Making War Pig

As promised, I added another soap to the Soap for Hope line. War Pig represents all servicemembers and their sacrifices to keep this country free. This was a no brainer for me as my husband and I are both veterans. It took me a while to come up with a design for this soap since not just any one will do. I wanted a red, white, and blue theme and soon realized how hard it was going to be since there are sooooo many patriotic soaps. I wanted mine to be special, plus I didn’t want to copy someone else's work. After much research (and frustration) I finally got the idea to do a design I hadn’t tried yet. The secret feather swirl. Here’s one from handmadeinflorida.blogspot.com

Beautiful right? Imagine it being red and white. That’s the idea I had. To have about 2/3 of the soap white with the red and white feather swirl and 1/3 blue with white star embeds inside and on top. I chose a pretty unisex scent as I want this to be for both men and women. It’s a dupe of Karma from Lush.

Everything started out fine. I had never soaped with this fragrance so I played it safe and didn’t bring the soap to trace, just to emulsification. Well, apparently I didn’t play it safe enough. It started to trace pretty fast without me even mixing it. I had barely started the feather swirl and knew immediately I needed a backup plan for the design. I had to glop the soap in for the swirl and had to move super fast to get the embeds into the blue. Get this, I didn’t even stick blend the blue. At all. It was that thick. So there are speckles of blue throughout since I never got the chance to incorporate it all. This is what I ended up with

   

This is NOT what my vision was. The blue is way lighter than I wanted because of not mixing and it was only supposed to be on one side. This is what I get for using my new mixing bowls with no measurements on them. I had too much blue and not enough white so I had to cover the whole top of the soap with blue. I made it work though. Here’s War Pig ready for duty in your shower

 

Needless to say, I'm disappointed. The next batch will definitely be my original design. Now that I know this fragrance speeds things up, I’ll change things up a bit. I didn't get the making of War Pig because nothing went right and my camera decided it was going to start the holiday weekend early and stopped working. It randomly stopped recording. I've always said there's a ghost in this house. Anyway, I did get to record a cutting video, check it out on my YouTube channel. Don't mind my fear of the wasp. That thing was HUGE.

Fifty percent all of proceeds from War Pig will go to the Wounded Warrior Project. Buy a soap, help a veteran.

Happy sudsing!

 

Soap For Hope

Helping others is great isn’t it? To know that you helped someone and put a smile on their face, it’s a heartwarming feeling. No one knows this feeling more than my best friend Sandra. Sandra’s a giver. Whether you’re a friend, acquaintance, or a total stranger, she genuinely gives without expecting anything in return. She used to dream about going into the Peace Corps and has donated to several charities. So it didn’t come as much of a surprise when I was talking to her one day about the different categories of soap I was conjuring up that she brought up having a charity line. Thus, the birth of Soap For Hope. 

Soap For Hope is a line of soaps that are made to represent several charities. These soaps are near and dear to our hearts, the organizations chosen to be represented were not chosen at random. Fifty percent of the proceeds from any soap in the Soap For Hope line will go to the organizations that each soap represents.

Now, there’s only one soap available right now but rest assured, the line will definitely be expanding. No boo-hooing. 

This is the first soap, Pink Triumph 

I love this one. But I had such a hard time trying to find a mold for the ribbons. Until that awesome moment that I had an epiphany and realized I could free hand them. Duh. Seriously. It took me forever. But they turned out great and the perfect size too.

This soap is dedicated to my childhood friend Karen who was diagnosed with breast cancer but she kicked its. . . . . you know. And also to all of the other survivors who keep on surviving. (Did anybody start singing Beyoncé’s “Survivor” just now??) Pink Triumph is representing the Susan G. Komen Foundation.

 

The next soap that’s in the works is extremely important to me. As a veteran, I know the sacrifice that service members and their families make every single day to ensure the freedom of millions of people they don’t know. I have been blessed with coming out of the military without any severe disability but thousands of others cannot say the same. I chose the next soap to support the Wounded Warrior Project. For these men and women and their families, the fight is not over. Since this soap is special to me, it hasn’t been made yet. No idea is perfect enough for me to use to represent something so near to my heart. But it will be made soon.

The inspiration for this soap was my old platoon. I was part of the best platoon ever. Yes. EVER. We stood out in our battery and wanted to name ourselves. Yours truly helped with the name, tee hee. We dubbed ourselves War Pigs. Pig to stand for pride, integrity, and guts and war for, well, the obvious. We fight wars. We even had coins made.

I loved serving my country. And I did it. Like a boss.

The next product in this line to be masterfully created is a soap for our nonhuman companions. Who says only people should go natural? I'll be making doggie/kitty soap with the proceeds going to the ASPCA. And this little booger is going to have the honor of using my first ever doggie soap

Yeah, he's excited.

Happy sudsing!

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