soap – Page 3 – Coastal Carolina Soap Blog

Pink Sugar – a New Special Edition Soap

Just gotta soap. That’s my personal justification for making a new soap out of a fragrance that simply doesn’t rock my world when I have a whole slew of “must-makes” on my dry-erase board. Sure, sometimes I get tired of soaping the same ol’ things, so I succumb to the urge to whip up something different and fun. From that urge came my newest special edition soap, Pink Sugar. This delightfully, totally girly soap is bathing bliss with a blend of some of the greatest soapmaking oils and lusciously rich coconut milk. I topped it with sparkly soap frosting and Himalayan pink salt.

Pink Sugar Soap Loaf — My Pink Sugar Soap freshly poured into the mould

This is that same wonderful girly goodness sliced. Unfortunately, some of the salt fell off, but the inside is so pretty. I expect the white parts to turn very brown because of the vanillin content in the fragrance, which will leave me with a brown and sparkly, hot pink swirled soap. How pretty will that be!

Eight delightful little bars of Pink Sugar Soap

These will be all ready for your blissful bathing enjoyment in around three weeks. I bet you know someone who would appreciate such a girly, fun soap.

Some Are Not What They Appear

Poorly cut grass and well cut grass — “Professional” grass mowing

Take a look at this picture. The grass in the foreground was cut by a so-called “professional” lawn mower company. The grass in the background (up to the driveway and just beyond it), my husband cut. The “professionally cut” lawn is scalped – cut way too short – and was cut wet. I took this picture 4 days after it was mowed, and it’d rained some in the interim. By contrast, Peter (aka “swirl god”) mowed our yard, cutting it wet (it just hadn’t had a chance to dry out between showers), but mowing it with a 20″ push mower and high. The “professional” service uses a heavy-duty, top-of-the-line riding mower, has the big trailer, nice truck, and so forth.

The point I’m making is, not everyone who presents themselves as a professional knows what they’re doing. My husband is a true professional lawn care expert, knowing both the chemical care needs of various types of grasses and the best way to maintain those lawns. The company who butchered our neighbor’s lawn has demonstrated repeated ignorance of lawn care.

I see this same behavior in my industry. There are hundreds of great soapmakers out there. There are dozens of fabulous cosmetic manufacturers I know. Then there are the rest. They’ll claim their lotions are “all natural” and “preservative free,” not realizing the safety value of preservatives in lotions. That always leads me to wonder, Are they ignorant of good manufacturing practices, or are they intentionally mislabeling? Some soapmakers will say they make their own soap and do so without lye. That’s pretty much impossible, because without lye, there’s no soap – not the real stuff, anyway.

I’ve seen other soapmakers claim their soaps as “all natural” and “fragranced with essential oils.” Yet, they leave me wondering, Just which part of the gingerbread cookie do you have to press or distill to get the essential oil out? So-called “professionals” from all fields – not just lawn care and cosmetic and soap manufacturing – drive their businesses on their own ignorance and that of their customers. The part that really bothers me, though, is that these business owners or employees can cause some significant harm and expense for the people they deceive and who are ignorant enough or gullible enough to believe them.

Having business cards doesn’t make one a professional at anything, any more than wearing a choir robe means one can sing. Professional people exhibit certain characteristics.

True professionals start at a place of knowledge. Those of us who have been in the business for a long time know that it takes a lot of time and hard work to become an overnight success. Before we start, though, we learn as much as possible about our business fields.
True professionals never stop learning. Whether it’s books, forums, peers, videos, seminars or conferences, professionals always look for what more they can learn.
True professionals accept feedback graciously and seek to learn from it. Being defensive helps no one, and certainly does not keep customers.
True professionals work with integrity. Whether it’s a mislabeled soap or shooting weed and grass clippings onto a neighbor’s yard, accepting responsibility for sub-standard work only makes one look better.
True professionals realize that appearances don’t matter as much as quality work. I see lawn care companies in old trucks and open trailers do exceptionally good jobs on lawns. I mean, every. Blade. Of grass. Is. The same. Height. I watched one guy, and was just waiting for him to get out the ruler and scissors. Yet, the guy who cut the lawn above has jazzy equipment but doesn’t know his stuff. A soap company can look charming and adorable on social media, but doesn’t know correct labeling or the difference between fragrance oils and essential oils. In absolutely every facet of life, the inside needs to match the outside.

