Organised Chaos!

Look how untidy my soap room is

at the moment....

Pretty messy huh? It's because I have had A LOT of orders since I re opened my site on Monday and I've been a busy bee trying to get everything done! The big white tub you can see on the right is the soap base! I scoop that out with an ice cream scoop, melt it then add colour and fragrances!

On the left at the very front of the photo is the freezer with the microwave on top! Two very important parts of soap making!! The bin is overflowing.. The table is covered in melted soap splats, fragrance bottles.. junk. I need to tidy this place up this weekend!!

I've got lots of parcels to send off tomorrow! Note how I strategically placed a soap in front of the address on the card..! I love wrapped the parcels up and putting the stickers on.. Is that a bit sad of me? The people in the post office recognise me now and always sniff the parcels!

Back in business!

A week or so ago I decided to close my website for a while as I wasn't feeling very well and had a lot of orders to catch up on. I'm feeling much better now so re opened it last night and have had 3 orders already!

Whilst the website was closed I have made two new soapies!

I absolutely love these! They turned out better than I expected. These are mini slices of cake with lovely piped icing detail. I haven't measured them but I think they're around 2" long and 1" wide. My Mum dug out some old china for me to take photos of them with, I like they look cute cute cute! I'll be selling 2 of these in a pack for £3.00.

Here are some pretty little snowflakes! They are the perfect size for hand soaps and you'll get 4 in a pack for £3.00. The detail on them is fab and

I'll be doing them in fresh fragrances only e.g clean cotton or peppermint. This is to keep the white bright and also if snow had a smell I imagine it'd b fresh and crisp!

I think these will be great to have in your guest bathroom or even on display as little xmas decorations dotted around the house!

I'm busy preparing for my stall at the Clutter City Christmas Market in Norwich which is on the 4th of Dec. I hope lots of people come along and buy my soapies! I'm really enjoying getting the xmas soaps sorted, I've got red and green ribbon and little bells to tie the bags with!

So take a look at my site Sophie's Soap and see if there is anything that takes your fancy. I think any of my soaps would make great stocking fillers!

Price Change

Long time no..blog? I've been pretty busy making orders this past week, plus I wasn't feeling too great so didn't have much to blog about RE soap wise!

Other than Cherry Cherry now stocking my soaps nothing majorly exciting has happened since then. I'm in the process of setting up a deal with another shop in Wymondham which I'll keep you posted about!

I get a lot of nice feeback from all my customers but I've been noticing quite a few of them are saying my prices are too cheap! Almost everyone who sees my soaps or goes on my site tells me I'm under charging and selling myself short etc etc. I've been debating upping my prices for over a month now and I think now is the time to do it. As I'm getting alot of whole sale interest I think I do need to raise the prices slightly seeing as whole salers do tend to ask for big discounts. If I discount my already cheap soaps then I'm not really making much profit!

So go check out my site and tell me what you think about the altered prices... They haven't changed drastically, just 50p here, £1 there. I do not want to scare people off by being over priced, but then you do have to think about the work that goes into these soaps, the fact they are unique and they are handmade by little old me on my own!

Hopefully once I've finished these large orders I have at the moment I will put together some Christmas Gift Sets and list them on the site and show you guys some pics etc.

I've just re stocked on some of my popular fragrances like Green Apple and Love Spell. Also ordered Baby Powder which is lovely and Gingerbread Man for the gingerbread men soaps, rather than the Ginger Souffle which I don't think is sweet enough!

YouTube

I've recently gotten quite into watching videos on youutube, and not just cute animal videos, but review and haul videos!

I decided to make a channel and give it a go... I'm still shy and getting comfortable talking to the camera, but go take a look at some of my soap related videos here http://www.youtube.com/user/cutecutecuteist?feature=mhum

If there is anything you'd like me to talk about RE soap then let me know an I'll do a video about it! I'm going to do a fragrance description one soon, and also one showing how well the soaps lather...

I am extremely busy at the moment, I'm getting orders every day and have lots to make!

EXCITING NEWS!

As you may have read in one of my previous blogs, I've been making some samples to take into a shop in the city called Cherry Cherry. A few weeks ago the owner asked me to go in on the 12th with some samples to see if she liked them. I put together around 15 samples, all packaged nicely and carried them in a lovely big basket. My Mum and I went up the city and I was so nervous, had a few wobbly moments on the way there but managed not to cry! When we walked round the corner I found out the shop was shut!! I couldn't believe it! There was a sign on the door saying there had been a till malfunction and would re open tomorrow. I was so gutted and thought that this must be a bad omen and a sign that my soaps weren't good enough for the shop.

When I got home I sent the owner a message asking when they were definitely going to be open again and she told me to pop in Thursday (two days later)

So once again, Mum and I went up the city and this time Cherry Cherry was open! I was so incredibly nervousmy knees were literally knocking together and I found it hard to speak and was so self concious. There were a few customers in the shop, the owner Katy was behind the till and another member of staff was near by too. My Mum browsed round the shop whilst I introduced myself and my soaps! The first thing Katy and the other lady said was how good they smelt!! She loved everything, except the Halloween ones as she said she wouldn't be selling anything Halloween related. They both sniffed everything and said how lovely everything was. She's placed an order for all of the cupcakes, chocolate bars, crayons and cookies! She only wants 3 of each to start off with to see how things go, but fingers crossed they'll sell well and she'll want more. She said the xmas ones would be great nearer the time, and everything would make really good stocking fillers!
So I've now got to make the soaps for her and take them in at the end of this week and then Sophie's Soap will be on sale in a real shop, in a VERY trendy part of Norwich City! I cannot express how happy and proud I am of myself. I have no qualifications at all as I left school very early due to ill health, and now my health is still preventing me from working, but my soaps are my job now!

