River County Soapworks produces high quality soap and toiletries that are both pleasing to the senses and terrific for your skin. I invite you to try our products.
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.
Yes, River County Soapworks is a handmade soap company which should have been on Facebook a long time ago. Unfortunately, the soap maker who makes all the handmade soap around here is not the sharpest tool in the shed when it comes to all this social networking stuff. Yes, I’m really, really good at making handmade soaps but really lacking when it comes to computer stuff. I mean, REALLY lacking. You wanna see a blank face. Just say blog, facebook and twitter. Not to mention, upload, download and photoshop! Please join me in my new adventure.
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!
Well…yesterday, I opened up my laptop and could not get the darned thing to start up properly. Nothing, nada, zip! As I’m sitting there with the laptop on my lap trying to get the screen to come on, I’m thinking of about all the essential oil recipes for my handmade soaps, documents for my wholesale soap accounts, photos for the website, saponification tables for my workshop and just about all the pertinent information I need to function while making handmade soap! While this is all rapidly going through my mind, I remember the slip drives I purchased to back up all my information but those were still sitting on my desk. By now, I’m starting to sweat with anxiety! Yes, dripping! I get dressed and take a drive down to the computer shop I use to fix all my screw ups. I walk in and the nice young man asks me what the problem is. I proceed to tell him in a panic that the laptop won’t start up and I need it because I’ve got a lot of important information on it regarding my handmade soap company!!! He opens it, presses the start button and voila, the laptop miraculously turns on. I’m standing there dumbfounded. Apparently, the dork that I am did not press the start button hard enough. So today, I am backing up all my files and vowing to do this on a weekly basis. Yes I am!
Over the winter I loss my beautiful mare Sasha in a tragic accident. It was heartbreaking for me and my husband in his infinite wisdom brought home a alpine goat named Emily to keep our little shetland pony Snuffy company not to mention give me something else to focus on. Now all my customers who know me first hand and have always looked at the goat milk soaps in my handmade soap collection and asked the question “Do you have your own goats?”, know that I never wanted goats. No way, no how! Absolutely not! Yes, I do make quite a bit of goat milk soap in addition to my shea butter handmade soap bars but goats are mischievous and gregarious creatures and I didn’t want the hassle. Boy has time changed my tune! Little Miss Emily dropped a baby one evening and my husband knew that anything that has fur on it and especially a baby fur animal just warms my heart. I wondered why he kept saying “You know, Emily sure is getting round.” He knew that goat was pregnant when he brought her home! I am now officially and happily attached to my little goat herd. They are so much fun and a delight to interact with. Snuffy is the big boss now and baby loves to jump on him and run circles around him. He has a lot of patience with her and everyone has settled right in. No, I still don’t have any intention of milking goats to make handmade bar soap with. I will still buy my goat milk in bulk. There isn’t enough hours in the day. After all, we are a “artisan” handmade soap company which basically means I do everything. LOL!
Emily & Baby
Our Baby a bit bigger. She grows really, really fast!
And..this is one of my favorites. Before I took this photo the baby was jumping on Snuffy. She got tired and layed down near him for a snooze!
I’ve always admired the “artsy” handmade soaps I’ve seen and finally decided to have some fun with crafting a bar when testing out another essential oil blend. To be honest, I did not start the the soap making process with this design in mind. I had poured layers again but when taking the handmade soap out of the small mold it! stuck and I had quite a mess. So what to do? I cut the soap up into small pieces and rolled handmade soap balls. After making another batch of soap, I split the handmade soap stock up into two batches and colored them white and a light green. I poured some white into the mold and sank the soap balls into the soap stock and then poured some green and layered white onto of the green. Voila! The next day I was able to cut these bars. I absolutely love the way these handmade soap bars turned out. However, this method is labor intensive and I’m not so sure a good method for bulk soap making. Maybe limited editions? It was lots of fun! Here again, these bars will also end up in the grab bag offered on the website when cured. By the way, they are scented with Patchouli and Spearmint. Mmmm!