What other characteristics do you see in companies or businesses that strike you as being truly professional-grade?

Sunny Days Ahead

MarysThoughts

Let me introduce you to Sun on the Go sets. We are trying small sets in a convenient vinyl spa bag so they are more travel sized. They can be taken on a plane, yet are able to take just a little bit of space. We aren’t doing shampoo; instead, we’re doing detangling spray, so after a day in the sun, you can brush your hair with ease. The lotion helps after sunburns or tender areas, while, at the same time, you can use it for simply moisturizing your skin. The soap will be good for cleaning sweat, germs and even shells off your skin. You can use it on your face, though we can’t predict how your skin will react, since people are sensitive to different things. The lip balm will not work as a sun screen lip balm, so don’t use it that way. However it will work if your lips are dried out. You can pick these up at the Blueberry Festival this Saturday, 21 June 2014 or order them from our online store if you’re not going to be in the area this weekend.

Bringing Back Some Favorites

Do y’all hear that deep, straight-from-the-toes sigh? It’s the sound of a woman/mom/entrepreneur who is able to shed some additions to her schedule and get back into the business of taking care of business. Several weeks ago, my younger daughter said, “Mommy, it’s not for long.” She was referring to my being stuck behind a dump truck on the way to their swimming lesson, but I thought about it in light of all the things I had on my plate at the time. I was chauffeuring them to swimming lessons Mondays and Fridays, soccer practice (including coaching my younger daughter’s team) Tuesdays and Thursdays, church activities Wednesdays and Sundays, and Saturdays were soccer games with all four of us being involved in some way. But I knew soccer would end in mid-May, swimming lessons would end the end of April, and Wednesday night church activities would be over for them before our trip. In short, “it wouldn’t be for long.”

All that’s over now. We’ve returned from our EPIC Spring Break trip, wrapped up the soccer season, we’re days away from the end of our school year, and I am plowing head-first back into work. I kicked it off with three batches of amazing soap restocking. That was Friday evening’s fun. Mostly this weekend, though, I did minimal production and lots of resting.

Two fresh soaps - Fresh Cut Roses and Lemon Grove Gardeners Soap — Two fresh soaps – Fresh Cut Roses and Lemon Grove Gardeners Soap

In my mad soapmaking endeavors Friday evening, I started with a glorious batch of Soap of Milk & Honey (and Oatmeal!), which you can sort of see a bit of in the bottom of the picture. I followed that with Fresh Cut Roses (the pink soap) which I’m making primarily to restock for ConTemporal, but also to add to my line as a Special Edition. I brought the production home with Lemon Grove Gardener’s Soap (the pale yellow there with the specks of calendula petals), a perennial favorite with its scrubby properties and all natural, fresh lemony scent.

Up next is a rendezvous with The Perfect Man. Stay tuned…

Starry Night

I love this soap. This is another one of those fragrances which I first encountered due to a swap and getting a free bottle of it. It’s technically a seasonal fragrance, but I call it Starry Night. You see, I find myself humming Josh Groban‘s Vincent at random times, and that song was going through my head when I was first designing this soap a few years ago.

This soap was one of the first beer soaps I ever made, maybe about second or third ever, and its properties, scent, and design keep it a top seller. The scent is a lovely, exotic blend of frankincense, myrrh, sandalwood and patchouli, earthy and sweet. It contains a blend of premium oils and beer, which gives the soaps great conditioning properties. This soap is a total treat! You can pick up this treat for yourself in 3 1/2 weeks.

Patchouli!

It’s that great earthy scent that is a flashback to the 60s, the Summer of Love and the Peace Movement. It conjures up images of painted VW vans with shag carpeting in the back and very mellow hippie people with long hair with flowers in it. This is a love-it-or-hate-it scent; I’ve yet to hear anyone say, “I kinda like it.” It’s Patchouli, and if you can’t tell, I’m completely in the “LOVE IT!!!” camp.

This was such a fun soap to make! The business rule is, no one under the age of 12 gets to help make cold process soap, which, of course, means that both my girls are salivating for the opportunity to help me make it. My four-year-old mixed all my colorants for me (there are 12 total), and my ten-year-old mixed the raw soap into the colorants. Mom was here when we mixed and poured it, which was her first experience watching me make soap. When I swept the coat hanger into the soap and we saw the swirl emerge, we gasped at how cool it was. Click either pic to purchase a bar of Patchouli soap, or wait about 3 1/2 weeks for these jewels to be ready for purchase.

