I just revised a listing that has 24 days left and was charged an additional .03 cents for a new store listing fee.

So watch out for this !!!!!

 

Another glitch is for an item that was listed 1 time but did not sell, and it shows sell similar instead of relist for the relisting fee credit.  So I suggest you use the notes section to keep track of how many times the item was listed.  

just a thought that i wanted to share.

ended up in the ER about midnight and had to request that i be sent home instead of admitted to the hospital.    Even got two shots in the butt and a script to fill today.

ok back to resting now, just thought i'd let ya'll know that i haven't been on because i've been sick, and only checking my email 2 times a day and doing what i need to.  Otherwise i'm resting trying to get better.

gawd i feel horrid....

One of my close friends from Australia sent me the link to this, and I wanted to share it with others.   It's a video about how one made such a huge difference in the life of another.  Between a teacher and a child. 

Please watch it......

http://www.makeadifferencemovie.com/org01/

just a word of warning, you may want a tissue or two in hand, as it's a bit emotional, in a good way !!!

I got my RED star today !!! And my DSR is looking awesome, and my customer comments are amazing !!!  (I'm proud of myself !!!!)

Just thought i would share that i rolled over into the tripple zeros now !!!

And I've already sent the customer an email who was kind enough to be that 1000th person to leave me feedback an email to let them know a special package will be arriving for them as my way of saying thanks.

A few of my eBay items - qsell

15 lbs Washing Soda Ash Sodium Carbonate laundry soap

If your considering making your own laundry soap then I have just the thing for you. There is only one store local to me that I can find this at, so I stock up whenever I get there. And I do list my extra on ebay because for some, their local stores do not carry this product. (I also have some of the fels naptha soap but it's not currently listed.)

Making your own laundry soap is quick and easy but it's also a lot of fun and it works really good as well. Plus it's also a lot greener for our environment as well, and safe for people with septic tanks and those that have front loading washing machines as well as HE machines.  Plus another advantage is that your not filling up landfills with plastic bottles.

One difference you will notice is the scent. Which also depends greatly on the soap used for making your own laundry soap. I highly recommend fels naptha soap which is a special soap made just for the laundry, but once again many people have a hard time finding it. Zout can also be used. Or a made from scratch soap that is made from coconut oil and lard. But if you must buy a soap that is commercially made only use ivory soap. Do not use deodorant or beauty bars. Even though they do smell nice they do not work for handmade laundry soap.    But your laundry will have the cleanest scent you haven't noticed for a long time.

Another thing you will notice is that it doesn't suds up like commercial laundry detergent.  The reason why is because the companies who make them added ingredients that have one reason for being in them, and that is to suds up.  The consumer has been brainwashed into believing that if they don't see suds they don't think it's working.   So let the ingredients do the hard work of washing your clothes instead of chemicals and detergents. 

The necessary ingredients for making your own laundry soap are very simple. You need your soap, borax and washing soda. Washing soda is not to be confused with baking soda. These are two different products and can't be interchanged.

There are many recipes out on the net for making your own laundry soap, however I caution you against using any of them.

The reason why I caution you against using them is because you don't use enough of the active ingredients, so for the amount you do use, you might as well wash your clothes in plain water.

First I will discuss the powdered version. While some may like it I see many down falls. First of all is the amount used. 1-2 tbs per load. To me this just isn't enough of the active ingredient to make it effective. If you stop and read both the boxes of borax and washing soda you will find that both boxes say to use ½ cup per load of laundry along with your regular detergent. And total that makes 1 cup if you use both. (Not including any soap.) And these handmade recipes call for 1-2 tablespoons of a mixture of the three ingredients. There is something wrong with those numbers.

The other big down fall with powdered laundry soaps is how it dissolves. Since more people are washing in cold water now days to be more environmentally friendly. If you use hot water for washing this isn't an issue for you but powdered laundry soap just does not dissolve in cold water, thus being not effective. How can it clean if it won't even dissolve into the water.

