Blog

There was a point recently when I realised, I’m not really a blogger anymore. And it’s sad, a little, because I love blogging and I love where blogging has taken me.

But after seven years, I’m tired. I jumped on the PR roundabout and fell off again 18 months later when I realised I didn’t enjoy selling my space to companies looking to make a quick impression and an even quicker dollar. I told stories, and then didn’t again. My children grew up fast, too fast, too fast to share their stories anymore.

It takes a while to readjust. From mummy-blogger to what-am-I-even-now-blogger.

A soap maker, a small business owner, a work from home mother, an entrepreneur, a maker, a creator.

I grew a brand, abandoned it, and now I’m growing another one.

I’m enjoying myself and that’s all that really matters though, isn’t it?

That’s where I went wrong with blogging. I worked too hard at trying to be something, someone. I got bored and drifted away. Now people don’t even know I have a blog. It’s almost comforting.

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I made chocolate soap restocks today and my house smells like chocolate and saponification. I’ve got 60 soaps to pack and label once I write this, dinner to cook, children to love on.

Life is full. Life is good.

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Bath salts! Oh god, bath salts. YOU GUYS.

Do you know how much fun bath salts are to make? SO MUCH FUN. I’m in love.

Clearly I’ve added bath salts to my shop and they’re awesome. There’s spearmint and eucalyptus for soaking your feet in, margarita scented for awesomeness, and all the usual suspects.

I *may* have spent a full day testing bath salts. It was lovely. They are lovely. Australian sea salt and Epsom salts combined to help sore muscles.

So much fun. And pretty to photograph too.

Everything is coming off the curing shelves in great waves at the moment. I packaged 60 soaps last night, and I’ll do another 60 soon. I think tomorrow there might be another 100 to pack, but I’m trying not to look until I have to design the labels for printing. Preorders are slowly being filled and everything is good.

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I think I’m okay with being not just a blogger any more, you know.

Wow, Internet. WOW. Can I just say firstly, the support for our business launch last month was astounding and fabulous and I am so grateful to every single one of you.

Yes, I know I’ve said all this before, but it bears repeating, because FEELINGS.

In the middle of all the regular orders, we’ve also had some large wholesale orders popped in to be ready for Christmas. After three weeks of panicky making, I can honestly say that everything ordered is curing and will be ready by mid-November. Thank GOODNESS.

It was a lot of fun and a lot of work to make that much soap. I swear the soap dishes get it on in the middle of the night and by the time I come around to wash them in the morning there are little baby dishes everywhere. If they’re not having babies I’m not quite sure how I managed to dirty ten moulds, five jugs, three buckets and every single spatula I own over the course of one day. Magic, clearly.

It’s the school holidays now and this means I have minions home to help pack soap and stick stickers, which is a small consolation in the face of overwhelming Minecraft and the fact SOMEONE keeps changing my Spotify station to Ke$ha.

Kill me.

Free time is at a premium and the kids are taking up most of it. Sorry Internet.

In the meantime, have some soap photos.

Everyone loves soap photos.

PS: vanilla lip balm is back in stock, so if you were waiting to buy, here’s your chance!

I opened the soap website on Friday morning, and announced that we were live for sales shortly after. I wasn’t quite prepared for how well we were going to do.

I know, it sounds odd to admit it, but I was honestly hoping we would sell a little soap, get a little social media support and go on with our lives.

I did not expect to begin selling out of some products within 24 hours, or that I would suddenly be counting how many bars of soap I had curing and wondering if it was enough.

So THANK YOU. Thank you for making the first two days of our business opening a roaring success. Thank you for buying soap, sharing our links, tweeting at me, telling your friends. Thank you all so very very much.

We’d warned our local post office we were opening an online business and that we’d have lots of parcels. She looked at us a bit strangely, but didn’t say much.

Now we have lots of parcels and Monday morning we’re going to be descending on her tiny country post office with armfuls of things to send. (EXCITE)

She only has a manual scale however, so Nathan isn’t looking forward to it. I’ve told him to buy the newspaper and sit outside with a coffee while she weighs everything.

Maybe we can convince her to buy electronic scales.

Maybe.

I’m frantically making more soap to keep up with demand, so if there’s something you were interested in and you don’t see it in my shop, email me and I’ll let you know when it will be in stock.

And finally, look at these soaps I cut this morning!

This one, Coffee Break, went thicker faster than I expected and I worried it was going to be terribly ugly inside. Big relief to discover it’s quite pretty. It will continue to darken over the next few days until it’s a chocolate colour.

And this soap was a new fragrance and I am in love. It’s Cashmere and it’s a knock off of a perfume? Or something? It’s delicious anyway.  I have to keep picking it up and smelling it.

Also, in case you didn’t know, if you buy soap between now and September 19, you go into the draw to win an amazing prize pack.

So go forth! Buy soap!