Unboxing

 

That big pile of boxes that has been sitting in my foyer for two weeks now is finally gone. It was mostly soap making stuff and it's all where it belongs now.

I had a terrible case of sticker shock when I went to order cocoa butter. The pound bag I usually buy was $35. I used to pay about $10. Needless to say I'm reformulating my recipe to do without it. In its place will be kokum butter which is as hard as cocoa butter so I think it will be a good replacement. We'll see. The sharp increase in cocoa butter is due to crop failures. The same thing happened to olive oil. It's scary expensive now too but I splurged on a big bottle from the grocery store.

With new soap on the verge of being made, I cleaned off my soap shelves and found all these orphan loaf ends. They are not very attractive so I usually keep them for myself. I have way too many so if anyone's interested in re-homing an unidentified ugly bar let me know by the usual method. They are not labeled or dressed up. I'm just going to unceremoniously shove them in a bag. I have no idea what the scents are anymore and tbh most the scents are pretty faded but they are soap and they will do what soap is supposed to do. If you prefer, I also have a box of actual unscented goat and buttermilk soap that I keep separate so the scents don't transfer. It's first come, first serve but I promise more in the future. It'll take about two months to get back up to speed I'm afraid. There's no rushing soap.