OOPS! Latest supply haul, last video to go up :(

Meant to get this one up first and somehow it is the very last thing I am getting to today :(  Here is my supply haul from last month...

I really do love these new fragrances....still trying to decide which cranberry I like best...but overall I am pretty excited to start pulling out the Christmas stuff and getting it going!

The making of...THREE soaps :)

Well - really it's the making of a normal batch of "Country Skies" and then two tiny test runs of "Hansel and Gretels House" and "Saffron and Cedar".  But it's not the size of the soap it's the info in the video that counts eh?

Hansel and Gretels House I think I shall rename to "Gingerbread Man"...or maybe "Can't Catch Me" and when people ask ??? what does that mean I'll say: "Run, run run as fast as you can - can't catch me I'm the GINGERBREAD MAN" and I'll laugh wildly at the end.  What? No? Sounds Crazy?  Okay, so maybe I'll stick with Gingerbread Man....probably keep it simple like it is here too....perhaps a flat, short bar instead of a tall normal bar, but still with icing and sprinkles?  Oh how mama needs a froo froo mold for that...one day.....anyways, top came out like this:

Then there is "Saffron and Cedar" - I dunno....I was thinking I might call it "Drop Dead Sexy" or "Awesome Sexy Man" or something! I love it! Didn't think I was going to love it as much as I do...but it really is a nice fragrance! I was just playing with the colors there - but I will probably keep it just as simple when I do a big formal batch of it....the fragrance did seep out a little the first day or so...but it reabsorbed back in before I even had the chance to cut it...so no biggie there, I still love the way it smells!

This is the top of "Country Skies" - a remake really, it's the Fresh Outdoors scent from Nature's Garden - but I hadn't done a video of it (I don't think anyways) and since I was splitting off the other stuff from that one I figured "eh why not"....just love how it looks all fresh in the mold! Smells good too!

All three claim to accelerate trace - and maybe a little yes - but really all 3 did very well for me and came out pretty perfect...if this slow as heck old internet ever gets the first video up, I MAY post the video where I cut them LOL....and here it is:

Anyways...on to the next video lol...have that ready about Christmas time haha! Actually, with any luck it'll be up before the day is out ;)

FINALLY! A making of "City Slicker" video :)

I FINALLY did a video of making what I call "City Slicker for him" - it's really Black Tie by Nature's Garden and it is FANTABULOUS! I love that smell, I love how the soap comes out, it's just fun!

This is the one I do with the zebra/tiger stripes in black and white...just loving it how it goes together...

The top had a little more texture, but still overall very flat :( I don't know why - I guess it's just so dang hot, I don't feel perky and thusly my soap tops are NOT perky either lol!

I haven't cut it yet - but it's gonna look pretty much like that when I do, just love it! Elegant, but fun all at once.

Off to allow another video to upload while I do other stuffs then :P

Lip Balm...hmmm....

Not real sure how I feel about all that....I didn't get any pics either....but let's just say I now have 85 little tubes of the devil with a lid on it!

Actually, it's pretty good stuff - I'm cheating the system a bit...not gonna lie about it.  I bought a base from Nature's Garden and just melted it down, sweetened it, flavored it, and got it into the tubes....pretty basic right? We'll see how it goes over next time I hit the markets - if it moves pretty decent there, I will for sure make up some more. I have already sent out testers to my loyal groupies - they are loving it, I am loving it.  It's just all the "itty bitty" stuff that makes me a tad bit crazy LOL.

Itty bitty tubes, with teeny tiny tops, and small little sticky icky labels and tiny little shrink wrap bands.....yeah...I like stuff that's bigger and easier to work with can you tell? FOR SURE if I do any more of this I will be investing in the easy peasy filler tray thing-a-ma-jig! I figured this time, since I was only playing with it, I could use a dropper and fill stuff by hand...um, yeah, NEVER AGAIN! That was some royal crazy madness - for real!

I did kinda have fun doing it though - it's simple, not much thinking involved, no preplanning of colors or designs or any of that extra brain power that goes into soap.  Just pick a flavor, melt stuff down and voila! Lip balm :)

But for real though...filler tray thing-a-ma-jig...it's the word of the week where lip balms are concerned :P

Cannabis Flower...aka "Pimp Juice"

Okay, so to be honest, Monkey Farts was getting old - played, tired, too many reruns!  Random way to begin things when the title mentions cannabis right?  See....what had happened was....

