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Scent descriptions updated

Cutting soap in the morning sun

As promised, we sat with Dorothy in the soap room to get an updated listing of the scent blends in our soaps. It has been too long since we last did this and it was a great chance for us to look at how we’ve changed some products over the years. Here is the most current run down on what scents to expect from our bars. We hope these scent descriptions help everyone while exploring our site, shopping online, or planning your order!

667 Neighbor of the Beast

Lightly scented blend of fresh air, clean cotton, amber, patchouli, and musk.

Aloe and Oatmeal

Fresh aloe from the garden and ground oats.

Amaretto

A lightly sweet honey and almond blend.

Beeswax

No added scent, smells like soap.

Black Raspberry Vanilla

Sweet berry blend with vanilla.

Blood Orange

Orange citrus notes with a little floral background.

Burgundy Rose

Fresh roses with red wine notes.

Charcoal Bay Rum

Vintage scent- bay rum blends citrus with pine, cedar, cinnamon, mint, and clove.

Charcoal Tea Tree

Earthy tea tree with charcoal, done with a lighter touch than most soap makers.

Cherry Almond

Nutty almond with a not too sweet cherry addition.

Chocolate Orange

A seasonal blend of dark chocolate and orange, one of our kid’s favorite Christmas candies!

Cinnamon Oatmeal Milk and Honey

Clean, classic oatmeal and goat milk scent with a touch of honey and cinnamon.

Coconut Oil Unscented

No added scent, smells like soap.

Coffee

Freshly brewed coffee scent with a mild chocolate like background smell from the coffee grounds.

Cool Water

Water notes with citrus, amber, sandalwood, woodsy and floral notes.

Country Garden

Rose, lavender, lilac, jasmine, and a touch of dirt in a goat milk soap.

Cowboy

Mahogany, sage, teak, and a light touch of citrus blend for a clean manly smell.

Cowboy with Leather

Leather is the predominant scent but some noses will recognize the mahogany, sage, teak, and citrus.

Dirt

Just like it sounds like!  This smells like fresh moist dirt, ready for planting in the garden.  Great as a gag gift or for the hunters, gardeners, scouts and other outdoorsy folk.

Dragon’s Blood

Our version blends amber, black pepper, patchouli, and a few other goodies to create warm, incense like combination.  Unique scent blend you’ll remember from your past.

Eucalyptus Mint

Clean and crisp blend of fresh eucalyptus and mint.

Eucalyptus Mint Charcoal

Clean and crisp blend of fresh eucalyptus and mint with charcoal added.

Everything Nice with Charcoal

“Sugar and spice and everything nice…” a blend of lilac and jasmine with sweet candy notes in the back.

Fisherman’s Soap

A blend of lemon peel and anise that takes fish smell off.

Fresh Cut Roses

Fresh roses with a touch of green.

Galveston

Clean linen and sea salt- like a beach getaway without the sand!

Grapefruit Lemongrass

Clean blend of grapefruit and lemongrass.

Great Outdoors

Like a walk in the woods or sitting in the campsite- fresh earth notes with a touch of woods and campfire smoke.

Guinness Extra Stout

Guinness Extra Stout meets patchouli, sandalwood, pepper, and amber.

Jewelweed

No added scent, smells like soap with a touch of green plant.

Lavender

Simple and clean lavender.

Lavender Goat Milk

Floral lavender notes with goat milk.

Lavender Honey

Sweet blend of lavender and warm honey.

Lavender Mint

Mint comes out in front, followed by lavender and calendula.

Lavender Sage

Lavender mixed with sage, a more grounded earthy blend.

Lavender Sage Oatmeal

Lavender mixed with sage, a more grounded earthy blend with oatmeal.

Lemongrass Coconut Milk

Dried lemongrass mixed with coconut, coconut milk, citrus, and a light touch of sandalwood.

Lilac

Floral but not too sweet.  Great year round option.

Lone Star Sandalwood

We blend sandalwood with amber, black pepper, a little patchouli, frankincense, and Lone Star Beer.

Merlot

A light touch of spice with notes of vanilla and citrus to brighten it up.

Miller Lite

Lightly scented blend of fresh air, clean cotton, amber, patchouli, and musk.

Modelo Negra

Manly blend of citrus, cedar, grapefruit, bergamot, pepper, patchouli and more.

Monkey Farts

Fun fruity blend!  Bananas, cherries, strawberries, citrus, kiwi, and a touch of vanilla.

Nag Champa

Another blast from the past- sandalwood, patchouli, and dragon’s blood blended together.

Oats and Apples

Fresh ground oats, apples, and a light touch of cinnamon.

Old Fashioned Plain Soap

No added scent, smells like soap.

Old West

Leather meets mesquite, cedar, amber, and patchouli.

Olive Oil Unscented

No added scent, smells like soap.

Oatmeal Milk and Honey

Freshly ground oats blended with warm honey and goat milk.

Paint Brush Soap

No added scent, smells like soap.

Patchouli

Earthy patchouli and amber blend, not as strongly scented as most soap makers.

Peach Goat Milk

Fresh peaches and goat milk.

