the feto soap blog

I haven’t done a farmers market in ages! I took the month of August off and at my next scheduled market in September Hurricane Ike hit, but I’m back with 40 + kinds of soap to choose from.

I will be vending at the Midtown Farmers Market Local Crafts Spree on Saturday, October 11th from 8am - Noon. The Midtown Farmers Market is located in the front of Monica Pope’s T’afia. 3701 Travis Street @ W. Alabama directions here.

SECOND SATURDAY SHOPPING SPREE!! Lots of local craft vendors on the patio such as Houston Craft Mafia Members Eutectic Handcrafted Jewelry & A Punkin Card Company will be there! Shop Local and Shop Handmade!

Cheers!
Lisa Chouinard, Feto Soap

Sarah the Intern came over Saturday and we made some new soaps:  Sandalwood Vanilla, Berry Wine & Zinfandel.

I admit it. I make most of my soap in tiny two-pound batches. I do this so I can make many different scents and still have room to walk around my workspace. But this weekend I made some of my more popular soap in 5 - 6 lb batches.

One of the batches of soap I made was my Blackberry Sage Shea Butter Handmade Soap in my new 18-bar mold. This yummy smelling soap will available in a month! Cold Process Soap takes a few weeks to cure and is totally worth the wait.

Hello Lucky is restocked with my handmade soaps and dry oil perfume sprays.  Check them out during White Linen Nights this weekend!

Hello Lucky
1025 Studewood Street
Houston, Texas 77008
713-86hello - 713-864-3556
http://www.hello-lucky.com

Hello Lucky will be part of White Linen in The Heights
Saturday August 2, 4 - 10pm
We will be open from 11 am - 10 pm
serving up some cool libations after 4

# 47 on the White Linen map
shuttle stop- # 10 on the shuttle stop index
So if you live close by, you may just want to walk to Hello Lucky
or park nearby us and catch a free shuttle from the shop to take you around The Heights

more about White Linen at: http://www.whitelinennightheights.com/

Road Trip on view now
Artists:
Jim Denk, Rachel Hewlett, Jillsbadcar, Melissa Lonchambon,
Mike Lonchambon, Whitney Riley,
Brooke Summers-Perry, Vagrca, David Waddell, Joanne Witt

Ongoing
work by Ryan Geiger, Woody Golden, JoAnn Park, Christine West
and a collaborative video by Elaine Bradford, Teresa O’Connor and David Waddell

July/August Monthly Challenge
Throughout the months of July and August
we will be a drop spot for plastic shopping/grocery bags as well as fabric remnants.
Itscool2care will use these items to create reusable shopping bags. http://www.itscool2care.org

This quarter Hello Lucky is happy to be working with Glasstire. A portion of in-store sells will be donated to the non-profit http://www.glasstire.com

Road Trip on view in store now!

Hello Lucky
http://www.hello-lucky.com

New Shop Hours
Thursday 11 - 5
Friday and Saturday 11 - 6
*Sunday Noon - 5*
We will happily stay later,
just call us before 5pm
xox

or by appt, just call

you are amazing, you are

My student Micky came over last night and we made three new limited edition soaps together. Lavender Essential Oil Shea Butter Soap swirled with ultramarines, a Green Tea Soap swirled with - what else, Green Tea Powder and a Salt Bar.

The Lavender Essential Oil Soap came out as planned, all swirly.

The Green Tea soap had the same kind (ok, I think they were better) of swirls going on it until I:

1. Forgot to put the dividers in my mold
2. Covered it with plastic wrap
3. Dropped the plastic wrap on top of the perfect swirls I had just finished making.

I grabbed my stirrer and did a quick “blind swirl” to fix it. It’s still a swirled soap, but they are just not very precise, which is fine. I learned a couple of things. Green Tea powder goes from a nice green to a dark brown quick in fresh soap. I added some green colorant hoping to get a dark green color out of the swirl, but it wasn’t happening. Which again is ok. It was an experiment and the deep brown color is nice, though everyone thinks these pictures of soap are some kind of dessert.

The Salt Bar

It was my first time making a salt bar. I’ve been seeing these around and curious enough to make a batch of my own. I used 50% Coconut Oil and a combination of Shea Butter, Olive Oil & Castor Oil and I used the same amount of salt as the amount of oils I had in the recipe. Normally I have to wait a few days to unmold cold process soap. Not this one. I unmolded them within an hour and a half. I scented them with a lovely coconut fragrance… and now need to wait for them to finish curing so I can use one for myself! They will be ready to use on June 26th along with the other two soaps I made yesterday. I’ll add the Salt bar picture to this post as soon as I get it photographed. I have some other soaps I want to make, so I’m going to write them down. If you have any special requests, let me know!

The Limited Edition White Tea & Ginger Shea Butter Soap I made with my bud Mikey Sunday afternoon:

We added the lye to the water that had tea in it and let it brew up that way. After it cooled a bit I strained out the tea. The tea got really dark, so we added some titanium dioxide and white kaolin clay to the batch.

The soap became a tan color and I didn’t think the powdered ginger root was going to show up in contrast to the already tan colored soap, so we added Brick Red Oxide to the cup of soap we were using to swirl. The soap has lightened up a bit since setting up. More pictures to come later! This soap will need to cure for at least a month before you can use it, but it will be worth the wait! Stay tuned! More tea soaps will be coming your way!

This soap is made with Olive Oil, Coconut Oil, Palm Oil & Shea Butter.

I’ve been making a new batch a day for the past week. Here is Energy Soap wet in the mold. It will be ready in time for Maker Faire SF.