Peninsula Soap Company LLC

Compact for Safe Cosmetics

2010-08-05T15:59:00.001-05:00

HOLLYWOOD here we come;)

2010-07-14T06:28:00.004-05:00

Shipping our soaps to Culver City CA today! It will be a prop in the movie Bridesmaids-release date of 2011! http://bit.ly/bridesmaidsmovie

We were contacted last week and were playing phone tag trying to get more info. They requested 3-4 bars of soap that will be given as a gift in the movie! They wanted a real Milwaukee product that would be recognizable verses a made up one. Peninsula Soap is going to be famous:) We also got a text last night that they wanted 2 of each of the soaps for doing scenes... after one scene of opening the gift they'll need to re-wrap and open it over and over again so 2 sets of soap will make it easier.

So this morning 2 Olive Bar, 2 Bay View Sunset, 2 Door County Cherry, 2 Baby Buddha & 2 Herbal Bliss will be making the long trip out to Culver City California to Sony Pictures!!
We wish them luck!!

Buy Green, Sell Green, Be Green

2010-06-30T06:59:00.002-05:00

We're on GreenPeople.org! An online directory of eco-friendly businesses, organizations and events (since 1998).
http://greenpeople.org/listing/Peninsula-Soap-Company-59321.cfm

Coloring with ROOTS...

2010-06-30T06:31:00.004-05:00

specifically Madder Root (red coloring) and Alkanet Root (purple coloring) for the Door County Cherry & Wino soaps. We also used Ylang Ylang essential oils for the Cherry & Clove Bud for the Wine soap. So far the Cherry looks really nice! The Wino I'm not sure what to think of yet but it sure does smell good... like a spicy mulled wine:)

The people online said the Alkanet Root can give more of a gray color in the CP of soap making so that made me nervous but we use the HP so we'll have to wait and see. I was surprised it didn't dye my clothes when I dropped the stick blender on myself:)

The Cherry soap of course still has ground Door County Cherries in it but the Wino we decided didn't need crushed grapes we just swapped out one oil and added grapeseed oil instead... those dried grapes were a pain and not really giving us the dark color we wanted.

BABY BUDDHA Rocks Sturgeon bay Farmer's Market!

2010-06-28T10:12:00.006-05:00

Round two of weekends spent in Door County selling soap was a success! With 15 bars sold we also featured our first essential oil soap for the first time. Baby Buddha, named that because Jesse was awesome enough to give us a bottle of blended essential oils (orange, pine, patchouli & frankincense) sold out by the end of the weekend. Although it was only a half batch were still thrilled and are spending the week adding fragrance and new colors to our soaps hopefully in time for two different sales events next weekend in Door County. Fourth of July weekend should bring in huge crowds and were not only doing the Sturgeon Bay farmer's market on Saturday from 9am till noon but then we're heading to Egg Harbor for a new one that includes more crafts. It's called Blossom Hill and we chatted with the woman who owns the land and is organizing the event. She also has it running Sunday so we'll be there that day too.

Sturgeon bay Farmers Market...

2010-06-08T16:08:00.004-05:00

this past Saturday was a success! Even with the cooler gloomy weather we still sold the same amount of soap in 3 hours as we did in Milwaukee on a nice sunny day in 6 hours. The farmers market isn't in full swing yet and neither are the tourists due to it being early in the season (so there isn't a lot to sell) and the cooler rainy weather recently. We're positive things will pick way up though in 2 weeks when we go back. We were the only soap company there so that's good & we even met another vendor that was into healthy living & all natural products so we chatted with them for a while. We sold an Olive Bar to a woman who mad a straight line to our booth who's daughter is highly sensitive to soaps so we may have made a long term customer out of her because she said they usually have to throw soaps away that they try. With just Olive & Coconut Oil I can't imagine it giving her a problem.

