Soap Conference '13 - HSCG- Part 1

I attended the Handcrafted Soap & Cosmetic Guild's (HSCG) soap conference a couple of weeks ago and I am still feeling the love from the whole experience.  I am utterly shocked, dazed and content by my experience.  Many months ago, Leigh O'Donnell of HSCG, asked if I'd be interested in speaking at the 2013 conference.  ME?!?  I was scared, excited and honored all at the same time.  I've been wanting to go to their soap conferences for many years, but could not attend for different reasons.  Well, this time, I wasn't going to miss it!

So....she asked me what I like to make and I told her "Milk Soaps. I make it differently than how I was taught."  So I told her about my technique and she said it was perfect.  I said,"it's just an easy way to do it.  Like a cheat."  And she shuts me right up and says, "That is innovative!  Not cheating!!  If you teach someone how to do something an easier way, they will want to know it!" 

oh, ok.....So months went by...weeks...days.... until I finally packed up and got on the plane.

I arrived at the hotel, checked-in and found my room.  Ahhh, it was perfect, I fell onto the bed, stretched out and closed my eyes.  Finally.  I head downstairs and who do I find but the lovely Tricia Samundsen!  Then one by one, I meet the crew, coordinators, board members....A ton of people.  Instantly I felt at home.  This was where I belonged when I wasn't with my family.  I felt in in my bones.

Raleigh was my slice of heaven for the weekend.  All mine.  Bwua ha ha!

Dinners, drinks, seminars, breakfast meet-ups, parties and lots of laughs. Just a little background on me, if you don't already know, I am pretty much a homebody and don't go out that much, mostly because of the lack of people that reside here in South Florida, but I've never been a particularly social being.  The conference weekend yanked me out of my shell.  I met some sweet, loving, and interesting people all in one place.  I made friends so quickly.  A treat to say the least.

I spoke at the conference...two seminars in one day, each for about an hour and there were approximately 100 people in each seminar.  Honestly, I wasn't sure I was going to be able to do it, but the guest speaker was Ann Evanston, who gave a beautiful and inspiring motivational speech the morning of my seminars, that it completely took me to a different notch and I felt okay being ME in front of a crowd.  I channeled the authentic self that I am and relaxed enough to just be and share what I do instead of worrying so much about what others thought of me.  Big step for me, folks, big step.  

 

***

I know that many of you wanted to find out the method I spoke about, (which really isn't anything new) and I have just been too busy to post it.  Here is the basic jist of it.  Please do not make this unless you have a number of successful cold process batches under your belt.  And know that I can't be held responsible for what YOU make...this is just an explanation of how I  do it.  :)

Overview: We all know that soap is created by combining oils with lye.  But when you add milk to your soap, you’re also adding sugars and proteins to the equation and thus creating a new chemical composition: Milk Soap.  Although that can sound daunting, there is no reason to be nervous about trying milk soap for the first time, or taking another shot at it if you’ve sworn it off because of past disasters.  I’ve devised a way to make milk soaps that come out the same way every time.  For me.

Background: Because milks contain sugar, they will heat up your soap batter and can speed up trace which can leave little time to incorporate the ingredients and finish your soap.  The traditional way to prevent this from happening is to freeze your milk ahead of time and then add lye to the milk cubes very slowly while mixing into a slushy solution.  Many people successfully make milk soaps this way, but it has some issues for me and I hate issues.  My technique alleviates the following problems while producing a few bonus benefits.

Problems with the traditional way:

 “When I add the lye to the milk, it makes a horrible ammonia stench!”   

“My lye solution turned orange-y brown”.

 “Freezing milk requires hours of additional planning and wrecks my work schedule.  It also clutters up my freezer.”

 “I don’t like adding milks during the most caustic stage of saponification.” 

- - --  -Some people feel this can damage milks and degrade their benefits.

My solution resolves all of those problems.  You’ll avoid nasty smells and color changes, free up your schedule, and protect delicate ingredients.  All you need to do now is pick the milk for the soap you’ll be making.   

Milk Properties

For the conference's demonstration, I used two milks separately in two different batches:

Buttermilk   It is often used in making baby soap because of its gentle properties and is great for sensitive skin.  It contains alpha-hydroxy acid, which is used in facial preparations.  It isn’t clear if those acids survive saponification (but my technique should up the odds), but buttermilk creates a wonderful smoothness.

