More Shampoo Bar Experiments

(Rhassoul Shampoo with Essential Oils of Bay Laurel, Lavender, Ylang Ylang & Rosemary. The scent is a DUD but I love the Shampoo Bar!!! New formula - with borax.)

I used to make a beer shampoo bar that I really liked for my hair, and somehow lost it.  Maybe my hair changed, maybe the water changed, maybe I copied something down wrong on the recipe, maybe I just became addicted to more suds in a shampoo bar ever since I exchanged shampoo bars with some fellow soapers last year.  In any case, I have been experimenting with shampoo bars for a couple of years now…  and experimenting extra hard since August last year.

  

(Goat Milk Shampoo with Rosemary Cedarwood and Thyme Essential Oils – This one was a DUD!)

Nothing seemed to work!  My hair seemed to get “the greasies” from any shampoo bar I tried!  It wasn’t the superfat, as I experimented from anywhere between 1% and 5% for my shampoo bars.  Could it be too much Coconut oil that I was trying now?  Could it be from water quantities?  Types of oils I was using?  I kept trying new oil formulations, different liquid quantities, various Superfatting…

(Goat Milk Shampoo with Patchouli and Cedarwood Essential Oils – Another DUD!)

I have come up with a new shape and size that I like for my shampoo bars and of all the different EO blends I tried, I have one I really like with Basil, Peppermint and Lavender.

(Avocado & Honey Shampoo with Basil, Peppermint and Lavender Essential Oils – Love the scent, but the bar is a DUD!)

(Beer, Egg and Honey, with Lemongrass, Cedarwood and Patchouli Essential Oils.This is an attempted repeat at my original favourite bar.Still curing so I haven’t tried it on my hair yet. )

One of the theories was that a shampoo bar needs a low pH…. So I tried adding a little borax and BINGO. I have a shampoo bar with a lower pH, that leaves my hair just as I like it. This bar has abundant lather, hair loving oils, and it leaves my hair lighter and fluffier than any other bar I have tried, and also the lightness lasts for days. (Photo of this bar - the Rhassoul Shampoo Bar is at the top of the page)

So if pH is the key, what other natural ways would there be to lower the pH in a shampoo bar? Suggestions?

(Avocado, Honey remake, with the new formula with borax.  Curing. Note the honey didn't mix in well... but I think I kind of like the speckled effect.)

I am so excited with my new Shampoo Bar formula!!

(Goat Milk and Silk with Rosemary, Ylang Ylang, Patchouli and Bay Laurel Essential Oils. This time the scent worked! Slightly sweet but I like it. Still in the mould as you can see here. New formula. This was the first time I attempted any soap with silk, and as I was keeping the temps low for the goat milk, it didn’t fully dissolve! So I had to fish out little silk clumps.  Next time I experiment with silk, I will use a different liquid so I can let the temps go higher!!)

By the way, although it looks simple... lining the round mould has been challenging! Any suggestions welcome...

Well, happy soaping everyone!!

xoxo

Jen

Sapunuri naturale

I recently received this beautiful package from Alexandra at http://sapundecasa.wordpress.com/.   We have been exchanging emails ever since she won the guessing game on my mysterious natural soap colour – Pomegranate Juice!

The thing that struck me most at first from the wonderful selection of soaps that Alexandra sent me was the difference between all of her products.  Each one has so many different ingredients!  The aromas come from Essential Oil blends and they are faint but lovely blends.

The first soap that I am using of hers, as I was most intrigued by it, is her soap with Pomegranate Juice and Hibiscus tea, and I am amazed at its smoothness and the way it leaves my skin feel – one of the nicest soaps I have ever tried.

I used to think that a good soap needed to have abundant, big bubbly lather, but that seems sort of superficial to me these days…. The real thing I look for in a bar of soap is how it leaves my skin feel.  Although I still love scent, smoothness, and a manageable soap size.  This soap, as it was cut as a smallish sample, was easy to use, the scent is quite faint, and it is VERY smooth, sort of reminds me of my pomegranate bar smoothness.  Could it have something to do with the juice?  

I started trying the soap out first on my hands for a couple of days.  The lather is delayed but it slowly builds up into a thick and creamy (less bubbly) lather which is amazingly addicting.  I love it.  And the best part is the softness of my skin afterward.  What an amazing soap!!   I then used it in the shower and I loved it on my body as well as my face.  Very moisturizing and softening.  I am so in love with this bar that I will be upset when it is I use it all up!!!

But I have several more to try out.  When trying out new soaps, I prefer to use only 1 type for a couple of weeks to really feel the effects on my skin.

  

Next I get to try out her beautiful shampoo bar, with castor oil, green and yellow clays, spirulina, basil leaves, rosemary leaves and rosemary, tea tree and ylang ylang essential oils, and several other soaps – one with shea butter & geranium & rose essential oils, another with Carrot Juice, “Catina” oil with a blend of sweet orange, bergamot and ylang ylang essential oils, another with Heineken Beer, Castor oil and Patchouli, lavender and ylang ylang essential oils.

I may have to post an update once I have tried the other soaps!!

Thank you SO MUCH Alexandra for sharing your soaps with me.  So far I LOOOOOOOVE them.

Xoxo

Jen

Whole Lemon

My first experiment using a whole lemon... blended up into the liquid portion of the soap... peel and all!

I wonder what it will do to the ph?

Fresh lemony EO blend of Lemon, Lemongrass and May Chang

Favourite quote of the day:

Do what you love - Love what you do!

Happy Soaping Everyone!!

xoxo

Jen

Failed customer service opportunity

(... and some random photos)

 I love feedback, especially when it is positive.  Negative feedback usually makes me feel uncomfortable at first but it can be a great opportunity to improve something that isn’t quite right.  I wish I got my reaction right every time… but I’m still learning.

