you are beautiful

dear soap is beautiful (bianca),

thank you for the lovely comments about my soap. you are beautiful. next time you need bigger pictures, give me a shout ;)

xx

combat

"holy berry"

i made this soap a while ago, after i decided that the busier a soap is, the less obvious the weird soft spots will look if they decide to show up on it. luckily, no spots. it was scented with my old "black jack alley", which had blackberries and so i wanted the soap to be black. of course, i didn't test out the blend beforehand and it turns out the fragrance discolours yellow. so i've ended up with a sort of dark army green soap.

i'll try it again with the new blend and hopefully i'll get black this time.

three more market days coming up this weekend. go go go!

and breathe

finally - a chance to catch my breath after a hectic soaping marathon...

not soaping doesn't mean rest though. i have a week to wrap soap, make and package my other bath and body products and get my promotional items sorted for next week's market stint. so, no yapping on for me in this post, just a chance to sit down for ten minutes and post some pictures.

"honey trap". non-spotty, non-freaky "honey trap". hallelujah.

my valentines day soap, "the big tease".

also, a quick shoutout to tiggy, who recently got some raw soap in her eye and has been urging all soapers to make sure they use their goggles. tiggy, so glad you're feeling better. i haven't used goggles probably since the fifth time i made soap (years and years ago), although i do use gloves every time. i'll go look for a pair of goggles a.s.a.p and you all should too!

lightning never strikes twice (unless you're me)

after that freaky batch of "siren", i was paranoid about soaping but i had to keep going because i'm stocking up for a market stint.

i made a batch of envy, this time with green tea and honey as part of my liquid. it turned out darker than normal (which i expected), but no soft spots. same recipe, same supplies, same temps. i figured the spotty incident must have been some weird fluke and matt assured me that if it was the first time it happened after years and years of soaping, it probably wasn't going to happen again.

next batch, it happened again.

this time it was a batch of "honey trap". i already had this blend in my other products so i wanted to test it out in soap. as soon as i unmoulded it, i could already see the spots on the side of the logs and i just wanted to cry. at first it wasn't too obvious because of the swirls but after darkening over a few days, the spots became really visible and i decided to ditch the batch.


i posted photos on forums (haven't done the dish yet) and no one seemed to know what's going on. since then i've made 13 batches of soap, all normal and without spots, and every batch in a constant state of paranoia since i was never actually able to identify what caused them. each successful batch made me feel relieved but also proved that there was no specific factor that could be inextricably linked to the spots. i have even remade "siren" and "honey trap" with no issues.

maybe it was a curse. maybe it's just waiting to happen again. all i know is that soaping scared is no fun. in my last few batches i've seen partial gels, air bubbles, slanty layers and sneaky discolourations but for the first time, i don't really care because i know what they are and why they're there. i can't say the same for these mysterious soft spots and what worries me the most is that there is nothing i can do to prevent them from ruining future batches.

(still not happy)

so the spots are still there and the dish is still down.

i need to remake "siren" but i'm actually scared it will happen again until i figure out where i went wrong. i inspected the soap and i'm not sure if it's just my mind trying to find more issues with it, but i think the spots might be ever so slightly softer than the normal portions.


then when i held a thin slice against the light, i noticed that the dark spots are not actually dark but translucent, and so they appear darker because the light just goes through them.

so we've got randomly spaced, translucent, maybe slightly soft, non-caustic, non-oily spots.

and still no way to find out what they are...

it was bound to happen. help!

i swear my heart physically hurts. i just cut up a batch up "siren" that i made last night. it behaved well, gelled through and so i just didn't see this coming. i've made "siren" five times now, with no issues whatsoever.

this morning, there are dark spots on almost every bar as i cut them. to me they feel exactly the same as the other normal portions of the soap, not soft or crumbly and no zap at all. i just have no idea why this happened and in my many years of soapmaking i have to say i've never seen anything like this before.


i'm truly gutted.

it's only happened in the pink portions and since the white part is unscented, i'm wondering if it might have something to do with the essential oils not being mixed in properly? other than that, i don't have any ideas on what it could be. if any of you soapers out there have seen or experienced this before, please, please comment. i need to prevent this from happening again because i may very well have to scrap this entire batch.

also, perfect timing for the dish forum to be down, isn't it?

(now i'm off to make a tent with my blanket and sulk in there)

the soap overfloweth

i've reached that inevitable point in a (selling) soapmaker's life when the trimming box has reached its capacity and one needs to decide what to do with all that excess soap.

i say "the trimming box" but really it's more like three trimming boxes. all overflowing. i mean, soap is everywhere!

there are several soap balls in the stash but it's mostly just chunks of soap in various shapes and sizes. i decided to add a confetti style soap to the velvet line because the trimmings are going to keep coming. i've named it "laneways", inspired by the ones that melbourne is famous for. all kinds of different stuff coming together in a glorious fashion.


and then there's "poet", which is meant to look like ink swirls on parchment paper. i'm really pleased with how it came out, i just hope i can recreate the look in future batches.


the other day, i decided to take a video of myself cutting up a batch of "envy". i finished the entire batch, went back to stop the video and realised it ran out of space four minutes in, no warning flash or beep or anything. sigh, even the memory card overfloweth.

and, from watching those four minutes of footage i have confirmed my suspicion that hearing the sound of my own voice will drive me insane. needless to say, no new video has been attempted since then. hmm, what to do...

hope you're all having a good start to the year!

revealed

a long overdue follow up on this post.

they were soap rocks which i used in a batch called "rockpool". i had the idea in my head for a while and it turned out great. when i decided to go ahead with the soap business, i had to include "rockpool" in my soap range.

first batch of rockpool, pre vice and velvet (vnv)

first batch of rockpool for vnv. it was too hard to pour the soap around the rocks so i decided to keep them "submerged" from now on to make things easier for myself. also i only make two different coloured rocks now instead of three.

second batch of rockpool for vnv. got rid of the t.d. since the soap doesn't really need it. was a little too light handed with the charcoal this time.

it takes about three days to finish a batch of rockpool because i have to make the rocks separately first. a lot of effort for one soap but people seem to love it so i guess it's worth it. i'm close to getting into my third batch.

starstruck

i just sent off my first celebrity order. no, it wasn't from an actor, singer or politician, but from someone most of us probably think is cooler.

it was from (drum roll)...

patti flynn herself!

i can't tell you how excited i was when i saw the order. matt was there and he just didn't get it. i explained that she's a superstar in the soaping world, a true legend. and she knows who i am. and she's seen my website. and she's going to try my soap.

this is some interesting form of performance anxiety i've got going on here...

and we have lift-off

my website/store has launched!! i designed the entire thing myself to save money and it took up so much time and got me so frustrated, i'm wondering if it was worth it.

still ironing out the kinks but i just wanted to update you. it's been the craziest month for me and i literally haven't stopped moving. even when i try to lie down for a quick nap, my brain tells me "go do this, go ring this person, go make this" so i end up on my feet again after 2 minutes. but in all honesty i've loved the rush and it hasn't felt like "work" at all.

hope you're all well. thanks so much for all the support you have given me, it has really made a huge difference during this hectic time. i'm going to try to slowly start blogging again, once i get into the rhythm of things. in the meantime here's the link: viceandvelvet.com.au