Category Archives: Soaps

Worms, ducks, and shads, oh my! Yeah, I got a correction that my “tadpole” creatures are actually shads. *shrugging with a grin* I honestly don’t know if I care to use the correct term, because a tadpole sounds cuter, but I guess it’s payback for being a “spelling nazi”. Lol. Thankfully today’s projects went a lot better than the last few days, so I have some pictures to share. So sit back with some Philadelphia Indulgence chocolate (here’s a spoon – we’re going to eat straight from the container because we deserve it) and enjoy!

I ended up scrapping the one completed duck soap from yesterday because I got in a good groove today and it just didn’t look quite as good to me as the new ones. I have to admit that I can’t decide if I like the original barely-blue or the soft blue tint of the splashes. Either way I love how some were perfectly pliable and I shaped the bejeebies out of them. *grin* I can’t decide which picture I like the best, so there will be a few slightly different ones at the beginning of the pictures below. *cracking up* Can’t tell I found a new toy that edits my pictures, can you? *teasing wink*

I didn’t want to make the soap gods think I was getting cocky at making the ducks, so I played with the worm and tadpole (mawahaha) soaps half way through. I really don’t like how the first two attempts turned out, so I scrapped them, literally, and opted for clear soap. (I had to include a picture of a creepy crawly moment I had with breaking the soaps to use another time – the worm left a really cool imprint and looked a bit realistic coming out of the “earth”.) Since I didn’t like them I put them together and there’s only one picture of the first two attempts. I decided that they’d look better without so much soap encasing them, too, so I switched from the bar mold to my guest rounds mold. They looked kind of cool and it was a total mad scientist moment, so I snapped one of them before I poured the soap. Lol. Now, this is where I pause. I’m usually the girl that looks at the weird and gory stuff, I admit it. I used to read the doctor’s journals when I worked in a neuro office and loved looking at the example pictures. I also love wicked Halloween decorations. However, I literally jumped back when I poured the soap into the guest molds and those doggone worms started moving around. *cracking up* Freaking creeped me out! Anywho…Lol. I put on my big girl pants and attacked them with my stirrers to get them back into the shapes I had originally put them in. Nope. Nada. Ain’t gonna do it. They were evil enough to make me use “ain’t”, that’s how stubborn they are! I couldn’t keep them from moving back to the edges and I didn’t want to totally ruin the soaps with holes from my stirrers holding them in place. I don’t know that I’ll ever forget those things moving like I had animated them, though. *Note – I noticed that my app is moving the picture order around. Sorry! I can’t seem to make them stay in order. Look at this as a game of memory – match the description to the picture. *grin*

All in all I’m pretty proud that I didn’t give up and I have soaps scattered across a whole cabinet top. The animals aren’t as impressed and really didn’t care for the lengthy conversation I had with the soaps instead of praising them. *grin* I suppose I should take a last spoonful of Indulgence and wake the dog up to play a round of fetch. Or vacuum. Or laundry. Hey, I swear I hear a new book calling to me and I don’t know if I can ignore that as well as the housework. 😉

We ended up at Cabela’s since we were near KC (anywhere in the region and Larry will say “since we’re in the area”) and we spent about half an hour looking through tons of plastic worms and similar stuff. I’m too tired to do my happy dance, but can cheerfully tell you that I found two options there to try. I totally broke my own rule of not opening products until they’re paid for (several years at the Walmart Service Desk and doing defective/ruined item tickets make me a little tense when shopping lol). I felt both versions and they’re not treated, don’t have any unexpected smells – they’re lures so they have some funk of plastic, and they look so neat to me. I’ll soak them anyway in a plain water bath and then in a weak EO bath just for my peace of mind. I’m not sure what the second one will be named, but they were too cute to pass up. I can’t believe how realistic the worms look. They’re going to look wicked in the soaps. *big grin* I can’t wait!! I’m posting pictures of the packages and will post more interesting ones once I start working on the projects. Booyah!

After going to a doctor’s appointment in the city we decided to stop in a sporting good’s shop nearby to see of they had any untreated plastic worms that I could use in my soap. I admit that I got kind of upset when I read some of these packages. Did you know that some use lead? We’ve come so far, yet we’re still using a carcinogen to bait our food? *shaking head* I truly never knew. When I lived in CA Gramps swore by his Rapalas when fishing at the lake, so I’ve never even touched one of these worms. Lol. (Real worms and shrimp yes, but I seriously try to block that out. *dramatic shudder* I’m that kind of girl that said sorry to every fish I caught that we kept. Lol.) Anyway, after reading that and so many with other fun chemicals I’m really reluctant to try any that don’t mention additives. Who knows what may be on or in those?! If I can’t guarantee to my customers that they’re chemical free, can I really stand by my “pampering with natural benefits”? Granted this is my overly fun soap for kids – a brown speckled clear soap scented with Dirt FO and fake worms in them, so I’m not really working the benefits corner, but at least there will be beneficial components. I want to be able to stand by every ingredient in every item, even the whimsical stuff.

