Soap Queen

Tutorials on soapmaking, bath fizzies, lotions and more

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No BB Account Needed

Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

We recently received some feedback from some fabulous Bramble Berry customers who mentioned that they find it a little bit inconvenient to log into their  BB account when placing an online order. I know shopping online can be frustrating at times and we don’t want our customers going through any grief.  The great news is that our system does allow you to place orders without logging into an account! If you have previously made an account with us, you’ll just have to use an alternate email address to order as a guest.

How to Order as  BB Guest

Soap Queen TV : Learn to Make Mineral Makeup

Filed Under: Tips & Tricks

In this episode, I show how to make your own eyeshadow and eyeliner from scratch using our Mineral Makeup kit. I think you’re going to be surprised at how easy it is. I also go over some of the most common mineral makeup ingredients and share two of my favorite recipes.

Here’s the recipe for the light brown eye shadow:

1/4 tsp Sericite
1/8 tsp Honeyed Beige Mica
1 mini scoop Patina Sheen Mica
1 mini scoop Cappuccino Mica
3 mini scoops Super Pearly White

And for the Dark Brown eyshadow that I used to make eyeliner:

1/4 tsp Sericite
1/8 tsp Honeyed Beige Mica
1 mini scoop Patina Sheen
7 mini scoops Cappuccino Mica
4 mini scoops Luster Black Mica

Have a question about this blog post? Come join us at Bramble Berry’s Facebook page and we can help you out with any of your soapy questions!

2011 Fall S.O.A.P. Team

Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

Thank you to all for blogging, tweeting and Facebooking about your favorite Bramble Berry products for the S.O.A.P. Team “applications” (see blog post here)! I had an extremely distracted morning reading all of the blogs, tweets and Facebook posts. It’s a tough job, but somebody has to do it (all smiles here).

Congratulations Fall S.O.A.P. Team 2011!

Nichole from Simply McGhie

T.A. Helton from Coffee House Suds

Jill from Calise Soapworks & Such

Christina from Natural Mountain Body Care

Amanda from Seven Runs Soaps

Jennifer from Jennifer’s Handmade Soap

Jennifer from Perfectly Natural Family Soaps

Monica from Green Lady Creations

Attention S.O.A.P. team: Please email SOAP(at)brambleberry(dot)com with your contact and shipping information! We really want to get these fragrances out the door this week so you can get to work…er…play.

I wish that everyone  that entered could chosen to be on the panel but we have a limited amount of fragrances to go around. If you didn’t get chosen this time, please, please, please, enter to be on the next S.O.A.P. Team. I want to give everyone a chance to play with new and upcoming fragrances. Plus, I love seeing what you make with the fragrances we send. It’s a joy to see the blog posts come trickling out and get everyone’s varied opinions on the fragrances.

Amy from Great Cakes Soapworks did such a great job testing on the Summer S.O.A.P. Team. See her testing pictures above. Thanks, Amy! We hope to see you on another panel soon!

Click HERE to see the fragrances chosen from the Summer S.O.A.P. Team.

Have a question about this blog post? Come join us at Bramble Berry’s Facebook page and we can help you out with any of your soapy questions!

Sweet New Soap Stamps

Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

Our new acrylic soap stamps are amazing in cold process soap. Because of the acute details they require some special attention. In our testing, we found that they worked best on one of our basic cold process recipes after 4-5 days of curing time. The soap can’t be too soft or too hard so you’ll have to experiment with your recipe to find the perfect consistency. Once you find a happy medium, the extra work will be totally worth it and “Life is Good”!

Do you like our colorful soap? Kristy from Kristy’s Lovely Lathers made it on Soap Queen TV (see the blog post here). Video coming soon!

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Latest Etsy Purchase

Filed Under: Personal Ramblings

I found a new Etsy shop called Herbolution and I couldn’t resist buying a few things. I absolutely love their philosophy on being green and earth friendly. It’s what we strive to do at Bramble Berry too.

“We are Sasha and Veronika, a young couple, who is conscious about the current state of our planet which directly affects our health and well-being. After long searches for healthy and natural personal care products we came to a conclusion that many companies that try to take good care of their customers take very little care of the Earth and vice versa…” Read the rest of the Herbolution profile here.

Swoon over my latest purchase…

Organic Citrus Spicy Bath Bomb

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Do Babies Wear Robes?

