Week in review: cutting soaps, making lip balms and market days! With lots of linky goodness.

It has been a long week out here in sweatland. We were accepted into two local weekly markets! I'll now have a regular Saturday home at the New Braunfels farm to market from 9-1 and we'll be trying out the Legacy outdoor market every Sunday from 10-3. I'm still planning to go on the first Saturday of the month up to Wimberly. It's huge and I love the vibe up there, it's full of people having a good time and excited about what they're finding. And the best part is that I'll be meeting up with my friend and fellow vendor Judy of An Art Peace by Judy at these markets! We'll have a ball sweating and chatting with the crowds and selling our hearts out. I can't wait for the cooler weather to hit us though. Days spent out in the 100+ degree weather are tough on this A/C lovin' gal.

Now on to the goodies. I only made two batches of soap this week, since I wanted to spend time learning some new techniques. First I made goat milk, honey and oatmeal. So delicious! I always think about my soaps in terms of cooking and I'm not sure that's a good thing, as they always make me want to eat them.

Oatmealy goodness. Yes, it's a new mold and I didn't line it quite tightly enough!

Cut bars of oatmealy goodness.

I also made some orange soap. Very orange. I used 5x sweet orange essential oil and added way more than I do for most scents, as orange tends to fade. There's a bit of patchouli in there to help anchor the scent, and so far, all you can smell is sweet orangey orangeness. It smells exactly as I wanted it to turn out, though the swirling got more muddled than I intended. It's still purty and yummy-smelling!

Swirly orange soap. It reminds me of the Brady Bunchers singing "Bright Sunshiny Day."

 

 

Swirly orange goodness.

 Other than soap, this week I received some bottles.

Oooooh, bottles.

 Lots of bottles.

Ooooooh, more bottles!

And I finalized my lip balm recipe. So yes Virginia, there are lip balms! Of course I was so involved and having so much fun making them I forgot to take pictures of the process. But I'm very pleased with how these came out. I was aiming for a fairly firm (for TX in the summertime) but still glidy matte balm made with protecting and delicious ingredients. So I'll be premiering eight different balms this weekend (as long as the labels make it here this week, lol) I have coffee (my favorite) made with real coffee butter and shea butter, peppermint (my other favorite) made with peppermint essential oil, vanilla coconut (mmmmmm!), cinnamon (real EO again here), honey (yes, made with honey, tee hee), lavender vanilla (sounds strange but is so yummy, and yes, real EO), rosemary and chocolate. Phew. They are all made with beeswax, olive oil, castor oil and coconut oil. I've used edible essential oils when possible. Now to create pretty labels and a pretty display. I don't think they're too attractive the way I've stored them here.

So many delicious lip balms, I can't choose!

 I'm also making more liquid soap. Last time I was playing around with whatever oils I had on hand and learning the process. This time I'm going for a wonderful liquid soap/shower gel made with 85% olive oil and 15% castor oil (to add body and lather to the mild gentle olive oil soap). Rather than going for an absolutely translucent body wash (which can be achieved by adding too much lye and then neutralizing the excess) I'm going for one with a slight superfat (extra oil) in order to avoid it being too drying to the skin. So far though it's diluting translucently, which is an added perk. And it smells so good I'm thinking of offering some for sale unscented, though I plan to scent the bulk of it. I've got several different fragrances to try, including bay rum, cranberry, coconut vanilla and rose. They'll all react differently in the liquid soap and I want to do some experimentation with them before I decide exactly which ones to use in the final product.

Pasty olive soap paste.

Diluting soap paste. Almost liquid!

The other bottles will allow me to play around this week and concentrate on finalizing my lotion recipe. Yes, I'm rolling out lots of new products. I must like to work! I just enjoy making useful and beautiful body products and am fascinated by how the ingredients combine to create them. It's chemistry in action!

I've also been cutting damaged or dented soaps to make up sampler packs. Originally I was intending to package these in shrink wrap bands with a card but they're all different sizes and shapes. So they're going to be grab bags.

Sampley samples of samp.

If that isn't enough, I also finished a cat bed for the bean. Of course, I'm used to fulling my knitting rather than my crocheting and this crocheted one didn't shrink nearly as much as I thought it would. I was afraid to make it too small, as he's a loooooong cat (Maine coon heritage).

Goodnight, cruel world, I'm going to bed.

Hiding from the birds mocking him outside. Ah, the hard life of an indoor kitty.

As you can see, I've been busy! For updates more often, you can always stop by to see me on Facebook. I'm constantly running around and trying to fit seventeen hours of research and work into every day, and often pop a picture up there when I don't have time to write one of my epic posts. And even now, as many nights, DH is calling me from bed and telling me it's midnight!