We also sold 7 bars a piece to two awesome women one from Shaun's dad's office and one that his mom gave a sample to earlier in the month. Both loved Olive Bar but bought some other varieties. One of them is sending a few bars of Door County Cherry Soap to her daughter in Hawaii. Very cool our soap will be going to Hawaii but I wish we were going with it:)

The National Cafe is Selling Our Soap!!

2010-06-08T16:02:00.004-05:00

We're officially being sold in The National Cafe in Milwaukee!! They started with 2 bars of each of the 7 varieties I brought in yesterday. Cheers to them for being the first to carry our soap:)

Today I started sending soap samples to places in Door County... Brick Alley in Sturgeon Bay, Fish Creek market in Fish Creek & The Flying Pig in Algoma. No word yet from the sample I sent to Greens & Grains in Egg Harbor but we're hopeful. We really need a retailer up there because we're only going to be able to do the farmer's market in Sturgeon bay 2x a month.

I also contacted Vegan Essentials and they requested a sample so i sent that out today and I emailed the Riverwest Co-Op to see if we could get our soap sold there as well. Waiting to here back if they want a sample but I think I'd rather deliver it in person and talk with them so we'll see when they respond.

Door County Sales this weekend!!

2010-06-04T10:50:00.005-05:00

We're selling at the Sturgeon bay Farmers market this Saturday 9-noon. We will also be dropping off an order for Olive Bar to one of the other people in Shaun's dads office building who said after the samples he brought in for everyone she "fell in love with the Olive Bar". YAY! 2nd time we've received an email with good feedback! Now that the farmers markets are open for the season I'll be trying out new locations weekly.

I'm also meeting with one of the owners of The National Cafe because they my be the first retailers to sell our soap! I'll know more Monday afternoon.

Created a listing on www.GreenPeople.org & peninsulasoap@gmail.com will be notified when your free listing (# 59321) is made
visible. The review process takes 1 - 2 weeks.

I also added us to Google Places & placed free ads on Shepherd Express & Craigslist online plus I got all our products listed & reviewed on Sustain Lane and Olive Bar and Door County Cherry are now on Etsy.

I also contacted Vegan Essentials today based in Waukesha with a strong online presence to see if they would be interested in carrying our soap so I'm also waiting to hear back from them.

We're on Etsy!!

2010-05-17T12:51:00.003-05:00

I got Olive Bar and Door County Cherry soap on my Etsy shop now. I decided it was a good way to get our product selling online and hopefully get people directed to our website. We don't know how many times anyone has been to our website but we haven't had any online orders yet. We have a #1 presence on all the top search engines though when it comes to searching our company name so that's good... the more we're on the web the better.

7 Mile fair did not go over well yesterday so we're a little bummed about that but we didn't know it wouldn't be our target audience. They say they are a flea market but I would have to disagree. It's more like a festival with a lot of vendors that seem to sell a lot of stuff that's probably stolen. Not a good environment for people who care about their health or being green. It was a wake up call to me because I assumed everyone has been touched and had some kind of awareness about the dangers of chemicals in food & skin care products and that most people used reusable bags and cared about organic, sustainable, fair trade living-but these people were all "dollar menu" people with zero awareness it disturbed and saddened me and I'm still trying to wrap my brain around the cluelessness.

Now we know and can move on though. I'm going to start scheduling weekday farmers markets in Lake Geneva, Cedarburg & elsewere come June when they start up.

We're on FACEBOOK!!

2010-05-11T13:53:00.003-05:00

We're finally on Facebook (link above) and we have a bunch of "likes" that I don't even know:) How cool is that? I set up our new Milwaukee event for sales this Saturday and the first Door County sales event at the Sturgeon Bay farmers market. I'm making tons of Door County Cherry soap for that one as it's expected to be our biggest seller. I also experimented with a purple carrot extract dye (all-natural/pure of course) with the Wino to try and get it more purple and it helped... made it marble. Not sure if I like it but I'm dehydrating blackberries right now to try too.

Carrot extract as a purple dye?

