“This is not Dawn” Dish Soap

This is Not Dawn.

In my quest to make everything I use… I’ve been trying for an Ecover-style dishwashing detergent for some time now. We’re still doing dishes the old fashion way, and cooking elaborate meals a couple times a day makes for a fair amount of dish washing, and many bottles of dish soap. Ecover doesn’t list their exact ingredients, but after working with surfactants for a while, I narrowed it down to three – two anionic and one “zwitterionic” coconut-based surfactants. Plus water, thickener, and Essential Oils.

Right. Anyway, it took me a few times to finally get it right, and I’m very pleased with the end result. (And I have about 15 bottles of chunky or runny dish soap that works just fine, too.) I tried adding aloe vera, along with different emulsifiers, but it just separated every time. The final (good) batch has essential oils of Sweet Orange, Lemon, and Lemongrass — a bit too orangey for my nose, but I think the orange EO helps with grease-cutting. (Or, at least that’s what I’ve been told, though this does work better than my unscented dish soap, albeit liquidy and/or chunky).

I’ve done three loads of dishes today, and this stuff measures up to Ecover. It’s just a bit thinner — I hope to find a happy medium between thin and chunky some day.

I should go focus on other things now.

Give Me Land, Lots of Land…

Preferably under starry skies.

We went to visit Finlayson, MN last weekend. Chris’s dad owns a chunk of land up there, and suggested we build a house on it. It’s only 1 1/2 hours from the Twin Cities area (our families), which cuts the driving time we have now in half.

Unfortunately, it’s not going to work out. It is a nice wooded area, but the towns just aren’t right. I can’t see my business thriving – even existing – in any of the surrounding towns, and I don’t think Chris could find a suitable job in the area.

So, back to the drawing board. But still making progress. I had a Realtor visit my house today, and I was quite surprised at what he told me! His estimated selling price – as is – was MUCH higher than I had anticipated. Seems we’ve done well with the house (this is a good thing). And this gives us a nice down payment on something new!

There are a lot of things that need to be done before we can sell though: the windows still need trim (inside and out), the 60-amp fuse box needs to be updated, the basement door needs to be replaced (thanks dogs!)… but he said that he wouldn’t bother with expensive siding, and even leaving it as-is or painting would be just fine. (A new paint job won’t last long because of its current condition, but he said, “Out of sight, out of mind. Just mention the house will need to be painted more frequently than some other houses.” Hmm.. kind of sneaky/scammy, but I bet the next owners would just put siding up anyway. (I’ve been wanting to for a few years now!)

So, the plan now is to look for towns that will suit us. Then, call up real estate offices in a few towns and tell them what we’re looking for. We’ve been talking so much about building our “dream home”… but I think (Chris may disagree!) that we should just find a chunk of land we’re satisfied with that has a crappy run-down house on it. Then, either gut/renovate the thing piece by piece or slowly build a new home on the same property as we can afford it. I guess the idea of new-house-this-year won’t come to fruition, but I really hope new-land-by-next-year will. We deserve it, and so do the dogs.

Before we move, I need to make my website business full-time. It’s getting there… Iceberg Hosting is averaging a new client every week – which is excellent. But we can expand… If you’re reading this and know of anyone who needs a website, please send them my way!

. . . In completely unrelated and incredibly exciting news, I am going to be an aunt either tonight or tomorrow morning!

Soap, Soap, Soap

Lavendar/Cedar and “Fruit Explosion”

Above: Lavendar/Cedarwood (essential oil blend) and “Fruit Explosion” – mango, papaya, pineapple, guava, apple.

Lemongrass/Cassia and Clean Scent Blend

Above: Cassia/Lemongrass (EO blend) and ___(yet unnamed)___… it’s layered with Clean Laundry and Lavender fragrance oils… smells “clean”, nothing like lavender (I haven’t yet found a synthetic lavender blend that smells like lavender).

I ordered a few pounds of essential oils to play around with. I wanted about half of my line to be EO blends, rather than synthetic fragrances. We’ll see… I figured since they’re for sale at the food co-op people would be more interested in the au-natural route. That hasn’t been the case so far, however. None of my EO or unscented soaps sell well; the ones that do well are Blueberry (??), and spicy ones. The bold colors may help; something new anyway. It takes a long time (and a lot of patience) to pour a striped log of soap like that.

Still putting together a website to sell them on, as requested. I sent a few bars to a friend in the army, and they were well received! I do need to get these guys for sale in another location, as my log mold holds 22 bars of soap… so I have quite a stash saved up.

I also have a bunch of little sample-sized bars, which I am very willing to give away. (Hint, hint)

I may experiment with a few more things this weekend… possibly another batch/recipe for shampoo (or maybe shower gel this time), more liquid soap, and I’m thinking toothpaste. I got some tooth soap from someone who also makes this kind of stuff, and it’s quite wonderful. I’ve been reading tubes, and I’d like to whip up some… but rather than go the “soap” way with oils and lye, I think I’ll try the “conventional way” with sodium coco-sulfate (not SLS like the rest of them)… and xylitol if I can get my hands on some.

Weekend.

Lemongrass and Cassia

Ahh, the weekend. The co-op schedule is full but unfortunately weekends rarely mean time off, at least recently. I have a stack of website work to do… but fortunately I don’t get calls or e-mails from clients over the weekend, so it’s not too stressful.

I hope to make a few batches of bar soap this weekend as well. I ordered a bunch of essential oils that I’m hoping to test out. I had time last night to make this batch of Lemongrass and Cassia. Colored with annatto seeds (top, cassia), black oxide (stripe), and blue and green ultramarines (bottom, lemongrass). Smells pretty nice. The lemongrass inspired Chris to make a thai curry after I finished pouring it.

We had plans to travel this weekend… to check out a big chunk of land in the Hinckley area, actually. Unfortunately, highs this weekend are in the negative digits – not good weather for walking around an empty piece of land. So we delayed the trip; hopefully the first weekend in February we’ll be able to check it out. It’s an amazing opportunity, with the potential of (some day) near 40 acres, and maybe opporutnity to acquire even more eventually.

Still a far-off possibility though. I’m most anxious about moving my business across the state. A move like this would require a “real office” in town though, which I’m incredibly excited about!

Cat Houses

More Cat Beds

So, this is what kept me quite busy in the weeks before the holidays. It all started with the cat house I randomly decided to make one Friday afternoon:

Cat House

… that moved on to a cat bed:

Cat Bed

… and eventually progresed into quite a project. Turns out, everyone in my family has cats. (Surprise). All in all… I made the cat house for Kallie, the bed for Niko… and another practice cat house. Then four cat beds (plus one that didn’t turn out quite as planned) and two more cat houses for my family. Oh yeah, and a life-sized stuffed cat for my mom. The two houses for my brother’s cats and mom’s cats turned out the best, by far:

Cat House

Cat Bed

(Kallie tested all of them, and approved). And there was a bit of time in there to put together new labels for my other handmade stuffs.

Jessi’s Handmade Stuff

Yeah, tons of photos. But it was hard work.

I took a week off over Christmas, and I’m having a really hard time catching back up. I’ve been falling behind with projects for the food co-op, and it seems like EVERYBODY needs a website redesign before the middle of January. On the bright side, my February web design bills are going to look pretty nice!

A lady who shops at the food co-op keeps bringing my handmade soap back to Italy with her. She requested that I have a website so that her friends in Italy can place orders before she goes there. So, another thing to add to the bottom of my pile of “things to do”.