08.30.07
Posted in Everyday Journal, Farmers Markets at 7:55 am by admin
Farmers Market Soaps, all dressed up and ready to hit the big time!
If life is a process, then soapmaking qualifies as a definitive life experience! Next week my “Farmers Market Series” soaps go to their first farmers’ market showing. I’m a little nervous.
They’ve been sitting on the drying racks for 2-1/2 weeks, and as I look at them I keep thinking of all the things that did not turn out the way I wanted. I’ve sniffed them until I am completely muddled, and I’m wondering if anyone at all will think vegetable soaps were a good idea.
The biggest mistake I made was using oak moss as a base note in the cucumber basil soap. I knew better. Instead of a pretty light green, the soap is light brown, which is interesting, but it’s just not what I wanted. The tomato rosemary soap is a gorgeous natural red/orange color though, and the pumpkin pie spice is the perfect orange/brown with nice dark brown swirls.
On the positive side, they’re all shea butter soaps, and that’s a wonderful addition to any soap. Plus I LOVE the whole concept of using fresh farmers’ market ingredients.
The problem that has me so uncertain is the fragrancing of the three. And it is always true that as much as you hope your first effort at fragrancing will be successful, it often takes a few batches to get it the way you really want it. This is especially true when you go for more complex combinations of essential oils.
It is possible to test combinations with a coffee filter, adding the correct proportions of each oil and sealing it away for a couple of days to allow them to mingle. Even if you take time to do all that, which I admit I seldom do … I’m too anxious to get the soap in the pot … things change when you’re working with larger amounts and then asking the essential oils to go through the saponification process (even if you do add them just before pouring).
The complication in this case is that some of the vegetables I used in the water phase have their own scents to throw into the batch, especially tomatoes and basil. I combined tomatoes with a mix of spicy essential oils, but to my sense, the tomato smell was stronger than I planned. The Pumpkin Pie Spice soap came out great, and the Cucumber Basil Breeze is not objectionable, but I wonder if I couldn’t do better wih it.
To tell the truth, there have been good reviews from friends trapped into providing opinion and feedback when they wandered unawares into the studio. But then … reviews have not been raving either. And that’s what you look for — those raving reviews. The soaps are still in the stage where the fragrances are mingling, so the final word is not in yet.
This is a soapmaker’s angst. Until the soaps get out there and the public gives you feedback, you cannot be sure how they’ll be received. When you’re making soaps from scratch, it’s all your own decisions going into them, and it’s possible to get just a bit personal with them.
I’m sure the soaps are fine…really excellent in fact. And the labels turned out well. They’re brightly colored with a “Farmers Market Series” stamp. I packaged the group of three in an acrylic box and hope to sell as many as possible as a set. And I’m already planning on changes for the next batch!
Sharon
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08.16.07
Posted in Everyday Journal, Farmers Markets at 7:44 am by admin
My idea of creating a batch of farmers’ market soaps has been well worth the effort. To make them I assembled vegetables from several of my favorite farms, and when I sell them, I intend to tell people where the ingredients came from. I want them to represent the care that has gone into local produce grown here in north central Kentucky.
These last few years have seen an explosion of farmers’ markets and a growing appreciation from many people for the thought and effort farmers put into their production. Farmers must plan early in the season what they will grow and how. There is a growing number who choose heirloom varieties of vegetables in the hope of preserving plants that have been neglected or gone out of favor simply because the big chains and producers require long shelf life or easy transportation. These varieties may be much more flavorful and better adapted to local climate, but if there’s not a local market, it’s hard to find a way to distribute them. Farmers’ markets have helped here.
After farmers decide what to grow, they spend long hours planting each seed, cultivating, hauling water during droughts, harvesting and bringing crops to market, and then standing for hours smiling at customers who often want to spend the least amount possible on their purchases. I have to say, as a soapmaker even, you can take it personally when a customer appears not to respect the thought, care and work that has gone into products you produce yourself.
Barbara Kingsolver’s newest book, “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle,” is being read across the country right now, and I think she makes a wonderful case for trying to search out locally-grown foods and make them our primary, day-to-day food choice. It’s really worth reading and as always, Kingsolver blends warm humor into her writing. I enjoyed every minute of the book. I hope my own customers will appreciate my efforts here, both in trying to support the farmers’ markets I attend and bringing products that are truly beneficial to their skin care.
