The Week in Soap: 15th July ’18

This is going to be a quick post – I haven’t made any soap this week, but it’s been a busy week for wholesale and guest bar orders, so most of my time has been spent putting them together.

Wedesday was the exception to the regular routine, and I spent the morning at my monthly networking group, telling them all about my business.  I’ve done so many soapmaking demonstrations and talks, but I’ve never had to speak to a room of business people people about MY business. About my struggles and successes, and future development and growth.  I was a little nervous to begin with, but soon warmed up, and I even made some sales, which is  always a bonus!  I joined the group  back in January, and although time constraints have meant that I haven’t been able to attend every meet-up, I’m really beginning to really appreciate the benefits of being a member.  There was a time, not so long ago, when I would have been rather dismissive of this kind of group. And all the more so because it’s called ‘Women Working Together’.  But to be honest the idea of networking was a little daunting, and I’d heard some horror stories of pushy men practicing their sales patter on unsuspecting newbies at networking events.  So, I decided to give this group a whirl, and I’m so glad I did.  I was welcomed from the beginning, and the advice and support I get from other members, who have far more experience of growing businesses, is invaluable.

I’m really short of soapy pics to share with you this week, but here are a couple of the guest bars that I put together for one of my holiday home orders.  These particular ones were for a gorgeous cottage on the Lleyn Peninsula (well worth checking out if you ever fancy a break in this neck of the woods!)

Mini guest bars

More mini guest bars

I’ve got some new ceramic soap dishes on the way, made by my talented friend Helen of the Snowdonia Blue Slate Pottery.  These are so beautiful, and sell well as part of sets.

Ceramic Soapishes

And here, just for you, is the very first look at how I’m proposing to package my new facial bars when I launch next month:

Facial bar packaging

There’ll be a tag on the ties (as I have now) and a stamp on the bag with my logo – that’s the plan anyway.

Oh, and I’ve finally taken the plunge and signed up for a card reader, so that I can take card payments at fairs and markets. I don’t think that not having one has caused me to Iose an awful lot of sales in the past, but I know I have lost some.  People who say they’ll come back later when they’ve been to the cash-point, but they never do.  Perhaps they never meant to do so, but who knows?

Over on Instagram, this was my best performing post of the week – a #throwbackthursday collection of discontinued bars. I still love the all-blues one, and I’m thinking of using that colour scheme to make a nice ‘ice blue’ themed bar for next Christmas:

Discontinued Drop Swirls

And this one was my favourite IG post of the week, purely because it combines my two passions of soapmaking and books – a selection of my favourite soaping books. How many of these do you have?  I’m open to recommendations too 😉

Soapmaking books

 

On a personal note, this week saw the first harvest from the garden – a cucumber and two (TWO lol) beans. This was taken at the beginning of the week, and there have been a further two cucumbers since. Fortunate, as my son absolutely loves them!

Cucumber & beans

This weekend has been pretty active, with an early morning walk with my friend yesterday (Saturday) morning. The sun shone, the birds sang, and I got home in time for breakfast feeling, dare I say it, awesome!!

Beddgelert walk

And then today (Sunday) my husband and I took the children on a walk up into the mountains, to a hidden lake called Llyn (Lake) Idwal:

Llyn Idwal

 

Kind of an incongruous place to find a beach, but a beach it certainly is – there were even a couple of swimmers.  We had a bit of a paddle, and the kids did a load of rock climbing, before we headed back down and home just in time for dinner. My kind of day 😉

Thanks for reading!

The Week in Soap: 8th July ’18

I’ve realised this evening that I need to start some kind of daily diary. This blog is supposed to serve as a record of the development of my business, but as I sat down this evening to write, I wasn’t entirely sure what it is I’ve been doing all week 😀  I think it’s the heat, going to my head.  It’s been another scorcher, with temperatures around 28-29 degrees every day, and I’m loving it…  I have fingers, toes and everything else crossed that it hold up after the schools break up for summer (less than two weeks away now – yey/eek!!) but I’ll confess to being a little pessimistic about the chances…

Back to last week then, and on Monday I took the day off and climbed a mountain.  The perfect start to week, despite the oppressive heat.  I went with three girlfriends, and we took our time, putting the world to rights as we walked.  This is the view back down towards our village from the top:

Beddgelert from the summit of Hebog

We got back in time for the school run and then we all headed down to the river for a cooling dip.  By the time I got to bed that night I’d clocked up over 28,000 steps on my Fitbit.  That’ll do me 🙂

I was back to work on Tuesday, wrapping and labelling stock to replenish what I’d sold at the fair the previous Saturday.  I spent a bit of time reorganising my office, and came across these bars that I hadn’t put up for sale because of the partial gel:

Botanica with partial gel

It’s great soap (of course!) and has been curing for months so it’s wonderfully hard, but it’s just not perfect, so I wasn’t happy selling it.  Anyway, there’s only so much ‘reject’ soap that we can get through at home, so I decided to offer it for half price on my Facebook page.  I had absolutely no idea it would prove so popular. I went off to a dentist appointment and forgot about soap for a while, and when I came out my notifications were going crazy and they were all sold no time.  Why on earth has it taken me so long to do that?

On Wednesday I sent off my application for the largest Christmas fair around here, the Portmeirion Winter Fair. It’s held on the first weekend of December, and I had a great (and profitable!) time there last year, so fingers crossed I can return this year.

Thursday was soapmaking day – woop!  I made 4 loaves (60 bars) of my most time-consuming bar, the seven colour Tutti Frutti, scented with a jelly beans fragrance oil.  I also made a batch of my luxury Facial Bar, in my tall ‘n’ skinny mould from The Moulds Shop.  Nope, I’m not on commission, I just love their moulds :-D.

