Downstairs Seating Only


 

 
The name of this soap—Downstairs Seating Only—does not refer to the area of your body it's supposed to be used on. In fact, I don't recommend using this soap on your downstairs area at all.

Downstairs Seating Only is a phrase Gray Line Tour Guides will say thousands of times between now and Labor Day. Summer is our busiest season. It's the cheapest (and worst) time of year to come to NYC—and everybody wants to ride on the top of the double decker bus (the best way to see the city). It fills up quickly.

When new passengers board, we have to tell them, "Downstairs seating only." Sometimes they're understanding and patient and are fine with waiting until somebody gets off from the top. Sometimes they don't believe us and go up anyway (with their three kids, grandmother and bulky stroller) only to come down disappointed. Sometimes they get very angry. One year, I had a guy kick the glass out of the bus's door.

Meanwhile, when we're actually giving the tour— upstairs —it's 95 degrees and insanely muggy and their doing construction all over the city and it's like riding through a dust storm. And the sunscreen that doesn't really work is dripping in your eyes. And there's a little kid screaming, "I have to poop." And nobody is listening to us say that the last boat cruise went out at 3:30. And we know half of them won't tip and we're lucky if we get $8.26 by the end of the tour that we have to split with the driver who's been on the phone the whole time fighting with his girlfriend.

And we're thinking about going home to our apartments that we just spent the day trying to pay for, turning on the A/C and taking a shower with a bar of soap that will truly wash away the disgustingness of the day.

And Downstairs Seating Only will do just that. Lots of scrubbing action from my favorite exfoliate, cornmeal. French green clay to help draw out the construction dust that mixes with the sunscreen. A generous dose of moisturizing shea. And the fragrance! A refreshing combo of mints, rosemary, basil, eucalyptus and orange.

Makes the job seem worthwhile.

Whiskey, Tobacco and Sandalwood





I love this soap! The fragrance is unbelievably sexy. Warm, rich—just a little sweet. What a man should smell like. And we're talking real man. Not the kind of man that calls other men 'bro' and 'dude.' Or wears flip-flops on a dinner date. Or drinks Red Bull and vodka.

And in the shower (back to the soap, not the man), incredible lather from reduced whiskey and a little sugar. There's a pencil line (hard to see in the photo) of poppy seeds to gently exfoliate. Rhassoul clay (that's how I got that gorgeous brown—reminds me of expensive leather) helps remove impurities, but loads of cocoa and shea butter moisturize and condition.

I will be saving one bar from this batch to give to give to the next real man I meet. There're not a lot of them in NYC these days. They're a dying breed.

If you like this blog, check out my new one: The Haley Maxwell Soap Making Mysteries

Rain



The wait is over



It took a while for me to get all ducks lined up on this batch, but it's worth it. I guess. It feels like a culmination of recent failures. And I'm too frazzled at this point to think about 'lessons learned.'

First the soap itself. The polka dots (which I hope look like big raindrops) are a rebatch of an olive oil Christmas soap (fragranced with frankincense and myrrh) that didn't look so festive. Paper mache gray just doesn't get anyone in the holiday mood.

My goal was black—and I know some of you won't think that's a Christmas-y color either. It is if you live in NYC and have a lot of rock-n-roll friends. Anyway, the charcoal infusion I made just wasn't strong enough, hence the gray. The first failure.

When I rebatched, I added a little lavender essential oil to lessen the Christmas-ness of the frankincense and myrrh.

The overpour was a bit more successful on the black front. It's made with charcoal and alkanet. Still not the black of Joey Ramone's jacket, but at least not gray. And I added more lavender essential oil to the batch.

But when I got the batch into the mold, it was shy of being normal sized bars. Size really matters with me. At least with soap. Failure #2. I whipped up another small batch using olive oil infused with mallow to top it off. Really nice green. And I've got more mallow growing in my garden this year—it re-seeds like crazy—so it'll become part of my 'permanent palette.'

Mallow

When I cut the finished bars (and they came out wonky), I was all set to call them Stormy Monday—from the old blues song—but after I thought about it more, I decided to call the batch Rain and include a story booklet with each bar.

For those of you not familiar with my writing, "Rain" is one of the short stories from You Are Here. It's a fairly dark story, but one of the most popular in the book.  The fresh, but mysterious, almost melancholy blend of the lavender, frankincense and myrrh in the soap mirrors the mood of the story.

I got my friend Elizabeth Shim to do the booklet cover. She's a very talented graphic designer and as well as a writer—in fact, I met her through Elaine Edelman's writing workshop.  Her writing has a very unique Korean/New Yorker perspective, lots of detail and humor as well.

The booklet cover by Elizabeth Y. Shim ( 심예린 )

 

She did a great job on the cover. I love it. It subtly tells the story of the story.

Laying out the booklets was a plethora of failures. Which is strange because I've done these booklets before without much issue.  Then my printer wasn't aligning correctly, then the labels I designed using Elizabeth's artwork didn't fit every bar correctly. Etc…

Today—my only day off for the next million years—the day I swore I'd get the whole shebang packaged and ready to get out of my apartment and into the hands of readers and bathers—it rained.

And the soap absorbed the humidity. And it got sticky.

And I said, "Just do it."

And I did.

The finished product.

It doesn't look like I wanted—except for Elizabeth's fab art—but it's done. And because this batch caused so much heartache, I'm giving it away—to people in my writing workshop. They in turn, will be asked to pass the bar on to somebody that doesn't know me and isn't familiar with my writing, but would enjoy the story and the soap.