Monkey Farts is always the soap that makes people stop and smell things...it's the name.  At markets, at the feed store, even here at the house - when people see "Monkey Farts" they ALWAYS say: "I have to smell that, what DOES a monkey fart smell like???"  And then from there they smell everything else, and especially at the market I have noticed they usually will find at least a few soaps to buy after that....When I placed the monkey farts soap right on the corner where the most traffic came from I would without fail stop a good portion of people "to see what it smelled like".

But now everyone has seen and smelled that one...lord knows I myself have smelled that one...and while it's still a nice soap, I was over it.  I wanted to do something new, something different.  Have I mentioned this before?  "Pimp Juice" was my husbands idea.  He is just nerdy enough to come up with it.  What is pimp juice you ask?  Hmmm.....let my friend Nelly tell you:
Pimp Juice - Nelly

So as we sit here one day the hubby says, "You should make a soap called pimp juice!" (keep in mind I also refer to pg600 - used to bring the goats into heat for breeding - as 'pimp juice', which is where the phrase was being used at the time and I am sure what sparked the hubby to think of using it with soap).  We talked about it, and decided that Pimp Juice the soap should smell like Cannabis Flower Fragrance oil from Nature's Garden.

So, my fragrances came, and I swear to you, as soon as I cracked the bottle open to sniff it I coughed, I giggled, I had flashbacks to younger days! Oh my goodness!   It's one of those scents that inspires you to be naughty and get in trouble like highschool style, I swear! Really - the fragrance gave me the giggles and made me hungry...I'm really having fun with this one even if it smells naughty, thought I admit, I plan to take all my receipts and such to the market with me...and a print out from their website just in case I get pulled over on the way there....ya know...to prove it's really soap.

So I split my batch three ways, and I WAS going to do the whole "mantra swirl" thing....but DANG it was hot that night, and I was all out of patience as sweat dripped in my eyes (and no one wants a bar of soap made with love AND sweat - YUCK!)  I just flopped it all in a mold and swirled it up and added a little gold mica swirl tot he top with some green sprinkles too! I was shooting for the whole Mardi Gras/Rasta/Bob Marley kinda bright and colorful thing ya know?

Not my favorite top ever - I set it down in front of a fan (not thinking) and the paper lining in the mold blew over the top and smooshed it all around a bit....not bad, my mica still shows up nicely, but the very edges look a little ugly ya know?

The house smelled of, well, smoke for a few days too - even though I had a batch of Pink Sugar AND Black Tie AND Rosemary Mint soaps all curing! I went LIGHT on this fragrance too! Thankfully no one stopped by to have to explain it to...

I know, crummy lighting right?  But I like it!  Now if only it will be my new show stopper for a while....I think I will have fun with this one....I know it still makes me giggle when I walk by and smell a bar of it!

Making "Lullaby" CP Goat Milk Soap

I use Bedtime Bath Type fragrance from Nature's garden when I make this one - LOVE IT!  Super calming scent to my nose, very nice blend of lavender and chamomile!  Changed it up a little to blue and pink swirls and did a "Holly Swirl" with it - which came out nice :)

I really have fun making these little videos - I mean, while I am not Steven Spielberg I still enjoy what I do! Always a drama student deep down at heart!

Can't wait until this one has cured a bit longer - been made for a while now, just waiting on me to post the video of it's "birth" haha!  One of my faves by far!

Cutting a TON of soaps!

Well, here goes I suppose.  There will be more of these for sure haha, but for now, here is the cutting of "Rosemary ROCKS!!!" a rosemary mint fragrance from Nature's Garden that I absolutely LOVE!

AND THEN....since the "making of" videos were crud...here is the one where I cut a bunch of other soaps LOL.  "Berries & Cream" which is Black Raspberry Vanilla fragrance from Nature's Garden, "Kerfluffled" which would be my name for Pink Sugar fragrance from Rustic Escentuals (the "SNC" version since they have several).

