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!

 

Baby Bath Gift Basket

I'm not one to stray away from gift registries. Obviously they're there so you can get people exactly what they want. But one of my oldest and dearest friends is having a baby boy in 9 weeks (oh my gawwwwwd!) and I couldn't just give her any old gift. Sure, the things she has on her registry aren't just any old things to her. She wants them. But I felt that I had to kick it up a notch. So I decided to make a baby bath gift set. Not just any old baby bath gift set. A Crave baby bath gift set. So you know it will be awesome. Plus, it'll be made with love.

I researched some ideas of what to put in it since the last time I received one was when Armani was born 3 1/2 years ago. We didn't have a baby shower or sprinkle with Athan since we had everything we needed. I wrote a list and decided on these things:

Soap
Baby wash (why a wash when I'm giving her soap? I'll explain why in a minute.)
Baby powder
Bath/massage oil
Lotion
Washcloths
Diaper rash ointment

So why give her baby wash when I'm going to give her soap? Simple. There's NO such thing as tear free natural soap. There's a myth that's been going around for years about tear free soaps and shampoos having numbing agents in them but everywhere I've researched says it's just that, a myth. What I've seen is that these products aren't actual soap. They're synthetic detergents. Some do say "soap free" right on the label

I've also heard of neutralizing the soap's pH with chemicals. Natural soap is alkaline, hence why it stings. I've always used tear free baby wash when washing the boys' hair and faces. I use our soap for the rest of their bodies.

For baby soap, I make 100% olive oil soap with goat milk and leave it unscented. This gives an ultra mild, moisturizing bar for baby's sensitive skin. I was running low on my stash so I made some more. I used my flower mold because it gives the soap ridges which helps in holding it while wet.

  

Yeah. My OCD kicked in when I realized I didn't have enough soap to put in that last flower. Here are the Baby Booty Bars all done

I made some lavender baby powder and put it in the cutest jar ever. I'm brainstorming what things I need to put in shakers just so I can buy these for myself. How cute is this?!  I know she'll love this just because of the jar.

I made some baby bath oil that can be used as massage oil too. I infused the oil blend with calendula and chamomile. The lotion I still have to make but I've already labeled the bottle.

I'm not diggin' the labels because I had to cut them down to fit but what I am diggin' is the idea of having a baby product line. Crave Baby. Yay! That'll be coming soon.

The diaper rash ointment is going to be our Natural Body Jelly. It's a moisture barrier plus has vitamin E for healing any rashes.

And for good measure I got Sir David Jr. this

I figured it was wildly appropriate considering that his mommy and I are veterans. I got Athan one too. I couldn't resist.

I'm so excited to give this to her! Stay tuned for Crave Baby line of products making their debut!

Happy sudsing!