One of the problems of having a handmade soap company is finding “fun time” for experimentation. I’m in the process of testing some essential oil blends in soap and decided to try my hand at some different handmade soap designs while testing these blends out for longevity and appeal. One of the blends is “Mojito” which has Lime, Bay, Spearmint, Litsea and Bergamont in it. I poured handmade soap layering three colors of white, green and gold one on top of the other in a small log mold. This test mold yields seven handmade soap bars so it is the perfect size for testing a scent or soap recipe in. After the anticipation of cutting into the handmade soap log, I was very pleased with how this soap looks. Reminds me of tie die and smells wonderful! If you like the look of this soap it will end up in the grab bag.
As an handmade soap company I want to include both handmade bar soap and also handmade liquid soap. I’m almost ready to add liquid soap to the web site. The only thing holding me up is what type of bottle and labels. We are close though and I hope to have labels designed in the near future. Then it is only a matter of bottles & tops! In the meantime, I thought I’d share how I make my handmade liquid soap. The process takes a bit longer than handmade bar soap but once you get the hang of it then it is like anything else, practice makes perfect! Here is what I do.
1. Combine Melted Oils and Potassium Hydroxide on the cook top using very low heat. Stick blend. The solution emulsifies.
2. After stick blending for a bit you will feel the solution start to smooth out.
3. Then you get bubbles…big fat bubbles….
4. After the bubbles comes the beginning of the taffy stage….
5. Thick taffy…
6. Before you know it you can’t stick blend anymore. The soap is too thick and won’t budge. I take a big stainless spoon at this point and flip the paste around. Turn your burner off. I used to cook the paste on the stove top in a rigged up double boiler. What a mess this used to make. Remember you are cooking the soap paste for several hours. So now, I just turn my oven on to 185 degrees, put a lid on the pot and cook the paste in the oven.
7. This is the paste at 3 hours. When I first started making liquid soap I read to cook it for 3 hours. Well.. that is definitely not enough time for my paste. I cook for several hours until I get a good translucent gel. When I say several hours I really mean it. I’m talking 12 or more. This has saved me a lot of frustration.
8. Here is the liquid soap paste ready to be diluted. It’s perfect! Can you see the difference?
Well, it’s the second weekend setting up a sales booth for my handmade soap company at the Portland Saturday Market and boy am I out of my comfort zone. First problem, getting there and not getting lost. 2nd problem, hauling booth, displays and product in without getting exhausted before the market opens. Third problem, how to set things up in an 8 x 8 stall instead of the standard 10 x 10. There is a huge difference between a 10 x 10 space and a 8 x 8 space. Saturday, we were going to just set tables up for the handmade soap right at the front of the booth, however, since we were sandwiched in between vendors I realized that I’d have to crawl under the tables to get out! Not fun! I improvised and set things up as best I could but didn’t have much room for my body let alone a chair, storage boxes and extra product. I also felt like I was in a cave since both vendors on either side of me had curtains up. So Saturday evening, I went home and pulled out some 2 x 4 tables, along with a couple of smaller tables and did a quick mock up of something I thought might work better. I’ve got alot of different handmade soap bars to sell and this set up worked in a way but still needs work. Customers were drawn to the handmade soaps up front but had to be shown the handmade soaps on the smaller table. Oh well….I know what I’ll be working on this week!
It’s with a heavy heart that we have moved the weekend market operations of our handmade soap company from the Vancouver Farmers Market to the Portland Saturday Market. This was a tough decision to make after almost eight years, however, it is a necessary move. If you are one of our cherished regular local Vancouver customers you can still continue to buy handmade soap off of the website or by visiting our sales booth at the Portland Saturday Market. For those local Vancouver customers wishing to place orders off the website, please email us for a “Free Shipping” coupon.
