The past couple of week ends I’ve had the new handmade soap displays set up at the outdoor market I attend most weekends. This market is the Portland Saturday Market which is gigantic and keeps me pretty busy. I get to meet and talk with retail customers but also potential wholesale soap customers too. Handmade soap is very, very heavy and so it was really important to try to come up with a display system that would allow me to fill it in the shop and just set up at the market. Reduction of tubs of inventory was the main motivator in order to save my back every week end. Every outdoor market, fair or special event that I’ve attended to market my handmade soap company at has always had 10 x 10 booth spaces. Trying to condense things into a 8 x 8 space is no easy task. We are almost there but not quite. I love how the handmade soap bars are displayed in their new do but the booth is still too stark. We will need to jazz things up a bit. How? Well…now, guess I’m going to have to figure that out.
Popularity: 5% [?]
Share This
I like to use dried Calendula and Bachelor Buttons as toppings for some handmade soap bars or soap logs. They are pretty dried up and tossed either in the handmade soap or on top of the logs. There is something very eye catching when displaying a row of handmade soap logs with sprinkles of blue and yellow petals on top of them. I just think they look gorgeous all in a row. Each year we grow both Calendula and the blue Bachelor Buttons in the garden. I pick the flower heads, dry them in the soap curing room and save them for the next years handmade soaps. This year it is a bit tough as the weather has been really cold and wet so the plants haven’t done that great. I’ll harvest what I am able to and plan for a better flower busting garden next year.
Popularity: 6% [?]
Share This
We have two of the new handmade soap displays finished. Yippee! Only two more to go. Now the really hard work begins in figuring out what colors to use in the sales booth to make our handmade soaps visually appealing. I do think that the new displays make the handmade soap bars pop and couldn’t be more pleased with them. A version using less expensive wood than black walnut might even work for wholesale soap displays too. What’s really sweet here is that some of the slats made from black walnut were reused from pallets that my husband found at work. He scooped those up quick!
Popularity: 8% [?]
Share This
One of the fun things about being a handmade soap company is blending essential oils together to use in handmade soap. Sometimes you hit on what you think will be a great blend out of the bottle so to speak but once it hits the soap pot it quickly morphs into something that grows out of a swamp. No kidding! On the other hand, you can mix up a blend and it doesn’t strike your fancy out of the bottle but is just beautiful in handmade soap. Today I poured a test blend of what I think I’ll call Summer Solstice. I know, I should have made this soap a few months ago, but hey, better late than never. It is a essential oil blend of Lavender, Litsea Cubea or May Chang and Patchouli. Nothing fancy but I am pretty confident that these handmade soap bars once cut will smell awesome! Here it is just poured in the slab. If this soap goes over like I think it will at the Portland Saturday Market then I’ll add it to the website and as a wholesale soap selection. That’s the best part of doing markets, I can see how a new handmade soap is received before making the decision to add it to the line. Nothing like doing a little market research!
A little closer….. I think it’s gonna be pretty!
Popularity: 10% [?]
Share This
The weather has been just awful here in the Portland/Vancouver area. Rain, drizzle and more rain. Selling handmade soap in wet weather isn’t a whole lot of fun. Measures can be taken but really it’s the pits! Anyhow, I’m set up at the Portland Saturday Market in downtown Portland. This is a large artisan market where people tend to come to buy handmade soap. After helping some customers choose which handmade soap bars they wanted and sharing some talk about the “lovely” weather, I noticed that most of the handmade soaps were sitting in a puddle of water in the displays. I must be really dense because I have no clue how long it had been raining or when the rain had started. So in my haste, I go to pull the display back out of the rain and get the soaps off of it and the whole thing fell down. Handmade soaps and display in a big crash on the concrete! Never in almost 10 years has this happened at any event I’ve ever attended. Talk about being a bit embarrassed. Yeah, I was. Probably a bit red in the face too. As I’m standing there looking in disbelief at the mess I just made with the rain coming down, three lovely young women stop and bless their hearts help me put everything back together again. Thank you ladies for all your help and kind words of support!
Popularity: 13% [?]
Share This
Every year, when market starts back up I have customers asking what new handmade soap bars have I added. There are several this season, but I just recently activated two on the website. The first is Tanzanian Clove which I first tested out during the holiday season to see what kind of response I would get. It was a success and people loved it! It’s a traditional warm, spicy clove fragrance. The next one is Sugar Kisses which has blue bentonite clay beads sprinkled throughout. Very pretty! Now this handmade soap is not easy to describe. It’s cotton candy and toasted caramelized sugar. All I got to say is YUM! Both of these new handmade soaps are available on the website.