I have no idea how these latest soaps will be received. Maybe the reaction will be, “Why would I want to bathe with a tomato?” On the other hand, maybe the farmers’ market soaps will be enjoyed with special appreciation for our common effort in encouraging and developing a local farm economy. Whichever it is, I promise to keep you posted.
Sharon
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08.15.07
Posted in Everyday Journal, Farmers Markets at 1:22 pm by admin
I just finished my tomato rosemary and pumpkin pie soaps! By the time I got to the pumpkin, it all seemed easy.
The basic idea with these farmers’ market soaps is that I use fresh vegetables instead of water for the lye water phase, so my first task was to mash tomatoes in a blender to get the juice and pulp. The tomatoes made lots more juice than the cucumbers did yesterday, so I mashed up way too many. And then I didn’t want to waste good tomatoes by removing some and adding water, so today’s “lye water” is made with almost 100% tomatoes. It was slightly thick, as was yesterday’s cucumber mash, but when the lye goes in, it thins up some.
I have to warn you, when you mix lye with foodstuffs, you get a powerful odor that soon dissipates, but in the meantime, it smells like ammonia and yucky, unpleasant food! Be forewarned. Thank goodness that stage passes quickly, and at least this time I wasn’t surprised. Undaunted and carrying on, I got the oils ready to go.
When I mixed the lye-tomato mixture with oils, it turned a darker red than I anticipated. Somehow I was expecting a kind of pink tone. Maybe I’ll use less tomatoes next time. This batch has about six pretty good sized tomatoes in it. Well, red can’t be all bad, so pressing forward, I added a spicy mix of essential oils plus rosemary.
The spice plus the rosemary plus the other food fragrances (I almost wrote odors given the state of it all right now!) coming from the studio right now are pretty pungent. I have to assume this will all even out somehow. A soapmaker’s faith.
I made a swirl of darker red by adding some tomato paste to a few cups of soap stew after the essential oils went in. But the base was dark enough it didn’t really need that.
I made sure to add a good dose of rosemary oil and vitamin E for preservatives, but I think these soaps are the kind you make once a year and use right away. Into the mold it went, and I have to say, it is quite pretty. (By the way, although I adapted them considerably, the original inspiration for this effort is from David Fisher, who spoke at a conference I attended some time back.)
Pumpkin & spice & everything nice!
Then on to the pumpkin pie soap. Although my good friends at Hazelfield Farm offered me their first pumpkin of the season, I admit to wimping out and buying a can at the Saveway across the street. I did that because I HAVE cooked pumpkin before. How hard could it be?, I wondered at the time. Well, it’s not hard at all. It’s cutting up that darn melon that gets you. After it’s cut into fairly small pieces (so it will all fit into a large pot), then it cooks down in water for a while (like I said, I’m no cook and my memory for cooking details is limited to about four hours), and I think at that point you can mash it up pretty easily. Or … you can go across the street and buy a can of pumpkin.
I figured after using organic tomatoes, basil and cucumbers these last two days, I deserved a break.
For this soap, the lye water is just traditional lye water, so I put that on and set out all my other additives. I used pumpkin pie spice for a dark swirl and some shea oil for moisturizing. I realized after the lye water cooled that the recipe called for a touch of sugar and salt (one is for hardening, one for lather) added to the water BEFORE the lye goes in. I had forgotten, so I added both at this point and let this be another lesson. There is usually a good reason for saying “before” when you really mean it. Although I have to say, it irritates me when someone tells you to do something like this and doesn’t explain why. How are you supposed to know whether it’s really important or just another direction passed on unthinkingly for generations? (I’ve run into some of those too.) In the recipe I was adapting, they did not explain, but I can tell you now. Either the salt or sugar (or both) refused to melt in the lye water the way they do in plain water (I use distilled). I found them caked on the bottom of the lye water pitcher. So I fished them out and tried to carefully mash them into smaller pieces which worked fine, but they were now smaller pieces which still refused to be absorbed into the water. So my choice was to pitch them or add them to the soap base along with the lye water and grind them with a stick blender. I chose the latter.
