The Greening of Gavin

Soap Making: Product Liability Insurance

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You would think that selling well crafted handmade soap would be fairly easy, wouldn’t you?

blocksofsoapWell it’s not.  If you want to ensure that you’re not going to lose your home in the process, you have to make sure that you are covered by an insurance product for any soap that you make and sell.  Here in Australia it’s called Product Liability Insurance.

To cut a long story short and after some further investigation today, we found that our business insurance, which we thought covered us for making and selling soap, does not.  Even though we specifically told the company that we intended on making and selling our own soap when we took it out, we have been told that it was not part of the deal.

So unfortunately we took the decision to delist all of our handmade soap from Little Green Workshops until we find some a company that will cover us for that product.  We are risk averse when it comes to the potential loss of everything we hold dear in our sustainable lifestyle.  All it would take is one malice individual to take us to court for damages and we would lose the lot.  Not something I want to lose sleep about each night even though we have personally been using our handmade soap for over five years without incident.

The funny thing was that every other product we sell was okay, including our workshops.  It was the for soap we lovingly made ourselves that was the issue.  Sometimes I don’t know how small cottage industries survive in this environment, and I thank our business planning foresight that we did not build our entire simple living business around this one product.

My mission on Wednesday is to seek out product liability insurance that covers us for handmade soap without breaking the bank.  Then Kim and I will have to decide if it the cost is actually worth the potential sales we would make.  We will have to wait and see.

Anyway, that doesn’t stop us making soap for our own personal enjoyment and for friends and family.  We love the fact that we know exactly what ingredients are in our soap and that it is gentle on our skin and gentle on the planet.

Lemon Cream Pie Soap

In fact, I have something to share with you all.  We have a new soap making technique to share with you all.  It is our Lemon Cream Pie Soap recipe that I have also made into a video tutorial.  You can find the soap tutorial over at Little Green Workshops blog as well as an ingredient and equipment list so you can replicate our results!

Once we have sorted out the insurance issues, I will give you another update about what I have discovered because I had so many emails from you about the process of selling soap when I wrote my last post about the subject.

I suppose it’s all part of the our green business journey.  Never a dull day in paradise!

Quick Cold Process Soap Making Method

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Kim and I recently discovered a quicker method of making cold process soap.  The added bonus about using this method is that you do not need to heat the oils to 50-60°C.

As the lye water already heats up to about 75°C because of a chemical reaction, I pondered if that was enough heat to melt any solid oils or fats and warm the oils enough for saponification to occur.  I love science!

Well after a little research, I found that it was indeed possible, so with a little hesitation, I gave it a go.

To my delight, it worked perfectly the first time.  The only thing to take note is that you do not need to stick blend very long to bring your soap batter to a light trace.  About one minute tops.

Also, after pouring it into the mould, it goes hard within about 2 hours, so if you are poking in embeds into the surface, you have to work quickly.  If layering different colours, this is the perfect method, because each layer gets firm after about 1o minutes in the mould, so you can spoon on the next layer without the new one sinking to the bottom.

Anyway, enough words.  During the second try, we decided to make a video tutorial to share our new method.

Why not give it a go the next time you make soap? This is now my most favourite method of bringing the soap batter to trace. Best of all, you don’t need to use any energy which is usually an addition cost.

We have now begun to show our students this method during our Advanced Soap Making Course, and they certainly do like the quick cold process soap making method!

Making Soap and having Fun

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As it was cold and miserable over the weekend, we decided to pursue indoor activities.

On Saturday we had to restock all the oils for our soap making kits.  We had nearly run out of supplies (the soap making kits are quite popular), so I estimate that I filled 30 1L, 40 500ml, and 15 250ml bottles full of oil.   Now that’s a lot of soap (and oil).  That lot took most of the day as it has been so cold that the olive oil had almost solidified and the coconut oil was rock solid.  I had to melt the oils on the stove in small batches to make them fluid enough to pour.

On Sunday, it was bucketing down with rain, so we decided to make two new soaps, some for us and some for sale.  We also decided to video the process so I could publish a few to put up on YouTube as video tutorials.

We made an Ocean Breeze with Pink Himalayan Rock Salt Soap and a Lemon Cream Pie Soap.  Here are a few snapshots from the video I took.

Pink Himalayan Rock Salt in Soap Making

Ocean Breeze with Pink Himalayan Rock Salt

Top layer of Ocean Breeze with Pink Himalayan Rock Salt

Top layer of Ocean Breeze with Pink Himalayan Rock Salt

Kim will be cutting this soap on Wednesday after it is solid enough.  Fingers crossed, it should look beautiful.

Then we made the Lemon Cream Pie Soap.

Lemon Cream Pie Soap

Lemon Cream Pie Soap second layer

Lemon Cream Pie Soap

Lemon Cream Pie Soap – Finishing touches to top

We have previously made this soap during one of our advanced soap making courses much to the delight of the students who attended.

This is what Lemon Cream Pie looks like when cut.

Lemon Cream Pie when cut.

Lemon Cream Pie when cut.

We mixed in some Calendula petals into the white layer to give it a bit of texture.  It looks good enough to eat!

Chunky cut Lemon Cream Pie

Chunky cut Lemon Cream Pie

The fragrance oil that we used was Lemon Zest, so it smells as good as it looks.  It will be for sale in the soap section in about six weeks time.

This soap making session took us most of the day, because we stopped and started so many times to take photos, discuss techniques, and to reshoot sections where necessary.

I will be working on the video tutorials over the next few days, so they should be available to watch by the weekend.

Anyway, it was a wet weekend well spent.  I just love making soap with Kim.  Her artistic talent always shines through in her soap designs.

Hope you are keeping nice and warm this chilly winter, or cool if you live in the northern hemisphere.  Whatever your weather, I hope you are keeping productive.