Tutorials on soapmaking, bath fizzies, lotions and more
Saponifier Magazine’s 6th Annual Supplier of the Year Readers Choice Awards!
Who’s your favorite soapy supplier? Vote now for Saponifier Magazine’s Best of the Best in the Supplier of the Year category. There are three categories to vote in: Favorite Fragrance Oil supplier, Favorite Essential Oil supplier, and Favorite overall supplier. Get your votes in soon, the deadline is Monday September 10th!
This fun and whimsical soap is perfect for anyone a little unsure of working with powder colorants because it uses Color Blocks! Color Blocks are pre-mixed, intensely colored little nuggets of soap. You just shave off a bit to get the color you want and mix it into your melted soap. There’s no pre-mixing with oils or glycerin and the colors work well every time. For this project, we went rainbows mixed with books; the colorful stacked blocks embedded in white soap kind of remind me of a perfectly disheveled book shelf. Stacks of read and well-loved books are one of my favorite sights ever (and you can always see what I’m currently reading here).
Recipe:
72 oz Clear Melt and Pour Base
22 oz White Melt and Pour Base
Electric Bubblegum Color Block
Shimmer Amethyst Purple Color Block
1.8 oz Pikake Flower Fragrance Oil
5 Pound Slide Bottom Wood Log Mold
Get everything you need for this project with the click of a button!
Introducing Color Blocks for Melt & Pour Soap by Bramble Berry Soapmaking Supplies!
We know how frustrating it can be to make a bar of soap only to find clumps of colorant once you pop it out of the mold. To help, we have created Color Blocks that allow you to color your soap easily to perfection. We’ve made them in all of our best selling colors including our non-bleeding oxides, shimmery micas and neon pigments.
Check out this video to see how easy they are to use.
For more details on the multi-pour technique I use in this Soap Queen Short see the full, detailed Soap Queen TV episode here.
To make the soap in this video you will need:
Get everything you need to make this project with the click of a button!
Wondering where to buy the amazing little clean up tool used in the video? Buy it here! It’s great for all your melt and pour projects; you’ll be surprised about how great this ninja soaping tool is.
Happy Labor Day everyone! We finished one urban hike (that’s my fancy way of saying I pushed the stroller up and down hills in the neighborhood and then pushed it into town, baby included), brunch with friends, a long nap (we’re in nap transition – 2 naps to 1 nap) and are getting ready to head to the lake to catch those last rays of sun and the last hours of the day. I’ve been reading all your comments on the ‘Baby Got Sand‘ post and it’s funny that so many of your children liked remotes too. Go figure. It’s a universal (remote) thing! Above is Jamisen and his favorite toy, sleeping. Notice the button is firmly pushed down, even as he sleeps. [Read more…]
Jamisen has had a busy few weeks, trying to pack in all the glory of summer in fifteen days (or less). Summer came to Washington State a few weeks ago and we have done our best to introduce Jamisen to all things sun, water, and sand related. Throwing rocks in the water is his new favorite pastime (well, that and finding any remote and immediately absconding with it). [Read more…]
“I think, at a child’s birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift should be curiosity.”
-Eleanor Roosevelt
I love love love color. From packaging inspiration to pops of color in the fashion world to wonderful soapy creations, COLOR is all the rage. We spent a super fun but slightly grey week in one of our favorite getaway spots (family pictures to come soon!) and upon my return, these great little soaps were on my brain. Who doesn’t love rainbows? Correction- Who doesn’t love double rainbows?
Product knowledge is essential for delivering excellent customer service. This is especially true when taking on a completely new and mechanically unique product like the Bath Bomb Maker (and eh hem, not all of us on the CS team are mechanically inclined, cough cough). So when the newest member of the Bramble Berry product line arrived, you better believe that our customer service team jumped on the chance to play with it. We made a half-day bath bomb party out of it (whoo hoo! Luxurious baths for all!). If you’re like me, seeing products in action is better than still photos so we also filmed a quick video demonstrating how the Bath Bomb Machine works.
