As I was searching around for vintage ads on soap products, Lux Soap Brand came up a lot and oh, how wonderful it is! I had to share some of these gorgeous ads. How could I resist?

Lux soap was first launched in the UK in 1899 as a flaked version of Sunlight soap. Subsequently it was launched in the US in 1916, and marketed as a laundry soap targeted specifically at ‘delicates’. Lever Brothers encouraged women to home launder their clothes without fear of satins and silks being turned yellow by harsh lyes that were often used in soaps at the time. The flake-type soap allowed the manufacturer some leeway from lye because it did not need to be shaped into traditional cake-shaped loaves as other soaps were. The result was a gentler soap that dissolved more readily and was advertised as suitable for home laundry use. Lux is currently a product of Unilever. The name “Lux” was chosen as the Latin word for “light” and because it was suggestive of “luxury.”

Lux toilet soap was introduced as a bathroom soap in the US in 1925, and in the UK in 1928 as a brand extension of Lux soap flakes. Subsequently Lux soap has been marketed in several forms, including handwash, shower gel and cream bath soap.

Lux soap was launched in India in 1929. The very first advertisement in 1929 featured Leela Chitnis as its brand ambassador. It was branded in India as “the beauty soap of film stars’.

Since the 1930s, many well-known Hollywood actresses have marketed the soap to women as a beauty enhancer. Advertisements have featured Dorothy Lamour, Joan Crawford, Laurette Luez, Judy Garland, Cheryl Ladd, Jennifer Lopez, Elizabeth Taylor, Demi Moore, Sarah Jessica Parker, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Rachel Weisz, Anne Hathaway, and Marilyn Monroe, among others. The first male to star in a Lux advertisement was Hollywood actor Paul Newman.

As of June 2009 Lux is sold in over 100 countries.

[information in this post found on wikipedia]

… I’m a SOAPMAKER! Yes, I can now say that I officially make soap.

A couple days ago, I made my first batch and it turned out AMAZING and smells delicious!  My first batch of soap is full of hops (ground and whole) and smells sweet like cocoa butter. I took pictures of the whole thing, so get ready. Introducing (drum roll please) … HOP SOAP!

I would like to send a HUGE thank you to The Nova Studio for providing the instructions, worksheet, and knowledge that I needed to pull it all off. If your interested in learning how to make soap, check out Lori’s site. She constantly has classes going to learn soapmaking and more. I took her Soap Making Boot Camp and LOVED IT!!! So, thanks Lori – this one’s for you

This is me in my kitchen, ready to begin. Steve took pictures for me.

I made soap the Cold Process way this time. I want to try the Hot Process way next (using a slow cooker).

Before I started anything, I made sure my mold was lined and ready to go. I used lined freezer paper. Cool stuff, but it was seriously hard to find. I think I visited about six different places before finally finding it at a little grocery store.

You can’t make Hop Soap without HOPS!! I made a trip to my local beer making supply shop and picked up a 4oz. package of  Cascade hops in pellet form. Then I ground them up into a powder.

I then got all my other additives measured out and ready to go. I have 1/3cup whole copped hops, 3tbs. ground/powdered hops and 3tbs. French Green clay colorant.

Next, I put on my safety glasses and gloves and gathered my distilled water and lye together.

First, I measured out my distilled water…

… then measured the amount of lye in a separate container and placed the distilled water in the sink by the open window (always being careful when working with lye!)

After the lye was measured, I carefully added it to the distilled water and stirred to make sure it all dissolved. The reaction between the two will cause the mixture to get super hot. I stuck the thermometer in the bowl to monitor it while I moved onto melting the oils together.

As the lye/water mixture sat in the sink (with the dog and cat safely locked in the bedroom, of course) I dug 16oz. of palm oil and then another 16oz. of coconut oil out of their boxes and weighed them out in my stainless steel pot on the scale.

I also added 4oz. cocoa butter oil to the mix and melted them all together at a low temperature on the stove.