Cherry Cherry is a seriously cool little boutique shop that sells kitchy handmade items from etsy and folksy, so it's the perfect place for my soaps! They also have a website, go check it out and you'll see what kind of stuff they have on sale there! www.cherrycherryshop.com

To celebrate me and my Mum went for a hot chocolate in Cafe Rouge!

Apart from making Cherry Cherry's soaps I've been busy making whole sale orders and other orders from folksy today. Very busy. I now have a freezer in my soap room which is brilliant as it speeds the process up loads!! I have got some black and white lino flooring that needs to be laid when my Dad has the time.

I ordered some postcards last night to hand out to people and have at craft fairs, I'll upoad a pic of them when they arrive.

How do I do it?!

Quite a few people ask me how do I make my soaps, especially once they've seen them in real life.. So I thought I'd do a little bloggy about how I got into soap making and the soap making process!

At the moment I am too unwell to work as I have an anxiety disorder and as you may guess I do get very bored home alone all the time. One evening a few months ago I was just browsing online and typed in cupcake candles on youtube or google and a video came up of this american lady showing you how to make a cupcake soap! I was amazed.. I then ordered 1 kilo of soap and 3 fragrances and 3 colourants and couldn't wait to get started.

A few days later they arrived and I got cracking! It was all a bit trial and error at first.. I tried whipping the soap to make the "icing" for the cupcakes but it was a disaster! The soap would set too quickly and got hard and get stuck in the piper... I tried whipping it for a shorter while but then it was too running and slided off the cupcake :( Very annoying!

I then done some research online on how to make cupcake soaps and discovered an American site selling soaping materials with different moulds etc. Since then it's all gone up hill really... I took photos of what I'd made at put them on my facebook and loads of people were interested and I soon started selling them! At first I only had the odd order here and there, but now I get at least one every other day. Sometimes I'll got about 3 days with no orders, and then on the 4th day I'll get loads! I get a lot of emails from people asking for quotes on larger orders for wedding favours or whole sale, I'm kept busy replying to questions a lot!

So how do I make the soaps? I use a process called Melt and Pour - there are two soap methods, Melt and Pour or Cold Process. Cold Process is a lot more taxing and involves using chemicals and then waiting 6-8 weeks for the soap to "cure" after you've made it so it's safe to use. Well me being me and very impatient I decided to go for the melt and pour method.

I'll do a step by step guide of how I make my soaps:
1. I use an ice cream scoop to scoop out some soap base from my big tub. The Soap base is just white with no fragrances or oils added.

2.I then cut it into small pieces and put it in the microwave for 30 second bursts so I don't over heat the soap. I've done this before and it all boils up and sort of disapears - not good!

3.Once it's melted I give it a stir and add a few drops of colourant. I then use a pipette and add the fragrance. Depending on the fragrance I then add something called Vanilla Stabilizer. Any fragrance that has vanilla in eventually turns the soap brown unless the stabilizer is added. If it turns brown it doesn't effect the soap in anyway, it's still safe to use and smells yummy but doesn't look as pretty! So I add eaqual amounts of stabilizer as fragrance to the base. I give it a stir so it's all mixed in, if it's not mixed in well enough the fragrance oil seperates and floats to the top of the soap which isn't good!

4.I then add glitter if desired and pour it into a mould. Depending on the soap depends on the next steps.. If I'm making a cupcake I pour in the cherry topping first...wait for that to set, then add the icing colours, wait for that to set..then add the base. If I'm doing a layered bar or ice lolly I pour each colour alternatively and wait for each layer to set before I add the next. I've been impatient in the past and poured the second layer before the first has set and as the soap is very hot, it melts the skin of the first layer and the colours all combine and go funny! Patience is a virtue!

5.Once I've poured all the layers I put the mould in a safe place where it's not going to get knocked over and leave it to set. These can vary from 10 mins to an hour. In this time I usually wash up my jugs and spoons and write out the labels.

6. When the soaps are set I pop them out of their moulds. I love this part! No two soap are exactly the same and I love seeing the cupcakes when they're finished.

7. I then sprinkle some glitter on top if needed and place them in their bags or boxes, tie with ribbon and add the fragrance labels. If I'm sending them in the post I wrap each one in tissue paper and bubble wrap and pack them up in a box ready to go! I also add in a little thank you note and business card too. I really enjoy wrapping everything up.. I think it's nice to take the time to make things look nice and like a lovely gift. I think it's little things like that that make all the difference! I often get feedback from customers saying how nicely everything was wrapped.

So, now you know! I love making soaps, it keeps me very busy and any money I earn is a bonus! I've made quite a few friends online through selling my soaps too :)

Cupcake Gift Sets

NEW: Cupcake Gift Sets... This little beauty consists of 4 "Bakery Style Cupcakes" in a variety of colours and fragrances packaged in an adorable cupcake box. Price £12. On their own the "Bakery Style Cupcakes" are £4 each so you are saving money by buying them in this set.


I just love it so much, the box is so cool and I think this is a really fab, unique gift idea.
I'll be adding it to my folksy store shortly.