world.

So without further ado: the remake of Verbena and Lemon with my handy-dandy hand-made swirly contraptions!!

Said swirler thingymadendums

And the premiere of my men’s line:  A Well Respected Man.  

                                                       

I think Sweet Myer Lemon is on deck for tomorrow, and maybe Vanilla Oak, too. And printer ink. I’ve redesigned my packaging (*again*) and need ink if I’m ever going to print the blasted labels out and package like the mad woman that I am =)

Liquid Soap Love!!

I've been wanting to try my hand at liquid soap for quite some time. I decided to ease myself into it, and I bought a ready-made liquid soap paste from BrambleBerry.com. Anyone who got a goody bag of toiletries from Mr. Fabulous and I for Christmas will know that liquid soap experiment, while producing a working soap, was not a complete success, as the soap was suuuuuuuper thin. What did I do wrong? I followed the thickening directions to a T, using a 20% salt solution. I think I ran astray by not putting in enough of the salt solution.

I had some of the paste left, so I tried again about a month later, wanting to create a soap and lotion set for a friend, and hoping for enough left over so I could have some too :o) This time it worked! THICK SOAP!! I was happy, but yet I craved more . . . .

Liquid Soap Paste, mid-cook

I decided that I would not be happy, I would not be satisfied until I made my own liquid soap from start to finish! And I did just that. With my $4 thrift store crock pot, I set out on Saturday night at 10 o'clock, vowing not to rest until I made liquid soap! And I did!!

Liquid soap is made out of water, potassium hydroxide, and oils. It gets cooked into a paste, and then that paste is diluted into liquid soap. If you would like to learn how to make liquid soap, BrambleBerry.com has a liquid soap making video that only costs a few dollars. That's what I've watched basically every day this past week. Also, there is the TeachSoap.com forum with literally tons of posts on the topic for perusal. Lastly, people actually still publish books made out of paper. Catherine Failor's Making Natural Liquid Soaps is a great one to start out with.

Liquid Soap with New Labels. Graphics courtesy of The Crafty Clip, www.thecraftyclip.com

With my paste made, I set out to dilute it Sunday morning. It turned into a day-long event, and it produced little success. Well, I did revamp my labels, and that's progress, but not liquid soap success.

I could not get the bloody stuff to get thick! It was thick like glycerin, but not thick like gel-like liquid soap. I was disappointed, though I did bottle some to keep, just in case.

Today was better. To bolster my spirits after yesterday's fails, I made a batch of cold-process, solid soap to instill some confidence and to inspire me to make awesome, THICK, beautiful liquid soap.  

Lemon Verbena with a Peacock Swirl

So, now re-confident in my mad skills, and with Pandora's Hip-Hop BBQ to cheer me on, I portioned out some of my soap paste and water dilution. I added 3ml of my salt solution. Nothing. I did this about 7 times over the course of an hour, each addition making my soap ever so slightly thicker. Finally, thinking “what have I got to loose? I've got more diluted paste in the crock pot, more paste that I can dilute, and more oils and KOH if none of this stuff turns out. GO FOR IT!” I dumped the last half or so of my salt solution into my dilution. Cue singing angels!! THICK SOAP!! Suuuuuuuuper thick soap! Yay!! I did get to experiment with fragrance oils yesterday, so I knew what to expect when I added them in today. I made up SIX bottles of thick, wonderful liquid soap today, and I couldn't be prouder of my accomplishment.

Today's Successes And Yesterday's Learning Opportunities

You can find me and like me on Facebook as Doobs Soap & Toiletries :o)

Seasonal Flu Season & My Mad Skills!!

  I’ve been recovering from what I suspect to be the flu. It hit me harder than a cold and knocked me right over, and it takes a lot to knock me down. It hit me Thursday morning, and of course I had to work Thursday night through Sunday night. As I stood at work in a foggy daze of congestion and throat irritation, I thought to myself, “Self, there has to be something in that small stash of essential oils that can help ease this congestion and hacking cough.”

  When I got home I did a bit of research, and sometime around the point Thursday changed to Friday I threw together some things I call “tub fizzies.” I know I did not mastermind this idea, but I was pretty impressed that I came up with it given the fact that I barely made it through a night of work at a job I’ve done since I was 19 and could do blindfolded and on one foot. I couldn’t do it with my hands tied behind my back, because then I couldn’t cut pizza. But anyway . . . .