There is also a little bitty loaf of "Malibu Heat Type" also from RE - I haven't renamed it yet since it was just a test run on that one...but I am in love again :)

The true special here is "Summer Nights" which would be Moonlight Pomegranate from NG....even though it is so special it will get it's own blog post...for now it is one video and displayed as such.  I LOVE the way it came out!  Looks so neat!  Took a bit...may not be doing that again LOL....but I was amused :)

So...without furher ado yet another cutting video: 

Restocking L.O.V.E. (now on video)

Oh yes...I am all video crazy now!  Sure, it seriously takes like 12 hours to get a video uploaded...first from the phone to "google +" (I think that's what it's called...idk....all I know is it's the method I have figured out - I am sure there is a better way).  Then from there to being saved to the computer, THEN on to youtube...T E D I O U S!  But..I LOVE making the videos!

So...we made a restock of L.O.V.E. (the love spell type fragrance) yesterday - I had my niece here to help run the camera and she has never been old enough yet to make soap with me.  FINALLY she is old enough AND available!  All in all it was fun :)  AND it's one of her favorites that I make!

The newest NadaLotta Camera skills on video (LOL) :

Cutting the Mica Swirl Tops Soaps :)

I was all "video makin' happy" last week lol! I got these all cut and on tape and then I walked away from the computer (mostly) for a few days...sooooo...I am FINALLY getting around to posting these!  IDK how great the video is in reality.  In MY head at least I think it is wonderful because I finally did it :P

But anyways, I HOPE it came out okay :) I was uber excited and still am!  Black Raspberry Vanilla and Moonlight Pomegranate - mmmmmmm :)

I think before I officially go post my link on the GreatCakes page I will go get some still shots and put those on the blog - just because my video is NOT that great - but yes, giddy excited a bit I was when I figured out I had a perfect spot to perch the phone and still get ok passing for viewable videos! Happy dance happy dance :)

I want to say I was having a less than beautiful day - but let's be honest, that's how farmer woman tend to roll.  Old t-shirts and make up free! If I really like this video thing I may start doing my hair first LOL :)

Also - please note the OCD with my cutting - I never get a straighter than straight bar and I have some issues haha! Perhaps someone (husband dear) will get me a REAL cutter soon! Actually, maybe I will get me a REAL cutter once I am done with baby goats next month.

And yes, before I start I scrub the HECK out of my hands!  I can't cut for beans in gloves, I tried, didn't work, my hands gets all slippy.  VERY ugly scene!  SO I scrub my hands like medical style before I cut soaps. Just saying - I dunno, another OCD thing with me.

Guess I better go get those pics then so I can post my link for real huh?

Moving on, the Elemental Swirl: Third try = the charm?

OR...is it just that the FIRST try of each technique is the charm???  Who knows right?  All I know is now I can't wait until the weekend comes to share this one - heck, if you are reading this it might already BE the weekend :) It seems for me, with the challenge, I should leave "well enough alone" and stick to one attempt on things...ok universe, I get it, can do!

So...I went on into the soap room bout, eh, 6ish this evening (Actually yesterday evening now...Wednesday night that is).  I got EVERYTHING prepped to do my version of the "Elemental Swirl".  Then, I walked away.  Oh yes, it was time to milk, then dinner and so on...I figured there was no storm blowing through tonight and odds would be in my favor if I waited until after ALL the critters were fed! Plus, I really didn't know if I had it in me to get back in there...but then while I was waiting on the chicken to finish roasting for dinner, I came across a blog post by another soap challenge taker and I was really and truly inspired to stop pouting and get back in that soap room.  Sometimes, I must admit, the farming thing can kinda drive you nuts...this has been one of those weeks!  But I put on my big girl panties and in I went...

'Bout 10p.m. I headed in - ready to do battle!  Flashlight always handy, just in case, everyone on lock down, gloves and goggles on, here I come to tackle a batch of soap with NO INTERRUPTIONS! See now, I was (and still am) VERY excited about this one!  I had some Cucumber Melon fragrance oil from Nature's Garden that I had been meaning to soap - and when I heard about the soap challenge BAM! It hit me!  THAT was the one for the elemental swirl!!!

Milk and lye, all mixed up and ready (oils not pictured ready too :) )

A hot mess of colors and cups, ready to mix away - see my oils off to the left there? Also - please note the splash of purple on the wall above the single red cup...see it?  Oh yes, that would be a splash from the spill in my great Leopard attack the night before!  I still don't know how I came away from that one unscathed....no back to the soap at hand...