There will be another soap/story version of "Rain" in the future. That one will be much different soap-wise and I'll still use Elizabeth's art, but instead of a booklet, it'll include a link to hear the audio edition of the story read by the author and produced by my friend Nate Cimmino at Harrumph Studios.

No more booklets! I'm going digital! You heard it here first!

If you like this blog, check out my new one: The Haley Maxwell Soap Making Mysteries

Seaweed Beach Bars—And the Mystery of Fragrance







What's in there that makes it smell so good?



I've been working on my Yet-Untitled-Cozy-Mystery lately, so I've slacked off on blogging about soap—and making it.

The mystery is going to contain a half dozen or so soap recipes. That's pretty common in cozies. Recipes or craft tips. I don't think I'll include this one—it's a little complicated and it doesn't really tie into the plot or any of the characters. Bed of Roses does. And Guinness and Ginger.

Perhaps going forward, I'll make some soap that specifically relates to the mystery. Captain Smokey, Forensics, Socrates' Shampoo Bar, Lucky Star Coffee, Woad Is Me.

Are you intrigued? Do you want to read the book when it's finished?

This soap—The Seaweed Beach Bar is a pretty standard salt bar. What makes it complicated though is I added a bunch of scraps from my Lavender Beach Bars. This made for some interesting salty embeds that become more pronounced as the bar is used.

I also didn't keep track of how much of each essential oil I used to make the blend. I never keep track. I mix by nose. In this case, I started out with a base of grapefruit, then added some may chang to anchor the citrus, a little bergamot and a little ylang ylang, then some more grapefruit—and you get the picture. There's also lavender essential oil in the embeds. But how much?

So, yea, too complicated to put in a book.

And going forward, if I'm going to create recipes to include in the book, I'll have to get some pipettes and write down my blends. And I'll solve the mystery of my fragrances.

If you like this blog, check out my new one: The Haley Maxwell Soap Making Mysteries

Marketing Failure





Well, Mommie Dearest took off like a lead zeppelin. I sold two bars of it.

It might be a generational thing. A few younger people (even gay men!) didn't get that the wire coat hanger refers to the movie Mommie Dearest. Oh well. Even Apple has failures. It's still great soap.

And it's now had a make-over. Same bar, new name, new photo and new product description.

Presenting Bed of Roses:

A surprising mosaic of Arabian rose, lavender and fresh anise. Moroccan red clay and charcoal  to remove impurities. Cocoa butter to soften. And gorgeous, fluffy lather thanks to a generous dose of reduced red wine.

Hopefully, this will be more successful.

I'm still keeping a wrapped, coat hanger bar of Mommie Dearest in the soap box.  You never know…

If you like this blog, check out my new one: The Haley Maxwell Soap Making Mysteries

Mommie Dearest





The moment I put this into the mold, I knew it was going to be Mother's Day soap—mostly because of the fragrance—which I did in two parts.

The black embeds have Arabian rose fragrance oil. I did a hot process so I wouldn't have to worry about seizing or separating or ricing or whatever. I threw some scraps of soap in after the cook for a little contrast. The white is from the tops of my first Beach Bars and the pink is from an experiment using red Moroccan clay that I'll write about one of these days.

The over-pour has lavender and fresh anise essential oils which toned down the rose a bit—even though they weren't blended together. When it was first cut, I could also really smell the wine and cocoa butter I used. They've all melded together during the cure. It's a gorgeous fragrance. Unusual, yet familiar at the same time.

The final bar doesn't really have a Mother's Day look to it though. It's dark and chaotic. And that's why I'm calling it Mommie Dearest.

It's the perfect gift for anyone with a scary *mom who went ape shit over wire coat hangers or forced them to stay up all night watching old movies or eat raw liver. Or a million other things that wrecked their chances of being a normal adult.

It’s also the perfect gift for moms with a great sense of humor.

And gay men who love Joan Crawford.

Here's my sardonic product description:

Relive those painful memories you spent years in therapy trying to forget. Her cheap perfume covering up the smell of wine and Sambuca. The nights she locked you in the car while she entertained one of her boyfriends. The mornings you went to school nourished with a breakfast of Chips Ahoy cookies because she couldn't be bothered getting out of bed.

Arrives wrapped in crinkled gold tissue paper with a miniature wire coat hanger. $5

If there's any left after Mother's Day, it'll get a new name and a new description. I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, perhaps?

*My mother, by the way, is not a scary mom. She's very cool and I appreciate the terrific job she did raising me—although she did wash my mouth out with Irish Spring for being sassy (you can read about that here). And I think that's why I make soap today.

Son of Cardamom

   

I have a confession to make. Even though I now own a miter box, I still have issues cutting soap. I blame my silicone loaf mold. The soap is just too wide to fit into the box, so I have to cut the sides off first.

When I was doing this with the Cardamom, Coffee and Oatmeal, the knife hit that fun googie embed and went crazy. I ended up with quite a few bad-looking bars. And with the price of cardamom essential oil, I wasn't going to let those bars go to waste. (You'll find most soap makers hate waste. Not sure if it's a genetic thing or something that happens to you when you start making soap.)

I cut the wonky bars up and used them for this batch. Which I like even better than the first. I love the rich, chocolaty brown of the over-pour. That comes from using a stronger brew of coffee (Café Bustelo). I also used more coffee butter, but other than that the recipe is the same.

I ended up a little short when I poured the new batch over the embeds, so added that light brown strip with a good amount of coffee grounds for extra scrubbiness.  I think it looks like foam on a latte.

Last week, I found cardamom coffee in a dollar store up in Harlem. It smells great, but doesn't taste so good. Kinda weak and just off. No matter—it'll make great soap. Can't let anything go to waste. Even dollar coffee.