Since I was rather bummed I decided to limp through some retail therapy at a Dollar Tree and see if they had any fun toys to embed. Um, have you ever looked at their toy creatures? Freaky!! Absolutely creepy. *cracking up* A plastic snake shouldn’t be a big deal – I grew up raising spiders and frogs, so come on – but I literally wiped my hand on my jeans after touching those. I can’t figure out why they creeped me out, but the rational part of me is having a giggle fest over it, so I doubt I’ll be able to forget about it anytime soon. *grin*

I found a place that sells the molds to make your own plastic worms for bait. I in theory could make soap worms then. However, is it really that spectacular of an idea to go to that much work? I admit that most of my soaps never sell. My poor husband has used everything from banana cream “cakes” to watermelon dinosaurs and cars. *grin* He’s a good sport, except when the taxes have been done and he sees what a loss my business has been. Ouch. So I have to be more conservative with my experiments and have been encouraged *wink* to try to make soaps that might be big sellers. Um, I usually aim for that, but…lol. Now I have a merry-go-round in my mind of how much would the approximate cost be, a guesstimate on if it might be successful, and how I could change it if something goes horribly wrong and it looks like I went insane while making the soap. I mean, I had drunk duckies and that horrible incident with the play dough improvised mold dams coming loose and embedding in the lump of coal soaps. *cracking up* I’m learning to plan out alternative uses for my ideas. I really can’t think of other product uses for whole or chopped up plastic worms. *grin*

What do you think? Worth trying to make soap worms? Are soap worms even creepier than plastic ones? Should I just do a more solid brown soap with the Dirt FO and call them “Mud Pies”? I really appreciate any thoughts on this. I love the idea, but don’t know if it’s really “all that”. (Apparently I can’t resist going “Old School” right now…) I thought Monsters Away Spray would be a seller, but haven’t sold a single one, so I’m having a small confidence crisis anyway. 😉 Also, if you’re commenting anyway, would you mind telling me if you’d like more DIY recipes and tips?

In the meantime, I’m going to go geek out over some food soap molds I found. *grin*

I am so excited over this idea. *squirming with excitement* I’m kind of embarrassed that it took this long to figure this out, but what matters is that I have. I have looked at so many creature toys to embed in the Dirt soap and haven’t found any that jumped out to me. Until now! A little out of the box thinking led me to the sporting goods department. Those worm lures (without hooks) will look so cute and realistic for the Dirt soaps. I’ve been scouring online stores to find the perfect colors and sizes. Don’t you think it’d make the soap that much more fun to use if there’s a realistic worm while you’re “using dirt” to wash up? *grin* I’m going to soak them to make sure anything funky comes off before I embed them, of course. I’m still trying to decide which mold to use though. Larry thinks the guest rounds which the worms chopped up in them (I’m sorry but that grosses me out even though they’re not real. Lol!), I just don’t know that cut ones would be quite so identifiable for kids. A bar soap would work perfectly and I can make the worm do some interesting shapes in them, but part of me wants to make the soaps even more exciting. My stars are too small (have to dice with those too) and some of my bigger ones would be thoroughly inappropriate to me, like the ballerina molds. *cracking up* Any opinions on what would look cute if I use the clear bars? I’m thinking maybe a goldish brown (just because the clear soaps always look kind of jewel toned anyway), but I’ve thought about swirling some solid green soap across the top like an oozing mossy bit of fun. 🙂 There are just too many possibilities. *grin* I just had to share my exciting epiphany while working out the rest. Any input/ideas are appreciated, as always!

I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned it before (I write everything in my mind before hitting the app and sometimes the stories never make it to the app lol), but I want to try to make some rubber duck soaps. The examples I’ve seen are so cute! Basically a soap is poured (either guest round or regular round) and a rubber duck gets nestled into the soap before it sets. Then some soap curls or shavings get placed around the duck while the base is still warm, to cover the spot and make it look kind of like a nest (although there are definitely some whimsical takes on the concept).

I planned to do a pink duck with a tiara first for my honorary niece for Christmas. My first versions of products are kind of coveted, so I seldom let them go, but I’ll give them for a gift that’s meaningful to me, like in this instance. Anyway, while grocery shopping they had an end cap with some rubber ducks and we spotted this pink cutie, and thought it would work. Utter failure. Lol. I used to be an intelligent person, but now I’m not so sure…*grin* I never even looked at the base to guesstimate if it would fit in a mold. Yeah, um…not a single mold, even my large massage bars! *cracking up* The only option if I pursue wanting to use her is if I use a loaf pan, but can you imagine that chunk of soap?! It’d take a kid a year to wash enough to pull it out! (Theory is that embeds make kids want to wash, so they can get to the cute toys.)

I had a free delivery deal come up with Oriental Trading, so I ordered some of their ducks. I figured I was going to have a family of ducks that I’d have no clue what to do with, with the way my luck tends to generally run. *grin* I wanted to make sure that I got something whimsical and gender neutral, so I ordered their dessert ducks. There are four versions of cupcake ducks in the pack and they are adorable. Plus, they’re pretty small so they’ll fit perfectly in several molds. *happy dance* I have a kitty recovering right now, but after she’s better I can’t wait to make a batch of duckies and some Monsters Away spray. *grin* Of course a picture of these cute little buggers will finish this post 😉