It's Thursday Already?

Lavender Goat Milk Soap

This week has flown by.  But of course, it is a short work week for me after being on vacation for a week, plus.  :)  I have more soapy plans for this weekend, of course. 

If you remember a few weeks ago I ended up with botched batch of Lavender soap so last week I made another batch and I am pleased to report this one turned out fabulous!  This batch has some layering of lavender throughout the base of the bar, and a textured top with lavender and green.  I was delighted with the results, and the bars smell absolutely heavenly.

My new photo light box arrived yesterday but my camera was MIA.  Ashley's camera was in my camera bag, and turns out she had mistakenly placed my camera in her bag.  Now that my camera is safely back home I have plans to play around with my new toy this weekend.   After all, I have all of these new soaps that are begging to be photographed.  :)

Not so good news about the homemade dish soap I made the other day.  It just wasn't up to my standards, so I will be reformulating and testing further. 

I have used the dish detergent a couple times and it needs to be tweaked a bit more to be comparable to what I have been using before I send it out to my testers for additional feedback.  It is close, but I'm not quite happy with the results just yet. 

However, I am happy with the laundry soap I've been testing, and I've enlisted the assistance of others to test and report back to me on how it performs for them.  I have folks that use HE machines and others that use standard washing machines so I will have a pretty good idea on how the formula performs and if any further adjustments might be necessary for optimal cleaning performance. 

All in the Day of a Soapers Life

Chocolate heaven in a log of soap

Yesterday I made some chocolate soap as it was feeling like one of those days.  My son was excited when he smelled the chocolate and thought I was baking.  Needless to say, he was sorely disappointed to discover the source of the chocolate smell was coming from the soap room and NOT the kitchen.  The only problem I have with this soap is that one of my son's friends thought the soap was fudge as he walked through the soap room and took a bite out of one of the bars.  He quickly found out it was NOT fudge! 

The beginnings of laundry soap

The next project of the day involved creating a soap base for some laundry soap that I will be testing in the near future.  This morning I needed hubby's help to release the soap from the mold because the arthritis in my hands is really giving me fits the past couple days.  After cutting the soap into managable chunks I grated the soap before it turned hard as a rock.  When finished, it looked like snow.  Hmmm...inspiration for a Christmas project?  Perhaps!



Oops!

Last night in my haste to get a third batch of soap poured before hubby returned from his snowmobile adventures I had a "little" issue with one of the molds.  Due to the arthritis acting up, I "thought" I had secured the bottom on one of the round molds.  I fill these molds inside of a bucket to avoid any spillage dripping all over the place.  After the first mold was filled I moved it to its resting spot, and then went about filling the second mold.  All was fine until I went to move the second mold when the bottom let loose. 

I was stunned over what had just happened and amazed that none of the raw soap got on me or my shoes!   To date that has to be the biggest mess to clean up after.  The plus side is that the floor got a good cleaning, and I was thankful the tile didn't get ruined.  It is apparent that next time I pour in these molds I plan on laying down a bunch of newspaper on the floor for easier clean up if that ever happens again. 

I had hubby make sure the bottom of the molds were secure before he headed out on the snowy trails this morning "just in case" a soapy inspiration comes over me, but my plans are to take the day for myself and putter around the kitchen.  I'm feeling like it is a good day to make some fresh baked bread to go with our dinner tonight.  If my son hasn't eaten all of my chocolate chips "in hiding", we might even have some chocolate chip cookies to enjoy.