Tutti Frutti in the mould

Freshly poured facial soap in the mould

(Yes, that’s a permanent kink in the silicone liner 😦 Entirely my fault, I stored it badly)

Generally I don’t gel my soaps.  It’s too difficult to cover my textured tops to insulate them, so I don’t normally bother.  Last time I made the facial bars I got a partial gel so this time, when I saw that the batter in the mould was starting to gel, I popped it outside into the (hot!) sunshine and let it do its thing. Because I don’t often get to see the gelling process, I excitedly took a few snaps along the way:

Gelling…

More gelling…

(nearly) fully gelled…

At this point I had to go over to the office and was worried that the batch might overheat if I left it in the sun unattended, so I brought it indoors again. I’m sure it would have been fine, and I kind of wish I’d left it out to finish off, but never mind…

On Friday morning I unmoulded and cut the facial bars:

Facial Bars, freshly cut

I am ridiculously, utterly excited about this facial bar. I’ve been using it myself for months, to the exclusion of anything else, and I absolutely LOVE it.  I don’t want or need anything else.  It’s been tested by many others, and the feedback has been amazing, so this batch is the first that I’ll be offering for sale, probably in mid to late August.  It’s got some wonderful ingredients, including evening primrose, sweet almond, jojoba and argan oils, and I’ll be writing a post about it closer to the launch date.

I took Friday afternoon off (yes, more time off lol) and caught up with an old friend, so I was back into the office on Saturday, just briefly, to cut the Tutti Frutti soaps:

Freshly cut Tutti Frutti

Freshly cut Tutti Frutti

The rest of Saturday (or what felt like an awful lot of it anyway) was spent painting our hallway.  Not exciting, but very satisfying. Oh, and avoiding the flippin’ football. Apparently England are doing ok?  Bah – give me the Tour de France any day 😉

Thanks for reading, have a great week, and I’ll be back soon!

 

 

The Week in Soap: 1st July ’18

July.  JULY guys!!  How the hell did that happen?  Officially half way through the year, closer to next Christmas than last… Uh oh…  Mind you, it couldn’t possibly feel LESS Christmassy here in north Wales; our heat wave continues, very unusual weather for us, and there’s a lot of huffing and puffing and complaints that it’s too hot.  Well not for me it ain’t.  I’ve been waiting YEARS for this kind of weather, seriously, years. Since the last proper heatwave in 1976 in actual fact (I’m not even kidding).  Hands up who thinks it’ll last juuust up until the schools break up for the summer holidays?

We’re lucky enough to have a river run through our village, one that’s swimmable in, and that’s where we’ve been after school every day this past week.  I don’t often tend to work past 3pm anyway, as that’s when the kids finish school, but I will occasionally go back to the office after my husband finishes work at 4pm if I have a lot on.  There was no chance of that happening this week.  Swimmies on, down the river, and a cooling dip was in order every single day – bliss.  These are the kind of childhood memories that we dreamt of giving our kids when we left the bright city lights to move back home to the countryside:

River Fun in the Sun

It’s been another fairly quiet week on the business front.  On Monday I sent out a few orders that had come in over the weekend, and the rest of that day and Tuesday was spent in the office, wrapping and labelling.

On Wednesday I got to make soap again – happy days!  60 bars of Welsh Rose and 60 bars of Scrubby Peppermint:

120 Bars of Soap in the Mould

 

Welsh Rose & Peppermint Soaps in the Mould

On Thursday I was back in the office, making sure everything was ready for Saturday’s Craft Fair in Porthmadog.  I cut the soap from the day before – I usually wait 48 hours before unmoulding and cutting, but for some reason I thought Thursday was Friday (and I also forgot to steam the tops, so they’re a bit more ashy than usual) This is a quick ‘first look’ snap of both varieties.

Scrubby Peppermint & Welsh rose, just cut

Friday was a short day as I had an appointment at the hairdressers. I did take a few photographs though. I still have this crazy idea that I’ll have a live website sometime soon, so I’m still playing with photography ideas.  This one is Sugar Drops in its packaging:

Sugar Drops, Packaged

Saturday was my first Craft Fair since the end of April:

Soaps for Sale

Traeth Craig Du on Display

Bathbombs7

It was a sweltering hot day, and I wasn’t expecting much, but I ended up having a pretty good day.  This was mostly thanks to returning customers which was really gratifying.  I was so pleased that Saturday was relatively successful, it raised my spirits somewhat as in all honesty, I’ve been feeling a little downhearted this last 7-10 days.  I know there are ups and downs in every business, and while I’ve had an awful lot of ups this year, the downs still have an effect.  I’ve contacted a few potential retailers recently with a view to them stocking my products.  Of the four most recent, three haven’t even acknowledged my communication, and the one who did, and to whom I sent samples (which were received and described as ‘lovely’) has since cut contact with no explanation.  I like to think I’m fairly thick skinned, and I would have no problem whatsoever with a ‘thanks but no thanks’ kind of response, but this made me question my quality of my products (which is patently nonsense given the number of returning customers and glowing testimonials I have).  Ah well, onwards and upwards as they say.

Sunday was another very satisfying, if exhausting, day, continuing the saga of taming our garden.  It was mostly heavy work – digging, landscaping etc – with nothing spectacular to show at the end, but we GOT STUFF DONE, which always feels good.  I do have one single raised bed that I’m particularly happy with though:

FULL raised bed!

In there I have loads of broadbeans, some tomato plants, two courgette plants, a cucumber plant, runner beans, sweetpeas and sunflowers.  Not bad for a small plot eh?!

Thanks for reading, I’ll be back again soon. Have a great week everyone!