Soap Queen

Tutorials on soapmaking, bath fizzies, lotions and more

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Easy Whipped Shaving Soap Recipe

Filed Under: Bath & Body Tutorials

Father’s day is June 17th. Do you need a gift idea? This shaving soap recipe couldn’t be easier using our foaming bath whip with a couple additional ingredients. The foaming bath whip is a very gentle and versatile base (check out our favorite fluffy frosting recipe and sugar scrub).  The bath whip has a great lather and a super creamy and and bubbly texture in the shower (ladies – you’ll love this for leg shaving). This easy recipe whips up a luxurious and soothing shaving soap with chamomile extract to help soothe Dad’s face. It’s scented with Blue Man Fragrance Oil which is perfectly sweet and masculine (base notes of Black Patchouli blended with Orange Peel, Sparkling Mandarin, Coriander Leaves, Star Anise and Venezuela Tonka).

[Read more…]

Avoid Pesky Air Bubbles in CP

Filed Under: Cold Process Soap

Have you ever heard the term “burping your blender?” and then wondered what that means and how it applies to soapmaking? It’s a super easy trick that I do every time I make cold process soap that helps prevent air bubbles in your CP soap. Try it on your next batch. You won’t regret “burping”. I promise!

The cold process soap pictured above is a gorgeous combination of Brown Oxide, Yellow Oxide, Ultramarine Blue, Hydrate Chrome Green and Black Oxide. It’s scented with an earthy combination of Patchouli and Spearmint. There is just one problem…those darn air bubbles! Either the trace was too thick when it was poured or (cough cough) ‘someone‘ didn’t burp their stick blender.  Here’s how you burp your stick blender to avoid those pesky bubbles in your soap.

Burping: Before you turn the stick blender on to mix the oils and lye together, gently tap the stick blender on the bottom of the of your container until you see all of the air bubbles come out. Do you see that big air bubble below? You’ll be glad you didn’t whip that air into your soap when you cut the final bars.

Check out that monster air bubble surfacing! 

Other Tricks: When combining my oils and lye I also like to pour the lye down the side of my stick blender. By letting the lye run down the side of the blender, you eliminate any splashes that could cause air bubbles. Kat from Otion also suggest keeping your temperatures on the lower side. She finds that super hot soap can cause the soap to bubble a little bit. Check out the lye and burping tricks in this episode of Soap Queen TV (you can fast forward to minute 3:50 to see the action). And if you have never made cold process soap, check out the series for beginners here!

How do you avoid air bubbles? Do you have any other ideas?

Post Guild Report and Catch Up

Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

It’s definitely a change being back home after a jam packed week of soap guild fun.Yesterday was a hectic (but awesome) day at the BB office after being away for practically an entire week. Despite the fact that we’re all playing catch up, the trip was totally worth it. Amber, Courtney, Kat and I had the best time together. We bonded and laughed in the van to and from Portland and were super giddy to meet some of our customers at the Bramble Berry booth (thank you to those who stopped by- it was fun to meet you!). The only downfall was being apart from Jamisen and my hubby Chris, luckily Facetime on the iPhone saved the day. There’s nothing cuter thank your kid trying to kiss you through the phone. Thank you technology!

Our 15 passenger van left the Bramble Berry warehouse last Tuesday at 6 am with our beautiful wood display carefully packed in the back (the brainchild of awesome Brambleberrians Amber and Norman). We pulled into the Red Lion Inn in Portland Oregon about 12 noon and we were on the go for the rest of the conference! I blogged on Thursday from the conference so if you  missed it, check out the post here. You don’t want to miss some of the beautiful soaps from the Soaper’s Showcase or the fun Casino Night that Bramble Berry co-hosted with Debby May from Wholesale Supplies Plus. I lost a lot of fake money that night gambling. Oy! [Read more…]

Oodles of New Products!

Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

It has been a little while since we’ve done a “What’s New” post and there are many new products to report on, including a new book on making milk soap from scratch. It has been months in the making so we’re super excited to share it with you. It covers making all types of milk soap – from cow milk to hemp milk to goat milk – the book has techniques you can use with a wide variety of milks.