The greens and the yellows needed no stick blending - I choose those three on a plain soap base because they reminded me of how both cucumbers and watermelons often have a bit of yellow in the rind portion...The black hadn't been blended yet when I paused to snap this, but I was going for watermelon-y reds/pinks with a bit of black like the seeds ya know?

I didn't get any pics of me mixing it all in the pots...i was way too excited to slow down for the camera!  First...in goes the red bit....I kinda over did it with the swirling thing, it's a little curfuddled and more muddy than I was going for, but hey...I'll take it!  At least a tree limb hadn't come through the roof yet and no goats had strolled through the kitchen either!  Gotta take what you can get in terms of perfection LOL :)

It's more red/pink than white closer to the bottom - funny how you can over stir part of it and not the rest right?  Okay...so then I choose the pearly white mica for my pencil line.  Sticking with the whole "melon slice" theme I was going for, I wanted the white line to be there like that ucky white part only chickens and pigs eat on a melon...

I'm just ITCHING to see how that white line comes out...a little scared it WON'T come out!  Looks silvery a bit in this lighting doesn't it?  Oh well...I must admit here - when I have done "pencil lines" until now I have used a strainer thing-a-ma-jig that I have.  But this time I tried Madame GreatCakes herselfs hint and used an old pair of panty hose over a little jar and YES!  Hausfrau farm wife me did have a pair in the closet still (of course I have never worn them LOL, pulled 'em fresh outta the package! Thank goodness I'm not froo froo anymore!) LOVED that little trick!

Then, ever so gently, on with the green layer....

I ended up with the coolest ever ribbons of green down the middle! I ALMOST left it like that too!  But, alas, I had pink/red bits left and couldn't resist swirling the top a bit....

On with the melon colored madness...annnnnnddd....then we swirls it all :)

Now, here's where I had a VERY tough moment - to glitter or not to glitter - that is the question????  After staring at it VERY hard for a moment, I went with "or not".  A little tidly wee bit of shine from the mica is coming through in that darker red and I decided I liked that.  No, not a ton like melt and pour soap would give it...but enough...A nice little pop of "look real close to see how special this soap is" if you will.

The best part?  The VERY best part?  I only had enough fragrance to do this one ONCE right now at least LOL....I won't be going back for a round 2 on this soap for a while!  So...knock on wood...long as the rest of that oak tree stays put and doesn't fall into my soap room we are safe for a while!  

****************************************************************

And....drum roll ya'll............

 

Sorry, it's a tid bit out of focus - my shaky hands would not cooperate tonight.  But...Me likey :) :) :)

The pencil line in white = bad idea - you can BARELY see it there (of course maybe if I went with darker colors it would be better...but I like the lighter pastely look for this scent).  IF you look reeaaallllly close, it looks more like tiger stripes than swirls LOL!!!  I suppose that is a big "cosmic laugh at me" kinda thing though - I asked for tiger stripes last week danggit and NOW I get them!  Oh my...I'm still laughing at my reaction when I cut it!  "WHAT?  Stripes now??" It took my 2 slices in to catch on too - at first I was all "ooh, ahh" and THEN a very loud WHAT was heard all across the county - sorry ya'll, it was me (my husband seriously came in to check on me as I was talking very loudly to myself as I cut this one haha!) I still love it though!  

Note to self for next time:  more red, no white, in the bottom part...maybe a thin white SOAP middle layer...and no pink stuff on top, perhaps a mica swirl on top and insulate and gel it - usually my soaps do well on their own once I put the lid on them, but it got colder in here last night than I thought! I shoulda wrapped it in a towel or 2, eh, next time I will watch the temp in the house better (I don't recall inviting winter to return either - it's been crazy cold for APRIL the last few days!) Oh well, no big deal right? Ya know, for a cucumber melon scent, I really like the way it came out! It has melon colors, it has cucumber colors, and a little bit of sparkly from the micas I used.  Tres nice :)

Now I need to make a decision for the next challenge - mica swirl tops and such....hmmm...I made a really neat one last month and I know it will go fast among the friends and family.  DO I TAKE A CHANCE ON ROUND 2???  Or do I do something totally different????  We shall see.....

 

On a roll...Sleepy Time is saponifying as I type...