Meet the U11 Baseball State Champs!
My wonderful Bramble Berry team told me that I had to be back in the office by 2:30 last Wednesday. What the heck did they have up their sleeves? I had no idea at the time but I played along and planned my workout around meetings and was back to the office right on time. To my surprise, I was honored with a guest appearance from the Bellingham All-Stars 11U baseball team, AKA the Cal Ripken State Champs! Great job boys!
Who’s ready for another challenge? This time it’s going to be all about cold process soaps and Team Bramble Berry is so excited to see what you will come up with! Just like our Make It Monday Melt and Pour Challenges (#Layers, #Embedding, #Swirling and #Sculpting), each week will have a different theme and you will have the chance to have your creation featured in a Soap Queen blog post!
Etsy recently updated their policy on a variety of products that many Soap Queen readers and Bramble Berry customers make: products to help with acne (usually containing Tea Tree Essential Oil), anti-wrinkle creams and serums (often containing luscious ingredients like Tamanu Oil or Seabuckthorn Extract), diaper rash creams (often containing zinc oxide) and anything making anti-itch statements (often with additives like calamine or calendula-infused oils). This move has caused some confusion and frustration in the Etsy marketplace. Bottom line: follow the current, existing FDA guidelines for labeling cosmetics and you will be in compliance with Etsy’s new policy.
For the long post details, including actual languaging from FDA Warning Letters, links to the FDA site, statements from Etsy on the issue, continue reading by clicking “more”. [Read more…]
Last week we put out a call for pinners to join us on our brand new community Pinterest board. We were looking for soapers who were committed, crafty and ready to pin! Members of our community board will have the opportunity to share fun and inspirational pins like packaging, design inspiration and fabulous soaps. We had so much fun looking over all your entries (and your super crafty Pinterest boards). Thanks to everyone who submitted an entry!
Now, we are happy to announce and welcome to our community soaping pinboard (in no particular order): Wendy Bishop, Brenda Wolfe, Kelley Swan, Lora Duzhe, Tara Parish, Lauren Miller, Kristen, Rose Lewis, Amy Mekelburg, Dana Huff, Karina de Castro, Jodi Winfindale, Bethany Adams, Denise Karan, Jennifer Hofmann, Katherine Osman, Silvia, Marion Catalano, Luci Ayyat, and Leilani Olsen.
Guidelines for pinning on Bramble Berry’s community pinboard:
Follow our community pin board Soapy Pinsters on Pinterest to check out all the inspirational and creative ideas these ladies will be pinning!
“When you teach your son, you teach your son’s son.”
— The Talmud
We have been working with a small local manufacturer to create these remarkable machines. Our Bath Bomb Maker will allow you to make numerous Bath Bombs in a fraction of the time.
The machine is an investment. If you are just starting out, I would not recommend this product for you. You’ll definitely want to build up your customer base and product line before getting one of these. But if you have been making and selling Bath Bombs and are ready to expand production – this is the tool for you! The ingredients for making Bath Bombs are very inexpensive and yet they can sell for $3 – $7 each. Since the profit margin for Bath Fizzies is aggressive and much of the cost ends up being in the actual labor of producing a bath fizzy, it can make sense to invest in a machine like this.
In this video I show how easy it is to use the Bath Bomb Maker. The key is to get your mixture just the right consistency. I have found that it needs to be a little wetter than the mix would be if I were packing the Bath Bombs by hand. The great thing is – if the first bath bomb doesn’t come out you, just dump it back in the bowl and try again! I won’t lie; the first time I tried the machine, I got frusterated. The mixture needed to be wetter than if I was making bath fizzies by hand. I couldn’t figure out how high to fill the little tube. And my bombs kept splitting. After a solid 20 minutes of experimenting, I was able to get the consistency right, the fill levels perfect and since then, I haven’t had an issue. I know just what my go-to recipe and technique is – and I share it below.
To Make this Bath Bomb recipe you will need:
Get everything you need to make these Bath Bombs with the click of a button!