Peppermint Mocha

Peppermint meets coffee and chocolate for fun seasonal blend.

Pumpkin

Pumpkin, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, and a touch of vanilla.

Raspberry Chocolate

Fresh raspberries and chocolate.

Red Velvet Cake

Bakery themed blend for red velvet cake including chocolate, vanilla, and a little butter cream.

Rosemary Mint

Homegrown garden fresh rosemary and mint blended together.

Rustic Belle

Spicy and sweet combination of peach and ginger.

Shiner

Woodsy blend with light touch of jasmine and green- a fresh outdoorsy scent.

Spiced Apple Beer

Warm comforting blend of apples and cinnamon.

Spiced Tobacco

Tobacco blended with spices and a touch of citrus.

Texas Rangers

Light and clean manly scent blends juniper, bergamot, citrus, and touch of spice.  Sometimes made with charcoal.

Tropical Smoothie

Reminds us of a strawberry pina colada drink, very fruity and fun!

Victorian Rose

Fresh roses with a touch of amber, a classic rose blend.

Whiskey

A touch of tobacco with the whiskey, followed by light touch of char to remind us of the whiskey barrels.

Whole Bean Mocha

Mocha coffee brings a chocolate touch to this one- topped with whole coffee beans.

Now, this list doesn’t include special projects or limited editions that are in progress. We also have a few surprises in store for you so stick around or visit us in the booth for details.

Enjoy!

Dorothy & the Team

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Beautiful blue failure

Blue colorant into soap base, ready to go

We admit it. We’re guilty of staring at beautiful soap pictures posted online by other soapers. We’ve wasted precious time wandering social media and pintrest admiring bright colors, gorgeous decorations, amazing designs and more from soap makers around the globe. We’ve gotten side tracked for a half hour in a conversation about what colors you get from infusing herbs into oils, how to mix them for pretty natural soaps, and longed to be the one with the amazing soaps everyone admires. But one day while working with a tempermental new fragrance, we realized how long it had been since we saw anyone spotlight the failed soaps. We’re going to fix that.

It’s no secret that all soap makers have failed batches. When we test new combinations of essential oils, fragrance or color samples, or an infusion we made of herbs & oils, we sometimes don’t get that wonderful bar of soap we imagined. I was testing a few new scents and colors this summer for a customer request and managed to get pictures of most of the process to share with you. What I didn’t know then was that I was documenting a really cool failure in the making. As you can see, I started with one of our tried and true recipes. All the oils were measured, melted, and combined as needed. Lye solution behaved as normal and everything mixed smoothly. I poured off a bit of straight soap base into the mold for a plain bottom and split the rest of the base into thirds. Everything was normal in my soapy world.

Adding blue and green colorants to separated soap bases

I whisked in a bit of green and blue colorants into two of the soap portions and then finished blending them in with a spatula. The kid in me still loves to swirl the colorant into the white and watch it disappear. These pictures were taken somewhere in the middle of me playing around. I took the uncolored reserved soap base, split it in two, and added the fragrances I was testing. They didn’t play very nicely once they were put into the soap base and I had to quickly get the soap into the mold. (I wasn’t really surprised that they seized up on me as the reviews on the fragrance had warned me.) I then turned back to the colored soap portions and started layering them over the uncolored soap layers in the mold. The plan was to get some sort of lightly swirled layer on the top of a white base with some parts dipping into the white. Unfortunately, I seemed to not have gotten the colored portions thick enough to get what I wanted and they flattened a bit.

Unmolding the next day was an interesting reveal. As you can see, the very bottom had a really neat unintentional swirl pattern in it. The seized scented portion was clean looking and a creamy color. The swirled area had green, light blue, and a touch of the darker blue scattered. The scent was non-existant in one log while the other was not pleasant and the entire batch had slight weeping in the bars. Visually, I had a soap that reminded me of a beach and was an unexpected happy sight. There was just no saving those scents at all and the weeping wasn’t helping. So I made my notes on the recipe log and set it aside to see if we could recover them. They eventually found their way to being rebatched. These pics below are from when I chopped them up and was putting the chunks into the crock. On a good side, I have great notes on working with those new colors and can get a beachy looking soap made. This wasn’t too bad of a failure.

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Happy Washing!
Dorothy

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Market and Website

We are happy to announce that the website is going under construction by an official not-Dorothy webmaster! It will still be open for shopping and updates on where to find us while the she works her magic in making your input and our dreams come to life. You should start finding a more streamlined look, easier to navigate pages, and quicker updates on new stock as we make these transitions. We are also expanding our online voice and you will find posts from other personalities in the company on the blog soon. Please keep those comments and emails coming as we love to hear feedback.

Don’t forget this weekend we can be found at Fenske’s Market. The market is in the barn and we’ll update everyone via Facebook while we’re there. Street address for GPS users is 17719 Telge Road, Cypress, TX and is about 1/2 mile north of the Grant Rd intersection. There will be lots of great goodies to find out there so come on out and support your local small businesses this weekend!

I must now get back in the soap room to make sure everything’s ready to go in the morning. Have a great Friday everyone.

Happy Washing!
Dorothy