Some of the fun projects around here were more work playing with natural colorants in some of our olive oil blends. These pictures were of one of the batches from about two weeks ago. I had a lot of fun with this one and was overjoyed to see some of the swirling practice finally paying off. Unfortunately, there wasn’t really any left after to share so I’m planning to make some again to spread the love around and let everyone else enjoy it too. The coloring work continues with some reds and pinks that should provide some funny pictures down the road for all of us to laugh at, I’m sure. Cold process soap is well known for creating color surprises so I can only keep trying!
Freshly cut brown and white swirled soap.
It appears that almost all of the weekend changes on the website have worked so far. I’ll learn more about coding this week and see if I can figure out how I turned off some of the pictures in the catalog. Hope you and yours have had a good weekend and we will start seeing everyone in about two weeks here in the Houston, TX area. Will post more this week with the calendar updates about where we’ll be.
Ok guys, in case you’ve missed the abundance of media coverage and tons of hints from your special someone, it IS Valentine’s Day again. Consider this your 2×4 in the forehead to remind you. I hear the collective cheer from millions of women and children who absolutely love this day. The stores and corner stands are exploding with candy, cards, hearts, chocolates, and huge stuffed animals in colors that just aren’t natural. (Have you seen the 3ft bear that is swirled in neon sherbert colors too?!?) This day happens every year but it still seems to sneak up on people and then we hear the stories later from those who forgot it was coming. There are always at least a few people who aren’t even sure where to start for today and others who could care less about the holiday but their loved ones do. Beware if you are in the group that doesn’t really care for the day with loved ones who do!! We thought we might present a little of our own ideas for today to both help and entertain you as you survive the madness.
Lucky for hubby, Dorothy’s not a mushy gushy kind of girl so she recommends finding alternatives to the usual chocolates & cut flowers. She believes that it’s better to take a few seconds regularly in life to connect with those you love. Take a couple of seconds to grab those you love today and remind them that you care! A random hug or kiss does wonders for a relationship. Who needs a special holiday to say I love you? Life doesn’t wait for that one day to say it and those you would want to say it to may not be alive by the time Valentine’s arrives. Don’t waste a chance to let someone know you love or care. Want to see Dorothy’s head spin? Take her into the stores overflowing in pinks and reds and strong perfume smells or out to dinner to find that the wait is an hour and a half just to get a table. How is that romantic or even worth spending time?!?!
Need some other ideas? Why not think outside the candy box? Offer to wash their backs in the shower or give them a back rub for a little intimacy. Learn more about something they’re interested in to give yourselves another conversation option and actually try to discuss it. They’ll usually appreciate you trying to reach out and see the world from their perspective. If your wife is the cook in the house, take the time to fix a meal and let her rest (bonus points are usually awarded if you clean up the kitchen after too!) Find out if she’d prefer live flowers or plants instead of cut ones. If she’s interested in gardening, those plants will remind her of you every time she sees them and they will last much longer than the cut roses we pay a ransom for on this day. If she loves flowers or sweets but is trying to cut back, grab her some of our Honeysuckle or Chocolate soaps to meet that craving! If your guy has been eyeballing some cool new tool he can’t live without, why not grab that for him instead of a gushy card? Most guys I know would say tools or something along that line is a perfectly awesome alternative to a long line at the movies or restaurant. Slip some of our beer soap into the shower to give him something else to smile about in the morning. Spend some extra time with the kids too. Grab a book and cuddle up together to enjoy a story and pass on the gift of reading. Or perhaps you could make a snack after school today and just talk for a few minutes. They’ll remember you taking time to be with them long after they’ve eaten the candy you gave them.
However you and yours spend today, we hope it is a good one. Whether you celebrate the holiday or not, we hope you at least got a smile and idea or two from us today. Many we know are celebrating anniversaries and we wish you many happy returns! If you are tying the knot today, best wishes on your future. To our friends and family, we love you and hope you know that year round! Now we must close this post so that Dorothy can get back to the kitchen. No rest for the wicked and her soap pot is calling again lol We will see some of you later today and promise to update again soon on our spring/summer booth locations.
Another recent project we tackled was to create our own version of peppermint soap. I was given a bare minimum of guidelines and turned loose to have fun with this project. It was requested to use real peppermint as much as possible in the soap itself but not to leave any leaves in or on the final bars, make a strong scent with a light touch of sweetness using either essential or fragrance oils, to create a blend useable by the whole family, and use only natural or no colors at all. I couldn’t resist!
We have grown peppermint in our garden for a few seasons now and I’ve made many other soaps from our herbs there. Making a soap that would bring out peppermint’s zippiness but could be used by the whole family was an intriguing idea. Peppermint essential oils are known to be both stimulating and antiseptic at the same time; they’re wonderful for a pick-me-up or get-up-and-go in the morning. However, they can create an overwhelming scent very quickly, not to mention quite a tingle on the skin if overdone! And no, I don’t mean a good kind of tingle either. They are wonderful to use but I was concerned about the strength to use without being above levels I would ever want to expose mature skins or children to. Some people have also complained to me over the years about running into the problem of the “toothpaste smell” that is quite common with peppermint products. Lastly, I haven’t found as much of a sweetness in the scent when using the real leaves as I had expected. So after a little brainstorming, we decided to combine the real peppermint leaves with a fragrance oil to reach a workable middle ground.
I kept the leaves out of the finished product by brewing a strong peppermint tea with my soaping water and letting it steep before adding the lye. After the lye cooled and I made doubly sure it was strained, I soaped as usual with one of our “family soap” recipes. No extra colors were added so we were anticipating some browning from the vanilla in the fragrance oil and a possible light green from the olive oils. By the time it was molded, my entire person and house smelled of peppermint! Hubby didn’t have to ask what it was I just made that time. I planned to let it rest overnight as patiently as I could before cutting it open to try it out but I will admit I was worried when I finally crawled into bed late that night. It was still so strong-smelling to me! Morning came as it usually does and I made a beeline for the mold to see how it turned out. I did a happy little dance after getting it out and started cutting it. It was going to be a solid tan color it appeared and had a great texture. The smell was still way stronger than I can personally take but in line for the project. (I’m one of those people who are sensitive to strong smells too. Peppermint is one of those smells I encourage everyone to try but I’ve found it will give me headaches when too strong. Even worse than going thru the cosmetics area of a store or locked in an elevator with someone who marinated in their cologne!) I reluctantly set it aside on the curing rack for a few days to watch and wait.
Peppermint chunked into a plain soap base
As some of you have witnessed over the years of this blog, sometimes I just won’t leave a soap design alone. The peppermint was doomed to be messed with. Since it was admittedly stronger than we had aimed for in the beginning, it was fair game to tone it down a bit. As it sat, defenseless and strongly smelling on my curing rack, I plotted its reincarnation. I left it alone for a whole week before chunking it into smaller bits. I made another batch of plain base soap and imbedded the peppermint chunks into it. After this sat overnight again and got cut into, we knew we had hit the mark. This was one keeper of a design! I’m happy to announce it was such a success that we are keeping this bar in our regular stock. There will be an initial short supply since there were only a few extras from the project but they will be for sale in our catalog by the end of February. After that, I should have enough in stock for everyone to share. Give it a spin in your shower and let me know what you think! Does it remind anyone else of cowhide or am I just nuts?
Chunky Peppermint curing on the rackChunky Peppermint Soap side view