Next, I measured out 26oz. liquid olive oil and 2oz. liquid jojoba oil and added them to the other oils after they melted. After I added the liquid oils, it reduced the temperature close to 110 degrees. My lye/water mixture was also about that temperature at this time so now we can make soap! I poured the lye/water mixture into my oils and began stirring to mix them together (the pictures are far and few between from here on out… Steve was helping me, so didn’t take many).

I used my stick blender to speed up the process. Soon, I saw the soap coming to a light trace (when it looks like a runny pudding). I added my clay colorant and powdered hops at this time and mixed them in well. As the trace thickened a bit, I added the whole chopped hops and mixed them in to finish it off.

I already had my towels spread out on the table with my mold lined and ready to go so poured it in and smoothed out the top (I don’t have pictures of this part, but trust me… it looked awesome!)

I covered the mold with plastic wrap and then wrapped the entire mold in towels to insulate it as it heats up over the next couple of days.

Two days later… it’s time to take the soap out of the mold and cut it!! Oh, I was so excited – giddy even. I separated the freezer paper from the mold and pulled the whole sheet of soap out in one piece. You can see the color and texture of the soap in this shot. It set up a few shades darker than when I poured it in.

I removed the paper fully and then put the sheet of soap back into the mold to cut it. (This mold is GREAT! Thank you to David at Mission Peak Soap for making the mold).

Once the soap was back in the mold, I used a trowl to cut the soap (Well, Steve did because he’s the one with the muscle).

Then I pulled them out of the mold and set them upright (turning them every couple days) to set up and continue saponifying fully over the next 6 weeks.

So that’s my first experience making soap. I absolutely love it! It’s interesting and totally useful. I’m all for making something from scratch vs. purchasing it. Throw in a little art, a little chemistry, and a lot of hands-on love and TADA… homemade soap!

I’m a complete freak when it comes to organizing and storage! I love it and it loves me… a match made in heaven. So, naturally, before I can venture into making soap full-time, I have to get all my supplies and ingredients organized.

Now, I live in a 800 square foot manufactured home (a modern mobile home), so space is not a luxury for me, but I think it should make due just fine till I get famous.

From one organization freak to another… I’m LOVING my ‘Resource Binder’ too.

I’m almost ready to start making. I should finally have everything I need this week. Steve’s been helping me plan my first batch and what to put in it. We decided to try a hop soap for all those beer lovers out there. It’s gonna be great.

Life’s full of bumps. I just wrote this huge paragraph venting about how… well, in a nut shell, we should cherish the bumps and not consider them a detour from our ultimate goal of success, but decided to start back at square one to just say – Life is the bumps and I’m intrigued to see where they take me.

This all to say, the financial struggle of our time has turned us in a new direction. Sometimes I think I’m exempt to stuff happening around me, then SMACK! it hits me in the face and I’m force to change my tune. Change is good!

I got some pink peonies at TJ’s a couple days ago. Peonies are my absolute favorite flower! They’re huge and complex and smell delicious. I took some pictures to share. Embrace the day and make it count.

My soap research has begun! This past weekend I attended a 2-day intense coarse on soapmaking at The Nova Studio in Pt. Richmond. Many actually flew in from other areas to take Lori’s class. I met so many wonderful people! It was the most fun that I’ve had in a long time. Lori Nova, our soap expert and teacher, posted a picture of the class. Click on the picture to view it bigger.

Sorry in advance to everyone I will be probing for information to see what you like best in a bar of soap. I’ve been researching and reading up on ingredients and methods and scents, etc., but most of all what people want. Thank you to those who have already helped so much by giving me their opinions, soap samples to try and for just being supportive.

It’s not as hard to make soap as I thought, but there are many ways to make it depending on what outcome you  need. We made both cold process and hot process soap in the class. Both are somewhat similar but hot process has an extra step that speeds up the set up time and allows you to use the soap safely much sooner.

I’m picking up my final supplies this weekend and plan to make my FIRST batch early next week! Stay tuned. I’m going to document and blog the whole process.

In the words of Molly Shannon as she’s kicking her leg in the air, ” I love it, love it, love it!”

