The Importance of Note Taking and Black Raspberry Vanilla :)

I am the world's worst person about jotting down all sorts of notes in all sorts of places!  No really...twice a year at least I find myself cleaning out this house and having to rewrite all of this valuable information into notebooks that won't be lost - and some of it is not so valuable and gets thrown out....but with a few things I am positively anal and much better.  My goats and my soaps - these things I stay on top of meticulously!

I had someone inquire the other day what they needed to start making soap and on the top of my list was "Notebook".  I wasn't always as good as I am now about taking notes and it came back to bite me a few times...

Like the time I concocted a really awesome bar of soap with an even more awesome fragrance I had mixed up out of left over bottles...yup, you guessed it, the post it notes with all that info got lost never again to resurface and I have never quite gotten it exactly right again....or the time I played with the soap calculator and THOUGHT I had an awesome recipe only to realize later that it traced too fast to do anything with...yup, you guessed...that envelope I had written it on wandered off and somehow - oh joy of joys - I DID manage to recreate that soap on a stick mess once more!  Taking notes really helps.  I recreate almost exactly the same soap I have made once before OR I can totally avoid another hot mess!

So, when I went into the Soap Room the other night, I grabbed my notebook and did a remake of Black Raspberry Vanilla...it's been a while since I made this soap and everyone loved it last time!  So, I didn't want to go changing it up entirely, I wanted something easily recognizable for what it was right?

I followed the same recipe, using the same fragrance from the same supplier and even the same colors as much as possible....I think it turned out mighty nicely :)

The lighting even cooperated for a change...well...actually, I just timed it better getting in there to take pictures haha! I think it looks like a raspberry patch with all the berries and leaves and shadows you'd see out in nature...that's what it reminds me of and it smells yummy too!

So, keep good notes and you'll be able to make more of something just the same as it was before (or avoid it completely) and don't forget to take pictures too!  I am still bad about getting photos of stuff for reference...but I'm working on it :)

Now...what should I do with myself today????