Annies Goat Hill Handcrafted Soaps

I throw in a strange title now and then…but then, what does fruit salad and goat milk soap have in common?

Perhaps color? Green, orange, yellow, peach, grape (violet), pink? Could be, very well could be.

Perhaps scent? Mango, peach, citrus…and perhaps a few other lovely fruits.

Okay, so far there are similarities…so let me tell you the real story. I headed to the soap shop today, knowing my goal was to make one large batch of soap. I looked through my essential oils, no, nothing appealed to me. Looked through my fragrance oils, no, nothing appealed to me.

Then the creative juices flowed, or were they fruit juices? If it involves me, it might be fruity…but wait…we are talking soap, not a tired old brain function. 🙂

I have a lot of small amounts of fragrances left in bottles. Enough to scent a couple of batches of lotion, but not enough to scent soap.

Then it hit me, just like a Hawaiin punch, summer fruit salad! The pen and ink came out, plans were made (I always record beforehand so it makes it to my spreadsheets later) and then the mixing began. Let me tell you, if it had been fruit salad, it would have been devoured.

Don’t ask, because I am not sure what I am going to call it. I hope it continues to look and smell as it does today. If it does, someone may want to put it out of reach of the youngsters. They will love it…and perhaps the oldsters will too. I don’t know any of those, do you?

Have a good evening! I am tired and heading to a hot bath with a bar of soap that I am testing. New recipe. So far soap #1 does not pass the test, a little soft. But it does really condition the skin. Soft with no lotion needed. It may just become a “speciality” soap…just for extra skin care purposes.

Tonight I worked on packaging customer orders. It was hard to leave the shop. Yes, I take my time in the shop. I look at the soap, pick bars up from the curing rack, hold the end pieces from the batches in my hand, smell them, and I will admit, admire them as well. I try my own soaps out at the 2 week mark. I truly feel blessed when I carry that sliver out for trial.

Friends have recently asked me how I decided to make soap, and why goat milk soap?

This beautiful photo of a basket of handcrafted soap was taken in 2003. My soap company was named Grassypond Farms. I lived in a house on 42 acres, with a 2 acre pond, 3 horses, boxer dogs, 52 chickens, no goats, in an area called Grassy, MO. I had a website at that time, no storefront. I sold a lot of soap to locals, antique stores, florists and craft malls. The soap did not contain goat milk.

I am going to push the fast forward button to quickly arrive at today, and I promise to tell more stories later. You might be stiffling a yawn, or even holding your eyes open with tooth picks, if I tell you everything in one blog post!

I have loved soap since my younger days, about 8 years old is when I first crossed paths with a bar of handcrafted soap. In fact, on a school field trip I bought an old fashioned soap ball. It was primitive, and I was in love. Fast forward through the youngster years, I collected soap. Yep, a shoebox of soap in my bedroom! Fast forward through the young adult years, every book I could possibly borrow from the Indianapolis Public Library system on soap making, perfumery, aromatherapy, was read thoroughly by me. Fast forward to 2003. I had a wonderful basement, about 1400 square feet, and suddenly realized that I had the space and the time to begin my soap making endeavor. I taught myself the in’s and out’s of crafting cold processed soap (the process that I use, more on that later), via. the internet and all of the reading that I had done. The stories I will be telling about the soap molds and batches of soap that hit the trash can, oh boy…it was a trial for a while. Thank goodness I had a husband that wanted to help make it all come together. He was very creative with the building of the molds.

It was not until 2008 (late bloomer in the thinking aisle on this one) when I discovered the wonderful benefits of including fresh, rich goat milk in my soap. Wow…wow..and wow!!!

I am hooked, addicted, and all about fresh goat milk soap from the farm.

That is the end of my story for tonight. I will continue this later.

Ask questions…I love them!

Happy Friday!

Today I cut several batches of soap that I made yesterday.

This batch of goat milk soap is scented with a combination of pineapple, tangerine and pink grapefruit. I will announce the name of the soap and other information closer to the curing date (approximately 4 weeks from today). In case you cannot see the colors, they are pale pink and yellow. Very pretty, and smells luscious!

I worked in the shop and office afterwards. With pad of paper and pen in hand, updated the list of things to-do. I will be organizing that into a top priority, medium priority, and wish list. It has to be done now and then. We can definitely lose site of the big picture when we do not organize our thoughts!

Have a good afternoon!

On this bright and sunny spring day I am doing what I rank highly up there as one of the loves in my life, working in the soap shop!

The pictured goat milk soap will be called Summer Melon. Yes, I have summer on the brain. Thoughts of muskmelon and cantaloupe, beautiful sunshine, and relaxing outdoor gatherings!

I also crafted spa salt goat milk soap today. After cutting the loaf into bars I will take some pics and tell you about the fragrance. I recently purchased a sea salt bar that I really liked, except that the lather left a lot of brown in the tub. My thoughts were it might be better than ever with rich goat milk soap added. 🙂

Well, that is enough of a break for me. Hope your Saturday is turning into something beautiful too! I plan to mow, make soap, and mow again. Another one of my favorite things.

Well, not quite in the ocean, but the inspiration was…an Ocean Breeze, crystal clear blue green water, white sand, a warm refreshing breeze, and gentle frothy waves. Bits of unscented white goat milk soap make for the white sand and sea foam. The scent is a combination that mimics a fresh clean breeze (touches of rose, lily, spearmint, citrus, orange, lime).

Then came the relaxing cup of tea with a touch of orange and cinnamon. There is no tea involved in this soap, but it was the “have a cup of tea with me” painting in my mind. Lightly scented with sweet orange oil and “sticks” of cinnamon goat milk soap inbedded throughout.

It has been a busy few days here at Annie’s Goat Hill Handcrafted Soaps!

First, I want to apologize to any website viewers that may have seen soaps in the website soap store priced at 350.00, they really should have been priced at 3.50 a bar! The corrections have been made.

Now, for the announcements…new soaps were added to the website yesterday. They are both colorful and fun scents. Some of the new scents are: Cool Citrus, Moroccan Dreams, Earthy Vanilla, and Lilac Wave.

The chunkier soaps were added into the stock as well. These bars currently sell for 4.25 a bar (no price increase yet), weighing in at 4.0+ ounces per bar. Any, and all, bars weighing in at less than 4.0 ounces have been moved to the discount “Y” (Y A Sale?) section of the online soap store.

The Brown Bag special continues, and the special does include any soaps from the discount section. They are all wonderful quality soaps, just not the chunkier bars that I want to consider full sized! Approximate weights 3.5-3.7 ounces each. The Buy Now button is located at the bottom of the Soap Store page on the website. This is a great buy for goat milk soap!

The new order of shea butter has arrived. Lotion will be back in production, and if time allows, whipped shea butter will be a focus later in this week!