Actually, it's a fragrance called "Bed Time Bath"....but I am undecided if I want to call it "Sweet Dreams" or "Sleepy Time".  I know some people feel you should use the original name of a fragrance as your name - but to me it's a bit like cheating when I soap a dupe (short way of saying copy of a scent) and I don't give the name a new spin.  I mean, come on now...I'm already using a scent another big name brand froo froo fancy pants place markets, the very least I can do is call it something else right?

There it is, just before I stuck it in the freezer for a bit...when I unmold and cut it I'll be sure to post pics.  On my camera you can barely see the pale lavender shimmery swirly top - it's much prettier and more vibrant in person though.  It's a Nature's Garden fragrance, smells just like the real deal, behaved pretty well in my soap too :) I'll leave ya'll guessing on how the inside looks...for now...but soon there will be a new picture! Let's just say I am keeping my fingers crossed that I managed to whip up 2 of the most perfect colors EVER and I'm keeping my toes crossed that I can get them just right like that again next time I soap this scent...because there will be a next time with this one. It's just that heavenly to smell.

I must say I love this one and anticipate it flying out of here pretty fast - it's a classic for sure and one of the few floral things I like to boot! Until next time my friends....

"Antique Rose" - a Hot Process Adventure

Yesterday afternoon I made a batch of castile soap.  Well, you could actually call it "Bastile Soap" as another soaper coined the term elsewhere.  Castile is a 100% olive oil soap and mine has a tidly bit of castor and coconut oil in it - and don't forget the goats milk!.  Castile is supposed to be very mild, lovely to use...but I feel it's a bit less bubbly than I like my soaps to be, which is why I add the other 2 oils.  I had started to make it just plain old castile soap with no scent and then I changed my mind and added the "fresh cut roses" fragrance oil from Nature's Garden.  I'm hoping that by working with a hot process soap the scent will stick a bit better since it won't have the initial battle with the lye to survive AND I had wanted to do a mild soap for this very mild scent....I always make this recipe hot process because it cures MUCH quicker - a few weeks instead of a few months.  Patience...something I can be short on :P

So...here it is. All cut into bars but still needing the edges trimmed up...

Pardon the glare from the morning sunshine...it was awful early when I went it and cut it...but you get the idea right?  I think I shall call it "Antique Rose" since it's kinda old fashioned looking. 

The adventure comes in with the fact this is a new to me fragrance...at first in the bottle I thought it was kinda weak...then when I added it to the soap it was still just kinda weak...about 5 or 10 minutes later BOOM!  For just a minute it got strong and the scent wafted through the house nicely.  Sadly, it went away and I got all worried again.  Had I added it too hot?  I had temped the soap and it was well because the flash point of the fragrance oil per their website...like 70 degrees cooler than the flash point...But the scent had gotten very faint again...Okay, so then I went to wash up the soap dishes and WOW!

The bubbles smelled WONDERFUL!  I was still kind of sad thinking my soap would not throw any scent dry.  It's pretty important that something smell like you have it labeled.  No one is going to believe that the bubbles smell when the soap doesn't right? I left my soap to cool in the mold and walked away...florals aren't my favorite, but I figured at least I could use it...

Then bright and early I cut it up and snapped a pic and walked away again.  To me it was still very weak...an hour to two later I was standing in the kitchen prepping fodder like I do each day and it kinda crept up on me...stronger and stronger the scent from the soap room grew in the kitchen!  YAY! I could smell my soap from a room away! That's normal, finally! Usually the whole house smells like whatever I am soaping and cutting (it helps that the house is small)....

So, the adventure is will the scent last or not?  I guess I should say "the adventure continues" lol :)  I'll keep ya'll posted for sure...Also, my husband thinks I should call it "Creeping Rose" because it just sneaks up on you instead of whacking you in the nostrils like other fragrances...we'll see...I kind of don't think so though...

Presenting "Rustic" and "Country Skies"...

I promised photos and photos we have!

Nothing overly special or new for me here...just a fresh batch of each to replenish my stock.  First we have "Rustic".  Right now it is creamy...but it will go as dark brown as the bar on the far left corner of the picture on the edge there...see it...barely?  Yup, it's a delightful 'vanilla oak' scent with hints of patchouli that make it smokey but sweet.  Very popular and I always sell out!  This time I added some sparkly green mica to the top and a pencil line or two really, as well.  Can't wait until it's ready to use!