Making Milk Soap from Scratch Book [Read more…]

Happy Mother’s Day

Filed Under: Personal Ramblings

May 2012

Happy Mother’s Day to all the Moms out there! We had a wonderful weekend (thanks to awesome planning by Chris). Betweeen two hikes in the sunny Pacific Northwest, a lovely visit to a local sculpture park, visits to the park, bouquets of flowers and a new Nook (hello, Mother’s Day gift from sweet husband!), it was an energetic, busy and joyful weekend. [Read more…]

Goat Milk Soap Mold Debut!

Filed Under: Melt & Pour Soap

Raise your hand if you were at the Handcrafted Soapmaker’s Guild Conference in Portland, Oregon. Whoop de whoop! We hope you had a chance to see these soaps in person (and gave them a sniff). We used the Goat Milk Melt and Pour Soap base with Fresh Snow Fragrance Oil and Activated Charcoal for colorant. Oh, and how could I forget, we used our brand new Goat Milk Soap Mold that we designed just for you milk lovers. Got goat milk?

Ingredients 

Goat Milk Mold

Bulk Goats Milk Soap Base

Fresh Snow Fragrance Oil

Activated Charcoal  [Read more…]

Soap Guild Fun + Inspiring Soap Mosaic

Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

The Bramble Berry Team and I are enjoying the first full day of the Handcrafted Soap Guild Conference in Portland, Oregon. We’ve been on the go since Tuesday morning at 5 am and we haven’t stopped since (and we’re loving every second of it). I’ve really enjoyed the inspirational speakers and classes but my favorite part so far has been meeting our customers and Facebook friends that we interact with on a daily basis. It’s like we already know each other when we’ve actually never met in person. Call me corny, but it’s such a fun experience. There has been lots of hugging.

Above is just a small fraction of the soaps entered in the Soaper’s Showcase. They’re all competing in different categories; Best Scent MP, best appearance MP, Best Scent CP/HP, Best Appearance CP/HP, Best Packaging, Something Different and Best in Show. I was like a kid in a candy store, literally touching and picking up every single soap for a sniff. I am so inspired by the designs, the colors and yes, the scents. [Read more…]

Our Displays for the Soap Guild Conference

Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

We have been hard at work on our Handcrafted Soapmaker’s Guild annual conference display for the last few months. First came the visioning and sketching process. We knew we couldn’t bring all of our products so we carefully planned out what we wanted to bring and then designed the displays around the products we wanted to showcase. It was hard figuring out what products made the cut (because, of course, they’re all our favorites).

Before we finalized the plans, we made the entire display as a mini model out of foam core boards. Our ratio was 1/2″ to 1 foot. We have the cutest little dollhouse display (that is, if you’re into staging retail stores instead of playing house). [Read more…]

Volunteers Needed for Soap Guild Show

Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

My creation

Hello! We’re almost all packed up for our road trip to Portland to the Soap Guild conference. Kat, from Otion, is teaching Swirling 101 (those are her soaps below) at The Handcrafted Soap Guild Show this week in Portland, Oregon. I’ll be teaching Milk Soap 101 (those are my soaps above). We both need a volunteer for our classes to help with set up, re-set (we teach back to back classes), cleaning tools and in my class, stirring lye into frozen goat milk for approximately 10 minutes.

Untitled

Are you going to be there? Would you like to help out? Send us an email (info at brambleberry dot com) with your basic info – especially any relevant cold process soap experience you have. I can’t wait to meet you all in person!

Teach Soap Gets A Makeover

Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

If you’ve visited TeachSoap.com recently, you’ll notice it looks a little different.  If you  haven’t seen it in a while, you should go check it out!  We’ve completely re-organized our projects, and given the website a fresh new look.

We’ve reorganized the categories to make everything a bit easier to find, so all our projects are under neat little headings.  We’ve also added a few projects, so you might find something new. [Read more…]

How to Make Whipped Body Butter on Soap Queen TV

Filed Under: Lotion

Today’s project is a variation on one of the most popular projects from the Soap Queen Blog, Whipped Shea Butter. As of this very moment, the blog post has 264 comments. That’s crazy! I had no idea that project would be so popular! So I’m bringing the recipe back, but with a twist. In the video I use Avocado Butter, Meadowfaom Oil and Green Tea Extract for a whipped and creamy body butter. I scented it with Lemongrass Essential Oil which has a fresh scent and makes my recipe totally natural.

