Back to the market??? Oh yeah baby!

Ok, so I'm not gonna lie...even though mankind CAN try my patience, I actually REALLY do like people!  Living out here where there aren't many people, I find myself craving them sometimes.  So back to the market I went this weekend! I REALLY had fun last weekend when I sit down and look back at it and you know, the cash is nice.  Plus, to have more room on my soap shelves to make MORE fun soaps is really helpful too!

See, when I really looked at it, I had lotions a-plenty, and TONS of stuff I have been making since February and March - like for real, probably 200 or 300 bars of soap (when I count I'll let you know). I'm not gonna lie, even though that one redneck kinda pushed my buttons, most of the people I met were pretty awesome.  And yes, the lady with the noisy toys...the toys drove me AND come to find out another lady nuts LOL...but she was at least nice.  So, I loaded up and headed back this weekend - I know, crazy right? But why pay for insurance if I'm not gonna make an effort and really sell some stuff eh? Plus, with baby goats coming I won't be able to do it again for a few weeks at least ya know?  Can't leave when mommas are due any minute....

Anyways, I HAD A BLAST!!! Met some awesome people, pretty much sold out of everything else I had that was ready to go and now I am WHOOPED! Overall, the environment is relaxed, the market handles all the "tedious" part as everything is covered so no tent needed, and they have a LARGE table in each space so I don't even have to mess with that either! Just show up and put out my stuff :)  I think I might be addicted lol :)

Plus, get this - they do a drawing each day at 3p.m. for a space number and the winner gets $50 - and GUESS WHAT!!! No, really, guess...come on, guess.....YES!!!!!!! I won today!!!!!!!!!!  And to be honest, I NEVER win anything, not even a dollar on a scratch off! No, seriously - the only stuff I ever win is phone calls from time shares :P and I won something :)

So, I had a tiring but fruitful weekend.  Now, I need to regroup, get pictures of last weeks work posted for ya'll, and get ready for baby goats AND my garden...oh my sad attempts at a garden :(  I HAVE to get on that!  But oh yes, I think I am an addict to selling things, I KNOW I love talking about my goats and my soaps all day and I will return!

OH!  I forgot to say...when you ask "Where have you been?"  I have been at "Olde Security Square" - and I have LOVED IT!

And WHERE is my promised acceleration???

I know - sounds CRAZY right? A soaper looking for acceleration....hmmm...perhaps I have lost my mind? Aren't most soapers trying to find ways to fight it so they can create beautiful swirls and designs? Nope, I promise I am of sound mind - barely - but sound, and I was ready for this particular fragrance to create and issue or two and ti didn't, which then affected my plans a bit. Have you ever planned a batch around it's warnings and then not gotten any of that stuff? For example - it says "slight accel." - and then nothing? Hmmm....maybe I have lost my mind...see, what had happened was:

I went in yesterday thinking I wanted to soap "da Lime in da Coconut" from Rustic Escentuals.  The plan in my head was:  dark brown and white swirl base with green drop swirls down the middle and a pearly white mice swirl top.   Sounds REALLY pretty doesn't it? However...I paused to check the specs on this one and to quote the manufacturer:  "CP Notes: slight accel., no discoloration, scent holding well, no scent morph"  See it?  Yeah - slight accel - uh oh....I'm not a "loosey goosey" kinda soaper...generally slight accel = soap on a stick if I am not VERY careful....

No really, I KNOW part of my "thick soap batter no matter what I do" problem is my milk.  Milk, when subbed for water 100% in your lye mix, is not actually all liquid itself!  No really, milk is made of part solids and part water!  Now, when your milk is raw straight from the goat, you have ALL the fats, and all the proteins and such that came in that milk too!  Oh yes, store bought milk, even goat milk, has been stripped down of quite a bit before it hits the shelves!  I tried once using store bought goat milk and FINALLY got a "thin trace" and ya know, I hated it! I'm use to my soap tracing in like 2 whirs of my blender - well, it's emulsified at least :)  The store stuff was horrid, took forever to trace and smelled funny since they add lipase to it :(  Just YUCK!  Never did that again ever! (My girls were all dry at the time...and I was desperate to soap but I got over it pretty quick and waited for them to come back into milk after that.)

I know, I hear you, you're saying "What about your oils???"  No, really, even 100% olive oil soap goes thick on my in like 5 minutes of barely trying!  And no, it doesn't seem to matter if I add MORE milk to my lye solution - I still get THICK batter and SQUISHY soft soap that takes MONTHS instead of weeks to get remotely hard!  It's got to be the milk - Nubian milk is pretty rich and my saanens are far behind them...I'm okay with that - the more butter fat in my milk the happier I am.  I actually have learned to like it and don't really like working with thin batter, thin trace, thin anything - heck, I'm a chubby girl, thin is NOT in my vocabulary anyways lol!

So...back to the point.  Slight accel = don't risk crazy swirls!  At least in my world, that's what it is "code" for.  So, I sat down and re-planned this batch in my head.  After sniffing the bottle a few more times, I decided I smelled more LIME than COCONUT anyways and it came to me:  MAY A KEY LIME PIE!!!! Well - I don't have any nifty pie thingies...but I can make a loaf that LOOKS like a pie!  Okay - so now I was set!

