10th ave. soapworks

I've recently teamed up with Danielle of Meadow Ridge Alpacas , a fellow vendor at my local farmer's market...my soaps with her alpaca fiber.  I can already tell it's going to be a great partnership. The idea of felted soaps was a new one for both of us but it seemed logical given our products.  So we turned to our good friend, YouTube.  After watching lots of videos, I gave it a try.   It was a Goldilocks kind of project--the first one was too thick, the second was too thin, but my third, fourth, and fifth attempts were just right .  It's a strange concept, the idea of turning a mass of soft fibers into a scrubby, felt washcloth attached right to the soap.  But it really works! I love the color variations of the natural alpaca fiber.  But of course, I can never leave well enough alone, so my next project will be learning how to dye the fibers to add a splash of pretty color.  (Because we all know prettier soap gets you cleaner.) The m...

The latest book I've been reading and toting around in my little project is The Natural Soap Book by Susan Miller Cavitch, written in 1995. While not nearly so old a book as Soap , it's still older, well, now that I give it some thought, I was already a high school graduate when it was published, so in the overall scheme of things, it's darn near hot off the presses.   (Have you noticed all the plaid and neon the cool kids are wearing these days?  It's just like when I was in high school.  See, nothing's changed!) Anyway, it remains a mostly relevant, thorough lesson in soapmaking, and not just for the beginner.  It includes short overviews of successful soap businesses, how they started, and what makes their businesses unique.  I appreciated the view of soapmaking before the influx of easily obtainable saponification-hardy fragrances and colorants, as well as supplies.  While examining the appendix, I only recognized a couple of the companies liste...

Well, I haven't posted since the week of Thanksgiving.  You see, as Bob Cratchit would say apologetically, "We were making rather merry."   And merry it was, with parties, family, wall-to-wall Christmas music and movies, food, company from afar, a successful deer season, blizzards, presents, cold snaps, and yet more food.  My life also seemed be one long Christmas craft show with a show every weekend but one since Nov. 2.     But here I am--rested up, over a bout of cold/flu, readjusting to a somewhat normal schedule, with a soap cupboard that looks like Cindy Lou-Who's house on Christmas Eve.  Perfect.   A cafe in a neighboring town, The Fuller House , recently began carrying some of my soaps in the adjoining gift store.  Big glass jars of beautiful loose tea blends are one of the popular items.  The owner suggested I incorporate some of her teas into soaps for the shop and gave me some tea blends to try out.  This is a bla...

This Great Cakes challenge started off, well, challenging for me.  I had internet problems (a lack of it) and something went rather tragic in my attempt to cobble together a recipe without access to my online lye calculator crutch or a good saponification chart.  Obviously, I need to work on this skill, since my first batch of soap is still not firm enough to cut.  I've seen firmer marshmallow cream.  I'm estimating that I'll be able to cut it in a week or two or maybe three. The top came out pretty, though, didn't it? Sigh.  I wonder what the inside looks like. On to batch number 2.  I went for a winter/snowy theme this time, scented with BB's Fresh Snow fragrance. I made a small 6-bar batch.  I kept noticing that my divider (a dollar store cutting mat) didn't stay in the center but kept migrating toward the edge with every pour.  I was concerned that it would ruin the design, but it held well enough. I know this challenge was all abo...

I knew I was pushing my luck when I tried to squeeze in some time to make a batch of soap.  But if everything went exactly as I wanted, it would work just fine.  ....Does anything ever go absolutely perfectly? So why did I think it would this time?  I guess it's just the thrill of the challenge. I've long admired the teardrop effect in soap-- this is my very favorite example.  I thought I would try it out on a batch of caramel apple soap.  The fragrance I knew would discolor to a dark brown, so I left some unscented and used a merlot mica to give the top teardrop layer a deep red.  In my mind it would be caramel-y and gorgeous and look as good as it smelled. The problem was that the red portion was much thicker than the rest of the batch.  I had already poured the base color into the mold and was supposed to be out the door 5 minutes ago.  To put my own twist on the classic advice, "When in doubt, charge ahead."  So I just started pouri...

