Tag: teakwood

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Orange Teakwood Scout Soaps

One of our most recent fun projects was creating soap medallions for some local Cub Scouts at their crossing ceremony. Our local customers and friends have helped us support the local Big Cypress District Scouts and my little den of boys was graduating into Boy Scouts. Of course, I had to give them a little something to remember their goofy den leader as they moved on to bigger and more exciting things so I created little soap medallions for them in some molds I had found. Young boys aren’t exactly known for wanting to get showers while camping so I had hoped that these soaps MIGHT make them want to clean up- at least once in a campout! These fun little soaps come with designs like the BSA emblem, an eagle with BSA across him, and the Cub Scout emblem. We had a few that were round that I managed to get a picture of before they disappeared but I will need to get some pictures of the diamond-shaped ones once the next batch is done!

Round scout medallion soaps
Scout medallion soaps
Round scout soap medallions
Scout soap medallions

I used a plain soap base and used one of our popular men’s scents, teakwood. I wanted to keep it a little lighter since this batch was going to preteens so I added some orange peel for a lighter citrus touch along with a little scrubbing power to remove a little more of that camp grime the scouts always seem to collect 🙂 These fun little soaps are hand sized and fit perfectly into their gear bags. It was a lot of fun making this project and we decided to offer it in our gift sets for everyone to enjoy. It is completely customizable to your preferred scent and colors. If you have a scout or know a dirty one, here is your perfect gift for Blue and Gold, Crossings, or any other time before they head out into the woods. I hope your boys enjoyed it like ours have. And to my boys who have graduated and are moving on, I wish you the best in all you do. I know you will go far and I’m proud of you.

Happy Washing!

Dorothy

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Making Soap and Crashing Computers

(Cross posted on our WordPress.com site also.  Please be sure to sign up as a follower here so you won’t miss out on the fun!)

It’s been pretty busy around here for us these past few weeks.  We’re making sure everything is ready for Donna’s Market this Saturday so that means I have soap, packaging materials, and scratch paper with my soapy brainstorm ideas all over the kitchen!   If you are in our area, please stop by and say hi this Saturday. The address for the market is 18315 Kenmark Lane, Cypress, TX, and we’ll be there from 8-2. Looks to be a beautiful weekend so we hope to see you there and share a joke or two!  We will be bringing a variety of stock with us so you should be able find to everything from unscented, castile, sand soap, teakwood, chocolate, oatmeal, and even vanilla with shea butter.  We will also be taking preorders for the beer, honeysuckle, peppermint, cinnamon, and pumpkin soaps while we are there.  Another scent on your mind?  Want to create the perfect holiday gift?  Just let us know!

I can’t wait to cook up some more this weekend after Donna’s.  There’s a brand new mold and cutter sitting on my table just begging to be tried out.  The cooler weather and the fall scents we have lined up have me playing with pumpkins, dreaming of walks in the woods, hot cider to sip afterwards, and the aroma of fresh baked holiday treats.  Cross your fingers- I might even have gotten the trick of swirling finally!

As you may have caught, we’ve migrated our blog from WordPress.com to our site at texaspioneercreations.com over the past few weeks.  It has been quite an adventure for me as I learn more of the nuts and bolts of how a website really works- and how well I can crash it!  Thank heavens I’ve got a computer geek hubby and decent tech support when I break the computer.  One of the things I’ve learned in this migration- I’m sooo much better at soap math and design than websites!  To those who are the computer geeks out there, thanks a million times for creating these wonderful machines and beautiful websites.  And thanks for not pointing as you laugh when I do something stupid with them.

Our email based followers were successfully moved over but we are still working with tech support to bring over our WordPress.com followers.  If you are currently one of our .com followers, please take a moment to resubscribe to our blog at texaspioneercreations.com so you won’t miss out on our new posts, updates, and the ongoing insanity that is my soapy life!  The online ordering section of the site should be live soon also so that those not in our local area can enjoy some of our soaps in a more streamlined process.  Sign up so you won’t miss out!

I must now sign off so that I can get back to wrapping and brainstorming.  Hope your day is a good one, your tech support friendly, and you find the time for a little fun in it all.  I will see you again soon!

Happy Washing!

Dorothy

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Back at it!

Thank you to those who waited so patiently while we were closed last week and those who reached out to help us.  Your understanding and kindness were greatly appreciated!

I will post a quick inventory update later this week- how about that?  Two posts in the same week?!?!?  I know that I promised a complete update on what I have on hand and will get it done this week.

While we were closed and going through things, I did play with the beer soap.  I confess.  It was begging me, pleading with me.  My first pour of it had resulted in a pretty swirl that reminded me of cream being swirled into coffee at first.  Unfortunately, my color swirl failed and I felt it got ugly- fast!  I left it sitting for the first few days while I was getting a hold of things personally.  I could smell the soap when I was near it and it taunted me.  The color just got to where it flat-out annoyed me and I decided to mill the soap.  For those who don’t know what milled soap is, let me explain.

Milled soap, which does go by other names, is simply soap that was created, shredded down at least once, remelted, and remolded.  You can shred and remelt to your heart’s content.  Honestly, a lot of the soaps you purchase in the stores are milled.  Done well, you can create a beautiful, compact bar of soap and have a chance to use more “perishable” soap add-ins.  For example, you can use botanicals or scents that might not survive the harshness of the cold process of soapmaking.  This is a great technique for your ugly soaps too!  I grabbed out my grater and took no prisoners that afternoon.  Those defenseless shreds found themselves dumped into the soaping crock, melted to gooey blobiness, and then unceremoniously plopped into molds.  Tons of fun!  (Is blobiness even a real word?  Don’t know but it’s fun to say.  Try it like “blob-E-ness” and see for yourself.)

I must also confess to being hooked on this scent.  The beer soaps are usually compared to the smell of something baked and fresh out of the oven.  No, you don’t smell like a freshly opened bottle of beer!  This scent has that same warm, yeasty hook to it and then something special.  I swear I’ve got to get some of this onto the hubby- fast!  It might be a hard call between this beer soap round and the Indonesian Teakwood for my favorite manly scent.  I will let you know and would love to hear your votes!

The sun is now up here and I must go water the garden and feed the animals.  May your day be great, life go your way today, and your troubles be small.

Happy Washing!

Dorothy