2010-05-06T14:36:00.004-05:00

Yep that's one of the things I'm working on today. I'm re-melting a couple bars of Wino to add this organic carrot extract that is supposed to be a pure all natural purple vegetable dye. We'll see if it works! It says if heated it may change colors so I'm not sure what to expect. I'll of course add them at the every end but they'll still be heated for a short time. Outpost had a few food colorings like this. There was a red and yellow one too.

Second on the agenda for the day is waiting for the outcome of the beer soap I made this morning. Alpha Brewer is chilling in the refrigerator right now. We got a really amazing smelling cherrywood smoked barley from Northern Brewer (a home brewery supply store). It smells fabulous so hopefully by adding it at the very end of the cooking process when I was ready to pour it will retain it's smell. I then put it in the fridge asap to keep the heat from killing the smell but I'm still waiting for the outcome. We also got some simon hops to map a soap I'm wanting to call Hop-a-licious:) I want it to green but who knows how it will react with the heat.

Update on another special soap... Lush Lilac is cut and curing right now in my lab. It looks really cool with the flower petals in it but it doesn't smell like lilac. It smells more like a potpourri. It still has a smell that is nice though so it's a success as far as I'm concerned. We'll see how it sells on May 15th at the second flea market we're selling at. I'm going to have that one and hopefully 2 beer soaps along with the standard ones available. All for $5 a piece and if one or more of the special small batch ones go over well maybe I'll have them become regulars and add them to the website.

Great Day of Soap Sales!

2010-05-01T17:35:00.003-05:00

We sold 15 bars of soap today at the Fox Skylight Antiques Flea Market. Really great reaction from people about it too. Olive bar was our number 1 seller hands down. We sold more of that then the rest combined. Espresso buzz took second. We can't wait to do it again! We signed up for Saturday May 15th and it's going to be bigger then this one plus Rummage-o-rama at State Fair Park won't be going on to compete for customers:) CHEERS!!

Saki takes over the label making...

2010-04-28T12:41:00.004-05:00

ha! yeah right even she can't get them to line up and print out even:) What a process I thought the idea of these companies making templates for there labels was so it was easy to line up and print. Ugh! long evening of not getting them done, hopefully we have better luck tomorrow.

On a more positive note, our soap making lab is coming along fabulously! I'm designing it while I work in there so It's as practical as possible. This is what we've got so far. Great lighting in this room due to the tons of windows. LOVE! I've still got too much on the floor though.

Business Cards are HERE!!

2010-04-26T19:26:00.003-05:00

Just got the business cards in the mail this afternoon! It only took a week... thanks www.OvernightPrints.com you guys rock! They did a fabulous job. Super vibrant colors, clear clean print overall and great cutting job. So happy we'll have them to pass out at the flea market this Saturday at Fox Skylight Antiques in Milwaukee.

Flea Market Sales!!

2010-04-26T15:48:00.002-05:00

We'll be selling our soaps May 1st at the Fox Skylight flea market, 112 E. Mineral St. in Milwaukee from 9AM until 5PM or until we sell out! I came up with a great idea for a sign at our booth too, it will say:
ANTIQUES MAKING YOU FEEL DIRTY? CLEAN UP WITH PENINSULA SOAP!

How cute and catchy is that;)
So exciting but I've got a ton to do this week because once we start selling in person we will be directing people to the website too because it's on all the soap labels so we need to have the ordering process set up just in case. I also only have like 10 bars of each soap perfected and made so we need to get to work:)

On the schedule today... get the website up and running for orders and get lots more molds cut down and ready.

Tomorrow... we'll be making at least 2 batches of Door County Cherry soap and 2 batches of Olive Bar soap it will be a long day!!

Pop Ups Out...

2010-04-22T14:50:00.003-05:00

instead of pop-ups when you click on an individual soaps page for more info and to add to your cart were going to do a whole normal web page for it instead. Today we updated web pages and added the "view cart" to each page in the same spot by the other icons (twitter & blogger). We had a lot of fun the other night coming up with the descriptions and wording for each soap. I also created a "add to cart" icon that will be on every individual soaps product page in the same spot.

