The Savvy Stitch: March 2014

The Savvy Stitch will be branching out May 1st, opening a sister store - The Savvy Soap!

Initially we will be offering handmade, natural vegan soaps ....

with tentative plans to branch out into lip balms and lotions later in the year.

Here are our first batches.

This is a Rose petal infusion with Rose colored clay added along with some old English Rose scent.

One of our very favorites. The color is a nice, matte rose.

Rose clay is good for a soft detoxification of the skin.

Himalayan sea salt citrus blend. Heavy spicy citrusy scent.

Somewhat exfoliating.

This soap was a bit of a challenge to make. You add the same amount by weight of salt as you do the oils and when the salt is added the mixture turns into a solid in about two seconds, during which time you have to mix it all up and pour into the mold, or else, your finished.

There are a few chunks of unsalted soap in our salt soap, but overall it really turned out ok. Scent is a little strong but at least it's so lovely.

Handmade soaps take 4-6 weeks to cure after the initial preparation, which takes about one hour from start to finish including set up for a small, 8-9 bar batch. Our first two batches are now ready and we have distributed them to all the bathrooms in our home and everyone is raving about them. They can even be used as shampoo (!).

My husband had these scaly patches of dry skin on his tummy and after two days of using the handmade soap the scaly dry patches are gone!

This batch was attempt to make a unisex scent using Vetyver as a sensual base note and a fragrance called Amazon Lilly Rain as a top note. Evidently I overdid something and the bars REEK (IMHO).

I was telling my 25 year old son about it and he said, "oh, teenage boys love stinky stuff like that, you can market it to teenage boys" so I asked him for a good name for the soap and thus, "Extreme Herbal Musk" was born. My goal is to let parents of teenage boys know about this soap. :)

Other than the smell, it's very pretty. Green tea was used as part of the liquids, giving it a nice, tan color.

Just Soap.

This is our first batch. A mixture of Olive Oil, Coconut Oil, sustainable Palm Oil, and Shea Butter. No scent. They turned out beautifully.

Amidst all our happiness and success we did have a fail batch

that was totally and completely my fault. I don't even know how I

made such a ridiculous mistake; I calculated the water and

sodium hydroxide incorrectly and the soap never solidified.

We went back and added the correct amount of oils,

but the water was still way off (too too much) and it still didn't solidify.

So my husband, who evidently struggles with failure in the lab,

is trying to boil the water out of it today. I think he's finally ready to

admit defeat and toss our first "fail soap".

Another favorite - we call this one "Manly ish".

The company we purchased the raw ingredients from sent a free sample of a fragrance called "Tobacco and Bay". Not being a smoker or a fan of tobacco in any way, I was skeptical to say the least. It's amazing! The scent is absolutely wonderful. I therefore went and did some research on tobacco scent and evidently it is a complex fragrance including citrus and a myriad of other deep notes.

We used black tea as some of the liquids and then added two tea bag's worth of loose tea to the mix, making the soap turn out spotted. It kind of looks like leopard spots.

This soap also includes Bergamot essential oil (citrus) and a fragrance called "Sea Moss". I like the smell, not as strong as the Extreme Herbal Musk, but still probably in the deodorant-ish soap category.

This is a wonderful Pink Clay bar with a citrus fragrance called "Energy" which is supposed to be uplifting and light. I know I love the smell of it and often find myself picking up a bar and putting it to my nose for a sniff.

Batches not yet pictured include a Lavender Rosemary conditioning bar - we just cut those bars last night and they are sitting out to complete the curing process. We used essential oils and some ground Rosemary for a creamy, somewhat lightly spotted bar.

And another unisex maybe men's bar with a Karma blend which is supposed to be very popular. We tossed in a bag of loose Earl Grey tea into that bar so it too is creamy and spotted.

Tonight we are making a Hawaiian black sea salt bar with Lavender, Ylang Ylang, and Plumeria. Wish us luck, the salt bars are tricky!

So you can see a little about me, my life, my pets. This has been a good old fashion Michigan winter with tons of snow and really cold temps. I went out this morning and took some photos of the dogs, and then at sunset again and captured some shadows and trees.

This morning

My Border Collie, Chloe. She likes to play fetch and loves the snow

Weeds standing in the snow

Brave little weed

Haleakala. She loves the snow too, but she just likes to dig for mice in the undergrowth (which is under three feet of snow right now). Sometimes she steals the stick and plays keep away too.