rebeccajo99

Scented so can you not say shaving soap? Down the road I want to create a bar of soap that has the nice thick lather for shaving. When that time comes, just want to make sure I don't cross that cosmetic line:)

I have a lot to learn then since I have no idea what hanger swirl or pencil line is:laugh2: Great job and I have something to strive for

Those a great! May I ask how you did that?

Looks great!!! Is that something sprinkled on top of the chocolate one?

Luminous, I have not started testing the aroma beads yet. I was going to this summer, but when my husband got diagnosed with cancer... that went out the window as I didn't have time with all of the doctor appointments and then recovering from surgery. By the time I got around to testing anything July was almost over and I wasn't finished testing bath bomb yet. Still not done with lotion bars or bath bombs, but figured I could at least work on the air fresheners since I need more in my house anyways. Laura, Your idea sounds very interesting. I will have to look into that. I agree, I was not impressed with my store bought reed diffusers. My mom loves them and wants me to start making them, but I'm not impressed.

no biggy, I was actually looking for aroma beads, but they were out of stock. Saw the smelly jelly stuff and the seaglass and I liked the look of the seaglass. Found a bunch of posts on the smelly jelly's, but didn't find anything on the seaglass. Debating on just trying the smelly jelly stuff, but I didn't like the posts about the mold and that it just didn't seem to let off much scent. So, i'm second guessing myself on even trying it. All of my reed diffusers are about gone, so now it the perfect time to make up a few scents to start testing. Maybe I'll just wait until I need to order supplies again from any of my suppliers and see if they offer aroma beads. Decisions Decisions... oh how I hate making decisions

I'm looking for some more wickless air freshener ideas. I needed to place an order at candles and supplies, so I took a peak at what they had in line of wickless ideas. I found these seaglass things and it said you can use them by themselves. Has anybody tried them? Here is the link. http://newcart.candlesandsupplies.com/Store/Products/Candles/PID-SEAG-M.aspx Thanks in advance

I'm not sure when you started using your presto, but like another poster said it could be something else. This summer was unusally hot where I live. I only turn our air on when it is going to be over 83 degrees and I think there was a dozen times tops that our air was able to be off this summer. Our electric bill almost doubled from last year, which was about the same for my friends and family. If you are comfortable talking with friends/neighbors/family about bills, just ask them if their electric bill went up too. That will be a better indicater than looking at the kw hours for an increase since it could be environmental for the increase.

mine was ok yesterday. The weather was rainy and cold, vendors who where there last year said that crowds were down. I think I sold 4 things after lunch I always try to see the positive with these slower shows, so they are... I made my booth money back and I don't have a whole lot I need to restock before my show next weeked, so I can work on testing the new stuff I'm working on and maybe get some of the stuff added to my line before holiday season is over

Thanks. I ended up ordering from Cotton blossom.

I use a cash box just because it is easier for me to make change than digging through a money belt. I do not keep that much in the cash box. About 20-ones, 4- fives and 2- tens and my loose change. The rest gets put in my money belt and in a bag that I put one of my table legs through and kept under my table (I have a skirt so you would have to lift the skirt to see the bag.) I paperclip my ones, fives and tens together in my bundles so whenever I need some, I can just quickly grab one of those bundles and all methods of payments that people give me goes in my money belt (no matter if it is ones or fives). My cash box is also hidden and placed in a way that you would have to walk completly behind my display to get to. I really hope that makes sense.

I need some more sisal soap bags and my current supplier is out until November . Has anybody tried this supplier? http://www.cottonblossomcrafts.com/bath_accessories.htm or does anybody have good suppliers for these? Thanks

I started in my kitchen and just converted a bedroom into my workroom just a few months ago.

Thank-you for your informative response. Your recipe is the second one I tried and the one I tweeked off from. I really really really liked your recipe, but didn't feel right using it excatly for my soap since I planned on selling. Felt like I was stealing:) I was leaning towards a few months for new fo's to see how it goes. I'm sure there will be a time where it will still morph/fade like you had with that one FO, but there just has to be a point where you draw the line. I think if we are too cautious, we will never walk out that door with a bar to sell it. I'm taking all your information to heart and thinking about everything you said to find that happy/medium between being too cautious and being too quick. Hopefully with the holiday season upon us, the waiting won't be as unbarable since I will be busy making the things that I know work (my m&p recipe and wax melts). I just need to get a least a few scents made up and start curing so it isn't Jan. before I sit down and do that. Then I really will be impatient because I will have a lot of time on my hands:laugh2:

