Soap & Getting Bizzy Time

Having a day job while trying to squeeze in soapmaking and all the other aspects of business is a bit tough. Now that all the spring/summer fairs are coming up (and soap needs a one month cure time to factor in), I really need to keep a tight schedule/calender and get as much done as I can.

I get home from work, the sun's already starting to go down, I eat dinner, and make soap till bedtime! Thankfully my dear boyfriend helps when he can. We've decided to try hot glue instead of double sided tape for wrapping soaps. I did the tape thing for awhile because what happens is that soaps shrink a little over time and so the label gets loose and falls off. The tape allows some ease to un-stick and redo.. which is why I didn't really want to try glue, but we'll see how it goes-- it's much quicker than tape according to my bf.

So while my bf did some label wrapping for me, I made a batch of soap with coconut milk. In the past I've used coconut milk powder, but I wanted to try this. It's a good vegan alternative to goats milk soaps and according to David Fisher, go-to soap guy,

"Like Cleopatra's famed milk-baths, milk in soap provides extra moisturizing qualities and a creaminess that can't be matched with just oils. It gives the extra moisturizing qualities, but gives something extra - super bubbly lather! I'm not sure whether it's the extra sugar content of the milk, or the coconut itself that makes the extra lather...but it sure does. Extra creamy...extra bubbly!"

As seen below, weighting out the coconut milk, my recipe, and messy labeling paper mess.

Looks like a rich smoothie. Even with putting it into the freezer to cool down prior to adding sodium hydroxide (this mixture with the oils is what causes it to turn into soap), it still took foreverrr to cool down. I guess in the future I'd leave it in the freezer a bit longer than I did. While it was cooling, my oils were melting away on the stove.. and what's that in the background?..hm?

Upcoming.. white zinfandel wine soap! I have 2 names ideas for this and am considering using both on labels and seeing which people choose more..is that weird? haha.

That's all for now. Drink.. er I mean, Soap Up.