A year of Dreadlocks

Well guys its been a whole year since I got dreads.I am pretty excited to show how they have progressed in this year! This Picture to the right is me today with year old dreads, here are more pics:

If you want to see the post I made the day I got my dreads done click here

 

Here is the pic of me the day I got them done

This is before I went to the salon

This is after I came back from the salon

This is 2 months into it. I am losing the length on my hair at this point too...keep in mind I have NEVER cut it except for some witchy dead ends when the dreads were about 7 months old. Those ends wouldnt lock up for nothing so off they went but it was only an inch or two...

This is me today:

  

I went thru such an "ugly duckling" phase with these about 4 months into it I was wondering if I reallly wanted to do this or not cause I looked SO bad. You could not tell I had dreads it just looked like I didnt comb my hair, and it was embarrassing to go out without my head wrapped up in a cloth.

Thru my dreadlocks adventure I have learned a lot about myself, and that was one of my goals for getting dreads. I learned that hair shrinks a LOT when its locking up too!!!

I have learned to have patience, especially with the cashier who laughed out loud at me for having dreads...laughed HARD too, not just a giggle..That ALMOST hurt my feelings, it was a close call on that one LOL I have learned I am still a bit vain after all these years, cause I was so embarrassed to go out during months 4 thru 6 before my dreads miraculously locked up.

One thing that did help my dreads lock up quick was making sure my hair was clean. For my particular hair it was not in my best interest to go without washing it for weeks like people told me to do, once I started washing it, it locked up. Greasy dirty hair cant get locked up. Thats the way my hair works anyways.

I started making dreadlock shampoo bars cause I didnt want to buy the stuff of course, and I noticed a huge difference. My advice is use a plain simple soap on your hair, no conditioners nothing fancy, just a plain castile soap and you will see a big difference. I dont care if you buy it from me or someone else, just buy handmade! Be good to your dreads, you got em for life! Make sure nothing gets built up in em!

in a way my tree like twisty crazy looking locs have grounded me. Like the roots of a tree. I am happy I did this. Its been one fun adventure for sure.

New Liquid Soap Home Test Results

  We have tested this soap pretty thoroughly here at home and here is what I have discovered! 

Dreadlocks shampoo: KILLER!! I love it! It lathers up great and rinses away so easy. Its not like commercial shampoos that want to linger around. It cleans wonderfully too. I will definitly be offering this recipe as a dreadlock shampoo!

 

Dishes: WOW! It got a tea stain off my tea pitcher that will NOT come off with commercial dish soap. I was in AWE! I gets food off of dishes super great I had NO problems using this for dishes...I was actually excited to do dishes by hand just to get to try it out! LOL

 

Laundry: Would not do well in front loading machines due to the suds...however I may test this theory later...This cleaned clothes great, and left them as soft as my usual laundry soap once they came out of the dryer. I had to use about 4 tablespoons worth to get the water to turn milky they way my usual laundry soap does, so it may not be cost effective to use this over my usual laundry detergent, however I plan on offering it for sale anyways for people who just realllly want a liquid soap.

 

Handwashing soap: Not bad for general purpose. My hubs is gonna try it out on greasy hands the next time he works on a car, so we will see how that does. But for general use its awesome. Doesnt dry out your skin or anything!

 

Regular Hair Shampoo: It cleans great, left my hubs long thin hair shiny but frizzy...Worked great on the boys short thick hair, and I am gonna try it out on Maylee tonight. I am thinking this recipe wouldnt be that great for a regular shampoo so I am formulating a new recipe for a shampoo today.

 

I am thinking this particular recipe which is olive and coconut oil would be awesome as a general purpose cleaning type soap and dreadlocks shampoo. The coconut content being so high gives it tons of cleaning power which is what I wanted in a liquid soap and its not harsh on skin which is great!

I am in the process of researching oils to formulate my shampoo/bodywash recipe and I will be testing that out this week so wish me luck! This is all so exciting! Now I have to go order some bottles to package this in!! YAY!

New Project: Liquid Soap!

I just realized I have not posted since before thanksgiving! (gasp) I have been THAT busy and I want to take a moment to sincerely thank each and every person who has bought from my shops in the past year. I am eternally grateful for your business as it has helped me and my family thru some insanely rough times I wont bother to get into here. Just know each dollar you have spent has HELPED me tremendously and it was all VERY appreciated. Thank you all SO MUCH! ((HUGZ))

I wanted to let you guys know all the exciting things I been up to since the "busy season" is pretty much over. Sales have went down to usual numbers and now I have time to catch up on some things I been dying to do like make LIQUID SOAP!!

