Life Can Be Crazy

Sorry for the delay in posting. Life has been absolute craziness around here. At first, it was getting used to a new job. Than it was a ten day vacation. After our vacation our son (who was born prematurely) got sick. St. Francis hospital to the rescue!

Life is now returning to normal. I was able to go back to work. It's the perfect job for me because I can take my son to it. I work for my sister-in-law who has a big house. Anthony has adapted well. Oh, and on vacation my mom bought all of my soap stock! Now I have profit to buy more lovely soap supplies! My etsy store currently has nothing in it. Oh, I have great plans for it.
Later on this week I will post soap pics from recent soaping adventures on this blog.

New loaf mold

New loaf mold from eBay seller, jazzyfrump. The wood is so smooth I can rub my cheek against it. It hold two pounds of soap. I just can't wait to use it! At the side are his wooden soap dishes. The ridges prevent soap from getting mushy. Wonderful craftmanship.

The Smell of Success is Sweet

I am excited to say that I just made the creamiest bar soap today that I have ever lathered in my hands. I am in love with this soap's lather. I have had lather issues in the past so it's good to know this simple recipe. The soap is Sweet Pea enriched with Shea Butter. The moisturizing shea butter gives the layered soap the creamy lather. The coconut oil base aids in soap bubbles too.
Did I mention the soap is pretty too? The flower shaped bars are two shades of light pink. Here are some pictures I took tonight. The pictures don't do justice to the soap or lather!

Experiments with Peppermint Soap

The soap on the left was swirled with two different hues of blue. This was my first time swirling.
The second soap I intended only to layer but decided to put soap chunks in it instead.

This is a crystal lite container. I wanted to see if the plastic would hold up to the hot soaps heat.
It sure did. I'm now excited because it can work as a round loaf mold.
I added dark blue chunks to this one and slowly poured in a light blue base.

Soap is now done. The small hearts at the side are my leftover soap. Great for samples or for me to test out the soap.

Here is my Lavender soap that I made yesterday. This soap is not worthy of selling but I believe it's worthy of giving. At least to my mother and I. :)

the making of Lavender Soap Balls

I have been looking forward to making lavender soap balls. Old-fashioned looking soap balls with ground oatmeal and lavender buds. I made the small hand-milled batch this afternoon. Other soap making adventures have gone better. I put the grated (store-bought) bars into my Pyrex in the boiling water on the stove. I wasn't feeling so hot so I had to turn off the heat and lay down for a bit. Grr. I did not want to stop what I just begun. The soap was already melting. I tried to start again after about an hour. Now I had to stop again to feed Anthony. This time I left the burner on low. I was not sure what way would be the best way to hand-mold the hot soap. The soap was goopy. I spooned some of it in my silicone heart mold. I made 2 hearts. I proceeded to make one big ball with my hands and a ice cream scoop. My, was that soap warm. It was setting up quick so I couldn't wait for it to cool down. With the leftover soap I made a small soap ball.
The white soap is unbelievably hard to color. I ended up with a light grey-purple color. It doesn't look too bad though. The commercial bar soap scent is also incredibly hard to cover up. I knew this from the past. I still added lavender essential oil to lightly scent it. Oh, instead of adding a half cup of water, I added milk. Milk is skin-tightening.

This was my second time attempting soap balls. I never intend to make them again. Such a gooey mess. I will do hand-milled again, however; I will always pack it into the molds.

Good way to use up old soap or soap that's too bland.

I'll post pictures and a review later.

Graphic Design majors rule

Not many times in my life I wished I went to school for graphic design. Yesterday was one of those days. I worked for hours yesterday to make my Etsy shop look appealing. First, I needed an avatar, a small profile picture. Now that doesn't sound hard does it? I wanted it to be a nice, simple picture of my soaps. All my pictures were to large. I find out I just needed to crop it. I played around, picked one, and cropped it. I uploaded it and realized the website also crops it after it's uploaded. Well! You can tell it was soap. sigh. Eventually I got a picture that "will do".
Now the hard part - the banner. (It's like a storefront for an online store.) I won't go into all the petty details. I'll just say this, I am not a computer geek but I wished I was yesterday!

So, up above is my current banner. I typed "Krimshas' Soaps" in the middle in white and it looked just right. However, the format wasn't just right. Only the picture itself would upload.

I guess it's better than nothing. It'll have to do.