In which camp are you? Do you love it or hate it?

Homemade All Natural Laundry Soap

When my younger daughter was a baby, I faced two separate realities: (1) I didn’t want to use commercial, scented laundry detergents on her clothes, and (2) I couldn’t afford the unscented ones. I explored homemade laundry soap, and discovered it is very easy to make.

First, I whipped up some very basic soap, and by basic, I mean basic! Half palm oil, half coconut oil, very low lye discount. This soap would get a body clean, but it would be much harsher than my usual soaps. Not great for bodies, but fabulous for dirty clothes. I used the crockpot to make it go quicker, then let my soap cure for a few days.

Once it had cured a little, I grated it with a cheese grater. (I could have used a food processor for this, but I like physically making my shreds by hand.) I spread my grated soap out on a cookie sheet covered with wax paper and set it aside to dry out the rest of the way. After two weeks, my soap shreds were wonderfully brittle to the touch, so I knew they were ready for the next step.

Fabulous laundry soap for an all natural clothes cleaning alternative

I put those little buggers in my food processor and processed all that soap into powder. I measured out two cups of soap powder into a bowl, added one cup of Arm & Hammer Washing Soda and one cup of Borax, and stirred it all together with a spoon. Then I poured it all into a repurposed large yogurt container (clean, of course) and placed it on my dryer.

We have used this regularly, and it worked great, even on my baby’s dirty cloth diapers. When I clean my soapmaking equipment, I wipe it down with a rag, and I wash these rags with our regular laundry. This means, it can be anybody’s guess what our laundry will come out smelling like. One time I had washed a load of my baby’s laundry, and the only rag I had was from a batch of Orange Patchouli soap. Patchouli really sticks, and I had a little hippie baby for a few days. And so a patchouli lover was born.

Using this soap on laundry besides that of my daughters, I discovered that it wasn’t quite cutting it on my husband’s dirty, grimy work socks. They were coming out clean, but not as sparkling white as I wanted, and that dinginess was spreading to my whites. I tried increasing how much soap I used. Didn’t work. I added more washing soda straight to the load. It helped some. Then someone suggested using Oxyclean in place of the washing soda. Oxyclean is like washing soda, plus some. It worked! I tried it in my next batch of laundry soap mixture, and it worked like a dream. It does make it a little less than completely natural, but the end result is still mostly natural, and our socks are bright white again.

You can click the beautiful picture above to purchase some of this fabulous soap for yourself. I will soon be playing around with homemade, natural fabric softener sheets and will post those instructions for you when I do.

I wrote about homemade laundry soap at the urging of my friend April, and I’m happy to share my natural alternative tricks. About what natural home and personal care DIY products would you like to read?

Luxurious Solutions for Winter Dry Skin

It is not at all unusual for me to get special orders for products or for people to tell me about their skin conditions and ask me to pair them up with products that will meet their needs. Usually, for complaints of psoriasis, eczema or sensitivities to fragrances, I recommend Soap of Milk & Honey (and Oatmeal!). I received a call, though, from a long-time customer who was looking for products similar to what she had been getting from another company. That’s not something I usually like to do, but she gave me the name of the company and the products, so I started investigating. Imagine my surprise when I discovered these products which were earth-inspired and “natural” were made of premade bases with a few things added! They even made claims about the healing properties about an ingredient that was in a product’s name, and the only hint of that ingredient was the scent!

No, I could not duplicate these products for my friend; I could make them from scratch even better. I relayed to her my findings and warned her that I couldn’t make these products cheaper than she was getting them. In fact, they would be more expensive. She said, “I don’t care. Yours will be better, and I’d rather buy from you, anyway.” Here are her skin treats…

Handmade Lotion & Soap with an all natural lavender and pink grapefruit fragrance

For bathing, I’m hooking her up with gloriously luscious body wash. This mild soap made of a blend of premium, skin-loving oils builds lots of fluffy lather and leaves skin scrumptiously silky and richly supple. The fragrance is an intriguing blend of herbaceous lavender and juicy pink grapefruit. To hit those troubled dry spots, the lotion is a creamy blend features coconut milk and contains avocado oil, a great addition for her slightly more mature skin. This also has that same incredible scent as the soap, so she’ll get to enjoy the light scent without inflicting it on everyone around her.

