Here are some of the things I have ready for tomorrow’s craft fair - come on out to the Wedgeport Fire Hall tomorrow between 9:30 and 3-ish to have a peek!

Special deal for blog readers - if you come and see me at the craft fair and tell me that you read my blog, you will get two free bars of soap from my Bits and Pieces basket! This basket is full of end bars (the slices off of either end of a soap log) and soap which just didn’t turn out as perfectly as I had hoped, but is still perfectly useable and lovely. So come on out and get your free soap!

A new pic of my Honey Almond Exfoliating Gardener’s Bar. I love this soap!

I called my credit card company this morning, and they are in the process of completing a charge-back to Well Naturally. See here for the details, if you missed the story. This involves them sending me a statement which I have to sign, attesting to the fact that I paid for goods which have not been received, which I then send back to them and the credit is made to my card. What a hassle, but here’s the great news - the Well Naturally site is down! Hopefully this won’t be happening to anyone else.

I’ve been having a very relaxing and fun first week of summer break. We had a cookout, complete with fireworks on Canada Day (by the way, Happy 4th of July to you Americans!) and we’ve had lots of time outside in the sun. I’ll be busy today getting last minute things together for this weekend’s craft fair in Wedgeport. And once again, I have some potentially very exciting soap-related news, but the reveal won’t be until the fall, if everything goes as I hope. But I’ll definitely let you know!

This coming Sunday, I’ll be in Wedgeport’s Fire Hall for their post-parade craft fair. If you’re local, come on out! I’m going to have some new gift baskets and sets, as well as some clearance bars for cheap! I’ll also have some of the new Grapefruit bars pictured above as well as those Almond Biscotti beauties.

I got all of my advanced orders from my Featured Seller weekend shipped this morning, which was a very nice feeling. I hope everyone enjoys the mailbox delight. And have a lovely and relaxing Canada Day tomorrow!

These ones turned out much better than my first attempt, and they smell heavenly. I was quite hurried when putting them into the molds, as the soap became very thick, very quickly. I thought I would have many more little air pockets because of this, but there only seems to be one. And a bit of crumblage at the corner, there in the second picture, but on the whole, I’m happy. I wish you could smell them! I love how salt bars get polished as you use them - the one I have at the kitchen sink reminds be of a beach stone, it’s that sort of firm and smooth. Lovely!

My other love.

I made another batch of Island Coconut Salt Spa Bars tonight; I’m going to cut them right way so I avoid the hard as rock disaster from last time. I’ll try to post pictures tonight!

This was my first attempt at making loofah bars, and I think they turned out pretty well. They’re a custom order for a local glass bead artist who I did a swap with. I had ordered some large loofahs from Well Naturally, but since I’m not going to see those, I bought some shorter ones at a local store. My main trouble with these bars was that when I was cutting them, the loofah was quite close to the edge of the mold, so the edges are a bit crumbly. But they smell lovely and I’m sure they’ll provide excellent scrubbing action. And don’t you love that sweet little dish? I picked it up at a yard sale this morning.

Update on the Well, Naturally saga: Mary of Well Naturally e-mailed me today to say that I should go ahead and do the charge-back, as she is dealing with cancer and chemo. I would like to believe her, but I kind of just, well, don’t. I will be doing the charge-back, though - does she think that by telling me that, that I’m just going to say “Oh, you poor thing - just keep my money.” Umm, no. I will be writing back to tell her that if that is indeed the case, she should at the very least delete her website.

I’ve been duped, and I feel very silly. But in the interest of helping fellow soapers, I’ll share a little story.

At the beginning of June, I placed an online order with Well, Naturally, based in Surrey, BC and run by Mary Robinson. It was for soap supplies. My credit card was charged on June 4, and after hearing nothing from Mary or her cats (I’ll get to that in a second) about shipping, I sent an e-mail asking about the order status. Nothing. So a week or so later, I e-mailed again. Still nothing. I think I e-mailed a third time, nothing, then decided to call last night. According to her voicemail, “the cats are terrible at taking messages”, and apparently so is her machine, as it is full.

Before I placed the order, I did a very quick search and no huge red flags went up, but apparently I should have googled “well naturally complaints“. I’m thunking myself on the forehead for not checking with the Better Business Bureau before ordering from a new company - their rating there is unsatisfactory.

At Ripoff Report there are lots of complaints from other people who have had similar experiences.

Please do not order anything from Well Naturally!

Some WONDERFUL Canadian suppliers about whom I have nothing but good things to say are Cranberry Lane and New Directions. Very professional, prompt, and they have great selection.

Cherry Almond soap with fair trade organic cane sugar. Mmmm.

Birch Bark Soap was recently mentioned here, at Pia Jane Bijkerk’s beautiful blog. She lives in a houseboat in Amsterdam and is the queen of all things beautiful.

And here, at Man Made Market - I love the concept of this site and am delighted to be featured!

 Thank you!

My soapwort is blooming!

I did something brilliant! I was having trouble finding a way to easily line my tube molds for easy removal of the soap. Parchment paper worked okay, but was tricky to wrestle and left squiggles on the soap. So I bought a silicone baking sheet, curled it up in the mold, and voila! It worked like a dream.

Here’s the easily unwrapped soap, with a tiny honeycomb pattern on it. I think I’ll put the smooth side in next time, and I may try trimming the baking sheet so it lines up perfectly and doesn’t leave that little ridge. On the whole, I’m really happy with this burst of inspiration!

A blurred picture of some packages I sent on Monday morning reflect how I felt after getting all of those fantastic Etsy orders organized, packed, and to the post office. Phew! Thankfully, many orders had advance bars in them, so I have a couple of weeks until they cure and are ready to ship.

And the second shot is of a batch of Chocolate Peppermint soap taken right after it was poured into the mold. It looks just like milk chocolate, and is curing beautifully. It smells exactly like a peppermint patty!