Where the Buck Stops and the Soap Starts....

Above is Starmaker - our nubian buck....wee bit fat, I know.  But ain't he a looker?  Snapped that pic a while ago now, but it's still my favorite of him all happy tail wagging while he munches on yaupon...He is where my soap really begins.

Bet someone is wondering what he has to do with soap huh?  Well, without him and his bucky saanen sidekick "Crisco" I would not be making soap.  That's right, no bucks = no milk = no soap! 

For those that don't know, here's the run down (it gets a little blunt and pg13 rated for a paragraph ya'll, not that bad but - be warned)....A doe (female goat) needs to kid (give birth) in order to produce milk.  In order to do that you need a buck to do the deed....so in theory at least, my soaps and lotions start with 2 goats bumpin' uglies...it's a farm...not just soap...so a little graphic and full of the facts of life but true. Without that guy above and the udder below I probably wouldn't make soap...

Yup...my milk for my products comes from here (and a few others) twice a day, fresh as can be :)  Sure...I freeze it before I soap with it to help with the whole "lye heats it up thing" and I always pasteurize it prior to putting in a lotion or sugar scrub (gotta be sure to kill off any nasty stuff since it'll be sitting around a bit ya know?).  But we drink it fresh, chilled and raw. I also make cheese and yogurt and such...but we still have PLENTY of milk left over from that!  Sometimes, we even have baby goats to help drink it up lol...but not always and a doe can "stay in milk" (meaning she makes milk - duh right?) for at least ten months around here while baby goats are often long gone by then. We sold the last goat from the last kid crop back in January (we bottle raise - whole 'nother blog ya'll) so I have had milk, milk, and more milk for a while now totally kid free! Currently I get about 3 gallons a day from 3 does...that's a lot of creamy goat milk goodness!  If you've never had it fresh and raw you HAVE to try it out!  So so so much better than store bought goat OR cow milk!  And so many awesome benefits too!  (But that my friends is another day and another post...)

 I know a lot of others buy goat milk to put in their soaps and I think they are missing out (though I know not every one has a place to put goats)...but it makes me kind of sad because the joy of owning goats is part of the fun!  Yes, it's work too...but I love my herd! If you've never had a goat...you need a few...I'm just saying...I love having our goats, no matter how much work they make for me:

Even when they do stupid, bad things, like climb on the picnic table behind the house....

Or when the baby in that belly has a super creepy looking "Alien moment" and sticks a hoof out like that to say hello...see it poking out the side there?

Or when they reach over to steal something out of my pocket...she was taking my cell phone when I got that pic with my other camera...Lucy is nosey...

And the baby goats that take my spot at the kitchen table and crowd me out of my chair can be obnoxious....

It's all worth it for those quiet moments when you look out and they are being good and eating and doing appropriate goat things! (Plus, the baby goats are REALLY super adorable when they aren't getting into stuff!) The fresh milk is priceless too :P

This is where my milk comes from.  This is where my soap and lotions and such start...because lord knows we get enough milk lol...I have a freezer full AND a fridge full as I type!  Sure, I make cheese and such too...but it's not the same as soap making.  Cheese = cooking = work and dishes I have to wash....soap making = fun experiments and artsy stuff and dishes that practically wash their sudsy selves! You can't really go putting glitter and shimmery micas and swirls in your cheese now like you can with yout soap....it's just not the same...I mean, I guess I could, but I wouldn't want to eat cheese with glitter on top.

This ya'll, this is where the buck stops and the soap starts for me and even though most days I have a hard time finding time for evrything, I love every single minute of it when I look back. Without the herd I never would have started soaping :)

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!

Experimenting with scrubs and colors...

Because I just couldn't stand it any longer I HAD to get into the soap room today and do SOMETHING! So, I got in there and made a mess :)  Actually, I made 3 different batches of goat milk sugar scrubs and one test batch of soap.  Nothing fancy, just a little color and a new oil mix. But it made me happy to finally be soaping after what feels like an eternity!

Not only did I want to run a test run on a very lovely sparkly green mica, but I am also trying to work out what I feel are a few kinks in my current cold process recipe.  It takes closer to 2 to 3 months to REALLY cure up nice and hard even though it is a VERY nice bar of soap to bathe with...so I tweaked a few bits in the recipe.  We shall see tomorrow when I unmold it what my first impression is...How about that green though?  I think for what I want it for it will be PERFECT!  Nice and bright and glitzy! Very nice indeed :P

Then there's the sugar scrub saga....I've been playing around with these scrubs recipes on paper for weeks now! Yup, just imagining how they would turn out and not having a chance to get in there and work with them.  Today I finally stole a moment and got on it!

I made 3 slight variations in the same basic recipe.  I personally notice a difference and I have my favorite already.  This is one that's gonna have to go out to my loyal test subjects...um...I mean my friends :P

Here they are, all plopped into plastic containers and cooling a bit more before I finish getting them ready for my testers...