Coconut milk is preferred by vegans, and is technically plant milk.  Coconut milk’s main fatty acid, lauric acid, is known for its great skin nourishing benefits and to have both anti-carcinogenic and anti-viral properties.  It adds moisturizing and gentle cleansing qualities in addition to the fluffy lather it brings to your soap.  

SCENT CHANGES:          Milks impart little to no scent in your final soap.   

COLOR CHANGES:          Buttermilk creates a beige soap and coconut milk creates an off-white soap.

Simple Milk Soap Recipe

This is a basic cold process soap recipe which I prepared to demonstrate my technique of making milk soap without the hassle of frozen milk cubes, horrific ammonia stink and discolored lye mixture. 

Concentrated Lye Solution - Caution!  This amount of water is half the liquid typically used with this amount of lye.

-----

Lye Solution

Distilled Water                    210 grams

Lye                                      184 grams

*

Oils

Olive                                    516 grams

Palm Oil                               388 grams

Coconut Oil 76 °                  388 grams

*

Milk - liquid form, room temp.

Coconut / Buttermilk           210 grams

Directions:

• Combine lye and distilled water, mix until incorporated.  Let cool to just above room temperature.
• Melt and combine all oils.  Let cool to just above room temperature.
• With your stick blender immersed into the oils and burped, slowly introduce your concentrated lye solution.  Continuously stir; blend in short bursts.  Because the lye solution is concentrated, the soap batter may not thicken consistently.  Don’t worry!  That’s normal.  Just keep stirring with occasional bursts of power until smoothly blended and you reach a light trace.
• Pour your room temperature (not frozen) milk in at a slow, steady speed while, continuing to stir and apply short bursts of power from your blender until fully incorporated.  Pour into your mold.   You’re done! 

Some other milks you can use (*indicates vegan milks):

Goat

Sheep

Cow (buttermilk, cream, half-n-half, sour cream, yogurt…etc)

Donkey

Yak

Camel

Human

Almond*

Coconut*

Soy*

Rice*                                                                    (*indicates vegan milks)

I think the seminars were fun and I was blessed with the most fabulous assistant, Tricia Samundsen (my Vanna White).  I received a lot of positive feedback from a bunch of attendees.  I hope I helped some people.  So here is to Leigh O'Donnell and innovation!

***

At the moment our company, Absolute Soap, isn't carrying straight milk soaps, but we have our Unscented Alabaster Handmade Soap (sea salt soap) that people love.  We are also a vegan soap company and will only be making coconut milk soaps in the future.  Later until Part 2!

Part 2: coming soon.....

Favorite Soap Top Photo Challenge on Facebook

One of the reasons I set up these photo challenges, is because I think we can all work on our photography skills.  Even ugly soap can be made beautiful with the right angle, light and focus.  I encourage all of you to step outside your comfort zone and really play, flounder, hone in and improve your own setting-the-stage for your soaps. 

There were some amazing soaps submitted this week.  I am truly floored by some of the talent out there and are inspired by the images... the soap itself.  Again, this wasn't about the most beautiful tops (which there were dozens of amazing ones!), this was about photographing your favorite tops. 

Many of you have created a mood so deep, that it has successfully taken me to another place outside of my room.  As if I experience a few seconds on another plane, in a different time and space and if I were connected to a breathing machine or heart rate monitor, I'm guessing the images actually had a physical impact as well.  Not just creative thought.

Imagine for a moment: an image that you've seen that transformed your mood or gave you relief even for a moment.  Then get behind your camera and move around your subject until you FEEL something and click.  Then stay behind the lens and do it again.  And again.  I took a photography class in college and I was taught to examine images that gave me an emotion or took me to the past or rekindled a memory I had forgotten.  That is special when you can examine, then reexamine why it moved you.  Was it the light, the blurred background, the colors, expressions on faces, the unknown....what wasn't said?  All this works to tell a story.

Soap may not tell a story to most, but to us it has a history within ourselves.  Our hard work, our love for science or art, our sweat and tears and sometimes our feelings of worth.  These are our creations and because they are special, we need to deliver all of that information, emotion and love, outside of ourselves and into our image for others to view and experience.

These two are mine, though not thought provoking necessarily, but the first one has a sense of playfulness.

 Joanna Schmidt

SoapTops

Joanna Schmidt

Detox

So, without further ado, here are the photographs that moved me.  Not just beautiful soap, but a mood that captured my attention and took me from my own reality for a few seconds.

