Time Flys....

Where has the time gone? It's June already and a bit of time has passed since my last posting. Well, that's good news. I've been very busy in the shop and out making deliveries, which means business is booming!

Our summer farmers' market has begun...it's every Thursday evening from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m., downtown Grass Valley on Mill Street. Our booth is right in front of the Old Town Cafe.

I love this market...the beauty and history of the location, the interesting and unique people we meet, and the food! My favorites are the bread from the Flour Garden, ice cream from Lazy Dog, and OG salads from BriarPatch. Yum! Grass Valley has some awesome local merchants...it's so easy (and pleasurable) to shop local.

Regarding soap...I have new soap to offer and five more coming. Here's the line up of new things...

In the goat milk line:
- Red Dirt Road: Lavender, Spearmint, Orange, Petitgrain & Patchouli
- Yuba Wild: Eucalyptus, Fir Needle & Lavender

In my core line (yet to be named soap):
- Geranium & Cinnamon
- Lavender, Clary Sage & Vanilla
- Tea Tree & Lemongrass
- Lemon, Sweet Basil, Bergamot & Rosemary
- Almond

And then there's Persian Lime, which made it's market debut last week. I happen to adore this soap and I'm always very pleased when a new soap is met with enthusiasm from my wonderful customers.

See you at the market!

Seeking inspiration...

I recently took a Friday off. I figured that being a soap artisan, I'm allowed the occasional day off, time to clear my mind and look for inspiration.

This photo is most of my soap family arranged next to the south fork of the Yuba river. Locals can probably spot where on the river this picture was taken.

It's a breathtakingly beautiful spot...and yep, I got inspired. First new soap from my workshop will be a Yuba inspired soap. I'm thinking green/blue and white all mixed into a sometimes serene, sometimes frenzied mix. Scent wise, I'm testing blends with eucalyptus.

Oh, not sure if any of you have noticed, but my bars are larger now and I give them a beveled edge. They almost look like gems to me.

History Fanatic

Besides making soap, I am a huge history buff. I'm currently interested in the 1850's gold rush era. I'm reading a really great book called "They Saw the Elephant: Women in the California Gold Rush". It's basically about adventuring men, women, and children that braved the hazards of traveling westward, all with the hope/expectation of finding GOLD! Many diary excerpts throughout the book make it really personal.

I was amazed by the story of one family who took a route, a supposed "short cut", that lead them through Death Valley. One diary spoke of the mother in a family who made the trek through the desert carrying one son on her back, a second son was carried in her arms and lead a third son by the hand. The book includes a family portrait after their journey was over. They had all made it through...not the typical scenario.

I'm currently putting together a little presentation for my docent training class on this history of Grass Valley with an emphasis on the gold rush. If you've never been to Grass Valley, then you're missing out. I've been to just about every gold rush era town in the mother lode and Grass Valley is a true gem in comparison to many.

A nicely preserved and restored historic downtown (where you can buy my soap, by the way!), surrounded by beautiful trees, gently rolling hills and beautifully restored historic homes, and amazingly unmarred by urban sprawl. The museums and state parks in Grass Valley give a very complete view of life here during the 1800's. If you're an outdoors type, there is an amazing array of nature to explore. You can still get the traditional "home town" feel here. Can you tell I love it here?!

Anyway, this is my long round about way of explaining the picture I've posted today. It's Grass Valley circa 1860, on Mill Street looking toward Main Street. This is where my summer farmers market is held. This picture doesn't look much different from what it is today...the streets are no longer planked of course, but paved. And the sidewalks look different, better now actually.

Come visit us this summer!

Let it snow....

I don't remember it snowing so much last year as it has this year. While that cold white stuff causes inconvenience, it sure is beautiful. Yesterday was a "snow day" for the kids in town. We took a break to play...we got home just in time, check out the storm on the horizon!

Today the snow has started falling again. I'm in the office where its warm and I have easy access to hot beverages, a nice window on the gently falling snow, and I'm busily packing boxes of soap to be shipped later in the afternoon.

What a nice winter day...

Our TV Spot

Last November, I contacted NCTV (Grass Valley's local television station) about the possibility of doing a soap making demo on one of their programs. I love sharing my craft, even though I may not be the most polished speaker, I love what I do. At the market, many people asked me how soap is made so I thought it was time that I got something down on tape to refer to.

So here it is, my soap making demo and second tv appearance (the first appearance was a segment on local Comcast and a visit to my workshop). During this demo, I didn't give away my soap formula (sorry, it's confidential) or any tricks of the trade, but it's a basic demonstration of soap being made in it's simplest form which is still pretty interesting. The second half of the segment is just the host and I yaking on about personal stuff. Feel free to skip over that part if you like!

Taking a quick break for lunch

I've been very busy in the workshop, but I'm taking a quick 5 minute break to rest my muscles and grab a bite to eat. I'm making my large batches now. Each batch is about 50 pounds. Whew!

Anyway, I often get questions about the shea butter that I'm always going on and on about. Many people don't know what it is or where it comes from. In a nut shell (no pun intended), shea butter comes from the nut of the fruit that grows on a karite tree. These trees cannot be cultivated and grow naturally in Africa.

A friend of ours took a trip to Ghana last year and brought back some wonderful pictures of the native people processing the shea butter by hand. I'm posting a picture of the karite tree, I think they are quite beautiful.

The shea butter we get comes from Ghana and is not refined in any way. Any time you buy a product that includes shea butter, be sure that it's *unrefined*. Solvents are used to refine most shea butter, which means that all the skin loving goodies are stripped out, along with the golden/greenish color and natural nutty scent. So basically, its a waste of money to buy a product that uses unrefined shea because all the beneficial nutrients are gone. Along with the possibility of lingering traces of solvent. Yuck!

So that's a little quick blurb on shea butter. Oh, did I mention that our shea butter is fair trade also?

Ok, break over. I made 'Pacific Blue' and 'High Sierra' today because I'm out of stock on these. I'm also breaking in a new soap...my new lime soap...I think will be named 'Persian Lime'. This one is my current favorite and it should be up on my website in about a week.

Cheers!

Aloha from my workshop!

Why aloha? Well, the sun is finally out today...or more correctly, it atleast made an appearance, which is really nice after all the rain we've gotten. It put me in a "beachy" mood. I put some surf theme music on the cd player and went to work. There's nothing like some Dick Dale to get things moving in the workshop!

Just a few pictures of what I'm working on today. A couple batches of my goat milk soap and a couple small batches for a private label.

This picture shows everything all weighed out and ready to melt. These are the hard oils, liquid oils are added later. And my soap tools; a knife for carving up those hard oils (like cocoa butter), spoon, and my indispensable stick blender for mixing everything together in a nice homogeneous blend. To the extreme right, you can just see a couple of my soap molds. They're way cool...wood box with a silicone liner. Today, it's 'Chilled Lavender' and 'Mineral Mud' going into these molds. The other two batches go in small molds (not pictured). Easy stuff today, it's Friday after all.

Happy weekend!