It’s a great beginner’s recipe so if you want to get into lotion making, this is a great place to start. A stand mixer is really essential for this recipe. It breaks up and adds air to the butter leaving you with the perfect consistency. Mixing it by hand would be REALLY difficult.

This body butter has been such a hit in the office, we seriously can’t get enough of it.

How to Make Whipped Body Butter from Soap Queen on Vimeo.

To make the recipe in this video you will need:

We used our Bail Jars to package the body butter in, but you can use any wide mouth container.

Get all of the ingredients and the containers with the click of a button!

 

Bramble Berry’s Bramble Brains

Filed Under: Personal Ramblings

Bramble Berry was recently delighted with the opportunity to participate in the Whatcom Literary Council’s 16th Annual Trivia Bee! The Whatcom Literacy Council is a wonderful and free service that matches adults with literacy needs to volunteer tutors in the Whatcom County area. I love the organization so much that I’ve been a regular contributor since Bramble Berry started back in 1998.

Joining the fun was Ken Jennings, legendary Jeopardy winner and the record holder for most consecutive wins on the game show. I heard a great story from a local Bellinghamster about how he got involved with the Trivia Bee in the first place: shortly after his stint on Jeopardy in 2004, Jennings (a Pacific Northwest native and trivia buff) was asked by a hopeful WLC Trivia Bee team to join their ranks. He willingly accepted, and the team won by a landslide; after that initial year, he was invited back to participate as a “lifeline” and has attended every year since!

Team Bramble Brains (tee hee!) consisted of Elizabeth from Customer Service, Austin from Processing, and Jeff, our Warehouse Manager. Ken Jennings even helped them gain a point with a lifeline!

Though Team Bramble Brains didn’t win the Trivia Bee, there was definitely a feeling of camaraderie in the audience as many coworkers, friends and family members attended to cheer on the team! [Read more…]

Change Your Story to Change Your Behavior

Filed Under: Business Musings

A couple years ago, I spoke at Women’s Leadership Northwest. It was an excellent event. You can read my blog write up here. I attended last year (hugely pregnant – I’m pretty sure I was 3 weeks out from my due date!). It was a wonderful growth opportunity for me last year. If you’re in the Pacific Northwest, you should definitely attend the Women’s Leadership Summit on Saturday, May 19. If you can’t go, not to worry, you can watch from afar using the Twitter Hashtag (Twitter hashtag is #2012wls) or on Facebook. I’m bringing you a little Shandel magic below as well. Shandel Slaten is the coach (and the brains behind True Life Coaching). She is someone I turn to for advice and wise counsel in my life. I found the blog post below insightful (after all, who doesn’t have behaviors they’d like to change?!) and hope you do as well. If you’d like to attend the conference (in Seattle), head here for more information.


You can’t change behavior. [Read more…]

The NEW Starbucks Red Dye: Tomatoes Instead of Bugs

Filed Under: Business Musings

I’m sure you’ve heard the buzz about Starbucks serving up bugs in their beverages? I kid you not coffee drinkers. Because of the highly-publicized customer response, Starbucks changed their ingredients. Apparently it really “bugged” their customers (sorry about the bad pun, I couldn’t help that one). Not only is Starbucks a home-grown company (whoop whoop, Seattle!),  I admire Howard Shultz (read why in this great Fortune magazine article about him) and his latest venture: Create Jobs for USA. In this case, I respect how Starbucks listened to customers and changed the way they were doing things in a quick and efficient manner, showing that they really do care about the ‘little guys’. Hemi, over at Fooducate Blog, shared Starbuck’s response to the controversy. They were kind enough to let us share the blog post with our readers. I’m especially paying close attention to how Starbucks put the customers first and how that can apply to my business (and hopefully yours!). Thanks, Hemi! See original blog post here. ~Anne-Marie

In one of the quickest turnarounds we’ve seen in the food industry, Starbucks has just announced that it will be removing the red bug coloring from its Strawberry Frappucino and other red foods. A few weeks ago, a vegan Starbucks barista shared his discovery of carmine with vegetarian blogs, and the news went viral. Heck, even our post about it (with a close up picture of the red bugs) went viral. [Read more…]