Another retail store location added :)

Today I innocently went by a local health store here where I live (population 6000 so you can imagine our "town"). I took some of my soaps and offered to leave them in consignment. I don't mind doing business like that as an introduction of my product to that particular store, so when I noticed the store owner was nervous about buying the soap, I just told him straight out you can have them in consignment. He jumped up at the idea and said yes :) It also helps that I'm a regular as I buy my beeswax from him every month or so.

He also asked me about my production levels. I told him honestly I don't produce much because I don't have many places to sell and it doesn't make sense to make product to have laying around in my lab (insert geeky comment about project management: "inventory is one of the seven wastes identified by 6 sigma"). He told me that this store is part of a bigger chain of stores of about 20+ all around Costa Rica, so he was interested in knowing if I could cope with having product in all the stores. What a question?!? I had to do a quick sum in my head which went kind of like this: I left him with 18 bars of soap - 2 of each kind. 1 batch = 10 bars so 2 batches (to cover 20 stores) of each soap times 9 = 18...each batch is done in about an hour considering mixing, cutting, labeling...so that's 18 hours a month to start with...not bad! so I told him "Of course I can!" I did make it very clear to him that depending on the soap and if I didn't have the qty on hand it could take me from one to four weeks to deliver, that he should take that into consideration. He said that not a problem and then told me that he has a distribution company if I wouldn't be interested in making my product labeling it made by ___ for ____. I said absolutely! Both scenarios would be awesome for my brand! Both have me mildly terrified!!

So it all depends on how the product sells in his shop. Hoping he'll call me tomorrow to say he doesn't have any more left!

xoxo
Irene

Valentine soap - vanilla chocolate hearts

This is a late late addition to my valentine soap. It's scented with vainilla and chocolate delight fragances (2 parts vanilla, 1 part chocolate delight) for a decadent sweet sticky scent that goes perfectly with the black and red theme. I've cut this up in little 3/4 oz rounds and plan to sell them in organza bags (5 to each bag).

As you can see by the first pic, it traced really quickly and I almost couldn't finish the hearts, but they turned out cool in the end. I wish you could smell it - it's so decadent!

I CPOP'd this one so it could be ready for sale by next week, just in time for Valentine's!

What products have you done for Valentine's day?

xoxo
Irene

Coffee Swirl Soap

The other day I made some coffee swirl soap, the top looked wonderful but there's always that question mark as to how the inside looks. In this case I was super excited to see that the swirls also happened on the inside, making this soap a real beauty.
Like I explained in my previous post, my first two passes were lengthwise and then two figure 8 passes with a kabob stick. I originally started out doing it the other way around, but the results were ok (not amazing). So with this one I tried it lengthwise then 8s and it turned out wonderful! Also when pouring I alternated the colors, so that helped with the internal swirls. I enhanced the white with titanium dioxide and the black with black oxide - usually coffee only gets me so far.
I've asked my hubby to help me out making a video of how I pour the colors and how I swirl. It'll just be easier than trying to explain what I do. so look out for that :)
xoxo
Irene

Coffee Soap redo

 Remember my very naughty coffee soap that boiled over? The one I videoed? Well it's been curing for about a month now and it is still horrible, it didn't improve with age. It works perfectly and washes dishes like a marvel...but it's not pretty. I'm keeping to use around the house, but certainly not for sale.

Having said that, I got around to redoing it today. I took the precaution of preparing the coffee and letting it sit in water with ice for a while until it was cold, I added the lye and stirred inside the ice water so it wouldn't over heat. That seemed to do the trick. Since I'm hooked on swirls I did this one as a swirl rather than bottom 1/3 dark top 2/3 white with specks. It's getting easier and easier to handle two separate colors vs. one batch that I need to split in the end - specially handy when 2/3 need to have coffee instead of water. And the swirls just keep on getting better and better.

The first few batches I swirled, I started off by doing two passes of figure eights then up and down across the length of the mould. They looked nice but kinda killed the swirl. With this batch I tried the other way around, first up and down the length of the mould then two sets of figure eights and I love it! It looks so much better!

Do you have a favorite method of swirling??

xoxo
Irene

Feels like Christmas all over again!!

Getting the things you ordered in the mail feels just like Christms all over again :-)

I had ordered calendula petals and lavender buds from Brambleberry.com along with their mini mixer for mixing powder colorants. I had also ordered micas and pigments from TKB Trading. They all arrived on Thursday!! My lab smelled delicious from the calendula...and the colors looked beautiful. I couldn't wait to try them out!

First on my to do was infuse olive oil (68 oz) with the calendula petals (1 1/2 cups). I put them on my slow cooker and had them on low for about one hour, I let it sit overnight and turned it on again for about two more hours and let it cool off in the pot. Once it was cool I put it back in the bottle. It is such a pretty golden color now. I used tasting olive oil so I don't have to worry about it having it's own fragrance or color. I'll finally have the chance of making calendula soap again!! And I was also thinking about a calendula lip balm, for extra damaged lips :-)




With my pigments I made some mini soaps using a cookie sheet. My whole recipe fits in it making soap that is about 3/4 of an inch high. I then cut it with a round cookie cutter or in squares. Only I didn't want to wait four weeks for it to set...so I baked it :O

I put it in the oven at 180 F (70 C) and cooked it for two hours. That was like one hour more after it had completely gelled. I took it out and it was completely transparent and it took about half an hour to harden and the colors to pop. For next time I'll probably leave it in the oven after I've turned it off...just a feeling as the soap was completely cooked through, I didn't get zapped with it. After it cooled I went ahead and cut it. I really want to test it out to see if it worked. If it does then I've solved my biggest problem with selling CP to B&Bs, which is the long wait.

For today I have my soaping day planned out....so much to do and such little time.

xoxo

Irene

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