Finding a supplier can be tricky. For little odds and ends that I want to play with Ill go to eBay if my regular couple of suppliers don’t have what I want to play with. Unfortunately eBay isn’t always a super fantastic place to purchase from. At first finding a supplier can be a lot of trial and error. If you have a friend who makes soap or body products they are a great person to ask for information. Many professional soapers will not give up their suppliers, rightly so, it probably took lots of hard work to find the perfect supplier. But they can tell you where NOT to buy from. You can also check soaping or bath and body message boards for supplier reviews or just Google the business name. If anything fishy comes up go on to the next supplier, saving a couple of dollars is not worth the hassle of having a bad supplier. The first place I ever purchased anything from was 1 pound of citric acid, 2 ounces of cotton candy fragrance oil and half a pound of cocoa butter. I purchased it from Coastal Scents. I have been purchasing from this company for years now and have never ever had a problem. Unfortunately for me they have gone more into mineral make up supply so I don’t often order from them these days.
I was reading about some experiments in soap and came across one that intrigued me. Apples in soap. Hmm…ew. But milk in soap is awesome (most commonly goatsmilk) and honey in soap is awesome….so why not something sweet like apples? I know that lye can make things go bad right quick but this one has piqued my interest. Im going to give it a shot, real apples pureed with just a touch of cannelli ricci for scent (sweet cinnamon) Im going to try to get that soaped on Monday! Yummy!
I had no idea how this batch would turn out since it was a made from many other batches. I had no expectations at all. After several hours of letting it slowly melt down and burn off the fragrance it sort of just came to me that this batch would look good with some clays in it. I started mentally going through my list of clays and muds that I have in my store room and settled on some Fuller’s Earth. I could have gone with some French Green clay which would have given it a very nice color but I went with the Fullers because its excellent at gently drawing oils off the skin, then I added in some finely ground oatmeal to make it scrubby. Suddenly my kitchen sink soap was taking shape. Some Lemon essential oil gave it just the right ‘clean’ notes. It has turned out to be a great soap for getting grease and oil off! Success!
I now have a bath, body and soap store up and running! Its still in its infancy, I havent added all of my products (not nearly!) but please swing through-now you can see pictures of all of my adventures! Enjoy! http://www.italianhandmadesoap.com/store/
For the past few years Ive struggled to cut my soaps. At first I freehanded my first couple of batches- YIKES, that was scarey. A big log of soap, a sharp knife and me. Not a fantastic combonation! Soon I started using this mitre box and a handled blade. Ive been using that ever since, it works, not efficiantly and it was a bit of a pain but it was better than free handing it with a knife! I also used another type of cutter every now and then, it gives a crinkle look to the soap. I love this but it makes swirls look a little odd so I dont do it often. I also cant use my mitre box as a guide because it doesnt fit through the guide slots.
I recently got a new soap cutter. This thing is FABULOUS!! It uses musical wire to slice the soap. Each bar, exactly the same size as the other and the best thing is it cuts everything absolutly perfectly clean. With the blades there is drag and the soap always ends up with marks where the blade has to be pulled off from the soap. This cutter really rocks! I cant wait to get a few more batches through it!