I had quite an adventure making liquid soap yesterday I had done my homework for sure but you never know how something like this will go till you jump in with both feet. So I jumped!

I had what was supposedly a fail proof idiot proof recipe in hand that had been tried by others with success. This made me feel at ease a little bit more.




I mixed my potassium hydroxide and oil and stick blended the daylights out of the mixure till I got something I was pretty sure was trace...then I blended more. I wasnt taking NO chances with this one!! Everything I read said if you cant get the potassium hydroxide and the oils to trace then it WILL separate on you later on down the process.

The only part of this process that I dont think I fully "got" was the fact you really do have to keep this stuff HOT! I put it in a double boiler set up and had the water just below simmering...that wasnt enough, I needed to keep the water boiling the whole time. Once I turned up the heat I got better results.

I figured out from the "test" globs I took out of the "paste" I was cooking that I needed to BOIL the water that I was testing the globs in. So I had a ton of boiling water around the house yesterday LOL

I finally got tired of cooking this "Paste" I was supposed to be making after about 7 hours of cooking so I boiled yet more water and poured it over the paste I had made. I boiled this for about 15 to 20 minutes.

I broke up all the chunks of the paste in the boiling water as best as I could. This was the hardest part was breaking up this stuff so it could dissolve and thus make my liquid soap. I went and watched a movie and when I came back all I had to do was hit the whole mixture with my stick blender and it blended just perfect. AND to make it even better for my ego, it was just a WEEE bit cloudy. I was shooting for 100% clear, but you never know when this stuff sits for a couple of days it may be as clear as commerical dish soap! I am OK with partly cloudy though, as long as it isnt milky I am happy.

I have tested this so far in laundry : works AWESOME!
Dishes: I was amazed! It took the tea stain off my tea pitcher and commercial dish soap wont touch it unless you SCRUB with a scratchy pad. All I had to do with my soap was rub!

You could put this in a foamer bottle and make foamy soap for handwashing too! So many applications for this stuff the possibilities are really limitless and I am so rejuvenated and excited to be able to KNOW I can definitely make this stuff now!

I have in the works a new product I wish to announce here today! This week I hope to be unveiling my newest invention: ~JIGGLE SOAP!~ This will be similar to Jell-o as it will be jiggly and squirmy but it will be soap you can take in the shower with you. This will be 100% chemical free unless there is a fragrance oil to scent it but those are always pthalate free at least. This will also be 100% vegan! I will be making an experimental batch this week. I know it wont be till at least wednesday cause I have no car to get supplies till then...UGH!! but be on the lookout! I will most likely announce it here when I get this made. I am super duper excited!!!

I will also be coming up with an original recipe for shampoo. I am still researching oils and deciding what I would like to see a shampoo do, so that will be coming up in a couple more weeks as I get time. its definitely a top priority of mine to release a completely natural shampoo that works great!

I am so excited about all this, cant you tell! (jumps up and down and claps hands)

And, I am rapidly approaching 1,000 sales in Maylee's Garden on Etsy ! As of right now I have 982 sales. A lot of sales came in the past 2 months, I remember recently having my 777th sale and being all excited about it...and here I am staring at the big 1,000! I feel SO successful right now, and to make it special, I am gonna do SOMETHING nice for the person who buys that 1,000th product. I dont know what yet, maybe free shipping, free goodies...not sure. But I promise SOMETHING nice will happen to the 1,000th customer!


Again thank you ALL for your continued support of my little business. I truly enjoy cranking out all natural goodness for you all so we can all be healthier. I am so proud of what I have accomplished, and I could not have done it without each and every one of you who have supported me along the way.


THANK YOU!!!!

Black Friday Cyber Monday Sale

Its that time of the year!

SAVE 25.00 % On
All Items

Use Coupon Code:

BLACKFRIDAY25

during checkout.

Green Products

For the occasion I am offering coupon code in Maylee's Garden Artfire shop ONLY!!

This coupon is good Friday 11-27 thru 12-01 for the late night cyber Monday shoppers


The coupon will take off the percentage at checkout once you enter the code in the appropriate box, no waiting on a revised invoice from paypal! YAY!

This coupon is good on my WHOLE shop. Clothing, laundry detergent, soap, dreadlocks shampoo bars, destash, base soap for your own soapmaking..the whole 9 yards!

Thanks so much for your business, my family and I appreciate each and every one of you. I have had 308 sales in my Artfire shop and 809 in my Etsy shop as of today. I thank each and every one of you who have helped make my shop a HUGE success! Over 1,000 sales total and counting!