Coloring with ROOTS...

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!

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.

Rose Water Experiment

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.