That meant I was extra careful in blending the lye water and oils. I could hear the crystals fighting with the stick blender and one big lump never did get blended. I finally threw it away. The ground pumpkin went in at the light trace stage, and I used a Holiday Blend (spicy) essential oil mix for the fragrance.
The batch used less pumpkin than I expected … about 10-12 oz. for a 12-lb. batch of soap. I used more pumpkin pie spice than I planned, though … between 2 and 3 tablespoons in about 4 cups of soap base. I layered the two and swirled with a rubber scraper. It was so easy I wondered what I’d done wrong.
This is the tomato rosemary soap, about 4 hours old, in the mold. Looks pretty pumpkin-y, right?
What happened to the nice orange pumpkin color for this pumpkin pie soap? This batch is just in the mold about two hours. Check back tomorrow.
At the end of the day, the red swirl in the tomato soap has darkened and the pumpkin soap has turned brown! I’m pretty sure the pumpkin brown soap will fade to orange by tomorrow. And the tomato soap is about the color orange I had hoped to get for the pumpkin soap. In fact, the tomato soap may be more pumpkin-y looking than the pumpkin soap. Ah well. It’s been fun. I’ll post photos when I cut it tomorrow.
Freshly-cut Pumpkin Pie Soap bars, now on the drying racks. They’re more orange than they show in this photo, but not as much as I’d like. I’ll probably try more pumpkin next time. Swirl is pretty though.
Tomato Rosemary bars, freshly cut. The color is gorgeous.
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08.14.07
Posted in Everyday Journal, Farmers Markets at 12:41 pm by admin
It’s a pleasure just to look at these gorgeous vegetables!
There’s nothing more inviting this time of year than all those great vegetables, locally grown and proudly offered at your local farmers’ market. Just looking at those gorgeous red tomatoes, spectacular eggplant, cool cucumbers and fragrant basil … it’s an inherently sensual experience!
I mentioned early on in this blog that before I had even produced a bar of soap, my vision was to make soap that looked like food! Also, it’s important to say, I am not now nor have I ever been anything approximating what can be called a cook. I did my motherly duty with pot roasts, hot dogs, cookies and birthday cakes. But no one ever looked at me with dewey eyes and proclaimed, “Wow, what a chef you are!” And we will not explore those unfounded myths that occasionally creep to the surface at family gatherings about my more outrageous recipe substitutions. (Hey … a single mom without a lot of money makes do!)
And one more aside … somehow I have raised two daughters and one son who all have an interest in food and know their way around a kitchen. How did that happen? (They politely suggest I should just rest and enjoy while various holiday feasts are being prepared. And never, ever am I allowed close to Thanksgiving stuffing preparations.)
Last week I got an email from one daughter who said she was “having a nice salad for lunch with tomatoes, cucumbers, garbanzo beans, a little red onion and mild red pepper, feta, lemon juice and olive oil dressing.” I thought, “That’s cool.” And then, chuckling all the while, I shot back an email declaring that what got me excited about all the good veggies this time of year are the new farmers market soaps I’m developing that use cucumbers and tomatoes for the water phase. I doubt that she was as amused as I was.
Anyway, step 2 of the process to rethink my marketing is some of the most fun a soapmaker can have. I get to develop a new recipe!
Cukes and tomatoes for soup … err, soap
Yesterday I made my first batch of cucumber basil soap. I’d been holding on to this basil essential oil for a while, trying to think how to use it. In my mind, fresh basil is a heavenly addition to the world in general. But how to utilize it to its full advantage in a soap?
Finally, with this year’s harvest (and a tip from another soapmaker), I decided I could combine it with cooling cucumber plus some peppermint essential oil and a few others, to make a relaxation soap. What a day it was. Actually, this is pretty typical of an experimental soap day. Everything that can go wrong does go wrong. And nothing works quite like you have it planned. Then, at the end of the day, you look at what you’ve got, analyze it, and go home to soap again another day. After all, soap is like any good friendship or wine … it needs time to blend and meld all of its unique elements and bouquets. No use trying for snap judgements. Better to wait and let it grow naturally.
Here’s a blow-by-blow of how it went.
A day in the experimental soap studio
How weird. When you throw in unknowns such as ground up cucumbers, basil and skin and seeds, you get s-t-r-a-n-g-e and unpredictable things happening I think! Well, maybe not unpredictible, but unexpected at least.