The bars that just didn't turn out like they looked in your head or the batches in which the scent disappeared about the same time you sliced it.  The ends of a loaf.  The crumbled edges.  The odd-sized scraps and the leftover bits.  If you've been soaping for any length of time, you have a shoebox full of oddball soaps.  If you're like me, you hate to callously throw out your hard work, so you just start a new shoebox.  I've done various things with my scraps over the years.  I've shredded them up for laundry and I've handed stacks to family.  I've shredded them for decoration in other bars and used scraps to make sugar scrub cubes.  Yet they continue to accumulate.  However, a family member reminded me of one of the most obvious uses for leftovers--cobblestone soap.  I have to admit that I've only ever made it once, in an attempt to salvage a ba...

This fall, Bramble Berry contacted me and told me that they enjoyed my blog. (Aww--thanks!) I was then asked if I would like to do a soapy project using some Bramble Berry products and then write about it on my blog. Hmmm. After pondering such a silly question for approximately 1.5 seconds, I began contemplating my project. The possibilities were nearly overwhelming, but didn't take me long to choose a project, however--it just jumped out at me.  And what was my chosen project, you ask?  I'll show you tomorrow and the three days after that. the arrival of the Bramble Berry project box But in the meantime, I will share this with you so you can get a jump start on your ordering.  (It takes me forever to make an order for soap supplies.  I start off with my list of absolute needs, then I browse, add "maybes" to the list, daydream, watch the "maybes" become needs, check my budget, which leads to editing, ...

I'm completely out of my herbal balms and I miss them!  Right now I'm infusing oils for more batches.  Arnica is the most recent herbal infusion I have brewing.  I know it's fabulously good for bruises and such, but the dried herb is rather expensive so I've never tried it before.  But recently I was wandering around my local Mexican grocery store to get one of the staples of life, corn tortillas (the real ones), and a little bag of dried arnica caught my eye.  I had never noticed the shop carried it before, probably because I'm so focused on my beloved tortillas, but it got me pretty excited.  (Really, I ask you, who else goes to a Mexican market and comes out with bath and body ingredients?) I am using the slow method of infusion, letting time and sunlight do its thing on the arnica.  I've heated infusions up on occasion, but it often leads to deep-fried calendula petals...

I received a challenge from a customer this summer.  She asked if I could try making a grapefruit soap scented with essential oil.  I've used it in the past and the scent utterly vanished after a month or so. I did some research and asked other soapers for advice and this is what I came up with for my second attempt. 1) Clays and/or cornstarch in the soap will help the scent to "stick." 2) A touch of other essential oils, like benzoin, litsea cubeba (may chang), and patchouli may also up the "stick" factor. I'm not quite certain about the actual definition of "sticking"--does that mean the scent remains the same strength as when added, or to a lesser degree?  I would be happy with even a faint grapefruit-y smell.  As suggested, I mixed the essential oil with the clay and cornstarch before adding it to the soap mixture.  I didn't discount the goat milk at all because I was afraid a lot of the liquid might be a...

Well, I'm ahead of the game this week.  My soap challenge soap is made, cut, and looking good!  Pictures to come on Saturday. Anyway, I made this particular batch with yogurt.  If you like the qualities that yogurt gives to soap, you soapmakers can add a bit of wow to your next batch by making your very own yogurt.  (I'm all about the DIY projects!) It is Super Easy, too!  For years I've used my $1 garage sale yogurt maker but it breathed its last a couple of months ago.  (It had lived a good long life....I saw the same yogurt maker on an episode of the Bob Newhart Show , so that puts it at about 40 years old in people years--I don't know the equivalent in electric kitchen gizmo years....)  OK, no more relying on a gadget, I had to learn how to do it myself.  Have you ever searched "making homemade yogurt" on the internet?  There are 2,260,000 results on Google and I would reckon that every one is different.  So that means that ...