I don't know which version I like better... I'm thinking the one with more photos though even if the type in the description and "add to cart" have to be smaller. I emailed these versions to a couple people we'll see what they say.

Espresso Buzz perfected in trial #3

2010-04-22T11:14:00.005-05:00

Cut down our 1st perfected batch of Espresso Buzz! Were loving the creamy color and swirls of Espresso grounds:) We're still loosing about 1/2 the batch due to air bubbles. Small imperfections are fine and expected because it's handmade and that's what makes it unique and reminds you that a person made this soap not a machine in a factory. We can't waste that much though... I think we could solve the problem if we cut our molds in half because the air pockets usually occur in the middle and right now the molds are around a foot long. We're going to try that with the next batch of Wino I make and see if it fixes the problem.

Currently all 4 soaps are now perfected for selling, just one more to go. Wino needs to be perfected and today I'm going to get a new round of grapes to squeeze, dehydrate, grind and brew for a batch tomorrow.

Product Shots & Lab Organization...

2010-04-21T17:09:00.004-05:00

all getting organized today. We got some great light coming through this afternoon so I took the opportunity with the recent printing of the labels for Olive Bar to get product shots done for the website. I also spent most of the afternoon setting up my lab:) We needed a stop to make the soap so that I could have soap saponifying at any time and the kitchen wouldn't have to be off limits to food. It looks like it's going to be a great way to use our sunroom which is probably the least used room in the house and until recently just had plants in it. After hanging some shelves we should be able to make the soap, dry, label & package it for shipping all in one place instead of having everything scattered in every room.

Business Cards ORDERED!!

2010-04-19T20:07:00.002-05:00

We ordered our business cards from www.overnightprints.com today. We're excited to get them in 5-7 business days:) They have such a sweet deal of 500 cards for free it only cost us $7.75 for shipping.

The website also went live over the weekend with paypal so we can now sell Olive Bar online! Were making some finishing touches to it now and we'll be taking better pics tomorrow when it's sunny.

Label Satisfaction!

2010-04-12T12:56:00.003-05:00

Thanks ULINE your labels were perfect! We got the templates working and the first label printed last week. I've been a little slow about postings since our New Orleans trip but were back to work now and ready to get product out there! Next are the business cards and brochure cards.

Rose Water Experiment

2010-04-03T13:34:00.002-05:00

So I have a lot of scrap soap from the Bay View Sunset batch that I want to try adding a scent to. Right now it looks like Mac & Cheese but after it melts down I'm going to add Rose Water mix it together and pour it into molds to cure again.

In the book it suggested 2.5oz on average for adding essential oils (that's for a full recipe) I'm going to see what 2.5oz looks like but I'll most likely use that much with this first trial because essential oils are so much stronger... I'll need more rose water to make the finished bar of soap smell. So I think, so far success comes in two's:)

We checked out high quality organic essential oils at Future Green today and also took a look at their soaps ($7.50 for 4oz!) to get some ideas. We smelled and tested them but none seemed to have scents that would go with our "flavors" of soap. So we'll have to see how this rose water trial goes there is also orange blossom and lavender water we could use if this goes well that way we can stay away from the essential oils.

New Soap Cutter DONE!

2010-04-01T20:04:00.004-05:00

So this is our 2nd attempt at making a soap cutter and it works beautifully!! So fun to cut soap now!! The wooden box I bought from Jo Anne's Craft's and then cut a inch slit through it. Then used some craft wood to secure the sides where the cut was made. The metal thinging was given to us a while back as some sort of chopping/scooping kitchen tool we never used and it fits perfectly. So far things are successful on the 2nd try... and we're good with that.

Also this is our newest product shot of the Wine-O soap made with grapes. Pretty color... and the 2nd try will only be better!

Nothing to Wine about...

