Wednesday 26 September 2012

Help!? Indigo & Blogger

Calling out for help here....
 
Ingido - Can anyone help me find a supplier for this natural indigo?  Here is a photo of the little package that was given to me as a gift.  The person who gave it to me has not been able to provide the supplier either and I need to order more!
 
Blogger - I used to be able to simply "follow" a new blog by clicking on the "follow" button at the top of the screen.  But for some reason, I haven't been able to for months now.  I can't seem to post the screen shot in here to give you an example...  but instead of follow at the top, it gives me the option to "share".  Hopefully one of the tech whizzs out there will be able to help!!
 
Thank you!!!!
xo  Jen

Sunday 23 September 2012

Mistakes / Surprises – Rose Hip Soap

What the /&$/%&·(“?!???? happened to my rose hip soap?  My usually smooth pretty pink rose hip soap?  This speckled effect was completely unintentional… (love the natural light in this photo, the following 3 were with artificial light...)

I can’t think of anything I did differently other than make larger quantities (a full 48-bar mould) and maybe add a little more rose geranium essential oil than previously.
Right at the end as I was adding the trace ingredients, it started to set up on me in globs, actually one big glob, like a rock!!  Oh no… this is an expensive soap to make and I was determined to save it so I pleaded, attacked, sliced, blended, mixed, begged, coerced, chopped, bludgeoned, and blended and blended some more. Then I manipulated it into the mould.  Phew!
Note the irregular size logs.. hmm.. hmm.. the guitar string on my log splitter broke on me while cutting... another surprise!!
 I have some ideas on how to do thing slightly differently the next time, but in my smaller experimental moulds first.
Update:  Making making making soap again (Yippee yahoo!!!!), after a summer setting up the studio & shop, selling, packaging till the wee hours and 7 nights a week at markets. At the studio till 1am Friday and yesterday, tweaking my goat milk soap process and making tons of it… a rhassoul shampoo, a new salt soap with patchouli & geranium… with my husband near me in the packaging room, packaging away…  Both he and Aurora, my daughter, have really jumped on board this summer and have taken over most of the packaging.   And they are good at it!  I love that my work now incorporates family time.  Both are begging encouraging me to improve the packaging process – we are currently waiting on quotes and samples for customized boxes for soaps and stickers for the tins. So many things on the go, each one keeps me even more busy… WONDERFULLY BUSY.  I have never thrived on monotonous routine, as normally, I get bored easily.  I don’t even usually take my coffee the same, I change it up, sometimes with honey, sometimes with sugar, sometimes black, usually with milk, sometimes tea instead.  In university, I never understood why on the second day of class each student would go back to the EXACT same seat they had the previous day, and desperately hang on to that seat for the rest of the term… I would regularly change my seat as it was an opportunity to meet new people.
But now, I can’t seem to ever get bored doing what I do… it’s always so full of surprises and changes.
Coming up: More about my latest mistakes surprises.
Good vibes to you all.  Thanks for following!
Xo Jen

Tuesday 18 September 2012

Catching Up & Blogging

So, the busy summer season has come to an end and I have begun making making making soap again!! And experimenting!!  Oh how I love making soap and experimenting!
Soaps I did for a wedding recently…

Some laundry soap I made…

A wonderful beach afternoon getaway in the Cabo de Gata natural park nearby…
 
And a reminder that my Website is up live and running! 
www.naturalmentemediterraneo.com
Wow… I can really get lost in all this computer time… I have to limit myself in order to get other stuff done!
About blogging… for personal blog browsing other people’s blogs, I love big colourful photos with new things to learn.  I don’t have time to read through wordy blog posts so I skim…  and I get annoyed when I realize that a blog is a business plug.  So with this blog, I try to do those things I like – big colourful photos… keep the words down… and not try to push my business… just offer and connect with other people with similar interests.  That said… I am going to focus my other blog, my Naturalmente Mediterráneo blog, on keeping followers up to date about my business and new products and what is going on at Naturalmente Mediterráneo and this blog, my Jenora Soaps blog, for more personal stuff and my experiments.  Hope that’s okay with you all.  Don’t want to change things too much.
So coming soon – a post about my recent experiments / mistakes / surprises!
Happy blogging!!
Xo
Jen

Monday 3 September 2012

Evening Market

As the hot busy summer draws to a close, I know I will miss the colourful evening market I have been fortunate to be a part of this summer. It ends next Saturday. Some photos for you:
 
 My Stand

Morrocan Artisan Stand
 
 The wonderful Siberian Painter's stand

Some of her work...
 

To be continued... (seems I have run out of photo space?)
 
xoxoxo
Happy Soaping.... Happy Summer!!
Jen