Newest Acquisition

Found some 6-in long tubular molds on eBay that are perfect for embeds.  I'll be travelling over the holidays so I'll be making soap with them after Christmas.

Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Hanukkah

I made a batch of soap with my new mold yesterday and it seized on me in the bowl so I had to slam and pack it in the mold rapidly to try to mold it.  Didn't work too well.  It was already so firm that it is full of holes like Swiss cheese.  I'll rebatch it later.  Rebatching is melting it down in a crock pot and adding a little water and color to save the ingredients and make a new loaf of soap.

New shipment of supplies

I received a package yesterday from Essential Depot and another from Bramble Berry.  New silicone mold with 1 pound of cocoa butter and a backordered bottle of Fresh Snow fragrance oil from Bramble Berry.  Will make good use of it this weekend.

Carrot and Greek Yogurt Soap

Just cut my latest creation.  My base recipe with puree of carrot and Greek Yogurt added for extra goodness for your skin.  Scented with a mix of Champagne and and Berrywine fragrance oils.  Smells great and is super good for your skin.  Should be cured and ready to go by December 20th, 2013.

Gift bags

Making up some gift bags that will contain 3 bars of soap.  1 felted bar, 1 multicolor bar scented with Celestial Waters, and 1 goat milk bar.  $26 worth of soap for $18.  This is a picture of the elements.  I will post pictures of the finished product later.

Wake Up Rosemary

Made my first batch of soap with Greek yogurt.  It will be ready for sale by December 13th.  It is made with olive oil, coconut oil, shea butter, cocoa butter and added Greek yogurt.  Scented with Wake Up Rosemary fragrance oil.

Web site

I'd like to invite everyone to take a look at my website.  www.nomadhandcraftedsoap.com
I've finally got some of my soap up there for sale and Christmas is coming, so they tell me.  :-)
 In the mean time here is a list of things you will be buying if you don't buy handcrafted, natural beauty products and skin care products.

Rebatch Soap

I shredded the pieces of soap I had left from previous batches as well as trimmings and made some bars of rebatch soap using my crock pot.

New Soap

I made my first batch using the recipe I devised for my base soap.  I made it with Greek yogurt and colored it in layers of white, red, and green.  Will be ready to sell by December 14th.

Tims Ford Heritage Day Festival

Had a great time at the festival and actually sold $130 worth of my soap and gave out lots of business cards.

Weekend work

BJ and I spent the weekend getting my stuff ready for Tims Ford this Saturday.  I set up the table in the family room and we got everything arranged and then took a picture so we could duplicate the setup at the site.  My cousin Jeff lent me his canopy so I'll be covered.  Here's what my table should look like.

More holiday soap

Latest batch of holiday soaps.

Tims Ford Heritage Day Festival

My first event is October 12, 2013 at Tims Ford State Park near Winchester, Tennessee.

Rebatch Soap

I shredded some soap and added some cut up pieces and shavings and put them into the crock pot and cooked them for 3-4 hours on low to melt them together.  I added a little activated charcoal to even out the color and used a sample of Bora Bora fragrance for scent.  Turned out pretty nicely. Someone suggested I call it Intergalactic.

Change to logo

Holiday soap

I decided that I needed a few holiday-themed soaps for my event Oct. 12th, but it's too late for cold processed soap to cure before then so I made some melt and pour soaps.

Getting ready

I've been spending a lot of time wrapping soaps and labeling them getting prepared for my event October 12th at Tims Ford State Park.

Support for Women

http://www.lovinsoapproject.org/help-spread-the-word/

They are doing a great job.  Help spread the word.

They call me the wrapper

BJ and I have been spending hours cutting labels and wrapping bars of soap getting ready for the Tims Ford event.  I sure won't get this far behind again.  Not fun.

Getting Ready for Tims Ford

I have been asked to do a booth at Tims Ford State Park Heritage Day Festival on October 12th.  I'll be demonstrating how soap is made and showing via pictures and story telling how soap was made in ancient times as well as in our great grandmother's time.  I'll be busy wrapping and labeling the soap I have made so far since I will be selling as well.  I also have to design my booth and obtain all the pieces and parts.  This is my first show and I'm flying by the seat of my pants.  I would like to invite friends and family to come down and join in the fun.  Tims Ford State Park is down near the Alabama border close to Winchester, Tennessee.

Company information

Beer Shaving Soap

Yesterday I made some beer shaving soap.  I put them in small bowls with snap on lids so they could be used for travel.  I plan to make another batch using mugs for home use as soon as I can find some mugs at a reasonable price.