2010-03-30T19:44:00.005-05:00

the melt-down worked great on the wine soap:) It's purple in spots and brown in others but at least it's an overall color like we wanted! The brown color came in because we left too much juice in the grapes when we dehydrated them so next batch will be perfect. Who knew grape juice was actually brown not purple. LOL:)

Wine Soap Melt-Down

2010-03-30T13:58:00.003-05:00

So after a week of being gone on vacation we came home to find most of the soap cured fully and was much harder. The only problem soap was the wine soap with the grapes. I really want it to be somewhat purple ultimately but it's just got these oozy clumps in it right now. It looks cool but it's messy so I'm re-melting it to see if I can perfect it. I'm just using one of the molds for the first attempt... grating it and melting it and then re-pouring it in a mold like I did when I made the hand milled soap the first time from the castile soap bar I bought.

Wine Soap Status...

2010-03-18T14:50:00.003-05:00

Wine soap looks good, but I think I'm going to have to get creative with the process to get a purple base color to go along with those small bursts of grapes. It's a work in progress but almost there.

BATCH#7 Espresso Buzz Trial#2

2010-03-18T14:43:00.004-05:00

Ok so i think I got Espresso Buzz down and it has the most fluffy white lather of them all. Again I only made a half batch so I didn't end up wasting too much if my idea to brew coffee into the soap didn't work. We also used olive, canola and castor oil in this batch leaving out the coconut oil because I ran out... and because I wanted to see if the soap would still be a pale color without it. So far it looks good and I'm super happy with the way it looks. It doesn't have the smell of espresso but the espresso seems to have covered up the oil smell that is obvious in the base soaps I've made so far.

Possible Labels?

2010-03-18T09:18:00.004-05:00

Really trying to make the labels more readable but still retain the color and "image" of the brand. Working left to right I think were making progress and the only real way we're going to be able to decide is if we have a lot of options to choose from printed on the actual stickers. The front ones are proving to be quite challenging but I think one of the lower right hand corner ones are looking the best.

The top left corner one is the back and I think thats pretty much how we want it to look so we're all set with that now it's just a patter of what color if any.

Cherry Soap Status...

2010-03-17T16:58:00.005-05:00

Here she is... we need to add more cherry next time (about double) but it's looking good so far! The plain white bar is the base that was made the day prior as a tester it's the olive & coconut oil but no cherries.

No Green Soap 4 Us...

2010-03-17T15:23:00.007-05:00

Were only seeing PURPLE today while working on the Wine-Oh soap. It's made with olive, coconut & castor oils. Plus dried grapes for a fabulous purple color... I hope!

Also, our molds are sticking to the soap too much so I'm trying a more flexible plastic mold that is also smaller today so I'm hoping that works too.
WISH US LUCK!!

Cherry Soap Saponifying

2010-03-16T11:29:00.004-05:00

The olive & coconut oil in our base BATCH#4 worked great so I'm mixing up BATCH#5 the same way and this time were adding our dried & ground Door County cherries. According to what we've read you add any scents like essential oils or dried fruit & flowers at the end after the soap is done cooking. I'm assuming this is to preserve the smell and maybe even the color. So far our dried cherries are a nice bright red color and still smell like cherries so hopefully both those traits transfer over to the cured soap.

The book has a chamomile tea soap where they use dried & ground tea leaves about 1/4 to 1/2 cup it says. We've got a little under 1/4 cup dried cherries prepped so we'll see how that amount works and work up if needed.

Building the Soap Cutter

2010-03-15T21:43:00.004-05:00

This is how far we are on the cutter. Now were attaching the wires and by tomorrow we'll have a base for the soap to rest. We got the idea to build it from a guy on You Tube don't know what we would have done otherwise because cutting the soap with a knife like I have been hasn't been the most accurate. As it turns out inch cuts are exactly 4oz. based on our 3 inch diameter molds. Good thing we're getting the help of Saki she is such a hard worker isn't she:)

Nice White Base...

2010-03-15T17:14:00.002-05:00

Batch#4 is a little soft still so I'm moving it to the fridge but check it out... we got the nice white base we wanted!! This week will be all about using the cherry and grape powders they should make great colors.