Borax requires boiling water to dissolve it. And if you dissolve it in a clear container you will know it's dissolved because the mixture will go from a milky white color to crystal clear.

But also the soap portion of the recipe will not dissolve in cold water and it will just float around. Even after letting the washer run for quite some time. When I went back the ingredients just didn't not dissolve into the cold water.

The one way I have found around this is to heat a container of water, dissolve the laundry soap into it and then pour it into the washer. But this method is both a pain and not very practical. Plus it's also a mess. Another method I found that does work is to set the water level to the lowest amount and fill with hot water. Pour in my laundry soap and agitate for a minute or two before adding the clothes and filling up the rest of the way in cold water.

The amount to use is still very questionable. But I do think that you need more than 1-2 tablespoons. I used between ½ cup and 1 cup of my powdered laundry soap.

This was not my favorite method because I found it to be a pain to make sure it was dissolved to be effective.

***************

Now on the the liquids and gels. I feel this is not very desirable because of the fact that it separates and it needs to be stirred or shaken before it can be used. I know I have better things to do than sit and stir or shake my laundry soap before it can be used. I've also seen it described in written words as “egg drop soup” and others call it slime or snot. I'm sure these are not terms that you would prefer to use with your laundry soap.

While I have made liquid laundry soap to be a complete and total gel, it's very touchy. I made it in large batches in a 5 gallon bucket several time and using the same recipe it didn't turn out as I wanted. Then using the same recipe made smaller in a smaller plastic container, it didn't turn out.

But now on to the fun part about handmade laundry soaps that most don't consider. As I said above, both the box of borax and washing soda say to use ½ cup along with your regular laundry detergent. Now on to a math lesson.



This is a common recipe found on the internet.

* 1/3 bar fels naptha soap. This is 5.5 ounces so 1/3 bar would be a little over 1.75 ounces.
* ½ cup washing soda
* ½ cup borax
* Total water amount required = 32 cups of water

Now divide your 32 cups of water by your 1 cup of active ingredients not including the small amount of your soap.........

There are 16 tablespoons in a cup so that amounts to about 2 tbs of borax/washing soda per cup of your liquid laundry soap. Now these recipes tell you to use ¼ cup of the liquid/gel/glop mixture.

Now there are 3 teaspoons in a tablespoon, so your 1 cup of liquid soap now has 6 teaspoons of active ingredients and most recipes call for a 1/2 cup or a ¼ cup . The 1/2 cup now has 3 teaspoons and the 1/4 cup has 1.5 teaspoons of your active ingredients. Now keep in mind that your mixture of active ingredients contain all three of your soap, borax and washing soda. The rest is plain water. So when your washing your clothes, your basically just using plain water to clean them and not any active ingredients at all. I'm just not convinced that it's enough to really clean your laundry.



Now are you still convinced that these recipes actually clean your clothes.

***************

Which is why I set out to make my own formulation, but I wanted to keep the water amount low. Yet I needed it to dissolve the soap and the borax. But the other big challenge was to keep it from separating.

And what I came up has the consistency of pudding more than anything.

The following photo's are taken of my own personal container of laundry soap that I use for my family. The container is one that has a tight fitting lid so it doesn't dry out and I bought it at wal-mart for about $4.99 I think. It measures 11” tall and 9” wide. The spoon is one from a dollar store and it has a long handle with a nice wide bowl part of the serving spoon. It's also a purdy color as well.







I'm not posting my specific recipe because it's a lot different than anything else posted on the internet. And I haven't decided what to do with it yet.

However my recipe contains approximately 8 tbs of soap, washing soda and boarx mixture per cup of premade laundry soap. And I use about 1 cup per load.

This isn't rocket science it's just laundry soap, but you need to look at the active ingredients used to get stains out and clean your clothing of the body odors and other dirt and other stuff that makes clothes dirty.

