MoSoap.com’s Blog

 Last week I was contacted by Charleen, a volunteer at the Missouri History Museum.  They are setting up a traveling display for children of the early St.Louis life and some of the items they used - and guess what - they wanted to buy some our of Basic Lye Soap for the exhibit!  Well, I couldn’t charge the History Museum, that’s just not right, and the fact that they picked us was so nice.

 I’m a huge fan of history and family heritiage. MoSoap is based on my family’s recipes of country soaps and liniments.  We also have several customers that regularly particiapte in historic re-enactments.  One customer is protraying an old fashion laundress at the 145th anniversary of the Battle of Antietam this September.  If you do Civil War or early Americana history re-enactments, let me know when you place your order if you are using our products for the demos - I’d love to hear. 

 Also, it’s always amazing to me how simple lye soap can bring such memories back for people.  It’s one of the big reasons I love working at MoSoap. People tell me their family stories of making soap and how it brought the whole family together.  We even have one customer from Texas, Donna VanCleve who’s written a book called ” Grace Falling Like Rain“.  Ms. VanCleve was kind enough to send us a copy a while back, and I enjoyed the book very much.  If you love stories of the old west (Texas actually), family and even lye soap, you’ll enjoy this book.  The link for the book goes directly to her site so you can read a better description. 

I’ve been postponing upgrading our yahoo store over the past year, but finally took the leap and upgraded it to a better checkout system.  It’s a LOT EASIER to use PayPal now, as the PayPal checkout is automatic - you won’t have to wait for us to send you an invoice.

Please let me know what you think of the change - font size, or how to find things, good or bad!  I do all the web work on the site, so it’s not a fancy professional web designer.

The world is a big place if you haven’t noticed, but with the internet it seem smaller.  MoSoap ships soap all over the world on a monthly basis - we’ve shipped to England, Iceland, Germany, France, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand. We even have a wonderful customer in Japan that buys from us and then blogs about us.

But today, we shipped our first order to Saipan - now doesn’t that sound foreign and exotic?  Located 20 north of Guam in the Western Pacific Ocean, Saipan is the capital of the United States Common Wealth of the Northern Marianan Islands.  So our little bars of pine tar soap are jetting off to yet someone else on the other side of the global!

I haven’t been able to post due to a problem with the blog software….couldn’t have been that I locked myself out and couldn’t find the error.  I am not savvy about these things.

So, I hope to catch everyone up on some of the new things going on at MoSoap in the next few days.  Thanks for your patience!

Nothing is going out today happy shoppers!  Here’s a view out the front window today at 9am.  We are located about an hour & 1/2 outside of St. Louis and you may have heard we had a snow storm come through…..it did - with lots of snow and ice.

Our Postal Carrier can’t make it to the shop, and I can’t get out now that I am here!! So no orders can ship today.

The good thing?  Weather like this makes the very best milk soaps.  I set the pots in the deep snow and mix in the lye to stay super cool.  The soaps will be a beautiful creamy white this way.

Yes, it’s true……I have fought to keep prices low by changing the size of bars, along with customizing the size to fit better in USPS Priority Flat Rate boxes for added savings.  Since 2001, our prices have basically been the same per ounce as when I started MoSoap.  But I have to readjust some of our price due to a change in shipping costs (UPS is having one Jan. 1st) and due to changing suppliers of pine tar.

So what will happen and what’s effected?

Pine Tar Soaps are increasing to $4.95 per bar and the logs are going to change to $35 (the biggest increase).

Botanical Luxury Soaps are increasing to $4.50 per bar

Botanical Sugar Scrubs are increasing to $16.00 per jar

 The good things happening - I am sourcing our pine tar from Sweden now.  It is an incredible grade of pine tar and I hope to have a page on the website shortly showing the differences in the grades and explaining it.  Currently, I source our pine tar from China, which is good, but the pine tar we are going to be using is awesome.  It does have more a scent to it by far.  I will also, thanks to customer comments, be adding a simple unscented pine tar bar, along with a goat milk pine tar soap.

 Speaking of goat milk…..MoSoap next year will be introducing a complete line of Goat Mlik Soaps with a large variety of scents!  No more just Lavender Milk, which has just transitioned over to goat milk I might add.

 Also expect to see new sample packs coming out.  This was a request from current customers that wanted to take their soaps on trips, but not take the whole 4.5 ounce bar…..so those should be arriving as soon as our new packaging comes…hint hint UPS to find the box!!!!!!

Ok, that’s enough shocking news for one day!  December is tomorrow and our new soap Winter Forest will be out along with Peppermint Lye.

 Debra

We just switched over to a new coupon after Thanksgiving, and you think I would have double checked the expiration date!  For those that have received the new coupon with the children in the snow…and the coupon code of JOY for 10% off your order…..well the coupon expiration date is Feb. 28th 2007!

We’ve been busy around here, ensuring that there is plenty of soap for holiday orders - and the coupon date spilled past me.

 Also, some people have mentioned that they are not receiving our email newsletter.  Jackie sent the last one on November 4th, so if you haven’t received it - let us know and we will double check our list.

What’s a home soapmaker to do if you can’t find lye?  Since Red Devil has taken their popular lye off the store shelves, I receive about a call a day with people asking where to find it or if we sell off ours.  I don’t sell off our supplies, but maybe I can help you find some near you. 

Look for it under it’s technical name of sodium hydroxide, don’t ask for lye.  Another name to use for lye is caustic soda.  Places that it can be found locally might be:

• Home Depot or Lowe’s  - I have heard rumors one of them carry it, but know don’t the brand name.  Check the plumbing department
• Check a pool supply store in your area.
• Call a local plumber and see if they know a source close by.
• Check your yellow pages and call a chemical supplier - most carry it in 10 - 50lb sizes.  Maybe you can start a coop in your area to split up a bigger amount.

The thing is you want to ask for Sodium Hydroxide and it comes in granular or bead form.  You also want to make sure it is 100% pure and not cut with something else as those ingredients might mess up your soap recipe.  Do realize that if you have it shipped to you, there might be excess shipping fees because it is a hazardous material.  So if you can find it locally, the better.

Hope that helps!

Just until Halloween, we are offering this cute, vintage art pumpkin bag with your order of our Pumpkin Spice soap.  I found this postcard at an antique store and thought it was perfect for our new soap fragrance.

 Pumpkin Spice body care products are also now available in room spray and sugar scrub.  It’s a warm, spicy scent that is really quite nice on the skin….a recent study shows that men are attracted to food scents and find them comforting so my single sister is reeking of pumpkin and rum cake as a test to see if she can find a date!  Thought you might enjoy a little personal view of our life here at MoSoap!

One of my favorite holiday memories is my mother making rum cake.  It’s a terribly rich, moist cake with a matching rich, sugary topping loaded with nuts. With that thought in mind, I created this fun soap for the holidays.  MoSoap now has a decadent Rum Cake soap and body care products.  The soap really looks like a piece of cake! 

Pictured is the soap, but we will also have yummy sugar scrubs for soft, smooth skin, bath salts and my favorite….fragrant room sprays to make people think YOU just baked a cake.

Rum Cake products will only be available between Oct. 13th through March 1st 2007.  More holiday soaps on the way, including Sleigh Ride!