December 16, 1998

Yep! It's true! I've been unforgiveably lazy about updating the diary lately. :) But truth be told, there isn't much soapin' news I have to give...

First of all, from the 5th through the 12th I was in Boston, for a conference. (USENIX' LISA '98) So naturally, the only soap related things I did out there were use some of my oatmeal-honey soap instead of the stuff they put out, and save the stuff they put out to send to a group that collects hotel-sized toiletries to give to homeless kids. I was busy all day long; even if I had known any soap places to go I probably wouldn't have had time. :)

Just before I left, about December 1st (here is where the "unforgiveably lazy part comes in -- I didn't write it down and now I can't remember) I made some nice rose scented soap, a 3 lb. batch. It was still soft a few days after I made it, when I left. When I got back, it was still soft! (Not as soft, but still squishable if I poked it.) So I took my recipe and went over it in the MMS lye calculator again, and it turns out I wrote down 4 oz. lye instead of 5 oz. lye. Doh! I've been waiting for a chance to breathe, because when (if!) I get that, I want to make a fresh batch of the rose soap, not superfatted, and combine that fresh batch with the rebatched super-superfatted batch, so hopefully I'll come out with a nice blend. It was a really nice recipe, too -- Darn. I used SweetCakes Red Rose FO with a quarter-cup of powdered rosebuds for color. I was hoping for a pinkish color, or even reddish or purplish, but I got a kind of greeny-brown color (I think it's because I used pomace olive oil). And I had such high hopes for that soap, too... :(

In other news, I got lots of goodies!!!! Several co-ops from Elaya came in. 5 lbs. of white mica (Sneeze city! That woman deserves a nobel peace prize for co-oping *mica*!), 5 lbs of cocoa butter (signed up for the co-op before I purchased the bucket from Blommer's -- before I knew I could buy it from Blommer's actually), 2 lbs. Mango butter, 2 lbs. Shea butter, and white beeswax beads (OH how nice these will be to measure!!). I also got my Tea Tree oil from Susan H. that she co-oped. Before I left, I also got in my gallon of hempseed oil that I went in with some other folks to buy, my beeswax from Glory Bee, my palm kernel oil from Maggie's co-op (she *also* deserves a medal; that stuff is hard as a rock!), and a retail order from Soap Saloon with glycerine and sweet almond oil. I can't wait to try some of these new goodies; I just need more hours in a day. :)

Oh, also, I tried my hand at candlemaking for the first time in about 7 years the day before yesterday. I took an old Folger's can (my old favorite wax-melting container) and bent a spout into it with a pair of pliers, then melted down some of the Glory Bee beeswax in it. When it was done melting, I mixed in about a quarter-cup of mica, until it was a beautiful shimmering tan color -- you could see the heat waves in the melted wax reflected in the movements of the mica! It was really neat. Then I poured that into a 3" square mold that I picked up at a craft store. I let it cool in the mold for a day, and last night I unmolded it. Welp, you can tell that I'm an amateur with amateur molds. :) Unfortunately, the mica didn't show up in the hardened wax. :( I was a little sad about that. Also, the wick got kind of mixed up and was off-center, and you could hardly tell where it was (it slipped out of the little plastic thingy that I was supposed to thread it through to hold it while the candle set up, and so it didn't stick out at the top or anything). I decided to shave the top (which was a slightly inclined surface, into a kind of flattened pyramid) flat, and use the bottom as the top. :) Well heck, it's my candle :P And that's what I get for buying the clearance sale molds :) Next time, maybe I'll buy a nice metal mold and it'll look nicer. Oh well. :)