  The basic things that make any bath fizzy fizz are baking soda and citric acid. I intended to put this fizzy in the shower and have it release the essential oils while I stood under the warm water and tried to fight off the chills this flu gave me, so I didn’t add anything extra that I would have had this been intended for use in a bath.

  I have no pictures of these fizzies as I went through them pretty quick. I used two NOW brand essential oil blends that I had on hand, Lavender and Tea Tree and Lemon and Eucalyptus. In order to maximize the effects of the essential oils, I used them two at a time, one fizzy with each blend.

 
  I found these fizzies to be incredible, and I was happy that I could use my mad skills to find some relief, because these fizzies were far more enjoyable than the feeling I got from the cough syrup I bought Saturday morning. Yech!

  Coming up I’ve got super fun times and several projects to talk about. I can’t wait to share them =D

A Student No More. Officially, Anyway . . . .

Alright, here I am again. Unfortunately, soaping took a back seat while I finished up internship and my very last class. I am proud to say that I got the official email today:  I am, for all intents and purposes, graduated. YayYayYayYayYay!!!!! Just one more national exam, licensure application, and I can work in the field I've studied about since 2008. Wicked!

Now that I'm just working at my pizza slaving job, I've had tons more time for all things soapy. I made Christmas presents for my friends and family, and I am really looking forward to jumping back into my favorite hobby. Stay tuned for more projects!

Back Again. Again . . . .

Alright, so I lied. I’m so sorry!! I’ve been super busy with wedding planning, working on getting up and running at my internship site, and working so that I can eat more than pizza and breadsticks (though that is one of the perks of slinging pizza).

I’ve also kept busy making soap, lotion, a face moisturizer (two tries!), hair detangler (which needs *tons* of tweaking), and a lemony sugar scrub.

Also, with a bit of help from my amazing dad, made my very own wooden soap log mold (yayyayyayyay!!) with about $10 worth of materials and about a half an hour of my time. And some of my grandfather’s nice anchoring wood screws. (Note to self, buy the good screws next time.) Also, I’ve become very absorbed with season 4 of Supernatural, which is good, because Glee is over until fall. But since I don’t have cable and I watch very few TV shows online only, it’s okay, right?

I’ll be back in a few days with a proper project, but until then, here’s more soap pictures :o)

MIA No More!

Hello! Did you miss me? I've had a busy week. I was at the Maine State Republican Convention this weekend (supporting Ron Paul and other like-minded politicians) and I've started my internship, one of the last steps in completing my master's degree in counseling. But I've got a wonderful soap project that I'm going to share later on tonight and a few more ideas to do up and share later on. Also, Mother's Day reactions to the Mother's Day lotion :o)

Stay tuned . . . .

Peacock Swirl with Lilac Fragrance Oil

I’ve been wanting to try a peacock swirl, and since my soap forum of choice is having a challenge in which one can interpret a specific theme (May’s is florals), I decided to be very brave and do a peacock swirl with lilac fragrance oil. I wanted my colors to reflect real lilacs, so I busted out my cellini blue again (for the purple), electric bublegum neon colorant (for the pink, hoping the titanium dioxide added to the oils would tone it down a bit), cappuccino mica (for the brown bark of the lilac bush), and titanium dioxide (for white). 

As I’ve said before, florals speed up the soap making process. They can have the ability to turn a nice emulsion of raw soap into a thick glopy mess in a matter of seconds. Since the peacock swirl is fairly time intensive, I decided to leave my colors for the swirl unfragranced to keep them liquid longer and fragrance only the bottom bit of my soap. Good thing, too, because when I put the dividers into my mold, the bottom was pretty firm.

 

I added some titanium dioxide to the raw soap and mixed it up. I poured some soap off into separate containers for the top swirl, then I fragranced the rest.

 

If you want to know more about the peacock swirl or cold process soap making in general, there’s tons of resources out there. I read the Soap Queen blog (soapqueen.com) and the Teach Soap Forum (teachsoap.com). YouTube is also a fount of knowledge, as well. You can also find the Rhino Song there. But I digress . . . .

 

The swirl came out really neat, and even after I shoved the dividers into my mold, I’m still pretty impressed with the results. Don’t tell, but I think this soap may be bridesmaid’s gifts once June 23^rd rolls around . . . .