I have officially chosen a date when the shop will open! Come visit on July 26, 2022 to get a bar or eight of my beautiful handmade soap.
Why so long?
I’m super excited to open the shop, and I know several people who are anxious to pick up some soap. There are a few reasons we all have to wait another month. One I’ve mentioned before is the cure time. I’m still several weeks out for full cure on a bunch of my batches. I wouldn’t feel comfortable selling the most recent batch until mid-July anyway. Trust me, you want the soap to cure! It allows the extra water to evaporate off and the bars to harden up so they last longer in your bath or shower.
The other reason I need to wait is because I have a vacation planned started in mid-July, immediately followed by a family reunion (which at least is fairly local). What with being out of the house for a week with limited internet access (I’ll be on a cruise; don’t judge me), I didn’t want to start selling until I’d reliably be able to fulfill and ship orders efficiently. So I’m giving myself one day of recovery time after the reunion, and then it’s time to sell!
Soap Updates
Since my last post, I’ve finished up my classic soaps with the ever-beloved but newly-named Captain’s Quarters. It’s a blend I came up with myself years ago, and it’s loved by a lot of my friends and family. I hope it’ll be a hit with other customers as well. It’s not a fancy soap, but people love the way it smells. Ironically, it’s far from my personal favorite (the leather note just doesn’t do it for me), but you’ve gotta supply the demand, right?
After I finished Captain’s Quarters, it was time to move on to my Limited Edition soaps. This collection, consisting of three themed batches, will only sell as long as supplies last (unless something is really popular; then I’ll move it into the Classic line). They were exciting to make, because they’re fancier color- and swirl-wise… but they were also a little nerve-wracking. Luckily they all turned out beautifully, and I can’t wait to see the response to them. More on the collection later.
Other Updates
As for this site, it looks pretty much the same, but there are some exciting things going on in the back end. That is, I’m setting up the shop page and the products and generally making a lot of progress. It won’t look different to you till launch day, though, when I publish those pages and make them available for everyone to access. Then I get to hope I set everything up right and the checkout works! In the meantime I’m doing everything I can to make sure that happens.
See you on July 26!