I went on in, got ALL set up - oils weighed and measured and melted CHECK, mold lined CHECK, colors ready CHECK, milk and lye prepped CHECK.  And away I went...First I mixed it all up to that nice emulsified point, and poured off a tad for the "crust" and colored it a medium brown - NO fragrance!

Very "crusty looking" - should have added some spices or ground walnuts or SOMETHING to make it more "graham crackery" but alas, I didn't think of that until later :(  Still...nice smooth crust....on to the "pie"!  I split the rest and adjusted my fragrance into the correct portions for each.  The plan was to add fragrance AFTER color was in there and then pour before it could set up - like I said, this ain't my first rodeo with the phrase "slight accel." right....

So, in goes my minty lime green - a tad more mint than lime - but that's okay:

See how it's already thick enough to stick to the sides there?  No fragrance yet either - thick is just "my thing, my style, how I roll".  So, holding my breath, I grab my wisk - NOT the blender - and dump my fragrance, stir like a mad woman and into the mold!

Wait a minute, just wait one stinking minute here!  See how SMOOTH that is???  A few lumps, yes, but not my usual consistancy with something marked "slight accel."!!!  At this point, I am thinking to myself "WOW! Maybe I FINALLY worked fast enough this time!"  You know, one of those "If I had given it a minute it would be more gloppy, I'm just lucky moments"....oh no!  No, no no no no NO!  I was more than lucky, I had a reverse curse!

Curse you say?  What's WRONG with this lady???  Well, see, I was banking on that slight accel bit for the top - I wanted to be able to frost/pipe the top and then go make dinner.  I wasn't in a hurry, but I figured I wouldn't have to wait long as it would set up and I would move all speedy like and then be done right?  Nope...I mixed my white into the top and it's little bit of fragrance and sure, yeah, it was thickER, but not THICK.  Not like I was thinking it would get...so, I put it into my piping set up and thinking "It's coming any minute now I better hurry!" I began to pipe and got this:

Why yes, BLOBS of soft soap batter!  WHERE IS MY SLIGHT ACCELERATION?????  Now I am kinda mad...I REALLY wanted that swirly white brown marbeled soap with green in it and a mica swirl top as I am digging the mica swirls at the moment!  I was thinking I should have gone with said design, I was ready to walk away for a bit anyways, and so I did, I went and started dinner.  Seriously, like 15 minutes later it was STILL soft!  WHAT????  Only me....

I FINALLY got this - still a bit soft - but REALLY pretty when it's all dusted with pearly mica no?  Yes, very pretty indeed I think!  I unmolded it this morning, but haven't cut it yet - I had to go out and feed and milk first and felt like blogging a bit before I got all soapy cutting stuff.  REALLY shiny pretty soap!  Not quite as fun as swirls would have been, but unique unto itself and yes, it smells VERY key lime and not so much coconut still, so I am happy with my decision there :)

It really is crazy how soap can do sometimes isn't it???  I suppose the last few weeks have gone "not as planned" for a reason though - probably the universe setting me up to get a bunch of buck kids instead of does next month - but still....I'm kinda excited to go cut stuff up now. I REALLY am in love with that top now that I look at it again.  Bet I couldn't get so lucky twice that's for sure!

Goats Eat Oats...

Well, my goats used to eat oats - but now they eat fodder and that my friends is a whole different blog!  Actually...that's what I call oatmeal, milk and honey soap - "Goats Eat Oats" - and it's turned out just scrum-diddly-umptious!

The white is a portion I didn't put any honey or oats into because to me it represents the goat milk in it visually...that honey has a strange way of making what my husband calls "caramel soap" LOL...he really likes the color and texture of this one.  Since he is mostly color blind I figure it's a good thing he can pick out the colors and contrasts in this bar as he asks for it more than any other.  He also has wicked allergies and never asks for anything by it's proper scent and when you top that with being color blind half the time when he wants a particular bar I make him walk in the soap room and say "Just point at it!!!"  But when he says he wants my caramel soap I know he means this one.  He also calls it the "no wash cloth bar" sometimes because of the ground oat flour in it - he travels for work and some hotels he gets stuck at have crummy towels so he takes this one with him when he leaves hence "no wash cloth" is needed due to it's natural exfoliating scrubbiness.  A welder needs all the scrubbiness he can get from a bar of soap some days too, so it's a really REALLY good thing he likes this one right?

The honey comes from a local producer out of Lovelady.  A place named Lovelady HAS to make some great honey right?  I sure do like it anyways...it's hard to stay out of the honey stash when it's this good and we have a strict rule here.  If you get caught dipping in my soap honey I will get a bee hive so we ALWAYS have honey.  Hubby isn't fond of bees so he stays outta my stash...

And finally cut, edges raw, but in bar form with morning light streaming in to blind me...I need to start cutting stuff later in the day I think...just a few white swirls inside to match the top and all kinds of naturally soothing and exfoliating oatmeal goodness plus the ever present goat milk and honey! MMMMmmmm....scrum-diddly-umptious I said!

Nope, no fragrances, no froo froo colors or such.  I like my few "natural" bars that I make to be all the way natural as much as possible.  I know... I KNOW!  The oatmeal honey fragrances are delicious!  But this one really has a light, slightly oaty smell all of it's own that I love :)

I actually made this a few days ago now - been side tracked by spring cleaning the outside of the house the last few days - but I just think that this batch came out lovely with honey from Lovelady and milk from my herd  (and ground oats from WalMart because I am not that kind of farmer...) :)