Then we have what I call "Country Skies".  Its a fresh out doorsy manly type scent - very green but ozoney all in one - hard to describe but yummy to smell.  Perfect for the country boy in your life!  This bar will stay a lovely bright white with pale blue wisps through it, just like big fluffy white clouds in the sky!

Each bar weighs in between 5 and 6 ounces...most are closer to 6.  Since I am making bigger bars now prices may inch up a tad, but it's totally worth it to have more of your favorite soaps!  They both are made of olive oil, palm oil, coconut oil, castor oil, safflower oil, goat milk of course, sodium hydroxide, a touch of sodium lactate and fragrance oils and colors too...It's all really good stuff when you combine it into a bar of soap!






Until next time, stay dirty ya'll!

Why weight holds weight with me....

No, not my own weight lol...long as I don't need to buy bigger pants I don't care what I weigh :)  I mean weight in regards to soap making (and lotions and such too).  It's so important to weigh your ingredients out as you soap instead of guessing or going by volume.  A comment made the other night put this thought into my head to share...follow along if you will....

These 2 bottles pictured above are a perfect example of a few things in soap making. Weight and volume are not the same and scales are important to have!  My husband actually pointed it out which got me thinking - he does not make soap (thank goodness) - when he said "Why'd they send you half empty bottles?" as I unpacked my supply haul.  He's a "glass half empty" kinda person, can you tell? Well, I had news for him.  This is a case of the glass being half full not empty!

One bottle is glycerin (for mixing colorants) and the other is sodium lactate (for my soaps).  They each weighed over 16 ounces, which is good because that's what I paid for :P! To compare, below is a picture of the exact same packaging, but different product:

On the left is the sodium lactate (weighing in at 17.8 ounces) and on the right is a brand new bottle of avocado oil (weighing in at 18 ounces even).  Crazy, but it goes to show that weight is critical when soaping! Two different ingredients, which take up different amounts of space (or have different volumes) but weigh the same.  Kind of the difference between a ton of feathers and a ton of sand. This is why working by weight in soap making is crucial.

You need to have a fairly accurate scale and a digital one at that, one that weighs in grams and/or tenths of ounces at least to soap properly.  Especially when making smaller batches of stuff!  Being off by just a tad in a small batch can be a BIG disaster!  To me, it's like grains of rice....another dorky analogy...

If you need 4 grains of rice, but you have 5, it's a noticeable difference.  Not only can you see it, but the percentage of extra rice is 25% of what you should have.  Now, on the other hand, if you need 50 grains of rice and you have 55 you are less likely to notice the 5 extra grains aren't you? Then, when you do the math that's only 10% more than you should have - a smaller difference.  Soaping is much like that when you look at the grand scheme of things.

I have found that the bigger a batch is of something the more forgiving it is to an extra tenth of an ounce of something, but the smaller a batch is the more accurate I need to be...in comes the part about a good scale!  If your scale only measures in crude ounces or doesn't have grams as an option it becomes far harder to end up with accurate amounts of oils and such...which leads us to the next issue.  Weigh everything every time!!! Don't get all cocky and start using your measuring cups or guessing and eyeballing stuff - eventually this will blow up on you.

That's right, you heard me...WEIGH IT OUT WITH A SCALE!  Sure, there are some soapers out there who use recipes that have measurements in cups and teaspoons.  Maybe it works for them, kudos to them, and good luck.  I've even seen videos on youtube where people are making soap using what I call "kitchen measurements" - those cups and teaspoons I mentioned instead of a scale.  In my opinion they are purely lucky!  Clearly, as demonstrated by the two different products being two different VOLUMES in the same exact bottle and pictured above, one cup of sodium lactate is going to weigh more than one cup of avocado oil.  Weight and volume are not the same thing and are not interchangeable when it comes to soaping!  Take the chance when you bake a cake...not when you are making a loaf of soap....there's no caustic lye in cake batter but there is in soap batter.  See where I'm going with this?

Be patient, be accurate, and invest in a decent quality digital scale and 99% of the time your soap will turn out perfectly (there's always that oddball batch...it happens...soap gone wild and such).  But if you gamble with your weights and measurements be prepared for more failure than those of us that don't.  Accuracy and attention to detail are what make a really good soaper. We all have a bad night or a bad batch, but your odds are so much better when you are accurate!