(Tanzanian Clove)
(Sugar Kisses)
Popularity: 12% [?]
Share This
We are in the process of designing portable new handmade soap displays which should make my life a bit easier when doing shows and markets. I am getting very excited. I can see potential for wholesale soap displays in these too. 
This is a prototype that was put together this past weekend. The finished displays will each hold five different types of handmade soap bars with 15 of each fragrance. I will be able to load the display in the shop and set it up fully loaded at the event I’m at. This will save SO much time! The finished product will be made of birch and black walnut. It’s going to be great! Thanks to my wonderful husband who is always thinking of ways to streamline my workflow.
Popularity: 13% [?]
Share This
Well, I’ve wanted to try some new design elements out and decided to do this by using my slab mold with dividers for handmade soap logs. Yesterday was spent designing and pouring soap. Last night was spent in anticipation of what today would bring when I unmolded the soap logs. I made four. They did not unmold well. The handmade soap would not release from the flippin hdpe plastic! No amount of pushing would do it! Nope! I ended up with smashed and smooched soap logs. Not fun! Hopefully, when the soap hardens a bit I be able to clean it up and get at least some of it cut into respectable looking handmade soap bars.
Popularity: 12% [?]
Share This
On the weekends I can usually be found selling my handmade soaps and body care products at the Portland Saturday Market. This has been a hard market to transition to as the booth space is only 8 x 8. Usually, fairs and markets allow a 10 x 10 space. Now, you wouldn’t think that it would make much difference but it does. Quite a bit. A lot of people travel to this market to buy handmade soap so this is a great market for me to be in but it has also left me scratching my head trying to figure out how to place tables, what table sizes to use and where to place all the handmade soaps I bring with me so that they are easy to see and reach. Seems like every week I’m trying a new setup. Haven’t quite found what I like yet but I am determined to work it all out. Right now I’m using two (2 x 4) tables but am thinking of switching to a six footer and one of the 2 x4’s. This would allow more product but might make things too tight. Anyhow, I will just have to set the tent up in the yard again and play around. The good news is we are in the process of designing a new display system that would hold all 24 different handmade soap bars that I usually bring to market. This display system would be stocked in the shop, would fold up and I could carry it to market already full. This would save so much time and effort. Don’t ask me how it would all work. I have no clue! That’s up to my other half who worked on the design last week end. A mock up will be done next weekend and maybe then I can wrap my brain around how this will all work. I’m visual ya know!
Popularity: 13% [?]
Share This
It’s common for me to get asked about making handmade soap when I’m out and about at markets and fairs selling the handmade soaps that we make. Sometimes it’s from people wanting to try their own hand at it. For those of you interested in making their own handmade soap bars or who have just made the grand leap into soap making and are overwhelmed by all the lingo, here are some of the more common handmade soap terms translated just for you!
- CP = Cold Process
- HP = Hot Process Soap
- CPOP = Cold Process Oven Process
- CPHP = Cold Process Hot Process
- CS/CSDBHP = Closed System/Closed System Double Boiler Hot Process
- Curing = Amount of time needed for batch to complete the saponification process and “dry” out.
- DW/DWCP = Discounted Water Cold Process Soap
- DOS = Dreaded Orange Spots (you don’t wanna go there)
- DH = Direct Heat
- DB = Double Boiler
- EO/EO’s = Essential Oils
- FO/FO’s = Fragrance Oils
- FP = Flashpoint ( the lowest temperature a flammable liquid can form an ignitable mixture in air)
- GM/GMS = Goat Milk Soap
- OHP= Oven Hot Process
- Sap Values = Saponification Values
- Saponification = The chemical reaction between oils/butters and lye to make soap
- INCI = International Nomenclature of Cosmetic Ingredients
- KOH = Potassium Hydroxide (used to make Liquid Soap)
- NaOH= Sodium Hydroxide (used to make Handmade Soap Bars)
- MSDS = Material Safety Data Sheet
- MP/M&P = Melt and Pour Soap
- SUPERFAT = The amount of fat left over after saponification
- SEIZE = When a fragrance oil OR essential oil speeds up the saponification process so fast that you have instant soap on a stick! This is NOT FUN!
- TRACE = Point where you can dribble your batch onto it’s self and show a trace either lightly or heavily.
- ROE = Rosemary Oleresin Extract (an antioxidant).
- GSE = Grapefruit Seed Extract (an antioxidant).
- REBATCHING = A method of turning imperfect and ugly batches of soap into new batches by shredding, melting and adding liquid/oils, and remolding. In a nutshell. A whole lot of work!
Have fun!
Popularity: 16% [?]
Share This
