Closing the Online Soap Site

/ Holly / 29 Comments

Making soap is something that brings me an immense amount of joy. I can get lost in the recipe formulations and endless ideas of colors and swirls and scents. It is absolutely an escape and creative outlet for me. Like most hobby soap makers, we always end up with extra bars and hate to see them go to waste. Up to now, we’ve had an online site to sell those extra bars. I always hoped that someday (kápia méra!) my hobby would turn into an actual business. Unfortunately, that just isn’t to be. With my health issues (I have Crohn’s disease going on 35 years) and the cost of selling the bars online for just a small hobby (the subscriptions and fees were more), we’ve decided to close the site.

We really appreciate all the friends, family, and people who found us online and tried our soaps. All the sweet comments about how much you liked the soap have meant the world to me. I’m going to continue making soap for my family whenever I can, participating in soap challenges as much as possible, and posting here and on Facebook when I make something or create a video.

Thank you so much for the support! ❤️

Holly

Indigo Rose Soap Making for the Pull Through Soap Challenge Club

/ Holly / 27 Comments

052019_37164wp.jpgFor the May Soap Challenge Club, we learned a soap making technique that’s based on an acrylic paint pouring method. This method of painting involves pouring fluid acrylic soap through some kind of object with multiple holes, like a sink strainer or colander. The beautiful designs these acrylic artists achieve are just incredible. I lost an entire afternoon just watching their YouTube videos. :)

Our guest instructor this month was Joanne Watkins of Nature’s Potion Handmade Soaps. In addition to being an amazing soap maker, Joanne is also an acrylic painting artist. She showed us how to accomplish this technique with soap by either pouring it through an object or pulling an object through the soap. We had two ways to enter the challenge: use an existing object with holes for the regular category or create your own object for the advanced. This was such a fun technique to try and yields such cool designs in the soap. :) Continue reading →

Coffee Cocoa Soap with Glycerin Rivers

/ Holly / 15 Comments

022019_33190wp2.jpgThe February Soap Challenge Club involved creating intentional glycerin rivers in a batch of soap. Auntie Clara was our guest instructor this month. She’s written several posts explaining the science behind these rivers and has tackled several myths about them, as well. Auntie Clara also explains how you can create (or avoid) them in your own soaps. Besides describing the awesome science behind these rivers, Auntie Clara has created some of the most beautiful soaps with glycerin river swirls.

For the challenge, we had a choice of entering the regular category (glycerin rivers throughout the bar) or the advanced category (glycerin rivers in only part of the bar). Since I’ve had accidental glycerin rivers occur in parts of my soaps over the years, I thought I’d give the advanced category a try. I had no idea my previous accidental glycerin rivers would be so difficult to replicate. Let’s just say my overly confident attitude led to plenty of fails. If you’d like to see how I finally came up with a soap to enter and also see my fails, just keep reading. I filmed my process but haven’t yet had time to edit. I’ll hopefully be posting the video next week. :) Continue reading →