At last, the order for Speke Hall is finished and all I have to do is drop it off. I have to admit it is nice to see a heap of soap, bath salts and gift bags ready to ship.
One thing this order did force me to do was design some labels for the bath salts. It is one of those things I kept putting off, although the salts did not look quite finished without them. I have to do some for the body butters and balms now.
It is good to be experiencing longer days. Tonight, it was still light at 5.30, and although it has gone colder again, it is a sign of spring. The snowdrops are in drifts in the woods, crocuses and tiny irises are beginning to open and soon there will be bright yellow daffodils waving in the breeze. The dark days of winter will soon be over, and I will not feel like a vampire.
The National Trust, Speke Hall, ordered soap and bath salts from me recently. In readiness, for the last couple of months I have been soaping like a demon to try to build up stocks.
I have, to date, made mainly Hot Process soap which is usable quicker than its Cold Process cousin. The drawback of Hot Process is that the batches are smaller and it is therefore more time consuming. I am slowly moving to Cold Process, because I can make bigger batches, although it is unlikely that I will give up Hot Process completely.
There has been discussion on a forum I am a member of to try to get a consensus on whether one is better than the other. I certainly don't think that there is in the "feel" of the soap, although there is in the look of it. Both soap making methods certainly have their benefits.
As you can see from the picture, I am not using colour in my soap at the moment, and I am not adding botanicals. I have plans to possibly change this for soaps I sell at Craft Fairs to make them look a bit prettier, so watch this space.
This weekend, I will be making the bath salts for the order, Lavender with tiny heather flowers, and Geranium with pretty little rose buds. Not a relaxing weekend then!
