We really love making shampoo bars, and now our new body bars! It’s extremely addicted. I personally love to cook, and bake, so making soap is like a whole new recipe for me to try. The experimentation and combinations seem endless. We now have over 50 different oils, essential oils, waxes, and butters. Not to mention all the herbs, natural colorants, powders, and all of those amazing ingredients we add to our recipes.

Currently all of our shampoo and body bars are on sale at Henna Sooq. You can find them at 20% off in both the Canadian, and USA sites. So what are you waiting for?! Try out these amazing handmade shampoo and body bars today! Sale ends this Friday, March 4, 2011.

My husband, and business partner, actually was the one who really wanted us to start making soaps ourselves. From the beginning he was a natural at making soap.

We used to allocate soap making to an independent soap maker, and due to the change, and refocus in our business, we decided to take over production directly. This also gave us flexibility in our recipes, and gave us full ownership over our recipes. This is very important. In my personal opinion, and in business please make sure you have all arrangements, and agreements in writing so that you don’t have any misunderstandings, or loss in your business. Always protect your business, and your vision.

We’ve tried both hot press, and cold press methods. There is also the oven method, but I don’t think we’ll be trying that out. With hot press, it’s very convenient, and quick. Should you be making small batches of soap/logs this would be effective, and work well. You wouldn’t really run out since you can make them so quickly. For hot press we use crock pots, and we have two running at the same time. The crock pots do need replacing over time. The lye is very strong and eats away at almost everything.

We currently use wood molds. We will eventually switch to larger, more effective molds such as the ones that Soap Equipment offers. We love their products! We got our soap cutter from them and it has been one of the BEST purchases we have made. We used to have a small soap cutter where you push the log through and cut one bar at a time. With the soap cutter from Soap Equipment it cuts the whole log/loaf in one swift movement. It is so easy and strong. We also realized that it cut 15 bars perfectly! We used to lose the last bar when cutting them one by one. So it’s also saved us money. Please view our video on our soap cutter.

We also have their stainless steel pots, infrared thermostat, and commercial grade electric mixer. We bought hot plates at a local store. We don’t make soaps, nor any of our products in our kitchen. We have a separate area away from the main part of our home for production, and it’s specifically set up for that.

With cold press it was love at first sight with that rich soap-pudding. WOW! What a difference. The creamy, rich soap is easily poured into the log. The electric mixer makes everything blend perfectly. I felt more confident that ingredients were being blended much better, rather then by hand when it came to hot press.

With everything there are pros, and cons. There are a few things we’d like to point out, and we hope this will help you:

• Hot Press: You get your bars made quicker. They are usually ready within 1-2 days.
• Cold Press: You have to wait at least 3-4 weeks. Some wait up to 7-8 weeks.
• Hot Press: Everything gets very hot, and temperatures go over 200 degrees F at times.
• Hot Press: Cooking time is about 1-2 hours. You have to sit and watch it, as it can overflow. Be careful. It’s fast, but you still have to keep an eye on it.
• Cold Press: Mixing it takes about 10-15 minutes with the electric mixer we have. Once it’s come to trace and/or thickened, you can pour it into your mold. Let it sit for about 12-24 hours and then cut it. Once your log is cut, allow to dry on racks for at least 3-4 weeks. The wait time is long, but if you are selling a large amount of bars, cold press is your best method for faster handmade production. You can only make a certain amount of logs a day with hot press, as this depends on how many crock pots you have, and you need 2 hour increments at least for it to cook. With cold press you can whip up a large batch quickly, and then just let it sit. Once you have the timings down, you can basically just constantly mix and let them sit out.
• Cold Press: When you first mix the lye water it usually gets to about 175 degrees or so.You have to let the lye water sit and cool down. This can take a long time, but with a bucket or large bowl filled with ice and water, it helps it cool down much quicker. The melted oils, and lye water need to be at the same temperature before you put them together. Usually at 100 degrees is ideal and recommended. You have to play around and get used to this part.
• Hot Press temperatures rose to over 200 degrees F. I felt more comfortable adding herbs, essential oils and etc. into the cold press method at a light trace since the temperature was actually lower (they have had a chance to cool down, and they are at about 100 degrees or less at that point). I used the infrared thermostat we have to keep an eye on temperature.
• Cold Press: I find the electric mixer works better at blending all the extra ingredients you add into your soap much better then by hand, as you’d do with hot press.

The winner for us is cold press method. I find it makes a really solid bar. It has a nice shape, and there are less chances of bubbles. There has been less bubbles/holes for us with CP method. The bars are also known to be more conditioning, and milder. Our bars lather with rich, thick foam. You can also be very creative with CP method, such as swirling colors.

Over the years we’ve made tweaks and changes to our bars in order to make them perfect for you! We love using them.