After all the testing I already did on my own self today I think I've scrubbed a tad bit more skin off than I expected to!  I made a batch, tested it on one arm, repeated with the other arm, and was out of arms for the third batch so I started over on the first arm again...Yup...from the elbows down I am officially the cleanest, smoothest, stinkiest person in Texas tonight!  Wait, what? Stinky?  Oh yes...STINKY!

See, now, what had happened was I scented each batch differently so I could tell them apart.  Because as you can see from the picture they all look pretty much the same.  Up close in person they are a tad different...but I wasn't taking any chances. So I tossed a different scent in each one and of course took notes on it as I worked.  I then scrubbed with each one.  I now have 3 different scents wafting up from my arms and I smell somewhat like a French brothel if you ask me - fruity, floral, all mixed up - it's just plain stinky when you mix it all together! BLEH! One by one each scent is great but not to self do not mix pomegranate, cherry almond and relaxation ever into one big batch of anything! These are not scents meant to be mixed up like that I tells ya! So, yup, stinky :( It's finally wearing off though...a little...

 Also, I am still on the fence about coloring them.  In my humble opinion a nearly natural product should remain nearly natural and scrubs are even more natural than soaps.  Soap goes through saponification and what you begin with is not what you end with.  Sugar scrubs are emulsified (well, mine are anyways) but nothing really changes.  So...soaps can have a little color but I'm still not sure about the scrubs...Back to the point though, I scented rather than colored them because I don't know if I even want color in the final product, but I DO know I will have scent in it.

So, there you have it :)  Scrubs are made, soaps been put to bed and I am next! I can't wait to see which scrub is everyone's favorite because that means I get to make more of it!

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

The soap room is ready ya'll!

Here's a little video of the soap room...all I really did was paint and clean it out and organize a bit...and I still haven't put down floorin...and I hadn't refilled it with my supplies and soaps that are curing yet :)  There's still a few boxes of stuff stacked on the couch that didn't make it into the video LOL :) It's enough to get the jist of things though, that's for sure!

By the way - it took me all afternoon to upload the dumb video...thank you slow as heck internet for FINALLY letting me get this up!

Here it is :) The soap room video I promised!

Hopefully, the clinky link thing works...I'm not so hot at all this technology stuff yet :(

So it begins...the soap room adventure :)

After living in this house for nearly 2 years now and making slim to minimal progress on, well, a lot - work has begun on the soap room!  No...the kitchen isn't finished...but I needed to get the "soap room" aka "mud room" portion cleaned out and prepped before I felt like I could go any further.  Well...maybe I just felt like I needed to...

The problem is that until now so much of my kitchen has flowed into that little bonus room just off of it that it has become a "catch all spot" - a crap collector if you will...It has a huge laundry type sink in there, perfect for washing the giant pots and pans that do not fit in my tiny kitchen sink.  It has copious amounts of built in shelving - not exactly level slightly crummy shelving, but still...It has the shelving and storage the kitchen lacked (though that has been some what remedied lately). The best part is...drum roll please......it has  DOOR!!!  Yes folks, I have been able to stack junk in there and shut the door and close my eyes to the mess! This is not a good thing though...

I decided last fall that this space with it's bright sunny windows, sink, and shelves would be PERFECT for a REAL soap room! Finally!  A place for all my stuff with running water AND electricity and STORAGE! I was excited and of course, had to make soap right? So...while I managed to shuffle some stuff around, reorganize a bit, and find a place for bars of soap to cure, I hadn't really made it a nice place to be in.  I still had to cart all of my equipment, supplies and oils out to the kitchen to work as actual "counter top space" in there was already awash in, yes, you guessed it, JUNK! I had to shuffle and reorganize just to GET TO STUFF I needed...and the spiders...let's not forget the copious amounts of 8 legged frenemies I have in there.  Yes, they do a job eating things like flies and mosquitoes...but they are just plain creepy and not really high on my list of buddies...

Anyways, I managed to make quite a bit of soaps and lotions until recently when I realized I was drowning in junk again...Something had to give.  Things had to change, you can't be soaping in a funky space! Let me say now, even if you are just a hobby soaper, you NEED a space all your own, safe for your lye and oils and fragrances and what not.  Even if it is just a few shelves in a closet, you should have a nice, neat, organized spot for all your supplies and for soaps to cure.  It just makes it that much easier to keep it together, I'm telling you now.  Have a dedicated space before you begin and you won't be fighting the mess I am now :)

So, this afternoon, once my morning chores were completed, I started in one corner of the soon to be soap room cleaning, prepping, and painting.  Yeah, I know, my kitchen is still not finished and my fridge is still out in the middle of the yard...I know...but I needed to conquer one more small job while I was on a roll to give me strength to get the big one completed!  I'm hoping that the soap room paint will be dry enough by the time the kitchen is done to actually get in there and soap!

