Ginger Root
Apricot Seed Powder

Almond Meal

I love using exfoliants because they vary the texture and look of soap. Plus, exfoliating helps to expose new skin and new skin is pink, dewy and fresh looking. Who doesn’t like line-free, fresh skin?

I start at 1 tsp of exfoliants per pound of soap (melt and pour or cold process). You can always add more but you can’t take it out. So, be prudent and conservative on your addition rate.

I can think of a bunch of yummy theme soaps using these exfoliants – Ginger with the Orange Ginger fragrance. Almond Meal with our Almond Biscotti Fragrance. Apricot Seed Powder with Summer Fling. Yum!

These soaps were made by placing small square soaps in a cookie tray. More details are here. While the photographs are not the best, the soap still turned out delightful. The soaps were cut with a large sharp butcher knife

Notice the wrinkle on the bottom right hand corner? That wrinkle is from disturbing the soap to try and wiggle the white block straight. The thin skin that had already formed on the surface of the soap was disturbed and wrinkled in protest.

Things to do better for next time: Take longer to place the squares so they are straight.

Pour the layers within minutes of each other. As you can see in the photo below, the overpour soap did not adhere well to the embedded squares. Pouring with a slightly hotter temperature would have solved this as well as pouring the soap within a few minutes.

We purchased a used forklift for our warehouse. We’ve always had this weird hybrid forklift pallet jack and “Pinky” (so-called because an employee spray painted it pink) finally quit working. Getting a forklift off a flat bed truck is a challenge, especially when it has a dead battery and cannot be driven. We had to call a tow truck to pull the forklift off the flat bed truck. Of course this had to happen when every single guy had gone home for the day and there was no one there but two girls. Of course, we’re two strong, smart and wily girls, but non-males all the same.

But, we got our forklift off the truck and all the boys in the office, including little Jorgen (Norm’s son), have been having entirely too much fun learning to drive it and generally terrorizing all the pallets that are sitting on the floor. The warehouse has been rearranged a lot in the last week!