I did a single batch of cucumber basil soap yesterday afternoon. First of all, I came in early and got two small batches of lye water started like a good little soapmaker. (It’s always best to experiment making small batches, although I usually ignore that advice and sometimes am sorry.) Then I got a phone call and was describing what I had done when I suddenly realized … “Hey, dopey! … You were supposed to use ground cucumber in the water phase.” Great. So I combined both of those pitchers of lye water to make one big batch and ended up making another soap I’m low on, which was OK. Glad I got that done.
Then I started ANOTHER batch of lye, only this time I used two big and one small cuke, mashed in the blender, plus some extra skins. I added a bit of water to make enough liquid (I was worried, the cukes weren’t thin like water, just mushy). I blended in some fresh basil leaves, chopped, and used some shea oil.
For scent, I had made a long list of essential oil candidates for a combination. I was going for a cooling, fresh fragrance, and also had a couple eo’s I was anxious to add. They included basil (of course), anise, lime, pink grapefruit, peppermint, lavender, clary sage and some kind of low note base. I tried to narrow it down and then I figured, what the heck. I decided to just use them all because I couldn’t think what to leave out.
When I added the lye concoction to the oils, the whole batch turned from green to a kind of muddy red. That happens sometimes— lye turns everything to its opposite. Then I added the basil leaves and some nettle powder in the pot to give the whole thing a darker green swirl, but the colors were so muddled and odd, I couldn’t really see the swirl. Oh well, it’s “what-will-be” time. Into the mold it went and home I went. With a soap like this, it will take time to see what actually happens after it cures.
Here’s the new soap, about 24 hours old, mostly brown with slightly red (!) edges. As the day went on it got browner. No telling what will happen as it cures, however.
Today I unmolded and cut the block, and it’s odd … it was reddish on the outside, greenish on the inside, and a hint of a darker green swirl. As the day went on it became kind of rich brown. I have no idea what will eventually happen with this soap! To the drying racks! As to the scent, honestly, today I don’t know if I like it or not. Sometimes I don’t, and sometimes I do. Of course it will have to sit and blend, plus I need to get it out there and see what the response is.
OK, on to the next course. tomato rosemary. I’m not sure how I’ll scent it. More to follow.
Sharon
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Posted in Everyday Journal, Farmers Markets at 6:10 am by admin
Frankfort farmer’s market. My table is bottom center. You can’t see much of it, but I’ll try for more photos soon.
I’ve been rethinking my approach to soapmaking…not the recipes or goals but the marketing and strategy. I have not come to any final conclusions, but the process has been spurred by participation in the Platinum 10 seminars held by the state of Kentucky. Moderator Keith Rucker, a New York marketing consultant, encouraged me to think of a “high-end” approach such as the ultimate bar of soap with all the best ingredients that will help you shed 10 lbs.! He also suggested combining soap names with emotions or orienting a group to frenzied moms or fussy babies or romantic get-aways…things like that.
I’ve begun the process by creating laminated signage and dividing my soaps into categories, which they actually are already anyway. But now at markets I’m advertising this group of soaps as “ultimate skin care” or “man soaps” or “relaxation soaps.” So far I’ve had no feedback from customers, so I’m trying to take it a step further.
At last week’s farmer’s market I was considering my table layout. Actually, I like it. It’s attractive and professional. I added a bouquet of flowers from Hazelfield Farm, the local organic flower producer in the area. But, as I looked at it critically, I decided maybe one downfall is that there is no irresistible, eye-catching center to the display. Mostly at this market, people are rushing by to get the freshest and cheapest vegetables. Vegetables is what they come to the market for, and they try to get there early to get what they perceive as the pick of the crop.
My soap buyers are not the early birds. I’ll begin selling later in the morning, if there is any cash left, that is. But what might help is to add something to the table that they will want to touch, feel, or just look at. I’m not sure what that is, and weight is an issue. I have to load and unload the car, and my soap studio is on the second floor of an old, historic bank building. I have a pretty fountain, but it takes electricity which isn’t available easily at the market. So I’m thinking of something like a big display of the newest soap on the drying racks. One kind of soap piled high that smells really good. If it would be enough of an attention-grabber to encourage people to stop, that might help.
Sharon
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