Me and Stuff

My journey in the soap world has been a wild roller coaster, to say the least.  As some of you know, I started this blog as a way to give soap makers of handmade soap exposure to the world.  I started reviews and it just took off.  At the time, there were no soap blogs doing this that I could find.  A whole world of soap opened up to me and shortly after I began, other soap blogs popped up and handcrafted soap seemed to be everywhere.  I am so happy I tapped into that world, because I soon became part of it. 

My readers...YOU.... encouraged me to try my hand at soaping and when I finally pulled the trigger, the addiction began for me.  I loved it!  Now my business is almost all soap and I'm so happy with the direction my company is taking.  I work tirelessly at making my soaps better, my designs unique and using some of the best ingredients to the table.  It took years before I could say I am truly proud of my final product.  In the beginning, I made good soap, but the years of trial and error and endless researching, I can say I have a solid bar that I am pleased with.

I guess I knew it would take years of learning, doing, failing, loving....

I have let my blog writing fall to the wayside for a while now and I apologize to you all.  I have been focusing my energies elsewhere and I am sorry I have let you down. I want to bring you soap porn, reviews, tutorials, new ideas and business musings.  I'm not sure if my experiences will help anyone else, but perhaps I just need to share them and let you all take what you need and fly with it. 

Please leave comments on this post about what you want to get out of this blog and I will try to address them.  I can not promise I will post all the time, but I can try to be much better about it.  I do need your help.  If you are interested in sharing something here that you think others may be interested in, please email me and let me know you'd be interested in guest blogging.  I am open to any ideas.  This blog gets about 10,000 unique visitors a month, and my guess is that a big percent of those visitors are soap makers looking for inspiration, learning tools and a feeling a sense of community.

I am looking forward to being a part of The Handcrafted Soapmakers Guild annual conference this May in Raleigh, North Carolina.  I will get to meet a bunch of you.  Please seek me out and come introduce yourself.  I will be doing a demo on soap making with milks and I am nervous as heck.  I do not consider myself a public speaker and I loathe being the center of attention, but I want to do this and I know I will grow as a person having done it. 

Thank you for continuing to be a part of this blog, the active group on facebook, and general supporter of my vision.  Thank you.  Let's continue to grow together.  Here...hold my hand.

hugs, jo

The Soap Bar Blog Facebook Photos

I am happy to say that, as of today, we have 327 members on the pretty new Soap Bar Blog Facebook Page!  I have taken a few photos from the group.  Nice soap, right?  Come join us if you'd like.  There is lots of sharing, technical info and all around good people here.

Thanks to all of you for letting me be me!
xo Joanna

s o a p  *  p o r n  *  f e e d s  *  us

DonnaOShaughnessy's soap
Charcoal soap scented with Lavender and Orange Essential oils.

Debbie's soap
Yesterdays soap. Organic olive,coconut and rapeseed oil with a ton of unrefined cocoa butter. Scented with peppermint, lavender and tea tree essential oils

Michael of My Planet Earth Soap Co.
Honey/Grapefruit (Raw Organic Honeycomb scented with Pink Grapefruit, Lime and Litsea Essential Oils), Oatmeal Stout (Black Amber Ale Beer Soap) and Winter I Freaking Hate You! (Scented with Litsea, Lemon and Bergamot Essential Oils).

 Jan's soap (Sunlit Soap)
Apples a la Mode 

Emma's soap (Spiral Soaps)
Lemon Soul, a sublime blend of lemon, may chang & black pepper essential oils, and a sprinkling of poppy seeds. 

Leanne's soap (aromaNature Savon Naturel)
Locally Sourced Spiralina Soap

 Ceri's soap (Oakwood Soaperie)
Buttered Rose Soap with tussah silk, rose clay, and floral eo's

 Marcie Brown's soap
Cascade Trail. Very woodsy with pine, cedar, fir, spruce, juniper, dirt and earth FOs.


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The Vanilla Files - Artisan Soaps

I stumbled upon Clear Marie's blog, Artisan Soaps over a year ago and read her extensive Vanilla fragrance oil research she's called The Vanilla Files. I fell in love with her immediately. She tested over a dozen vanilla based fragrance oils in cold processed soaps and tested for a number of things:

1. color of soap over the cure period
2. color of lather
3. how scent held up over a year's time
4. how scent sticks to skin
5. and the fragrance itself

Right there, I see a huge amount of dedication. First she had to make 13 batches of soap. Each loaf had to be labeled and impeccable notes needed to be kept on them. (I'd be out. With two kids and an unorganized husband, there is no way in hell I could keep notes attached to 13 items all together in one place).

She got me at the list.

Her research is fantastic. She photographed every step of the way; slices of the soaps to compare color and lather comparisons. She described, a description of each scent so we can get a detailed real version, not a manufacturers "fluffy" made up version. And of course each scent is coupled with the supplier's name. For example: Daystar Supplies-Drizzled Honey Vanilla

Please go have a look at her blog and especially her Vanilla Files. There are eight Files, each of which are full of information and photographs. Clear really did a thorough job and I think it's information we can all learn from.

Thank you, Clear!!