[soap bars in above picture created by The Nova Studio, half-used by me and my hubbie]

To be frank, blogging sucks! I find myself going in and out of wanting to do it at all. I don’t know what my inspiration should be and among many others, I’ve struggled with knowing what to write about. No one wants to hear about this stuff. A lot of the time, I end up writing about what I think others want to read about. I know, that’s bad you say. You should write about things that make you happy, you say. blah blah blah. Ya, your right. What if I just started taking pictures of my life, my house, my pets, my habits, my stuff and wrote about that? What if this blog had no other purpose in this world than to show everyone reading who I am?

Seems kinda narcissistic. Ok, I’m over it.

It’s cherry season! If you have a minute, go get some. A cute neighbor girl came to our door last night and sold us a bag for $3. I put them in my vintage strawberry pattern bowl today and have been chomping them off their cute little stems! There’s a bit of my life today whether you wanted to read about it or not.

Ya ya ya! I’m going to soap making boot camp this weekend. Two intense days of nothing but learning how it all works from people who have been doing it for years. It’s a class offered by The Nova Studio in Pt. Richmond. This is extra important to me because it’s what I’ve been needing to get a jump on Little Brown Owl Soap Company.

As some of you know, it’s been in limbo for well over a year now. I have a website designed and am working with my super talented husband to get that up and running (but probably not launched till I have something to sell :)). I may be contacting some of you soon to test out the product. I need to figure out packaging and shipping methods still, but it’s all coming along. I’m especially excited to attempt a new scent that will hit home with most of the fellas I know (Stephen’s idea of course!)… Hop soap. I know ladies, it seems like it would be kinda smelly, and not in the good way. Don’t worry, I’ll add a woman’s touch, so that it will attract instead of turn away.

Some nice things about l.b.o. soap is that it’s purely vegetable, mild and natural, made with essential oils (no animal products, perfumes, or fake stuff of any kind). Some other scents I’m leaning toward are sandlewood, patchouli, douglas fir, lavendar, milk, tea tree, eucalyptus, rosemary mint, oatmeal and my all-time favorite, cocoa butter. We’ll see what really turns out.

Ta ta for now.

Typography has always been a form of art that I’ve been super interested in. Composition created in the simplest form. type + white space = love

Recently I watched the documentary Helvetica and loved it! So interesting. I have to admit though, I fell asleep toward the end… only because I had a crazy long day and it was very late. The movie itself was fantastic. Check it out.

Brief history of the typeface taken from www.wikipedia.com: Helvetica was developed in 1957 by Max Miedinger with Eduard Hoffmann at the Haas’sche Schriftgiesserei (Haas type foundry) of Munchenstein, Switzerland. Haas set out to design a new sans-serif typeface that could compete with the typeface Akzidenz-Grotesk in the Swiss market. Originally called Die Neue Haas Grotesk, the aim of the new design was to create a neutral typeface that had great clarity, had no intrinsic meaning in its form, and could be used on a wide variety of signage.

In 1960, the typeface’s name was changed by Haas’ German parent company Stempel to Helvetica — derived from Confoederatio Helvetica, the Latin name for Switzerland — in order to make it more marketable internationally.

I’ve figured something out, but I don’t know what really. I did a bit of research and compiled a group of pictures. Ok, I’m not sure why I did this in the first place. It’s all entirely random and there’s not much point to it besides trying to compare my style attempts to those of celebrities that I am aware of. Whatever the point may be, here goes. I’ve always liked Audrey Hepburn. I love her movies and her fashion sense. I enjoy how she seems like everyone’s friend and appears happy in pictures. I want to be carefree and fun and experience life. On the other hand, I also love Winona Ryder. Besides all the crap she’s been involved with, I love her back in her 90’s, rebellious, short haired “Reality Bites” era. You know what I mean? She makes me want to paint and write in journals and sit in coffee shops all day. I identify with that. Although I doubt that anyone who knows me would ever label me as a “rebellious,” but still. An finally, I’ve discovered that I love Michelle Williams of late. She’s collects books, dresses super cute and she’s a mom too! I look forward to becoming a stylish mom that reads a lot some day. I guess I would have to become a mom at all first…

It was fun putting this together. Just a bit about myself, kinda. Make your own sense of it.