But you do need to make sure that whatever recipe you use has enough of the active ingredient to do their job.

I'm not posting my specific recipe and more importantly the technique that I came up with yet. Because I'm not sure what i'm going to do with it yet. Because it's the technique that I think makes the difference. And I'm very happy with my laundry pudding that I came up with.

A few of my eBay items - qsell

White Gerber Formula Milk Bottle Reborn Baby Play Doll

This is a 5 ounce Gerber bottle that is complete and matching. It has a white nipple ring and cap along with a brown infant sized nipple.

For the photo it has been filled with my faux standard formula that is creamy ivory in color. Not to light and not to dark, just the perfect shade.

However the buyer may customize the contents to meet their needs. My Faux RTF formula may be used as well as milk. Or if a juice is prefered my apple juice, pear juice, orange juice or cherry juice may also be chosen.

The nipple may also be swapped out for a clear one as well, if that is prefered or it may be made magnetic with a sealing disk in place of a nipple.

All my bottles are completely sealed and filled with non-toxic child safe ingredients. See my listing for more details about what it does not contain and why. And more about my bottles.

All my soaps are made using the cold process method from start to finish. But I have adopted a modern day twist to my technique. This method still produces the same high high quality soap, but it's a lot safer to make for several reasons.

I start the process out by gathering and weighing each ingredient out. I don't begin making soap until this step is done. All the oils are weighed in one container and the lye is carefully weighed as so are my choice of liquids. If I am adding any fragrance or other ingredients those are weighed out as well on a digital scale.





And all my oils are weighed out and ready to begin the process.



I have several recipes that I use. I never use soap recipes that I find on the internet because I have found most of them to be off balance in the amount of oils used. Some are even unsafe with to much lye used! Or others not enough lye is used to complete the chemical reaction needed to make soap.

I spent a lot of time learning about soap making. I'm not talking about the process of soap making but instead on how to formulate good soap recipes. Some soap makers do not realize that the oils are not created equally and that they can't all be interchanged. But you need to have the right balance of the oils to get specific qualities. And you can tweak the amounts and oils to get different results. Which is why I have several recipes that I use, each used for a different purpose.

Once I have all my ingredients weighed and ready I begin mixing and blending.

In the photo below you see that the mixture is now blended and in this case essential oil has been added and it's ready to be poured into the mold. The soap looks orange in color because the liquid used in this particular batch is tomato juice.





Then the soap is poured into the mold. Covered with plastic and ready to be put to sleep wrapped up in a quilt. Ready to go into the next phase.



The next phase is the one that is responsible for making soap. Soap making is all chemistry. Lye is dissolved into a liquid so it can be used to be mixed together with the oils. That is when the magic happens and the chemical reaction takes place to turn the mixed ingredients into soap. I unwrapped this soap to peek and to take this picture of the gelling phase. When the process is complete you have soap and there is no lye left in the finished product. (Unless the soaper wasn't careful in their recipe or in their weighing and the soap is lye heavy, meaning to much lye was used.)



And later once the process is complete the soap can be cut into bars and left to cure.





Most soaps need 3-6 weeks to cure. However if the batch has a large amount of olive oil used then it will need a longer time to cure to get hard.

One thing that is misunderstood about soap is about the cure time. The process saponification process is actually complete in about 24-48 hours, and you have soap. However it will be softer than what it would be if you wanted till the end of the cure time. But still very usable. The benefit to waiting for the cure time to complete is that the soap has had time for the extra liquids to evaporate and produce a harder bar of soap. Which in turn will last longer when it's being used. 

I call *most* of my soaps 99% natural because I do use a fragrance oil that is man made. However some do use essential oils and others are left unscented.

