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.
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.
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.
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!
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!
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.
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!
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!
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!
It’s my belief that packaging and presentation is almost as important as the quality of the handmade soap being offered to our wholesale soap customers. That’s why I went to the expense of having custom made soap boxes made to fit our handmade soap bars. Not only do these boxes allow our wholesale soap orders to arrive in pristine condition at the retailers place of business but also prevents damage by all the handling the handmade soaps receive prior to purchase by individual customers. The soaps display neatly on the shelf and the boxes protect the handmade soap bars from from all the handling that they receive. No more dinged up and too loose cigar bands!
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!
