We're on the Road to Morocco, Part Zero

Well, soon enough.

But first, last night, we got an Omen:


Jackie had been trying to make as much as possible before we move, and that glop above was supposed to be 'Dead Sea Mud Salt Bars'. We definitely got mud and dead, but no bars. It was time for her to close up shop.

This morning, the buzzards began circling:


But before you get too excited:

Vote for me!

I just learned that one of my items was selected for an Etsy poll on Best Beauty Bets – stop by and vote! There’s some pretty cool stuff by other sellers, too.

http://www.etsy.com/voter

Vote any time between now and March 2nd.

C’mon, I’ll be your pal.

(You know, I actually don’t know what I get if I’m voted in – probably nothing – but just in case there’s a cash prize or something, help a sister out.)

Cucumber Fug Update

Whadda ya know. It came out not so terrible. Not the usual aqua blue - more of a cadet blue shade, but it works fine.

I know that using those particular colorants in bath salts skews the final color toward the blue end of the spectrum, so I can only assume I escaped purple bars with green blobs by the power of the salt.

I hate relying on luck, but it saved me this time. Yay!

Cucumber Fug

So. I haven't posted since Friday, because I'm up to my garters in gators, here, trying to get ready for Christmas and making sure I've got plenty of stock. For the past couple of weekends, that has meant salt bars.

I had most of them made already. I thought today, to finish off the restocks, I'd add some Cucumber Mint. I have just enough Cucumber to blend for this batch, so I'm off to the races. I measure everything, melt the oils, dissolve the lye, line the molds, and weigh out the salt. Notice that I forgot to pull the colorant and prep it.

Cucumber Mint salt bars are aqua, with a slight green swirl. I put a swirl in because I'm a smartass. Salt bars tend to get thick quickly, and a swirl isn't the easiest thing to do, so I wanted to show off. This is always a bad sign.

I mix everything, and it's looking fine, except that I realize I didn't get the green ready, so I stop and do that. Back to my soap bucket - huh, starting to thicken. Oops, better grab the aqua.

I normally mix the aqua myself. But I'm in a hurry, and I have some premixed colors that I use for bath bombs. There's the bottle of bright blue - I grab it and dump some into the pot. Oddly, it looks a bit gray, so I add some of the green I have ready for the swirl. Still a strange color. I add more blue, but it doesn't seem to help much.

Then I realize that I have two bottles of bright blue. One of them turns pink in soap because of the pH changes. I'm pretty sure I grabbed the wrong one. So I grab the right one, and frantically add a bunch of that. My soap is getting way to thick to stir, so I add some water. Now it has lumpy parts, runny parts, pink parts, blue parts, greenish parts, and a lot of nasty gray parts.

I stir it all together - don't arm wrestle me, you'll lose - and cram it into the mold. I actually get a somewhat green swirl. It isn't level, so I slam the mold onto the counter several times, scaring the daylights out of the poor dog. It looks reasonable, so I slap it into the oven, where it is now lurking.

Colors change during the gel phase, and I won't know what this looks like until I get it sliced. I'm betting it's going to be clown puke. I'll let you know later.

Fire Update

Looks like we're out of the woods. The fire has been pushed back from the city edge and is burning back on previously burned areas - last news reports had it as 25% contained, but that was a while ago, so it's probably better now. There's a lot less smoke than we had earlier.

I like my house, I really do. When we bought it, I looked out over the empty land and thought "cool, we have so much open space!". I never thought "wow, I bet wildfires rip across that really fast." Funny how hindsight works.

Anyway. A big shout out and thank you to the people who sent along well wishes. We appreciate it a lot.

Now I'm off to make salt bars.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

The holiday season is getting started. It’s late summer, and my whole house smells like pumpkin pie. Not because I get to make pie, doggone it, but because I am making pumpkin spice soap.

Having a retail business, where you manufacture all your own products, throws the seasons ENTIRELY off. See, here’s how it works. I need to have all the Christmas products shipping from my site during November, to make sure that all shipments arrive in time. And most people start shopping early. So I’d actually better have everything up and ready by October. Which means my wholesale customers will want everything by October. Which means I have to ship to them in September. So I need to make everything in August – but I have to test the scents first. I’ll make test batches in July. So, June, I’m ordering stuff that smells like Christmas trees and cranberries.

Crazy. Now, holiday production in full swing, initial wholesale orders shipped out, re-stocks are going on, and it’s so hot outside that the concrete is sizzling and I am up to my elbows in Pumpkin Spice. The dog has bogarted the space in front of the fan, on the basis that he’s wearing a fur coat and needs it more. He hasn’t moved off the cool tile floor in six hours. My husband, lovely kind man that he is, has been bringing me cool drinks and telling me I’m insane. I am sweating like a Gatorade commercial. My shirt smells like apple cider and I have pine fragrance in my hair somewhere.

And you know what my brain is doing? It’s telling me I need to think about spring and wondering what Daffodil would be like in a soap. Easter egg pastel shades, delicate floral scents…..

I hate my brain and the things it says. I’m considering poking it with a q-tip until it shuts up.