Custom Wedding Soaps

I got an email from a lady a few months ago who said she would love to have some soaps made for her sisters wedding. We did everything on email with pictures and descriptions of what they were looking for from the colours to the size.

The brief she sent with the colour ideas.

"They are gorgeous! I absolutely love them. Thank you so, so much. I never thought that it would come out EXACTLY the way I envisioned it. The colours are perfect."

Thanks Raisa we had a lot of fun making these and they smell gorgeous.

Making Teddies for a Baby shower

We recently posted this cute teddy soap on Facebook that we had been testing and we were asked to make some for a baby shower in cream and white so we thought we would share the process.

You can see the video here on Facebook

Custom Soaps for Tiara Publications

We recently made custom Teddy soaps and loved them soap much we thought we would try something a little more sophisticated.

To order a custom soap for a special occasion you contact us here

Soap for Crystal Barn Country Estate in the Natal Midlands

Making soaps for Crystal Barn Country Estate – such and honour. You can see a quick Youtube video here

The Fat Whale reviews Riverlea

We recently started supplying The Fat Whale in Ballito and they just wrote an amazing review about us which you can read about here The Fat Whale. Thank you Malia

Custom order baby shower Cold Process soaps

Every once in a while we get to make something cute and I love it when the mum to be says – just be creative and have some fun.

So this is what we came up with.

We used Bran, Blue Cobalt Mica, and Aquatic Zest Fragrance oil.

SoapMaker–The best soap making software around.

In 2007 I started making soap and I soon realised that it was a real pain working out the lye content and oil percentages every time I wanted a new recipe. I am pretty sure you all know what I am talking about.
If you are not a lover of Math's then this may lead you to break out into a cold sweat. I do like Math's but I like to save time more. So I did a little internet research and came across an AMAZING tool – SoapMaker.  My business was just starting out AND the programme was in dollars!! The cold sweat was back. What to do? I emailed the contact address and asked if there was a payment plan option not really expecting a reply. Boy was I surpried when an email came back with a link to download – FREE. Please note the options available now are a lite version for $49.00 or Pro version at $99.00.Ever since then I have done everything in my power to download every beta test they have and test the heck out of it.
I recently realised that I communicate with this faceless person (Crawford Woodman) and it would be nice to know more about the man behind SoapMaker. You can see the basic information on his about page.
I have decided to write this post of my own accord and have no affiliation with SoapMaker, other than using it to run my soap business.
SoapMaker was created By Crawford Woodman as an aid for his wife, Diane’s, soap making business. She was very involved in the initial programme creation and always had the best soap with many repeat clients.
Where about in the States are you? State is good enough. (boy am I on the wrong foot already I know you Americans and Canadians love getting mixed up!! – OOPS):
We live in Canada, in Perth, Ontario. It's a small town with a heritage flavour - lots of lovely stone buildings built after the Rideau Canal was finished in the early 1800's.
If you don't know where it is, like me, Google it. Wow is it pretty.
Do you have any children?
We have 3 - two daughters and a son. All are grown up and married. We have 4 grandchildren.
I see that Jason Bowles was/ is your programmer for SM. Does he still work on SM? If so is it a full time undertaking?
Jason was only involved in the early days. I wrote version 3 myself.
Version 3 is the latest update and it is AWESOME
Do you have any programming background? What was/ is your profession before SM took over your life?
I worked for Nortel for 30 years, first as a programmer and then as a manager.
I also had to Google Nortel. Nortel was a multinational telecommunications and data networking equipment manufacturer founded in Montreal, Quebec in .
Do you employ other people to work on SM?
Nope - just me.
If you started SM from scratch what would you change or do differently? If anything?
I would use a platform that could easily be ported to different operating systems like Macs and Android. But I'm stuck with Windows. There are over 100,000 lines of code and it would take a complete re-write to do that now.
Is there a vision for SM? I.e. is there some sort of plan or does it just grow depending on what users ask for and what is feasible?
I'm 73 and don't really have the energy for major adventures anymore. But I enjoy hearing from users and trying to make the program as useful as possible. Our son is studying computer programming - maybe he'll want to undertake some major changes.
How do you decide what feature makes it into an update? I.e. Do you have to have a minimum no of people ask for it?
I don't really have a set algorithm. I guess it's a combination of how many people ask for a feature and how feasible it is to build it within the overall structure of the user interface and the database. And often if I notice something that seems a bit awkward while I'm testing, I'll decide to change it.
Does your wife have any input about new features and how useful they will be?
Diane used to. In fact SoapMaker was originally created for her soap-making business.  But she retired from soap-making a few years ago so now she hasn't kept up with the program. But she's supportive - doesn't complain when I spend hundreds of hours on a new update.
Do you know how many users you have? You can see a list of some of them here
I have almost 8000 registered SM3 users, and one of my resellers sells CDs which do not always get registered so there could be more. I don't know how many are still active -it seems people get into the business for a few years but then drop out later. There are also still people with the old version 2 SoapMaker - I still get the occasional upgrade purchase.
For all you die hard SoapMaker users there is a Facebook group that is a great help if you are stuck. My advice, though, is to use the programme as much as possible to get the most benefit from it . This programme will save you so much time – I could not survive without it.
Thanks Crawford, you and SM rock.

Soap Dough–a soap making challenge

This is a challenge I was so excited about. It really taught me a new skill and I have new found respect for all cake decorators! The precision and skill that is required is beyond me.

For this challenge I had to call on my best friend Debbie, who is an award winning cake decorator. She has been living in Australia for the last 8 years and we have just reconnected after she moved back here again. What a great way to take up our friendship again. She taught me to mould and shape roses and leaves.

Soap roses and a palette knife

Moulding and shaping the soap lolly. This was harder than it looks. I really battled with the uniformity of the top and trying to get the “dipped” soap layer an even thickness was quite a challenge.

Debs took the plunge and started to add roses to the lolly i had made while I made the next lolly for me add roses to.

As you can see the “chocolate” strip was also quite thick. I was too afraid to roll it thinner as it kept on breaking.

Debs did a great job of adding the roses, while mine was much more basic and simple. She clearly has done more of this than me adn has an artistic eye for bunching the roses together.

Thanks Amy, as always this was a great challenge and I had a lot of fun.

 

#whenwewednesday this is an oldie, my first attempt at rimmed soap. #handmade #riverlea

via Instagram