Soap Making Supplies Blog

Our Soap Making Oil Shipment is Here!

Published November 17, 2011 by Steve

Hi everyone! We just got our soap making oils shipment in early last week and we are all stocked up for the 4th quarter. It’s always an adventure trying to get these 400 plus pound barrels into the warehouse.

Below is a picture of us trying to roll the oils up to our loading ramp. This is only Greg’s 3rd week as part of our team and as you can see, he is already being introduced to the physically demanding side of running Soap Making Resource. He was a great sport though and more than willing to help!

And here we go down the ramp!

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Joni and Friends Banquet

Published November 13, 2011 by Steve

Hi Everyone! I went to a wonderful fundraising banquet a few nights ago for Joni and Friends organization. An NPO that I am heavily involved with. It was a splendid evening in which I had the opportunity to meet with old friends and hear the inspirational stories of those involved with the organization.

Joni and Friends is a ministry focused on helping families affected by disability. Just a few of their organized events include the running of family camps during the summer months, the delivery of thousands of wheelchairs all over the world through “Wheels for the World” and meaningful retreats for wounded warriors and their families.

Here’s a picture of me ironing my clothes in preparation for this event… Yes… I do know how to iron; I think!

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Christmas Essential Oil Blends

Published November 10, 2011 by Steve

Christmas is coming… and a whole lot sooner for us soap makers! In fact, the big day is less than 7 weeks away! I can’t believe that. I know that so many of you are already working hard on getting your Christmas product line together. Whether you are selling your soaps or simply creating soapy gifts for your loved ones, now is the time to start manufacturing your bars to allow ample cure time before packaging.

Today, I thought that I would share with you a few of my wonderful Christmas essential oil blends. I hope that you enjoy them!

Here’s a picture of me in the Soap Making Resource warehouse testing the aroma of my blend that I just created in one of our jars.

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Charcoal Soap Recipe

Published July 23, 2011 by Steve

Charcoal Soap Recipe

Just the other week, I created a charcoal soap with a marbled affect using my favorite charcoal soap recipe. Turned out very nice I must say! I especially liked the peppermint essential oil and anise essential oil blend. I’m kind of a sucker for anything anise! Continue reading →

Miller’s Smorgasbord – homemade soaps

Published June 21, 2011 by Steve

Miller's Smorgasbord

Recently, I had the privilege of dining with one of my good friends at the wonderful Millers Smorgasbord. A Lancaster County classic. Man… if you want some delectable home-cooked comfort food, then this is the place for you!

I also browsed the gift shop area, where of course, I found some handmade soaps and lotions available to purchase. See them below: Continue reading →

Honey Oatmeal Soap Recipe

Published June 18, 2011 by Steve

Honey Oatmeal Soap

Made a wonderful soap the other day using my honey oatmeal soap recipe in one of our new acrylic slab soap molds. It was a ton of fun! Click here to see a full recipe tutorial on how to make it yourself!

The key to making a honey soap successfully is to keep the batch cool. Honey is made up of approximately 20% sugar. Sugar will cause your soap to heat up more than normal. If this heat is allowed to build, it may “over-heat” causing cosmetic flaws in your finished product. You don’t want that to happen! Continue reading →

Gelled Soap

Published June 3, 2011 by Steve

Have you ever seen soap as it is going through the gel phase? Below is a great picture that was snapped in the Soap Making Resource warehouse. This particular batch was colored a beautiful violet using alkanet root powder.

Soap Going Through Gel Phase

You can clearly see the darker color in the middle of the soap log. This darker hued portion of soap is the part currently going through the gel phase. As heat builds, eventually, the gel will spread to all corners of the mold, if, or course, the conditions are right and the heat is allowed to keep on building up. Continue reading →

Madder Root Soap – Reporting Back…

Published May 17, 2011 by Steve

If you are an avid Soap Making Resource follower, you may remember a tutorial from a while back explaining how to use madder root in soap making for coloring homemade soap red. Click here to review that full tutorial. By the way, you can sign up for the newsletter here if you still need to do that.

As promised, I would like to report back on how our madder root soap is doing. Did it fade? Did it discolor? Did any mold or other rotting develop? I think it’s important that as I demonstrate how to use each colorant to also show how it changes over time.

I’ve been keeping the soaps from our natural colorant tutorials in a cardboard box behind one of our shelves in the warehouse. Away from all light. You can see me below opening the cardboard box to take a peak at what lied inside… I was actually pretty excited to see whether or not the color produced by madder morphed. And if it did change, what did it look like now?

Opening Madder Root Soap Box

next is a picture that I took, of one of the madder root soap bars after pulling it out of storage. It’s a pretty color, isn’t it? Continue reading →

Fresh Lemongrass

Published May 12, 2011 by Steve

So I finally found time to do some much needed grocery shopping the other day. Sometimes, it’s really hard to find a few minutes to escape from Soap Making Resource business matters and run some personal errands.

I try my best to eat a lot of veggies and I love to create various stir fries. I was browsing through the different vegetables and herbs, looking for ingredients, and ran into the below pictured fresh lemongrass.

Now, for some reason, I’ve never seen fresh lemongrass in the grocery store before. Of course, my mind went instantly to thinking about soap making and the wonderful scent of lemongrass essential oil and dried lemongrass herb.

As nonchalantly as I could, I snapped the above picture with my phone trying not to look too conspicuous. Continue reading →

How to Blend Essential Oils

Published May 10, 2011 by Steve

We have a really cool essential oil section in the Soap Making Resource warehouse where I can work on new natural aroma combinations to my heart’s content. At Soap Making Resource, we carry more than 45 therapeutic grade essential oils as part of our soap making supplies inventory, so there are a ton of great scents that I can play with!

Here’s a picture of me in the warehouse working on an essential oil blend:

blending essential oils