Don't worry...there will be pics or maybe even a video tour once I get it how I want it :)  I guess I best head back on in there now and get to work...there's no telling how many more spiders I have to evict before I can finish painting the shelves!

A reward and a review....

About...oh...I dunno...5 months ago now I guess, I did a "tutorial" for one of my favorite soaping supply companies.  I had sat down one fine fall day to order supplies for the coming Christmas season, only to discover that they were offering a "reward" for doing a tutorial..cool...I had one in mind that was PERFECT!  Whipped soap!  It's super easy to work with, almost fool proof really for beginners, and great for playing with fragrances that may seize and such...so away I went...

My whipped soap tutorial can be seen here.  It took a bit to get it just right, a few emails back and forth and VOILA!  Something I created is up for all the world to see - I was very excited at the time and proud as heck...and then life happened and I forgot about it :(

Minor crisis here at the house, holidays approaching, goats kidding, the stupid kitchen, learning to grow fodder....all these things took over for a bit.  Then, yesterday, I sat down to place some more orders for spring time soaping supplies and it hit me - I never heard back after they had published the tutorial!  So I sent an email, and being Sunday, I fully expected it to be a day or 2 before I heard back from anyone.  Well, within NO TIME I tell you I had a reply AND a coupon code!  Same day even - I was so not expecting that due to the weekend! Way cool, very awesome service there, and well played!  So yay for soap supplies with a big discount right?

I will say this though, in all honesty now, YAY FOR A SUPPLIER THAT VALUES THEIR CUSTOMERS! Really....it seems that in the world of oils, lye, fragrances and dyes, well, the suppliers are all much more concerned with doing GOOD business and not just business!  At least, the ones I use are and that is really special to me :)  They get right on customer service questions, are highly available and fairly quick to ship out as well and I appreciate that a BUNCH!  There are some places I use for "goat stuff" that take ages to ship an order, but are the only ones that carry certain items, and just plain frustrate me in their lack of ability to communicate.  With my soap supplies this is not so. I have heard of a few with crummy service, and I have stayed away from them admittedly, but all in all, most are pretty awesome.  Certainly, Rustic Escentuals tops the list after yesterday!

If you are looking for a place to get great scents from, and few other essential things Rustic Escentuals is the place!  They have a huge section of tutorials available for learning which is free to use and nice to have on hand, a ton of fun scents, and offer GREAT customer service!  They are geared a bit more towards candle making too - so be careful that any scents you buy for body stuff are "body safe" scents...but that's not a bad thing especially if you like candle making! I'm thinking I need to take that up this year...we'll see...but I often get requests for candles and if I can find the time to add it to my day I know for sure where I will go to for my supplies!

Anyways, guess it's time to get off of here and go do something productive with my day right? Hmmmm....how to stay out of trouble today :P

I'm finally starting to take my soap and lotion making and such to another level this year - I will be adding a line of classes for friends and family to my routine, adding a delicious new sugar scrub or two to my products, and per a friends request may be developing a natural type deodorant even!  It's amazing how as time goes by I find more and more that I want to do with myself and my products - I always figured I would stay small and simple.  But, now as I see things grow and change, my desire to take things to a new level has as well :)

I would love to teach others how to make this!


I have several shipments of oils, and jars, and fragrances all waiting for me at our little post office type box that I need to get, a remodel that begs for finishing, and a fabulous set of scents and products to get made in order to gear up for spring! This season's current line up will include the usual soaps and lotions, but my newest thing will be a sugar scrub...details to come once I settle on a recipe LOL.  I have to get my testers out there and feed back first...but I see it being a hit!

I will be making some of the same stand by scents and a few new ones this time.  I will be giving some more floral scents a try...don't know if I can handle them as they tend to give ma headache...but I'm gonna try...and one name "Butterfly Hugs" that actually sounds yummy!  Since it is spring, cucumber melon will be back, and maybe a few more before it is all said and done.  Choosing fragrances is always the hardest part!

Stay tuned for soap making class details and scheduling!  I'm thinking I will offer a 3 hour all inclusive type deal - to cover of course safety and sanitation, easy stuff like a small batch of lotion and a scrub, and then once comfortable working with the scale and measurements I will do a small batch of simple soap.  I want to keep the classes small - ideally 2 to 5 people no more - and everyone will get to take home a bottle of their lotion and scrub and some finished soap perhaps.  I'm still torn on cost, because in order to let people leave with product and cover my own time I have to charge something right? I certainly want to be fair with it though...so I am thinking in the $20 - $40 range...I dunno for sure yet...we will see...I hope to have a tentative test group with feedback coming up soon though! Now away with me to go ready the house for visitors and soaping stories to come!