Ready to Pour!

2010-03-13T17:32:00.004-06:00

Poured the molds after 1 hour this time instead of almost 2 like the last 3 batches. Also this time we followed the directions in the book closer and didn't stir throughout the process, just at the end after the entire batch saponified. It melted from the outside in just like it said it would in the book creating an "island" in the center until it was completely done.

For the mols this time we're trying our luck at lining one with wax paper as suggested in the book. The other we're doing the same with just a little wipe down of olive oil. We haven't had much luck with it not sticking to the molds so hopefully the wax paper works. We should know by tomorrow and I'll update then.

Batch#4 saponifyin'

2010-03-13T16:15:00.007-06:00

We're making a batch this afternoon with olive oil and coconut oil. We also crushed de-juiced and are now dehydrating the grape skins to be ground up later that will be add to make our Wine-Oh soap next week.
Today is all about getting a base down for that batch and the cherry batch. Olive oil has moderate conditioning properties and creates a very hard soap. Coconut oil on the other hand is very low on the conditioning scale and is also high on the hardness scale. They should balance well meaning the end product should leave your hands clean but not strip them too much of their natural oils. If this turns out well it may be our base for two different batches. I also choose these oils because they should create the whitest base for the cherry and grape colors to really show through. We want the crushed cherry to make a really pinkish red color while the grape we'd ideally want to be as purple as possible so the two look different. That is also why we used the dark "black grapes".

Golden Blonde Soap cut today...

2010-03-12T10:52:00.007-06:00

It's softer then Olive Bar from Batch#1 but not a wreck like Batch#2:) This Batch#3 is also my 1st attempt at my own recipe.
It lathers really fast and rinses super clean from the skin just as fast! Also unlike Batch#2 it has a really hot golden blonde color that rocks and leaves no smell behind... LOVE IT!

Changes...
If we add some Washington Island Wheat it will get a texture without compromising the color.
If we take out one of the oils that makes the bar soft we'll have a harder overall bar that will last longer.

Batch#2 Update

2010-03-10T19:03:00.004-06:00

So Batch#2 didn't solidify in the molds and we had to scoop it out and form it by hand. It still works as soap but we haven't figured out why it was so clay-like in the mold. We know the palm oil was to blame for the color... as you can see it is not the same color as my coffee:( I moved the other mold to the freezer so maybe it will solidify in the mold if we can get it to freeze.

Batch#3 seems to be doing well and has a much better color (a lot less palm oil) we'll find out tomorrow I guess. Plus were partially done with the cutting board were constructing check out our awesome blueprint for it!

Batch#3

2010-03-10T16:16:00.004-06:00

Saponifying our next base in the kitchen this afternoon. We're experimenting with a olive, coconut, canola, palm & soybean oil mixture this time. It's a bright golden color right now (almost the same color as the walls). This should be a pretty hard soap with a good lather and also condition moderately. Since Batch#2 was soft as clay we had to scoop it out of the mold and form it into balls to use at home... well now we know. Hopefully this batch is hard enough to get out of the molds in 1 piece and have a great color!

Espresso Buzz

2010-03-10T14:54:00.003-06:00

So we were going to make cherry but didn't take into account the orange color the palm oil would make it so we tried to counter act the orange with espresso instead thinking brown would be an easier color to achieve. Well here's what we got... not exactly what I had in mind:) Were gonna stick to basics for a while and get a color perfected before adding any "flavors" for a while.

Batch #3 saponifying in the kitchen now with olive, coconut, canola, palm & soybean oil...

Label change...

2010-03-08T02:43:00.002-06:00

We changed the labels a few days ago to be more dynamic overall and avoid blending in with all the rest of the soaps on the shelf. Our printer is low on ink so the color is off but this is the idea for the packaging now. Were going to print this look on round stickers on either side of the soap. I already made sure they stay stuck on well but peel off easily when needed. Should work great now we just need to go buy the stickers and more ink!

