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 :)

Beautiful New Handmade Soaps

Euphoric is a duplication of Aveda's Euphoria. It is an essential oil blend of the following fragrant notes: jasmine, rose, and sandalwood. It's a very sexy, floral, and feminine scent that you just can't help breathing in once you get it in your hands

http://stores.gourmetsoapsandsundries.com/-strse-6/natural-handmade-soap-vegan/Detail.bok


Plumeria in summer shades of yellow and red swirls.

http://stores.gourmetsoapsandsundries.com/-strse-2/soap-natural-handmade-plumeria/Detail.bok

These are links to my new shop. All new customers to the website will enjoy a 20% off of your first order!

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

Cream Soaps

I've been interested in making cream soaps for a while now, after all, I AM a soaper. Most people know that in order to make soap, oils and lye need to saponify together. To make a hard, solid bar of soap, sodium hydroxide is used. To make a liquid soap, potassium hydroxide is used. Cream soap is a sort of hybrid of the two, quite literally. In order to make a creamy, whipped concoction of soap, both potassium hydroxide and sodium hydroxide is used.

The lye, water, and oils are cooked with applied heat to speed up the saponification process. Once this process is complete (this takes a few hours), supercreaming can begin. Supercreaming is another word for superfatting, so there is extra stearic acid to give the soap its whipped cream texture. At this point, the soap does not look like cream, or a fluffy whip, or anything dreamy. It's a big, sticky glob that you can't even mix. Now here's the hard part, the soapmaker and the soap must relax for 24 hours. Once everyone has cooled off, small amounts of water can be whipped in until a creamy texture is formed. And here's the REALLY hard part, seal the soap in a bucket with a tight lid and let it "rot". I know it sounds gross, but something special happens when you leave it alone for a few months: a sheen appears, and the soap is even creamier.

Now the fun part is adding fragrance and color, and of course, bathing! I have to admit, I've been taking 2 showers a day just so I could "experiment". At least that's what I've been telling my husband, but I don't think he believes me.

Sugar Plums

As many of you know, I am a part of a soaper's team on Etsy called Safeteam. We promote the art of soaping and safe manufacturing process of bath and beauty products. The Safeteam is really big on soaping challenges, and I've decided to enter this year's Mother Day Challenge. We were encouraged to go all out in showing all mothers how wonderful we think they are....uh, but here's the catch: the colors *MUST* have purple and red (the colors of the Red Hat Society). Why? Because Anhoki said so! So I created Sugar Plums.

Whenever I think of Mom and comfort, I think of baked goods. My Mother is an awesome cook, and loves to try new things. For her, family is everything, and there isn't anything she wouldn't do for family. So here's the next best thing to a cake with a sugar plum glaze....it's a soap cake that smells of yummy sugared plums with bright yellow calendula flowers to grace it's red hat. This soap is lightly scented, because my mom has unbelievably bad allergies, and I want her to enjoy this soap as well. I love you Mommy!

The Return of Gourmet

It's been forever since I've blogged or had my soap shop open. Well, what seems like forever has only been a few short months. If you have been to my little Etsy shop, then you know that my family and I have had some troubles, health & personal. Everything has evened out quite a bit.

Between me & you (don't tell my husband), my husband has had kidney stone issues about 2 months ago. He's never had any problems with them before, but he's 38, works construction in the hot blazing Alabama sun, and has a diet comparable to the Neanderthals. If it could be bludgeoned, he ate it. Really though, don't tell him I said that. The man thought he was dying, at least that's what I could make out on our drive to the emergency room. When we found out definitively that it was a kidney stone, I watched him pray to God (out loud, of course) that he would not eat so much red meat, that sodas were out, and "dear God, salads will be my main staple...from now on." I joke now, but he was in serious pain. Even though he's passed one, he still has several more in his kidneys that are just waiting to make their way down his ureter. He's ok for now :)

During the last 3-4 months, my oldest son has had problems coughing. He just coughed all the time, and sometimes he would have a coughing fit for 10-30 minutes straight. He didn't appear to have breathing problems, he just couldn't stop coughing. We thought it was a cold at first, and waited the required 2 weeks, but he still coughed. We took him to his doctor, and was given a round of antibiotics; but after 10 days, he still coughed. We went back to the doctor at was given something stronger for 14 days, but he still coughed. We were told to give him allergy meds, but after 3 weeks, he still coughed. The coughing fits started to become more frequent, so we headed back to the doctor. Johnny was then given a pulmocort breathing treatment, and we were told to come back in a month....and it worked like a charm. He finally has relief. He does cough once in a while, when the pollen count is high, but he's so much better.

So now that we are all getting back to normal, I've been cleaning like a crazy lady. The soap room is completely disinfected, and I've been making soap like crazy. I think I will only have a few soaps for sale for a while, so that I can get back into the swing of things. I would like the thank everyone who has been wonderful in showing their support. I am deeply blessed to have known so many wonderful people.

~pam