10th ave. soapworks

I bought some beeswax....awhile ago.  As in a year ago.  A friend of mine in the honey business was learning how to take care of the beeswax and had lots of extra.  Local beeswax?  At a good price with no shipping charges?  I was in.  As it turned out, she had done for the first step in cleaning it, but to get the best quality, cleanest beeswax, it needed a second step.  I finally got around to doing it this fall, as I'd run out of my previous stash and all the cleaner pieces I had. Yellow jackets that died a waxy death. Cleaning beeswax isn't hard, but it does take a lot of waiting.  The first step for me was cutting it into smaller chunks to melt it down.  Wrenching off pieces of beeswax with a butcher knife is a workout like no other.    My "double boiler"--a #10 can in an old saucepan Melting the beeswax down took awhile in my makeshift double boiler.  When melted, the pure beeswax stays on the top while th...

Every two years in late September my town of Monroe, WI, celebrates Cheese Days.  Regular life comes to a halt as all attention is focused on the festival, celebrating the heritage of the area with all things Swiss-- polka, alphorns, beer, and copious quantities of cheese.  And it is a Big Deal; the population grows from 10,000 to over 200,000. Happily, most of the action occurs within walking distance of my house. (Ha!  As if there would be any place to park a car anyway!) Since it occurs over the weekend, there is, of course, a farmer's market.  It's moved a few blocks from its regular spot on the downtown square, but there is no lack of customers.  After the craziness of getting all the market vendors and their wares squeezed in and set up, I enjoy the excitement of the change of pace, meeting people from all over, and the party atmosphere. So what makes a party in Wisconsin?  Beer and cheese.  (Well, bratwurst, too, but I have to draw the li...

Confession: I made my first batch of soap about 14 years ago and in all the years since, I have never once made a batch of vanilla soap.  Sure, I've accidentally bought the occasional fragrance that contained more vanilla than I realized, like my lovely yellow lemon poppyseed soap that magically tuned to bland brown in mere hours.  But I've avoided the straight vanilla fragrance, as much as I like it. However, I recently bought a bottle of the most amazing vanilla fragrance.  It is incomparable in sugar scrubs and the sort of scent that you almost have to take the teeniest lick, just to convince yourself that it's really not edible. But I figured it was high time for some vanilla soap. When working with vanilla-based fragrances, I've found that it just doesn't work to fight it.  Titanium dioxide, vanilla stabilizer--the effects only last so long, if at all.  Brown soap is just so....brown. And boring. I wanted to make a vanilla soap that popped. Day one of ...

Thus would my former supervisor cheerily call out to me during our busiest, most frantic season.  Or to put it more simply, "Try to try."  And some days, what more can you do?  I've noticed a definite pattern: the quieter my blog, the busier my "real life." I'm not sure if the answer is better time management or a slower-paced life--either would come in handy. As it has been April since I last posted, you can be assured that things are been moving at warp speed around here.  But such exciting stuff!  Here are a couple items on the business side of things: I was contacted by Milwaukee Public Television this spring and asked to recommend an outstanding vendor from the farmer's market I manage for a segment on an upcoming show on my town, Monroe, Wisconsin.  I immediately named a favorite produce vendor but because of scheduling and produce availability conflicts, the next day I found myself and my soap business on the interview roster.  Eeep. Sho...

Spring will be coming soon or maybe it's already here....I'm not quite sure yet.  I enjoyed a beautiful weekend with temperatures in the 70s and woke up to snow and temperatures in the teens on Monday morning.  But with daffodils and hyacinths popping up and Easter only a few days away, this girl's fancy has turned to spring time soaps.  Here are a few that will be at the upcoming market here in Monroe and listed soon in my Zibbet shop. A new fragrance in my line-up, but I'm certain it will be well-received.  And I'm already looking forward to making another batch, because it soaped beautifully! Cucumber Melon I was getting requests for this scent way back in February!  This spring's batch came out just as I'd pictured it in my mind. Honeysuckle It's a rare, sad day that I don't have this soap in stock--Lemon Poppyseed Scrub.  I'm glad other people like it as much as I do.  I add a bit of rosemary essential oil with the lemon scent...

If you've followed my blog for a long time, you've already seen a post on one of my favorite things to grow--loofah, but I think it's time for another one.  People are often surprised when they learn that loofahs are grown.  No, a loofah isn't a sea sponge, but the mature "skeleton" of a zucchini-like plant.  Everyone knows they are good for the bath but they also make great natural pan scrubbers in the kitchen.  They are so popular that I have to remember to tuck away any that I want to keep myself. I raise three or four plants every year.  Like a zucchini or a cucumber, it likes to spread out with little regard to another plant's personal space.  Here is last year's crop. Early in the summer, the loofahs remained neatly on the trellis: But then they wandered over to the basil: Cozied among the tomatillos: And hung out with the butternut squash: Harvest time was a regular treasure hunt.  But I ended up with about 20 loofahs fr...

Last spring, I had the idea of creating a soap that represented some of the variety in my town's farmer's market.  The more I looked around, the more overwhelming the possible combinations--herbs, vegetables, dairy, fruits, even fats.  I could come up with a new combination every week as I looked around.  Maybe it was because my choices kept changing that I never settled on a set of ingredients and just did it. Dehydrated ground pumpkin--it makes a wonderful addition to angel food cake I recently narrowed down some of the abundance into my first version.  It may be March, but with the snow of the last two days (and still falling as I write), fresh vegetables are just a dream of the future.  So I used honey, dehydrated pumpkin and egg--all from the market--and dried kale.  (I used my own kale in this batch, not because it wasn't available in abundance at the market last summer, but I really couldn't justify buying anyone else's with a dozen fru...