More pages for our Website

2010-03-08T02:15:00.004-06:00

Today I worked on designing the Products, Retailers and Contacts pages for the website. Shaun taught himself some more HTML skills and after an hour or 3 of trials and lots of errors my right sided brain and his left joined it was a miracle!

I think we have the overall look down now and he can start to get things linked and up and running.

Cutting OLIVE BAR

2010-03-08T02:00:00.004-06:00

This morning we cut down the Olive Bar and found that with our molds about 1 inch sections are 4oz. We also found that to be more accurate we need to build a cutter. More on that later... but we did take a trip to Home Depot to find these yellow plastic caps for the ends of our PCV pipe molds that will work much better then wax paper and rubber bands:)

We also found this rubber piece that is supposed to be used in toilet tanks and a metal dowel that when combined make a nice tamper! Very lucky we found pieces that were so exact in size! Now next time our soap should be smoother around the edges without air pockets.

First Batch of Home-Made Soap!!

2010-03-06T13:43:00.005-06:00

OLIVE BAR #1 was born in our kitchen this afternoon!

We used the slow cooker method... so we mixed the lye & water let it cool to 100 degrees and also at the same time heated the olive oil in the crock pot to 100 degrees. I expected it to be really smelly but it wasn't so bad at all pretty mild smell. The vinegar & water solution for safety smelled stronger. We combined the lye/water solution & olive oil and stirred it for about 10 minutes with the immersion blender. It then took about an hour and 45 minutes of cook time for it to get totally saponified.

Then we cut our PCV pipe down to 1 foot sections and covered one end of each with wax paper... securing it with multiple rubber bands. Then we poured the saponified soap into the molds. We cut down 3 molds and only filled about 1 and a half. It said to let cool for 4-6 hours then possibly cure for 2 weeks. I guess the curing for 2 weeks makes the soap lather more. It starts to cool and harden fast so when we were done pouring it into the molds we used a little excess to wash our hands and it lathered... not real well but it was white and soapy:)

It doesn't smell like olive oil but it does have a mild scent but It doesn't smell like anything in particular.

Web Site Design

2010-03-03T15:56:00.006-06:00

So after doing some research on companies in the Door County area I started designing the Peninsula Soap home page. I like the font but I'm still looking for one maybe a little easier to read but the P in the name in this font will be a really nice icon.

Also I want to look through my photo archives of Door County and get a sunset photo over the lake thats a little more vibrant... but I don't want it to compete with the clean artsy nature design. In the small boxes I'll have photos that depict the subject above them.

What do you think of it so far?

Logo & Design for Packaging

2010-03-01T15:29:00.003-06:00

We are experimenting with some font & images for the wrap around package design. Sticking with the round soap is going to be a little more limiting as for as space goes on the package. I think keeping it simple may be the best though... we like the idea of a rubber stamp with the design & logo on it and this is what I've come up with so far. The design is from a rubber stamp and if we could get our name in this font I think it would look really nice together.
We haven't gotten our scale in the mail yet so this is still our hand-milled soap.

First Batch of Hand-Milled Soap!

2010-02-24T15:34:00.000-06:00

The first batch EVER for Peninsula Soap Co. is cooling in it's PCV pipe mold in the kitchen right now with 4.5 hours of dry time to go. We're starting with the hand-milling process just to get a feel for what it's like to work with soap in the melting/cooling stages and also to experiment with color, oils and dry ingredients. This weekend we'll be trying the soap making process from scratch in our garage. The first batch has ground espresso and coconut oil in it... I ground some of the espresso coarsely (to add texture and exfoliators) and some espresso more very finely (to add color). I'm thinking Espresso Buzz sounds like a good name for it. After all what's better then espresso in the morning!

All soaps will be vegan and cruelty-free plus they will have no chemical or artificial anything. All the ingredients in them will be things that are "pantry common".

Last week we formed our LLC and bought our website www.PeninsulaSoap.com
I'll have to learn how to create the website soon so we can start selling these yummy soaps!

We just did some tweets to record our progress too:)