No... I was just saying 4 to 6 weeks if everything went absolutly perfect, but since I have not made a scented batch yet and I don't know if my unscented ones will cure the way I want... I really don't know when it would be. I was just saying that would be the absolutly minimum time between now and market. I'm not even sure if the soap I like will be fully cured in 4 to 6 weeks, I just know that is usually the average for hp soap. I am normally more cautious too, but I also tend to like how things feel compared to smell, so I wasn't even thinking about smell. When you mentioned fading and morphing fo's and that your customers tend to like smell more. I started doing more research (since nothing I have read in books mentions that ) My top 2 selling FO for my m&p recipe is in the sticky CP rockin' thread... so those will be my first 2 I put in my hp recipe to start curing. I need to figure out how long I'm going to cure new fo's to find out about fading. I can't let them sit 6 months to a year just to see if the fo fades. 1, i don't have the room for that and 2, my husband will kill me:) Maybe put a note on the box. "Scent will fade over time, for strongest scent, please use within such amount of time from purchase":laugh2:More things to think about while I'm waiting for them to cure:) Quick question, if the scent doesn't fade in M&P, do you think it will be fine in my HP (and my CP once I start doing that too) or are M&P and HP/CP 2 completly different things when it comes to FO? I hate this waiting game, I just want it to be done now:). Which is why I chose HP to do. I could test my recipe right away and tweek it until I got what I want (plus I got to try it a bunch of times without feeling like I'm playing a blind guessing game).

You are not offending, I guess I'm just getting confused now. I'm not planning on taking any batches fresh out of the "oven." I just said that I'm waiting for my unscented ones to finish curing so I can see how they feel after the cure. Even when I start scenting them I plan on letting them cure before boxing and bringing them to the market. I also plan on testing a piece from each batch after a full cure to make sure I did the recipe correctly before boxing (just like I do now with my m&p recipe) I keep reading your posts and I guess I just don’t see what I’m missing. Maybe you can spell it out more for me. If I let them fully cure and the cured product is something that is good and I am proud of. Why can’t I take that fully cured soap to the market? Please help clear up this now very confused mind.

Katshe Thanks for your concern and no, I'm not thinking about boxing these up and selling them this weekend. I tried a new recipe just about every day. I counted the ones on my curing racks and I have 7 different recipes all curing right now. My neighbor and I have our favorites and are waiting for them to be fully cured to see if they feel the same or better than what they did when we first tried them and no undesirable things happen (dos, fo/eo smell how we want, colors are good and so forth). I just like to sit and research/plan things out while I'm waiting for things to cure up. So I figured at the aboslute earlist I would be taking these to any market is in 4 to 6 weeks when the ones that I make with scents are finished curing and they turn out the way that I want. (without all of the undesirables) I'm still debating on waiting until the unscented ones we like are done curing before trying with scents or doing the scents now. Depends on how optimistic I'm being that day or not I agree that there are people out there that only want them to smell good, but with my m&p recipe... I get people asking what is good/benefit of such and such ingredient and I only offer 1 recipe. So for those people is what I'm trying to figure out what to do. Hope that makes sense and I comforted you some. If not, please feel free to PM me and we can talk some more

Thanks Scented. I was going to say w/ honey on the label. I like your little sample idea. Could cut up little cubes of unscented of each and package them together for those that want to try before buying. What I really need to figure out is how I can get them to try it before leaving my booth instead of sending them to the nearest restroom. That way I'm just not giving them samples and wonder if they will ever come back.

You do have a nice list, but my only concern is not having "clean" scents. Maybe it won't be an issue, but that is one thing that popped out at me that I didn't see a clean scent.

Ok, after testing a bunch of different recipes and having my neighbor try them too we determined which ones are the best. We both absolutly love my honey one and we both just love the one that is almost just like the honey one, but without the honey and shea butter. How would you "market" them since we can't make claims. The honey one makes our skin feel "soft" and the other makes our skin feel "moisturized" (hope you understand what I'm saying, I'm having a hard time explaining it) I would normally just offer 1 type/recipe, but I just love the color the honey turns the soap and think trying to swirl that color and still look nice is going to be very difficult. So, the other I was going to have the color swirls/additives. I know people are going to ask what the difference is so I'm trying to prepare myself. I want people to know that there is a difference so they don't buy both kinds expecting them to feel the same, but we can't say "this one makes your skin feel soft while this one makes you feel moisturized" I hope I make sense in this because I am having a hard time putting down what I'm trying to say. P.s. down the road I would like to offer a shaving soap and a exfoliating soap. We can say Shaving and Exfoliating right or no?

Oh, I hope the carmel color that it turned my soap doesn't go away. It is a lovely color.

Thanks. I checked the soap this morning and it is about has hard as the ones I made without honey when I demold and cut those. Glad to know I didn't mess this one up. I love the color the honey turned the soap!!! Was the amount that I used a good amount or should I be using less? I tried a small piece of it yesterday (even though it was really soft) and it felt very lovely to my skin.

I'm not an expert since I'm new to hp and cp, but I did notice that the fo you used contained vanilla. Could it be the vanilla starting to turn the soap brown?

2 tbs with 2 lbs of oils

I loved the last recipe I tried, but I can't leave well enough alone and tweeked it some more. I decided to add some honey to this one. I made it last night and went to demold it this morning and it was still really soft. Does the honey make it that it takes longer to harden or did I mess something up? The stuff in my crockpot is still a little soft as well. Let me know if you would like/need my recipe. Since I'm new to hp, I don't know what you all need to answer a question