It’s All About Customer Service

Today is my birthday, and the sweet treats of the day started this morning when one of my Divinity School professors guest preached at church, and my parents came down to join us for worship and to take us out to lunch. My parents love fried seafood, and since miserable winter weather had prevented their trip to the beach last month, they wanted to go to this great local seafood restaurant, which was fine with us. The restaurant serves delicious food, and we’ve always had enjoyable dining experiences there.

We arrived at the restaurant, and wow! Was it crowded! We put our name on the list, and the hostess told us it’d be a 20-minute wait. We could hold out that long. That twenty minutes ended up being much longer than imagined.

We waited more than 20 minutes, and still no table. My husband checked THREE times to see how much longer, and he was told, “You’re the next big party on the list. It shouldn’t be much longer now.” FINALLY, OVER an HOUR later, we hear the hostess call our name (barely) from inside the restaurant (She had been poking her head out to call customers who were waiting outside). We go inside, and she’s seating a party of 6 who had just come in. I pointed out how long we’d been waiting, and she simply said, “Sorry.” I informed her that we had two very hungry children in our party, and she said lamely, “Oh, I didn’t know you had children with you.” What should that matter? She didn’t even offer to make arrangements for us to sit down until after I asked to speak to the manager.

She sat us at a very cramped table for five and said she’d get a chair for our youngest (age 4). Ten minutes later, and still no chair. Another five minutes pass before the manager comes over. I explained how the actions of the hostess were far from the standards of even halfway good customer care, and he apologized, told me he’d inform the owner (cynical me doubts that will happen), and assured me it’ll never happen again. I was unpleasantly surprised that he didn’t offer to comp us anything for the extraordinarily long wait or the hostess’s lackadaisical attitude. I would have expected him to offer to comp us drinks or an appetizer at the minimum.

Our server, Ashley, did redeem the bad service experience with her own warm, energetic, courteous, attentive service. The hostess and the manager both had opportunities to practice what I call Super-Amazing Customer Care, and here’s where I think their learning opportunities lie:

(1) When you have made a mistake, admit it. The hostess first gave a flippant “sorry,” followed by a bit of sarcasm, topped off with an I-don’t-care shrug. In reality, however it happened, she skipped our names. No one likes being wrong, and being caught messing up at work is pretty embarrassing. Been there, done that. This happened to me in December. I had missed a whole product subcategory when I was updating my inventory numbers on my website; as a result, a customer ordered soaps I didn’t have in stock. I contacted her about the problem and offered her a solution to make it right.

(2) A little sacrifice now will prevent a bigger loss later. To be honest, I would have liked for the hostess to unseat the group she pushed in front of us and explained her mistake. That doesn’t seem just to me. At the absolute very least, the manager should have offered to comp us something – drinks (tea, Coke, chocolate milk, water) or an appetizer. The actions of the hostess and the manager make me rethink returning to that restaurant, and I posted a less-than-favorable review which could possibly cost this restaurant business. In the mistake I referenced from a sale in December, I shipped her the one soap I did have in stock, two other nice ones, a small lotion, and I promised to ship at no cost the soaps she ordered that I didn’t have as soon as they became available. Sure I will lose a little money off this, but at the same time, it’s worth it to me to make a customer happy.

(3) One person can turn around a bad customer service experience. In our case, our server redeemed our lunch time, providing warm, prompt, enthusiastic, energetic customer service. We did almost, however, leave the restaurant, not wanting to expose ourselves to more poor service and giving another restaurant the opportunity to give us the service we deserved as paying customers. That reality is there, regardless of the business you’re in. Whether you’re a mechanic, restaurant owner, doctor or soapmaker, if you don’t take care of your customers, someone else will.

What are some customer service lessons you would add, either as a business owner or as a consumer?

Eschewing the ‘Poo, One Month Later

It’s been a month since the girls and I have used shampoo to wash our hair, and this has been a great step in our less-processed lifestyle. You can read all about how our journey began here. Going “No Poo” has been a very positive experience for us. Here are some of my thoughts and observations:

It took me a couple of weeks to get through the “transition period” as my hair got used to maintaining its own natural level of sebum. The first week I used conditioner to wash styling product out of my hair (that’s called “co poo,” using conditioner to wash), and my hair felt super greasy. I won’t be doing that again!