Anyways...off my little soap box now and back to my soap room.  I shall have pictures in the next day or two of the 2 loaves of soap I cooked up this evening :) Until then my friends, stay dirty!

Spring Supply Haul :) (one of many to come)

So, soap room complete (let's not mention the kitchen though...) I headed into town today to pick up my boxes.  They were waiting for me at my little post office store...not the boxes as much as the guy that runs the place lol.  He was outside when I walked up and said "You have a STACK of stuff!"  I knew it, I just wanted to wait until the last box had arrived before I drove 50+ miles round trip to get it all! Graciously they helped me cart it out - it took 2 of us :P I was so so excited until I got home...then I was frazzled a bit upon closer inspection...I know it wasn't my po box people because they always put my boxes up special since they are usually labeled FRAGILE...no really.  They have a few shelves and my stuff is ALWAYS up high and safe.  They know I soap, they know some of this stuff can be overwhelming to smell all day if a bottle busts, and they take care of me.  The delivery companies however CLEARLY could care less....

Now...let me just start off with this...I don't know what I ever on earth did to UPS and FedEx, but they HATE me!  Seriously, twice at least now they have flat out lied about leaving a box on my porch (once it was in a strangers mail box and the other time down at an abandoned house), and MANY times I have gotten packages in questionable shape. Today was no exception, what was I expecting right? I really think they see my name on something and it's red flagged to try to trash it....

Exhibit A:  This poor little box looked like it was part of the UPS weekend company football game - AS THE BALL!  All beat up :( Not one corner was a corner, they were all dinged in and it had what would be described on a human as multiple contusions (or if you want to say bruises of the cardboard kind you can).

Then there's Exhibit B and C:  SERIOUSLY! How many times do you need to put a sticker that says "FRAGILE" in BRIGHT RED on something before they believe it????  Apparently the answer is "7" because this box had SIX of those stickers and STILL it had HOLES in it!!!  I was seeing red and it was NOT the stickers before my eyes, it was anger I believe...Below is a picture of just one of the holes, but this poor victim had at least 2!

Do you also see the second smaller box underneath (Don't worry, I wasn't squashing it, that big box is ULTRA light and the littler one is actually twice as heavy)...anyways, do you SEE the corner on that little one? Somehow, some way, the phrase "FRAGILE Handle with CARE" in plain English and also in red translates into "delivery driver speak" for "kick this box, dent it, and pray no one catches you on camera like that dude with the TV who made the news".  Why oh why do they treat my packages like this?  I just don't get it...someone tell me I am not the only one...

Needless to say I was a tad bit concerned for the health and well being of the contents...but...drum roll ya'll.........EVERYTHING ARRIVED IN ONE PIECE!!!!! Yup, miracles DO happen other times of the year besides Christmas folks!  There were no leaks, no spills, no broken bits and each and every package was entirely there!  I sat down and emailed every supplier a thank you note too.  It takes people who are conscientious and caring in how they do their job to pack something so well that even FedEx and UPS can't destroy it!

So...I bet you wanta see what I got huh? Well...all unpacked it looks like this:

There's bottles, lids, oils, butters, fragrances, new molds, new equipment, colors...oh it's a soaping wonderland I declare! Crazy right?  You should see the price tag on that table top lol...this stuff ain't cheap! But, it is all GREAT quality and from wonderful suppliers!

Here's my quasi-replenished oil stash:

In the WAY back is my lye order that came the other day...I already put it up safe and sound last week since it was the first box to arrive :) There's still not that much there, I have a few more orders to place actually, but this is what I could get from Kroger today while I was out - they ran outta oil before I ran outta money haha!  I wanted at least one more olive oil and all they had was 2! Oh well...it'll keep me busy for a few days :P Plus I brought home some more paper towels and such I would be needing, so the trip to Kroger wasn't a total loss, even if they were running low on ginormous olive oil jugs...

There's a few scents that aren't really my favorite that I bought as samples and in smaller sizes, though they may soap better you never know, a few I just love and keep going in to smell, and some really neat samples and little bonuses :)  All in all it turned out to be a happy occasion, though to judge by the boxes they were a tad bit sad upon arrival.

So, I dare say It Begins!  Now if only I can find a minute to get creative with this stuff :P