Keeping it useable

So, all the soap users might not care too much about this post, but any soap maker might be interested in reading on. Maybe I'm just slow, but it took me quite a while to figure this out. :)

The first mistake I made was not writing anything down in a permanent spot. I would just jot down recipes and formulations, values and percentages on whatever scrap I had nearby and then it would get confused as trash and be gone forever. This was detrimental to my early formulas, because I had no idea what I had used, and in what percentage in each batch I had made. So, if it was good, I didn't know what made it good, and if it was bad, I wasn't sure what about it made it so. I soon got a notebook and began writing stuff down where I could keep track of it.

That notebook worked for a while....and then it began to look like my cookbooks; spills all over it! Problem was, unlike the glossy pages of my cookbook, I couldn't just wipe off the oil drips from my notebook paper. The splashes make the ink bleed and run and spread and it wasn't long before I couldn't read what I had written and so carefully kept track of.

Finally, I figured out the secret! I got a 3 ring binder and collected all the 'good' formulas. I re-wrote the ones that were hard to read, gathered all my fragrance and color notes, and put them in plastic sheet protectors. Now, if something splashes or drips, it is easy to wipe right off! Best part is, I can still read my results and recipes (although I don't always remember what all my abbreviations mean; what could I have meant by 'Lilw/mas'?!).

I took the sheet protector idea to the next level, and now use a gallon size ziplock bag on my scale, to guard against drips that stick in the buttons and compromise it's accuracy.

Hope this saves you some trouble!