Better is the Enemy of Good Enough - Shave Soap Drama

Ok, so I've been bad about keeping up with my blog. I went back to school and got my degree in Aerospace Engineering. Legitimate enough?

Now that we have that aside, I have been experimenting. I have no one to share with, and I don't think anybody reads my blog anyways, so I'm going to diary it up.

Shave Soap: I've been working on this recipe for a few years now. I really liked my last batch. It had great lather, glide, performance, moisturizing after feel, and was not irritating on my husband's sensitive skin. The one thing that I didn't like was that it had a lot of ingredients that were synthetic. This isn't really a problem for me, because the ingredients themselves were extremely gentle and quite a few were ECOCERT (the certification body that developed standards for "natural" and "organic" cosmetics) and derived from natural ingredients. Now before my 1 or 2 readers gets upset with me, understand that large cosmetics companies have spent a lot of money to gain a certain level of performance from their ingredients. I also believe in performance. A product that you spend your hard earned money on should perform the way it was intended. How a company gets to that point is through a trade study. Am I willing to sacrifice performance for all natural ingredients? It depends. All natural ingredients won't make soap. I need lye, which is made synthetically in a lab; however, the oils I use are all natural. BAM - Compromise. The problem is that the public at large has a general distrust of difficult to pronounce words. Hey, even the human body is comprised of elements which all have a chemical formula. I understand the concern though. Hey, I didn't know what tocopherols were either at one point. I get it. So I went back to the drawing board, because I just knew that I could make it better.

Better is the Enemy of Good Enough: That's what my former team lead told me once when I said I could make something I was working on better. Pfft. So that's what's delayed my progress from listing the shave soap in my shop. I thought I had the recipe down, and I went ahead and listed the shave soap. Then I remembered... I know how to make cream soap. Doh!!!! I looked at the shave soap I bought from St. James of London. The combination of ingredients amounted to - wait for it - cream soap. Doh!!!! I deactivated my listings. If you've never had your man try St. James of London shaving soap, then you are missing out. OMG. It's great stuff. I didn't want to just copy their ingredients, so I made my cream soap with a few different ingredients. My husband loved it. He said it lathered better than the St. James of London and it didn't cause any irritation. Woo Hoo!!

Not bad, right? The picture above shows my original listing for shave soap.

This one is my Cream Shave Soap. It turned out much whiter and had a pearlesque sheen to it. And the lather, oh, the LATHER. Hubby was impressed with my genius. I guess that's what really counts. I'm working on the labels and will have it uploaded onto my Etsy site soon.

Final Thoughts: So I don't want this blog to just be me selling stuff. I want to share new products that I make, but I also would like to share bath and beauty recipes, product reviews, give aways, explain ingredients, and share some of my experiments. More to come, because THIS time I'll be good and actually blog :)

20% Off Storewide Sale

I need to move the soaps out to make room for new soaps! All items are 20% off for which you will be refunded via paypal.

On another happy note, my husband is installing new larger shelves in my soap room, so I will be able to make even more soap. I am thinking about having my first BOGO sale at that time as well to commemorate the occassion (actually it's just an excuse to make more soap).

So if you are a soap addict like me, or if you have never tried handmade soap and are just curious, stop by my Etsy shop to have a looksy. I must admit that my family has been hogging all of the new body butters that I have been making, but I promise to hide a few and list them all in the shop ;0)

www.gourmetsoaps.etsy.com

My Neapolitan Treasury

I've always loved making treasuries on Etsy, and I've saved pictures of all of them. This Neapolitan Treasury is my favorite so far. It looks so yummy. I love all of the colors. The contrasting colors make the soft browns, pinks, and whites really pop out. I hope everyone likes my treasury, but what would really be helpful would be if folks went to the treasury & commented.


http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list_west.php?room_id=99505

Pretty please?

Welcome Back Anhoki!!

I think the picture says it all!! She's home now, and is doing better everyday. Her very first words to us were on the team's forum on Etsy, and it was an answer to someone's question about purchasing micas for her soap. Ha! Priorities, right? We are hard core soapers! This one is going to be rather short due to class. We love you, An!!

Gourmet Soaps ♥ Safe team!!!

Friendship

When I was in high school, I had the privilege of being a part of a sorority. I had never understood what sisterhood or friendship really meant until I joined that group. A lot of people laugh when I tell them this, because high school is just soooo high school. Well, what do you call a group of girls who like you just as you are, warts and all; people who stand by you and stand up for you when everyone else hides in the background? They are lifetime friends. You may fall out of touch with them, and not see them for years, but when you find each other, it's as if the moments from then and now didn't even exist. I often miss feeling that kind of comradery as an adult. Once out of high school, you learn to stand on your own and not to rely too much on others. You learn that the world is not always friendly, and more often than not, people laugh when you fall.

I have been blessed twice over when I joined Safeteam on Etsy. I always had fun chatting it up with the ladies (and the two fellas) on the team. I've never actually met any of my team mates, we only talk via the internet and Etsy. We each had our individual highs and lows, but then one of our own ended up being very sick. This particular team mate had to have surgery, and she then developed a post-operative infection. Now another surgery is underway, and we won't know how it went for a while yet.

The group that I am a part of now far surpasses anything I've ever experienced. Most of us have never met, most of us will never meet, and yet we are all pulling for our friend. We've all given what we could, and for some, all we could give were prayers and well wishes. All we want is our friend to be well. There's so much I want to say, but I think our friend would be upset that we are all upset for her....So I'll leave all the warm fuzzy stuff in the bunny ears and out of this blog, and I'll just say this.....keep on fighting, Anhoki, and we'll all talk again when you're feeling better :)

~pam