I read about using aloe vera gel as a styling product and aloe vera juice for detangling spray/leave-in conditioner/light styling gel. I whipped up some aloe vera juice thickened with xanthan gum to use to help hold my curls naturally. It worked! My curls held through some gusty winter winds and a lot of activity.

If you’ll remember, my younger daughter started this journey with pretty dry baby hair. Her hair is growing out nicely from her last trim, and it’s so soft and manageable! With it being so dry, it was very tangly, and brushing her hair was a misery for us both because of that.

My older daughter has long, thick hair which tangles easily. She complained that the baking soda/apple cider vinegar combo wasn’t getting her tangles out, so it was very difficult to brush. I grabbed my bottle of thickened aloe vera juice, sprayed her hair and set her loose with her brush. She came back ten minutes later exclaiming, “Oh Momma! This stuff is a miracle! Look at my hair!” Her hair was smooth and shiny with no tangles; she said the spray had gotten all the tangles out. I also made up a batch of beer conditioner for her hair to help give it a little extra moisture.

After a couple of weeks of going no poo, I was distressed to notice flakes in my hair. LOTS of flakes! Ew yuck! And my scalp was beginning to itch, too. Oh dear. We simply cannot have that! In addition to that, my older daughter had flakes along her part. Back to the Facebook No Poo group and a whole bunch of handy links to determine how to take care of flakes when you’re no poo’ing. Ah-ha! Our old trusty aloe vera comes through again. A mixture of aloe vera gel and honey (2 parts aloe vera gel to 1 part honey) really hydrates the scalp. So I whipped up some really quickly and ahhh!!! My scalp felt heavenly again.

Over against all this, I have to admit that I just can’t let go of my styling mousse and hairspray, and I’d just bought a brand-spankin’ new can of hairspray before going no poo. I was prepared to use some of my artisan made liquid soap to wash the product out of my hair. After all, while soap isn’t ideal for daily use without a vinegar rinse weekly, it should be OK once in a while, right? So, imagine my excitement to discover that the aloe vera and honey combo breaks down all that styling gunk while it hydrates. Score!!! I get to use my products and have clean hair without having to use soap. Triple win!!!

I’d learned in the FB group I’m in that you can use any acid (within reason) for the rinse, not just vinegar. Coffee and tea are both acids. I didn’t know that. I really wanted to try a coffee rinse with some leftover coffee… Wait. “Leftover coffee”? What’s that? Most of my friends, colleagues and family have no concept of “leftover coffee”; they drink every last drop. Anyway, I discovered about 4 ounces of leftover coffee, so it went up to the shower with me on Tuesday. Best. Rinse. Ever! I did smell a little bit like coffee, but no one here minded.

I’ve learned what “plopping” is. When my mom and I go on our next trip together, she’s going to be looking at me sooo strangely!

20140213_094144 — This is my hair after a month of no poo. That is NOT a silver streak in the back; it’s where the sun came in. Just had to clarify that.

That’s my hair after a month of no poo. These are my experiences of it:

My hair has grown faster than usual.
I commented to my husband that my hair was curlier and softer than it’d been, and I mentioned the aloe/honey mixture. He said, “No wonder your hair’s been looking happier lately.” I have happy hair! Woohoo!
My hair is curlier than it usually is this time of year. It’s generally fairly straight during the dry winter months.
After my last trim, my hair was lank and straight, much like my Grandma’s had been, which was not the look I wanted, especially not at this age. Now it has new bounce and body.
Of course, I use artisan soap every time I bathe, and this time of year, I expect my skin to be a little drier because of it. (Real soap contains glycerin, which draws moisture to itself. When it’s humid, it draws it from the air; when it’s dry, it takes it from my skin.) The sulfates which are in commercial shampoos dry hair out. I’ve noticed that, as I’ve gone without those sulfates in my hair care regimen, my skin isn’t nearly as dry as it usually is. That makes me wonder if the shampoo was drying my skin as I rinsed?
My hair has so much bounce and body that it’s been looking cute and styled even when I don’t do anything with it. Another win!

It’s times like this, I think I’m a hippy in the making, but I absolutely refuse to give up my razors! Does going No Poo sound like something you’d dare to try?

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