|
|
|
|
Shopping on a Lark or What was I going to do with that?
I started soaping on a lark. Actually, I saw someone on
the subway reading a crafters catalogue called Lark. I got that
catalogue and there was a soap makers kit. On an impulse I ordered it
instead of yet another knitting book and the fun began.
When I first started soaping, I was the only soaper that I
knew. I learned from a book. Finding ingredients was very hard.
Health Food Store prices were just too expensive, the local craft stores
carried supplies more geared towards candles and the suppliers listed in my
soap book were either prohibitively expensive or out of business. When I
tried the telephone book, I was asking about ounces and they were talking
drums. My first few batches were not exactly what I wanted to make but
what I could find. I used to keep a little list of exotic-to-me
ingredients in my bag and search for them everywhere I went. Some of
those first few batches cost me a fortune with cocoa butter bought in tiny one
ounce tubes and little bottles of Health Food Store (HFS) essential oils!
Then I finally got a computer that had the ability to go on
line. I started looking up all my interests. I read about books,
knitting, teaching, and one link lead to another. I stumbled on a yahoo soap
list run by a well known supplier. All of a sudden these ingredients I
was searching for were available in one place and SO much cheaper. BUT
now I was reading about and suddenly NEEDING things that I had not even known
existed. I wanted all sorts of butters, oils, pigments, molds, cutters
clays, not to mention every fragrance oil and essential oil known to man.
I got in on fast buys, co-ops, quick buys. Boxes of stuff started flying
to my house. My husband, a substance abuse counselor, was startled more
then once to see me unpacking baggies of some white powdered substance.
I went from making Castile soap with a whiff of lavender essential oil to
making soaps containing eleven oils and butters, a few additives and as much
fragrance oil as it could hold.
To make life even more complicated, I started making lotions,
creams, scrubs and lip balms. Every swap I did introduced me to another
product or ingredient that I just had to have. I moved from using my
regular cooking kitchen to a kitchen I only previously used to make a turkey
at Thanksgiving and my Christmas cheesecake. Now I had space and oh did
I find a way to fill it. I was ordering things so quickly that I
sometimes forgot why I wanted it before it came. My soaping supplies
grew from a single box that could easily be placed in a closet to a full
kitchen's worth AND a storage room!
Well, I have calmed down. I don't know if it was maturing
or wearing out! I still love swaps but I don't need every butter, or
clay or new fragrance out there. Now when I hear about a new item that I
don't already have I try to consider if it will add or do something new.
Do I really have a need for it or do I just want it? I'm also really
considering just how useful it will be to order something on a quick buy that
cannot easily be replaced or reordered in reasonable amounts or at a realistic
cost! I still love to try new things but I don't have to order every new item
that someone mentions.
So now can someone please tell me what I was going to do with
turkey red oil and why I needed 100 copper cap foaming soap bottles?
~ Frances Schuff
|
