The addiction continues: Lush temptation!

Although I'd heard of it before, this weekend I had my first real Lush experience while visiting some old college friends for Memorial Day weekend down in Santa Barbara. I had a quick stop I needed to make to the mall on the way to my friend's nursing school graduation/RN pinning ceremony. Honestly, it was a sick decision on my part to only allow myself 20 minutes in one of my favorite time-sucks (aka, the mall), but I guess I'm a bit of a masochist. It caught my attention on the way back to my car to get to my friend's graduation party. LUSH!

If you haven't already checked out this store, you must immediately find the nearest location and make a point to check it out next time you're in the area. Lush is an organic, vegetarian (and mostly vegan) bath and body care store and a perfect example of what many of my dreams have been about of late :P

Of course, I didn't have time to spend more than a brief couple minutes surveying the store to see if it was worth returning for. I decided that it was definitely worth it and promptly dragged one of my friends back there with me the next day. Let me tell you, this place is HEAVEN for soap geeks and body product fiends! I've been thinking about playing around more with solid perfumes and lotion bars so I treated myself to a great massage bar, but otherwise managed to exhibit uncharacteristic willpower and didn't allow myself any of the other temptations, such as a yummy new face cleanser or bath bomb.

Blog stop

As some of my loyal attempted readers have recently noted, I have been seriously neglecting my blog lately! I've been really busy working on a new spoken Dutch test, searching for a new apartment, and a packed schedule of "extracurricular" activities. Have no fear, though. My passion for all things SOAP continues!

This week I am gearing up for the Soap Making Boot Camp at the Nova Studio in Point Richmond this coming weekend. I've been looking forward to this course for months and only waited this long to take it because the first session offered when I first heard about this workshop was already full and I had already planned to be in Portland when the next session was offered.

I'm sure I'll have lots to say about the classes this weekend, so stay tuned for some Boot Camp blog posts!

Cold Process!

It has finally begun. You might recall that I mentioned my (former) acupressure guy TJ, in a previous post. He was kind enough to introduce me to his girlfriend Talia, who is also interested in soap making. After months of emails and anticipation, we all finally met up on Sunday for our first batch of cold process soap.

I was having too much fun to remember to take lots of pictures of the first batch, but here are a couple pictures I did manage to get:

Testing the temperature of the lye solution.

Melted oils mixed with lye solution to trace, oatmeal added and poured into our makeshift mold to saponify and cure.

Oregon Soap Company

The Oregon Soap Company was the most expensive of the 4 soapers' booths I checked out at the Portland Saturday Market. Prices for a 3.75 oz bar of their certified organic soap START at $7. Ouch!

I checked out their website, though, and was pleased to read about their commitment to fighting climate change through sustainable business practices. Their pledge to plant one tree for every 10 bars of soap they sell means they do much better than just offsetting their carbon emissions - they do it several times over.

And their soap? Pricey, yes, but a great treat to use in the shower. I bought a bar of the Forest soap (pictured above), which has a very mild yet consistent lather and gently exfoliates with oatmeal and bran. This particular bar has a great unisex scent, which makes it a great treat for your favorite (male or female) tree hugger.

Portland!

I spent last weekend exploring Portland, Oregon with a couple of girlfriends. My dad moved up there last summer, so between the great deal I found on my Southwest flight and crashing at my dad's apartment, we had a wonderful recession-appropriate weekend getaway! To make up for the relative cheapness of the trip, I insisted on spending the bulk of the afternoon on Saturday exploring the Saturday Market.


I LOVE CRAFT MARKETS and this one was no exception! There were a lot of amazing artists and some incredibly unique wares being sold, but I was most interested in (surprise!) the SOAP. My market buddies thought I was crazy for spending so much time and money on something that I already have - in obsessive quantities - at home. But hey, it's market research, right? ;)

So, in lieu of my own new creations, I thought I'd devote a couple blogs this week to describing some of the soaps from the Portland Saturday Market that were worthy of my cash.

Soaps by the sea

I was recently asked by a friend who sits on the board of directors for her mother's literacy foundation to donate some soapy goodies to be auctioned off at her foundation's annual fund raising dinner coming up this summer. The theme of the event is "By the Sea" and, while it's certainly not required for the donations be theme-specific, I thought it would be a fun project to aim for.

That was the inspiration for the soaps I made last weekend:

For the first batch, I was aiming for the color to fade from light blue at the top to dark blue at the bottom, like the color of the horizon when the sky blends into the ocean. I ended up with darker hues than I had originally intended, but this way I suppose it reminds me of the colors of the ocean itself, as the light filters out at greater depths. The white lines are the waves.

I kind of like how the waves ended up sticking out of the mold on one side, adding texture. (Bonus feature: turn them upside-down after use to allow the water to drain and prevent the entire bottom of the soap from getting mushy! :P ) So far I'm the only one who likes that feature, though. What does everyone else think?

Anyway, for my second attempt at ocean/wave soaps I decided to use the tube approach:

This technique didn't allow me to get that nice color fade I was going for in the first batch, but I like how they came out anyway!

All the wave bars are scented with a combination of ocean and sea breeze fragrance oils, making these great unisex soaps.

I'm on Etsy!

I finally got around to setting up shop on Etsy. For those of you not yet familiar with this website, prepare for hours of lost productivity! The entire site is dedicated to folks like me who are looking to sell their handmade wares online. No matter what the occasion, this has quickly become my favorite place for handmade and unique gifts. I highly recommend taking some time to explore all this amazing online community has to offer.

It will probably take me a while to finish stocking my Etsy shop, but I am open for business! If you're looking to purchase some of my handmade soaps or you're kind enough to spread the word, you can find me here:

soaploft.etsy.com