Soap made using the cold process method has the naturally occurring glycerin in it. What most call soap and is mass produced commercially has had any glycerin removed for resale or to be used in other products by the company. Those “soaps” are also made of many synthetic products. Some which do come from nature but that doesn't make them natural ingredients like many believe they are. They also depend on detergents and chemicals to do the cleaning instead of a natural process. Thus they save money on an inferior product.

If you have not used a soap that is made from scratch you don't know what you are missing. The thing that surprise most people is that they are shocked to find how clean they really feel. They find their skin feeling soft and not dry like it had been using a store bought product that strips away the skins natural oils.

So it doesn't matter if your looking for a product that is better for your skin or if you want to get away from the chemicals and detergents used in commercial soap products or if you are wanting to "go green". Because a soap that is made from scratch is better for the environment as well. Give it a try your skin will thank you.

One thing that I have noticed is the number of sellers who are using the term “handmade”. So before you purchase any soap, it's best to make sure the seller has used the term cold processed or even hot processed (just a slightly different technique) in their write up as the description of the process used to make their soap. Many sellers use a melt and pour base to make their soaps and call them handmade. Because after all they did melt down the product, add a scent or maybe a few extra ingredients and pour it into a mold, so they justify using the term handmade.

So do your homework before buying handmade soap. Many melt and pour soap makers are now using the loaf style molds that cold process soap makers have been using for a long time so it's hard to tell the difference. And the only way is by reading the write up, asking questions or even looking at the list of ingredients if the sellers give that information. But even then the list of ingredients can fool you if the seller doesn't include all the ingredients.

I hope you have found this information informative and if you have any questions please do ask.

Oh heck this is perfect for the non-beer drinking man as well.

*Manly GRUNT Here*

Classic "Fougere" for men with bergamont, geranium, lavender, cedarwood and oak.

This is made from scratch soap using my knowledge on how to get the right balance of oils. It's made with BEER, yes I snitched a can of my hubbies beer to make this soap !!! But it's also got aloe and silk in it as well. And you won't believe how silky soap bubbles can feel until you have used this soap.  (but it doesn't smell like beer, so your safe going to work or even being stopped by a cop!!!  But you can smile knowing you bathed with your favorite beverage !!!)

Take a look your skin will thank you.

A few of my eBay items - qsell

1 LB Handmade Cold Process Soap 4 bars COOL SPRING

If this scent doesn't strike your fancy, take a look at my store for other great options. PLUS I still have a few more scents to list. And my fisherman's soap as well as my tomato w/ tea tree essential oil facial soap.

This mysterious, alluring blend is difficult to describe. With warming notes of amber, incense, Madagascar vanilla and patchouli, this dragon's blood is lightened up with layers of romantic notes such as rose, jasmine and lilac. Finally this sensual, deep blend is topped off with the colorful, light touches of blood orange and grapefruit.

It reminds me of old spice cologne.

This is made from scratch soap using my knowledge on how to get the right balance of oils. It's made with goat's milk, aloe, unrefined shea butter among other awesome oils. Oh and it's also has raw silk fibers for an awesome silky feel when you use it.

Take a look your skin will thank you.

A few of my eBay items - qsell

1 LB Handmade Goats Milk Shea SILK Soap DRAGONS BLOOD

If this scent doesn't strike your fancy, take a look at my store for other great options. PLUS I still have a few more scents to list. And my fisherman's soap as well as my tomato w/ tea tree essential oil facial soap.

A tropical paradise blend of coconut, fresh sliced pineapple, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

This is made from scratch soap using my knowledge on how to get the right balance of oils. It's made with heavy whipping cream, aloe vera and mango butter among other awesome oils. Oh and it's also has raw silk fibers for an awesome silky feel when you use it.

Take a look your skin will thank you.

A few of my eBay items - qsell

1 LB Handmade CP Goats Milk Shea Soap TROPICAL Scent

If this scent doesn't strike your fancy, take a look at my store for other great options. PLUS I still have a few more scents to list. And my fisherman's soap as well as my tomato w/ tea tree essential oil facial soap.