Heirloom Lemongrass Honey

Becky Rippelmeyer, of Heirloom Soapworks, sent me three bars of beautiful soap. All wrapped carefully in thin wax paper, then banded with kraft paper cut with those zig zag scissors and a lovely ribbon. I am loving the originality of it all. Don't they look nice?

The name of the soap company and photo of the old fashioned woman (her Grandma Annie) reminds me of the olden days. I'm sure it's supposed to express that Becky still does it the old fashioned way just as her ancestors did. And it does. It feels genuine and pure, as if it's a piece of history we should savor.

I tried the Lemongrass Honey bar (my Lemmy) and it was a wonderful morning eye opener. I never used lemongrass body products before, so this was a first for me. I've only tried lemongrass in thai restaurants... tom kha gai (lemongrass coconut soup) for instance - YUM. Let me tell you, the lemongrass and the honey together is a surprisingly lovely combination. I wouldn't have put those two scents together, but the honey mellowed the lemongrass and balanced the smell nicely. Either way, you will have to love the smell of lemongrass if you are going to buy this bar of soap. As far as the feeling I get when I use the soap? Energy. Yeah, pretty much. I actually feel like I'm waking up while I'm soaping it up in the shower with my love, Lemmy. It has lots of bubbles, worked like a charm for my shaving and washed off cleanly so I could go on with my day feeling clean clean!

Lots of good stuff in there, too! The ingredients are saponified oils of olive, coconut & palm; spring water; shea, mango & cocoa butters; essential oil & honey.

Please go take a look at Heirloom's website as see what is cooking over there.

Becky

Tower Of Salt

I love salt bars. They look chunky and dense and they feel great when I use them as my facial bar in the morning and right before bed. These salt bars are made with fine sea salt and sprinkled with larger sea salt crystals on top. Scent? Sexy Laundry Day. It's for a wholesale order...they are loving the scent. I think the Sexy Laundry Day has the most awesome smell in soap. Mmmm!

tower of salt

salt bars close - click the photo for a REALLY close up peek

My daughter saw me setting up my soap shot this morning and asked if she could set up the bars differently for the camera. Her tower was much nicer than my haphazard jumble of bars. My soap display looked like a pile - similar to a pile of football players at the end of a play.

I will have to keep a couple of these bars for myself and make many more batches soon, but cut them much smaller. These are HEFTY suckers.

Yuzu Rhubarb Sparkle Loaf

the very sweet citrus cocoa butter soap loaf

close up of the very sweet citrus cocoa butter soap loaf

This holiday loaf is really only "holida" because of the green sparkles on top. Otherwise, there's nothing holiday about it. It smells sweet and citrus-y and has a light dusting of apricot seed powder on top. My husband wants a citrus soap. I keep trying, but I am not getting anywhere with it. My lemon soap (eo) became close to being unscented while it was curing. Same with my orange valencia soap (also eo) and and my pink grapefruit (FO!) doesn't stick around either. Grrr.

So he gets nothing.

I would love suggestions with any and all citrus successes you may have had. Citrus, being my favorite land of stench would be grand in my soapy end of things, so please DO share if you have solutions and successes. We are a soaping family, as I am learning. We are sharing with eachother so that we can all succeed in our little corner of the world.

It is November 13th today. Do you realize that we are halfway through November? I am either getting slower or there is WAY MORE going on in my life than ever before. It doesn't mean anything to my customers who I owe products to.

Gotta go make goodies. Bye!

My Other Sister

Jennifer

I couldn't leave her out. Two weeks ago my oldest sister visited and I posted pics. Thought I should post a photo of my other older sister, Jen, who lives in Rochester, New York. It really is too bad we live so far away from each other.

Blood Like Syrup

I've gotten into making more and more soap and I thought last night as I was whipping up a nice hefty batch of soap how important it would be for me to commit to making one loaf of soap per day until Thanksgiving. It makes sense. Cold process soap making takes T-I-M-E and if you want to plan for Christmas sales on Etsy or your shop or load up for personal gift giving, you'd better start thinking about things in October while you are picking out your pumpkins.

So my "I'm-going-to-make-a-loaf-of-soap-a-day" pep talk I had with myself last night must have been influenced by some caffeine I had early early that morning because tonight I think my body is under an invisible fat man having a rest on top of me. I think my body must be fighting a cold because I've been on the verge of being narcoleptic for the past 2-3 days, my blood feels a little like syrup, my throat hurts a little bit - but luckily only when I swallow a few hundred times an hour.

I do have to say that my sickness luck in Florida has been pretty strange. When I lived in NY, I got sick every other month with a bad cold or cough. Since I've moved here five years ago, I have been sick four times (or was it three?). I just don't get sick! Weird right? Now if I have jinxed myself by saying it "out loud" I will be very upset should I get sick now.

No soap loaves today. I am just TOO TIRED. I'll try to soap again tomorrow and we'll see how that goes.

I have a few upcoming reviews for you folks soon. I haven't done one in a while. I have been doing a lot of sharing soap porn and talking about me and my soaps. I continue to read every comment and love all the feedback from you. Thanks for being a part of it all here with me!

More tomorrow!