Filed Under: Personal Ramblings

I constantly say that I have the best friends in the world. The adorable baby hot tub above is just one more reason for me to love my friends. It was a super thoughtful gift from entrepreneur Bob Pritchett and his lovely wife Audra. Side note: Bob runs an awesome Bible Software company so if you’re looking for Bible Software, Logos is the place to shop. Jamisen LOVES his bathtub and the unique shape lets him sit upright, leaving his hands free to play in the water.

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Shout Out and Fall S.O.A.P. Reminder

Filed Under: Personal Ramblings

Soap Shout Out! These darling and detailed apple soaps were sent in for the last Bramble Berry Soap Swap. They were scented with a yummy apple fragrance and packaged in a hand painted muslin bags. And keep in mind that she sent in 24 of these soaps…that’s 24 hand painted bags and 24 super detailed apple soaps. Now that’s what I call attention to detail. Get your own Garden of Eden Apple Soap at Her Best Apple. P.S. We’ll be doing another Bramble Berry Soap Swap after the holiday season so you have time to start brainstorming your next project!

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Foaming Bath Whip Frosting

Filed Under: Melt & Pour Soap

Recipe

1 Cup Foaming Bath Whip

1 Cup Clear Melt and Pour

1 Tablespoon Liquid Glycerin

3 Tablespoons Meringue Powder

7 ml Clementine Cupcake Fragrance Oil

We tested and tried many recipes before settling on this one. Here are a few key characteristics of this recipe:

  • Hardens up and could easily be packaged.
  • Easy to frost the cupcakes.
  • Have roughly 5 minutes to work with it

Get everything you need for the frosting in the click of a button!

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Fall SOAP Team Search

Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

Looking for a New SOAP Fall/Winter Team

We’re itching to test some of our new Fall fragrance samples that were specially formulated just for Bramble Berry. Do you want to be on the Fall/Winter S.O.A.P. team and be the first to test them?

What’s the S.O.A.P. panel you ask? Soap Opinion (Awesome) Panel members will receive 9 one ounce fragrance samples of our top Fall choices for Fall/Winter 2011. Give the cutting-edge fragrances a sniff AND test them in any product you like (really, anything you want). Then fill out a survey to help distinguish the top choices. We want your honest opinion and notes on testing!

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New S.O.A.P. Fragrance Arrival

Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

After weeks of built up anticipation, it’s finally time for the big fragrance oil reveal! Our new S.O.A.P. fragrances (Summer edition) are here and ready to order. Here’s a link to the S.O.A.P.(Y) Round Up from the Summer Soap Panel.

Try all three fragrances in the click of a button!

Southern Peach (mystery fragrance #3): This isn’t your traditional peach; it’s softer, more rounded with some white floral notes and supporting softer tropical notes (think guava, mango and ripe papaya) thrown in to make a complex, sweet peachy dessert scent. It goes a yellow in CP soap (but you can easily make this work with your design).

S.O.A.P. Team Reaction: “Out of the bottle, this is a sweet, smooth fragrance. One of my favorites, for sure! In CP soap, it turned lemon yellow initially and still smells really good. Really hasn’t discolored much over time either. In the lotion test, it performed quite nicely, and took 2nd place in my customer’s poll.”

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Raw *Carrot Cake* (food recipe)

Filed Under: Soap Queen Cuisine

I can’t believe that Courtney has been with Bramble Berry for 3 years now . Happy Bramble’Versary, Court! It feels like she’s been here forever (in a good way)! Time really does fly when you’re having fun. Courtney and I are both competitive health nuts, so I can’t make her the standard Bramble’Versary cookies or cupcakes. I had to make her an insanely healthy Faux Carrot Cake recipe that I found from Gone Raw. A note to the skeptics: These are amazing. Honestly! The entire warehouse loved them and Courtney was a happy camper too!

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Oodles and Oodles of New

Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

We’ve been hard at work adding new products for your soaping and toiletry needs – molds, additives, colorants, new fragrance kits and more! Read on to be introduced to the latest products in the Bramble Berry warehouse. And be sure to add a few to your shopping cart on your next visit to show ’em some love. =)

Scalloped Oval Mold

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Healing Under Eye Serum

Filed Under: Soaks & Scrubs

Nothing does more damage to your skin than being outside in the elements in the sun and wind. Treat your overly sunned face to some pampering oils to help nourish, replenish and reduce inflammation. We’ve had a string of nice weather here in Bellingham, WA so you better believe that I’ve been wearing SPF protection and treating my eyes at night with this serum. Stay away wrinkles! You are not welcome here!

What makes this recipe so healing and skin loving?

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