sailorzeo | Entries tagged with soap

This is the cutter I've been waiting for. It's pretty awesome; it actually lines up perfectly with the soap loaves, so I cut the entire loaf into 13 bars in one cut. I use the two end pieces (which are wavy and not nice and flat) as samples to include with orders.

These are the bars I cut today. Front: Wild Strawberry. Rows, left to right: Brown Sugar & Spice, Spicy Lime, Sandalwood, Coconut, Vanilla, Intense Almond, Bergamot Chamomile.

Tomorrow I need to work on labels and photography, and get them listed for sale.

Coffee soap, in the mold. I was pretty proud of this soap; it was made with double-brewed coffee instead of water, with coffee grounds mixed in the soap batter, and whole coffee beans embedded on the top. It had almost no scent, though, when it finished, which is kind of okay. The beans on top made it tricky to cut; after a few misfires trying to cut from the top (the blade would catch a bean and push it all the way through the soap, leaving a gouge through the bar), I ended up flipping the loaf over and cutting from the bottom. I still had a lot of beans fall off as I cut and after, leading to several packages probably sounding like maracas when they arrived at their destination. :-D

Coffee soap is said to be good for removing garlic and onion odors from hands. I actually haven't tried that, and the entire batch sold within a week (I think, it sure seemed fast). I need to make more; it's on the list for when I get more mango butter.

Seriously, for as much as I don't like math, I always seem to choose math-heavy hobbies.

I had enough mango butter for yesterday's two batches of soap (Intense Almond and Bergamot Chamomile), but now I have crumbs, which is derailing my "make lots and lots of soap OMG RIGHT NOW!!!!" desire. So I had to sit down and do math and figure out just how many soap batches I get from each pail of oil, in the amounts I usually order.

Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, 10 lbs: 10 batches

Palm Kernel Oil, 5 lbs: 12.5 batches

Coconut Oil, 5 lbs: 12.5 batches

Mango Butter, 1 lb: 10 batches

Shea Butter...is non-relevant right now, because I got a deal on a 5 lb pail a while back, and that gives me like 50 batches.

In the past rounds of ordering, I've gotten 20 pounds of soy oil (with a pound set aside for lip balms), to make 19 batches of soap. But I didn't do the math on the other oils, so I've run out of palm kernel oil and had to emergency order, but only ordered the 5 lb amount, when I still had 15 batches of soap to do. I ordered coconut oil and mango butter earlier, but that was before my shop totally sold out and I wasn't planning on making this much at once, so I've run out of mango butter and am running low on coconut oil.

I did the math today on what I need to finish out the 19 soaps and still have leftovers, as well as get more lip balm supplies (mainly tubes, some flavors). It came close to $200 before shipping and tax were figured. I have $100 coming from my mom, and I have about $40 in my Paypal, so I may need to adjust quantities to get what I need at a price I can afford.

Current Music: the ice cream truck is playing Jingle Bells, WTF?

Wow, haven't posted here in over 2 years. I just...haven't felt the need. I kind of wandered over to Tumblr and just fell in.

So, a quick update: lost my job in July. Haven't found a new one yet, but I have an Etsy shop, Zeo's Soaps and Sundries, where I sell handmade soaps, lip balms, bath salts, and soon, cuticle oil. I'm also running a GoFundMe campaign, trying to get a little extra money to help bridge the gap on weeks where sales are slow.

This has been dubbed "Soaphenge." All of those soaps have since sold.

This week is full of soapmaking. I have 13 more 2-pound batches I want to make, and I keep running out of ingredients. Today, I ran out of lye, which is somewhat essential to making soap. I have enough mango butter for one more, maybe two more batches. I have some money coming in, so I'll be able to restock those ingredients, but dang, it's a fine balancing act I'm walking. Once I get those soaps made and listed, I can breathe a little.

So, that's what I've been up to of late. Anyone miss me?

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Zeo's Thoughts and Wanderings

Soaping thoughts and musings

Entries tagged with soap

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Because I'm bored...

Math is my enemy

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March 2015

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