...and skipped last week's soap making challenge .  I had the best of intentions with my batch planned out but just couldn't fit it in during the week.  So I decided to make it on Saturday afternoon after the farmer's market ended but by the time I got home, I just collapsed and took a nap instead!  And I'm not even sorry. Truth be told, I wasn't as keen on this challenge as I've been on others even though I decided at the beginning of the year that I would work on experimenting with blends.  Oddly enough, this "always ready to experiment" girl doesn't like to mix up her fragrances.  I think blended essential oils are exquisite but I never seem to have the variety or quantity in stock to do a lot of experimenting outside of my few go-to blends.  And I'm fussy about my fragrance oils.  If I thought they needed tweaking, I wouldn't have liked them so much in the first place.  It's just messing with a good thing....

You've probably caught on by now that I love herbs.  One of my favorites is the dandelion.  Seriously!   It's an herb.   And God made them reproduce so abundantly just because they are that good for you (and so you won't even feel the temptation to pilfer your neighbors'.)  Take a peek h ere , here and even here . A couple of years ago, my friend had the idea to make dandelion wine.  Well, it sounded like such a grand experiment at the time that I decided to make my own batch.  Collecting mixing bowls of blossoms and picking the yellow petals from the green part was a delightfully brain (and finger) numbing way to spend a day.  I even added my own homegrown raspberries to the batch.  How resourceful is that, I ask you?  After it was "done," I tried a sip.  I noted a bouquet of nail polish remover with fruity notes, but then I am no wine connoiseur.  By any means.  Ev...

I've always loved soap curls.  Yes, they're delicate and dainty and look really cool embedded into a loaf of soap.  But I've had curl envy mainly because I couldn't figure out how in the heck to make them.  I would occasionally decide that "this time I was going to conquer the soap curl."  And invariably it was a bust. Well, the urge struck again last week and with some leftover soap batter, I made a bar just for curls...or as most people would eventually refer to them, chunks. Here is my usual "curl."  And manually rolling them up results in a lumpy, clunky not-really curl.  In desperation-- oh joy! oh rapture!--I reached for a different, but though very similar, vegetable peeler.  Perfect, beautiful curls!  It wasn't my incompetency after all! And then I had to go and ruin my curls by putting them into a batch of soap.  But that's a whole 'nuther post.  Maybe.

I've mentioned that I use a lot of apple cider vinegar in my hair and this is why. I make certain soaps that I use as shampoo. It's great for many reasons, but rinsing it out with just plain water is a bad idea. It's so squeaky clean I can't run my fingers through my hair and when it dries, it's like a handful of straw perched on my head. But when I pour some apple cider vinegar diluted in water over my hair it gets instantly softened and conditioned. I even use it whenever I use commercial shampoos. I must include a word of caution here....(Good Story Alert)....Early in my herbal interest, I read that vinegar made a good final hair rinse. I took this literally. I washed my hair one morning and poured on a cupful of vinegar, towel-dried it and raced off to work. The vinegar was definitely smelly, but what's that when gorgeous hair is on the line? I arrived with my hair still damp and set to work with a co-worker. After several minutes, she wrinkled up her nos...

Ages ago, I ran across an idea that intrigued me--making soap specifically designed for removing clothing stains. After doing some research on what would make the best recipe, I tried them out for myself awhile ago. For my oils, I used tallow, a traditional ingredient, as well as coconut oil, which is a good cleansing oil. I also added borax for an extra boost and then something you might not expect—kerosene. I did a little research and discovered that some long-used name brand laundry bars contain a similar ingredient. And just a few days ago I happened to be looking through an old cookbook and read a tip that suggested rubbing a stain with straight kerosene. So it's not such a crazy idea after all. I used a couple of ice cube trays to make the sticks and had just enough left over for a small bar. Here is how they looked after I unmolded them. They are so white--I love how they look! There is a definite odor about them, however, but it does fade somewhat, I just realized. I used ...

This is the loofah right after I peeled off the hard rind. I then rinsed them out in the sink. Some had a lot of flesh inside (like a cucumber's) and it took awhile to clean them out. These are my loofah drying. Once they were completely dry, I was able to shake out the remaining stubborn seeds. I then soaked them in a very mild bleach solution to lighten and even out the color. I had been wanting to try growing these for years! I was so excited that it worked!