Clara Lindberg 

Creamy mohair and goat's milk soap with cinnamon & neroli.

 Kate Boisoneau

Poppet: smoky sweet caramelized sugar, roasted almond, rich cocoa, and airy, creamy marshmallow

 Hajni Kele

Witches Brew

Just because most of these are close-ups, doesn't mean those are the ones that are moving to me.  Lighting and focus have an impact as well.  The one interesting thing about macro shots:  it brings attention to details that are normally overlooked.  Many times it shows the care and beauty that isn't normally seen upfront.  It lures the viewer in and captivates them.

What are your thoughts?  Please share in the comments below...

xoxo Joanna

Madame-Von-Diarrhea-of-the-Mouth

It has been way too long since I posted here.  I've been so so busy getting my business reconfigured with the new website, new all natural soaps and new name: Absolute Soap!  The new website took 6 weeks to create.  My husband, and business partner, did it all.  He took a basic template and tweaked it until it was all to his liking, and the results show.  I took all the photographs of the soaps and scrubs and I'm happy with them, too.  I love photography, so it made my job easy because I love doing it.

Making business goals and achieving them isn't easy and I, for one, have a hard time focusing.  I'm like Doug in the movie UP.  "...Squirrel!"  And I'm outta there.  I have amazing focus, actually, but as soon as I think of or see something that needs to be addressed, I switch my energies to the new thing (which always is important, too).  Imagine me in a room.  I am working on one end of the room and turn to get something.  I spot something else that needs to be put away or filed, and so I put down task A and quickly attend to task B, which would normally be fine, but when I return to the room, I forget what I was doing or see something else that needs work, or remember something needs to be researched or achieved, and I go off to deal with task C.  You see, I am a hard worker and work long hours, but sometimes I feel like I don't get things done.  Some may say that I have attention deficit disorder (ADD), not the hyperactivity part, because if you knew me, you'd laugh if someone told me I had me attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) because you know I am pretty low key, kind of mellow and love to sleep.  I'm patient, understanding and most of all genuine, but sometimes I must look like I lost chicken with its head cut off.  But not in the running around kind of way.

Make sense?

It's important to look at our own shortcomings, so we can improve, or at least understand them.  Mine is attention.  So get this.  My doctor says to me, "well, it sounds like you have ADD.  Let's try Adderall."  Did nothing.  N-o-t-h-i-n-g.  Honestly, I don't even get why kids these days use these pills for speed ?!?!?  Guess what?  I took a three hour nap.  Speed, please.

Back to soap.  I love to soap and I love this community.  LOVE YOU GUYS.  I am so excited for the  Handcrafted Soap & Cosmetic Guild conference in Raleigh, North Carolina this May.  If you don't already know, I am doing a demo on hassle-free milk soapmaking, which is crazy.  Who am I to have been asked to be a "speaker" at this well known and highly esteemed conference?  Totally blown away and so honored.  Thank goodness for Leigh, the director, who convinced me that people would be interested in it, because I was all...like... ummm, I think people know this technique and it's no new thing.... and she tells me that people like to see easier ways of doing things with shortcuts.  So I was picked.  :D  Could I argue?  Not really.  I have never been to the conferences and I've always wanted to go.  But, I am in shock how quickly the last four months sped by and now it is right around the corner.  Soooo... yeah. I feel self conscious at a large table of people let alone being in front of 100 or more people, but I will figure it out and know that I have people out there who are supportive and I will be imagining all of you in there naked, so watch out.

Part of the reason I felt the need to share my attention problem is that I don't write these posts and then edit them.  I am sort of a Madame-Von-Diarrhea-of-the-Mouth kind of writer, and it shows. I am not deluded by thinking I am some writer, because I have never claimed to be.  My husband is a writer!  I make grammatical errors all the time, my thought process is kind of all over the place, and I often just linger and never return to the original thought, like right now.... but that's the way I like to write because if I try to make it perfectly written or grammatically correct, my thoughts come out guarded and that's not who I am or what I think you all want from me.  I imagine that you want my guts, my thoughts and my honesty.  Most of you probably don't mind my run-on sentences and flighty conversation.

OR... I could be totally wrong and I annoy the crap out of you.  Either way, I am who I am and I thank all of you for being here with me as I grow over the last 6 years!

Sorry I have been MIA...

xoxo
Jo