I remember back to that majorly failed opportunity I had…

A lady came up to my stall at a market a few months ago and said, “Wonderful soap! I bought some from you at a Medieval market…”  she hesitated.  She was English and as they are often so polite I think it can be extra difficult for the English to offer negative feedback.  She got up the courage to mention to me that although she loved the soap, she didn’t like the size of the small soap she bought (my half-size bar).  She offered the suggestion of making them round.

Bingo!  Opportunity to:

-          thank her for providing her honest feedback

-          say Great Idea, I think I will try your suggestion!

-          offer her a larger bar for free to try out and see if she liked that size

-          possibly win over a return customer…

But NOOOOOO!  What did I do?  I am embarrassed to admit it… Okay, I did thank her for offering her opinion. At least I got one thing right.  But then… oh yes… I got into a defensive bit about why I prefer rectangular soap!  Why oh why!!!???   Basically she got away.  Probably won’t come back.

The funny thing is also that she was ABSOLUTELY right!  Although I worked very hard to get my regular size bar to a size that I love, I had never fully tried out my own half-size bar.  I have now and I don’t like it!  It is nice and small but too thick to get any rotation.  I would have to slice that in half to make it thinner or just scrap the half-size bar altogether.  For now I have scrapped it.

(my new shampoo bar shape)

So, for me, the moral of my story is that I should listen more carefully to customers’ feedback, especially when negative, and get my response right the first time because I can’t do it over.

Anyone have any customer service experiences they want to share?

Xo

Jen

PS.  I want to send out a huge CONGRATULATIONS!!! to my 15-year-old cousin Ronnie Remme who just won a silver medal this week for Canada in downhill skiing at the Youth Olympic Games in Innsbruck, Austria!  Go Ronnie Go!!  Her father (my first cousin) was my ski coach for a season or two, many years ago, but I wasn’t very good at racing.  We are all pretty excited about Ronnie!

More Potpourri...

I love playing around with my potpourri soap... and each batch looks so different. 

 The set things are that it is a goat milk soap and the scent combo is Lavender, Lemongrass, Fennel and Ylang Ylang, which I love...

Goat Milk & Activated Charcoal

This is a repeat, at a customers request... she loved this bar for her adolescent skin... and I really enjoyed flinging soap with the spoon swirl tecnique!

with Spearmint & Patchouli Essential Oils

Happy Soaping!!

xo

Jen

Orange Season

Orange season here starts in December and is still on! Oh yeah... freshly squeezed local orange juice every day until we get sick of it and then we wait until next December to get sick of it all over again!

We don't usually buy the oranges, they get given to us by locals by the crate.

As you can see, we have almost finished the oranges in this crate!   These wonderfully juicy local oranges are also the oranges I use for the grated peels that go into my Orange Poppyseed Soap and Scrub.

It takes about 3 to 4 oranges for a full glass of juice and before I juice them, I wash them, dry them, then grate the peels off.

Here are some of the peels drying at different stages.

It is also currently mandarin season, lemon season and olive oil season (the olives are usually gathered throughout December).  Pomegranate season just finished.  Almond season is coming up, then watermelon and lavender season. We recently got given local sweet onions and garlic as well. We seem to get fresh local tomatoes (my favourite food of all time…) all year long.  I think if I had to choose 2 foods that I couldn’t live without it would be tomatoes and cheese.

There are definite benefits to living in an agricultural area!!

Hope you all have a week filled with passion and inspiration!!

Happy Soaping!

xoxo

Jen

Kinky Witch Soap

The lovely Robin from Kinky Witch Soap http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kinky-Witch-Soap/202950419725552 participated in my Olive Oil experiment and as a surprise sent me a gift of some awesome soap she makes and a dreamy lip balm (not included in the photo as I believe my daughter has hidden it on me... we both love it!).

Not only does this soap look good and smell wonderful... This ROCK HARD bar produces AWESOME, sudden & lasting, big, fluffy, abundant suds. I find this bar rather addicting as well as the tasty, moisturizing lip balm...

Thank you so much Robin for the amazing gift!!

I only have one piece of advice I could offer you...

GET A BLOG!!!

xoxo

Jen

Be Careful...

when playing with water discounts and reductions... that you don't go too low!

Broke the soap cutter with this one...

Oh well, this one will be grated for laundry soap.

Happy Soaping everyone!!

xoxo

Jen

Prickly Pear Soap - Follow Up

I tried 5 different versions. All of them have juice that I made from local prickly pear fruit. The first two have prickly pear oil in them, then I ran out so I used Argan Oil for superfatting the the last three.

 The first batch had the seeds from the fruit in it and I don’t like it.  It is WAY too scratchy, not like the nice exfoliation from poppyseeds or coffee grounds… The ABRASIAN from the prickly pear seeds is Not my thing. 

For the last of the 5 experiments I froze the prickly pear juice and the soap has turned out rougher, slightly bumpy, not as smooth as I like, and the colour runs.  So basically, I really liked versions 2, 3 and 4. The soap is wonderfully smooth, I love the lather and it leaves my skin feeling awesome!

I will continue my search for Prickly Pear Oil that I can afford, maybe include some other things from the prickly pear cactus, and continue making this soap. I may try a shampoo as well as Prickly pear is supposed to be fabulous for hair.

Scent – still have not come up with a signature scent for this soap yet… tried various but not impressed. Will keep trying!

I have had great feedback so far from this bar.  Except... one customer got it as a gift for Christmas for her not-well-loved step mother solely based on the word Prickly and the idea of cactus … and one person that tried it, did not like it for her skin. Haven't figured out why yet but something to look into and must have more testing…  

Happy Soaping everyone and Happy Happy Happy New Year!!!!!!!!! xoxoxoox Jen