The Big Soap Day

Hi there!
Just backtracking to Saturday when I went out to help Sharon with her workshop. She had 8 people – which is a lot to manage when you are not only teaching them how to make soap, but providing morning tea and a luncheon as well.
Another friend, Darya came along to do the coffee’s and lend a hand as well.

Sharon had her tables set up with an exciting range of colours, moulds, fragrances and botanicals for the group to choose from.

During the morning, introductions are made and the basics of soap making are covered… all accompanied by some amazing cakes plus tea and coffee

See that lemon meringue pie?
I did.
I managed to indulge in a few pieces by the end of the day!

Sharon goes through a good solid background of making soap, explaining why some things are done, a bit about the ingredients and how they are calculated. You can use a variety of different oils but every time you change one thing – the whole mix will react differently.
And there is a lot of emphasis on how to safely use the lye.
Once most of that was done, the participants got to wander over to the table to get an idea of what fragrance and colours they wanted to make their soap.
Sharon, in the meantime, put out the luncheon. A local tasting plate.

Dips, cheeses, pate, salmon, sauerkraut….

Not only did she bake two cakes and make a lemon meringue pie, but baked a few loaves of bread! (Darya was a whizz making the fancy coffees and was so glad she was the one cutting the bread! I was scared I’d muff it up haha)
There was farm fresh home made butter too!

Gourmet to say the least and everyone was in food heaven!

Eventually we got down to the soapmaking!
From here I didn’t get many shots as it was my job to run a soapmaking station – with 9 batches of soap to get through, it was more efficient with two lots going at once.

Everyone was really enjoying getting to the hands on part and creating their soaps.

The laundry was fast filling up with fabulous trays of soap!

Once the last batch was done, people had gone home and we’d sorted out a few things, the sun came out so Sharon and I sat in her garden and indulged in a relaxed hot chocolate with some pie! Sooooo good! (Darya had left a bit earlier)
Sharon was exhausted – and so happy that Darya and I had come up to help out. She did a great job – worked so hard on getting all that food together and all the soaping stuff so well prepared too. (I’ve since spoken to a couple of people who did the class and they said they had a brilliant day!)

What a day! It was so much fun! I was really lucky to be able to join in and help out – as you know I really enjoy soap making and you always learn something new (like a different way to make red that I am itching to try to recreate)
Not to mention I waddled home after all the food!! (Oh yes… I went home with some of that pie!! (And more goats milk in case I need to make more soap!))

Good times!

Cheers!