Rainbo Colors

I received a shipment of 7 new colored micas this weekend.  Trying them all out at once in a 7-color soap.

Tilted Tiger cut

I got to use my new soap stamp I bought on Etsy from HersMolds.  It works great.

More new soap

Made an attempt at the tilted tiger swirl today, but the batter started to get thick too quickly.  It'll be good soap, but I'm not sure what it will look like when cut.

Couldn't wait another day, so I went ahead and cut my new soap loaf even though it is still soft.  Now I will let it cure for a few weeks before wrapping it.  I also ordered an embossing stamp.

New soap

I made a 5lb loaf of soap using the in-the-pot swirl technique today and a 1lb batch using a round cardboard tube for a mold.  I accidentally mixed red and pink micas so it came out lavendar and blue instead of pink and blue.  I used my new scale and it works great.

New scale

I bought a new KD-8000 scale because the little kitchen scale I was using was not accurate nor was it easy to use.  I used it for the first time today to make a small batch of lotion bars for my wife.

New soaps

I'm demonstrating soap making at Tims Ford Heritage Day in October.  It's at Tims Ford State Park near Winchester, Tennessee on the 12th.  I made a 100% olive oil soap with no color or scent, a 100% lard soap with no color or scent for the demonstration.  I also made a soap on July 14th in honor of Bastille Day.  I used anatto seed powder and wode powder for colors and drop swirl technique. I used honeysuckle essential oil for scent.  I know, the colors are wrong but my red and blue haven't arrived yet.  The mango colored soap is olive oil, coconut oil and red palm oil and has tangerine essential oil for scent.

Got a call from the Ranger at Tims Ford State Park that he wants me to be a demonstrator for their Heritage Day Festival in October.  Should be a great opportunity to get my name out and maybe even sell some product.  I also hope to educate a few people about the benefits of handcrafted soap.

Bud Hafner soap cutter

Sold my bike and used some of the money to buy a multi-bar soap cutter from Bud Hafner.  It shipped today (July 5th) and I hope to see it Monday or Tuesday.

Lotion Bars

I made some lotion bars last weekend and asked my wife to take a few to work to see how her coworkers liked them.  So far, so good.

This is Nomad, for whom my soap business is named.

I finally designed a logo to put on my cigar bands.  Since my company is named after my daughter's cat I used a cat that looks like him.

I decided to do a blue soap.  I used lard, olive oil, coconut oil, cocoa butter, and canola oil.  I mixed blue mica with the canola oil and it was a brilliant blue.  I melted the hard oils, mixed in the liquid oils and then added the canola with the mica.  Looked great.  I added the lye water and the color went away completely.  I then added the essential oils for scent and brought it to trace.  It still had no color as I poured it into the mold.  I dribbled the remaining blue canola oil and swirled the top a little.  Over time the soap changed to peach, then red, and this morning was turning blue again.  Very interesting. The package of mica next to the loaf is the one I used. I'll post again after I cut it.

I won a small soap kit from Brambleberry for filling out a survey for them.  It contained enough oils, etc. to make a small batch of soap.  I made a swirl using the activated charcoal contained in the kit.

I rebatched the soap I made with orange extract because it was very crumbly.  I colored it orange with infused annato seed and sent the bars off in the box I sent to Oklahoma for the soap drive a group was doing for the victims.  It still smelled of oranges.

I did a little test today with a 1.5lb batch to see what would happen if I used orange extract that contained alcohol.  What I discovered was that the mix seized up as I was mixing in the lye mixture.  It got to think to use my stick blender within seconds so I used a spatula to mix it and then used my hands to pack it into a plastic Velveeta box I have.  I just used 80/20 olive and coconut oils with infused paprika oil for color.  It is soap, but not very pretty.

Music City Suds hosted the Tennessee Soap and Candle Social a couple of weeks ago and it was a blast.  The speakers were great and one of the things I learned was how to easily make felted soap.  I had a batch of soap that was great soap, but I didn't like the colors.  I bought some colored roving from Michael's and set about felting the bars.  They turned out great.

Getting Started

I'm currently employed at an automobile insurance company in the IT department as a Support Specialist.  I hope to retire in a year or two and am starting to build up a handcrafted soap business to help support me in my retirement.  I am making soap on weekends to build up my inventory and hanging out on Facebook and youtube to learn as much as I can about soap making.  I started out with melt and pour soap and now I make cold process soap from scratch.  This is a red, white, and blue "Tiger Stripe" soap I recently made and is just about finished curing.