Sunday, January 31, 2010

Tea tree shampoo

I just put a ton of tea tree shampoo in the oven to speed up the saponification process. It is one of my best selling soaps so I made a super large batch this time! This soap smells so good and I just love the way it makes my hair feel and shine after a shower.

I have a lot of new soap pictures that I will be posting here soon and then updating my websites. I finally convinced Dylan that I needed new pictures. I have changed the design of almost all my soaps over the past year and have been stuck using photos of the old designs. So expect a lot of soap porn in the coming days!

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Geranium Rose Soap

I just put some Geranium Rose soap in the oven. It will be listed in my stores in a couple of weeks, just in time to pick some up for Valentines day!

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Monoi de Tahiti Oil (Monoi Tiare oil)

I just ordered some Scented Monoi de Tahiti oil from Denise at Full Moon Herbs. This seems like a good deal. The best price I could find online was $27/lb and she is offering it for $19 or $21/lb depending on whether you want it scented or not. I thought some of you might like the info on this buy so here is the email I received from Denise:

I have pre-ordered 50# each of Monoi Tiare Oil. They will arrive the week of
January 25th. This an opportunity to place your order to receive the Monoi
first. I am stocking both the scented and unscented.
Monoi Oil is coconut oil infused w/ Tiare (Gardenia) flower petals. Both
types are Gardenia scented. The "scented" type, is a stonger infusion,
resulting in a stronger scent. Please e-mail w/ any orders you may have to
Denise@fullmoonherbs.com. Pricing is as follows:

Unscented Monoi: 1#/ $19.00 or 2#/ $37.00
Scented Monoi: 1#/$21.00 2#/ $41.00

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

My book list from 2009

So here is my take off of Anne-Marie's recent blog post about her favorite books she read during 2009.

Running the Amazon This is a non-fiction book about the first kayaking trip to navigate the entire length of the amazon river. I am pretty much obsessed with anything amazon, so this was a great book for me.

The Lost Symbol The new Dan Brown book. I admit it, I love his books. I get so captivated that I read this one in about 2.5 consecutive days. I really like that I can sit near my laptop while reading his books and search the places and objects he talks about to learn more.

The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon
Another amazon book. This is the adventure of an early 20th century explorer who search the Amazon for a lost advanced civilization. He never returned. In this book, the author retraces Percy Fawcett's path through the amazon to either find out where Fawcett died or if there really is a lost city. This was a large book, but again very captivating so I read it quite fast.

One River Most people probably will not find this book that enjoyable. I, however, really enjoyed it. This book is almost a biography of Richard Evans Shultes and two of his students Wade Davis and Tim Plowman. If you are at all interested in ethnobotany you will like this book. It covers all the rainforest explorations of the three men and their discoveries of unknown plants (their specialty is hallucinogenic plants and the study of how the indigenous people use them in their religions).

Ecotopia
This book made me dream of living in the fictional country of Ecotopia. This book details a world where California, Oregon, and Washington secede from the United States and form a country called Ecotopia. This is a good quick read for anyone interested in creating an environmentally responsible society.

Eat, Pray, and Love
I am currently reading this book and I really love it. It is such a good story of growth and finding oneself. I highly recommend this book.

Dreams from My Father This is one of President Obama's books. It is really well written and I am enjoying it, though I keep finding myself picking up other books to read. Thus, I have not finished this book even though I started reading it in 2008! Still for those who have not read this book, it is a great way to learn about the life of the President of the USA.

I also regularly read National Geographic Magazine and Martha Stewart's Living Magazine.

I hope some of you will also enjoy these books!

Laundry Soap!

I hope everyone had a great holiday and New year. I sure did! It was so great to see all my family and friends.

On the soaping front, I just put a ton of laundry soap in the oven. I am basically all out and it is one of my best selling items! I make my soap with a 50:50 blend of coconut and palm oil. I have also tried olive oil and palm and it worked well, too, but is more expensive to make.

Here I have 3 molds filled with my laundry soap. Next step...shredding all of that. Thank god for the Cuisinart!

I wanted to show a close up of some of my molds as well. I really like Upland molds. I have 2 slab molds now from them and the silicone mold makes removal so easy.
I also have this great mold from Silvermoon Molds. I don't use this one much since I have mostly switched over to slab molds, but this one also has a great silicone liner making soap removal so easy.
One of my other regular molds is a Kelsei slab mold that I use for salt bars since it has separators to make individual soaps that do not need to be cut. So what kind of mold is your favorite?