Anne-Marie Faiola, Author at Soap Queen

Coconut Soap – Final Photos – Discoloration

November 2, 2009 Filed Under: Cold Process Soap

The Coconut Milk Soap from the Coconut Soap Disaster and subsequent successful batch is almost cured. The photos above show the color progression over a series of weeks. The discoloration from the fabulous fragrance combo of Buttercream & Snickerdoodle mixed with Relaxing did take its toll and the color is now a dark dark brown (practically black). Also, the lines aren’t as distinct but they’re still showing differentiation between the brown and the black. The soap smells heavenly and will be ultra luxe to bathe with so a little blurry on the lines is a-okay with me.

Chocolate Milk Soap

November 2, 2009 Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

SoapyLove’s latest E-Zine with instructions on how to make all kinds of great projects is available for sale here.

My favorite project from the issue is the Chocolate Milk Soap. You’ll be enchanted with the new techniques she used to make the white ‘cup’.

Supplier of The Year – Thank You!

November 1, 2009 Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

Thank you so much to all of our customers and readers for voting Bramble Berry‘Supplier of the Year’ for the entire soap and toiletry industry. We are so thankful and thrilled to be part of such a wonderful industry and this is icing on the cake. Thank you!

From the article:

Service, price, quality, and variety are the keys to customer loyalty according to what our respondents told us. Some also commented on the advantage of being close enough to a company to either pick up product or at least close enough to save on shipping costs, so that is something always in our minds, especially with escalating shipping rates. The company who best demonstrated that this year? Once again, Bramble Berry is the clear winner in this category.

Mary Robida of Fruit of the Vine Soap Company said it well when she stated, “I love the quality of their products. I also love that they test their products and can tell you how they will behave in various situations. They have wonderful customer service and go the extra mile to help.”

We were also thrilled to take First Place for ‘Best Fragrance Oil Vendor.‘ From the article:

“Once again, by a hefty margin, Bramble Berry leads the pack in votes. It is clear that many still prefer them for their variety, cost, quality and service. “Unique FOs, exceptional quality with good descriptions without sliding into silly verbiage. Excellent customer service with appropriate breaks in price for those of us who order full pails. She’’s always on trend too,” opines Ella Gaynor of Toronto, Canada.”

To learn more about The Saponifier, the results or subscribe to the magazine, click here to be taken to their site.

Happy Halloween!

October 31, 2009 Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

Look what I made using that cute mini 3D pumpkin mold I made in this tutorial? I put a container inside as I poured the soap to make it hollow. And then I carved the face with a craft knife and dusted the entire pumpkin with Copper Sparkle mica. And voila! A super duper soapy Happy Halloween!

Candy Time

October 30, 2009 Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

Trick (or treat!)

(pssst! It’s a trick! Those are soap.)

Thank You, Naughty Secretary Club

October 30, 2009 Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

A big thank you to Jennifer Perkins, host of Craft Lab on the DIY Network & HGTV, for using and reviewing the SoapyLove Line of products from Bramble Berry.

She said:“Who wants clear or white soap when you could have Ruby Red, Fiery Fuchsia, Turquoise Blue or Sunshine Yellow – the options in the Soapy Love Jewelry Box Colorant Set. You know I loved that name and the cute little medicine dropper packaging. Then there was that amazing smell, I wanted to sit and huff the box that everything came in. You can choose between Delectable Desserts or Candy Jar Fragrance Sets.”

Read the entire post here.

Checkered Heart Release

October 30, 2009 Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

I am totally loving the versatility of this swell Checkered Heart mold – the latest addition to the SoapyLove line. We’ve done this mold in all kinds of color combinations and love how each and every color combo looks. Kudos to Debbie for coming up with such a user-friendly design.

In other Bramble Berry news, we’ve halved the price of our Patchouli Essential Oil. Our latest crop smells incredible and the market price on this commodity has dropped significantly to $44.50 per pound.

Pumpkin Puree Cold Process Soap

October 29, 2009 Filed Under: Cold Process Soap

Fun Fall Cold Process Soap

Treat (don’t trick) your skin this chilly fall season with a handmade, moisturizing and delicious smelling soap with real pumpkin puree. Pumpkin is full of antioxidants and vitamins A and C which can help keep your skin youthful and refreshed!

Ingredients
16 oz. Coconut Oil
16 oz. Palm Oil
16 oz. Olive Oil
2 oz. Castor Oil
15 oz. water
7.4 oz. lye
3 oz. pumpkin puree
3 oz. Pumpkin Spice Fragrance Oil
Titanium Dioxide
Copper Sparkle Mica

Tools

Freezer Paper
Mixing Spoons
Ladle or glass mug
3 large glass, plastic or stainless steal mixing bowls
(never use aluminum or a reactive material when mixing cold process soap)

Molds
2 Pound Wood Mold
Clear Plastic Loaf Mold
Or…
You can use a 5 pound wooden mold

Preparation: Make sure you have all of your ingredients with in reach (I even double checked our recipe on the iPhone Lye Application). Then line your mold with Freezer Paper (click here for instructions on lining your soap mold). Most importantly review lye safety guidelines.

Lye Safety Tips:

Always wear gloves & goggles (glasses are not enough, goggles)
Measure out distilled water & slowly pour and stir lye into water
Do not breathe in lye fumes; work in a well ventilated room
Keep small children and animals out and away from your soapmaking
Protect your workspace with newspaper or cardboard
Lye corrodes metal so remove jewelry before making soap
Lye in the eyes = trip to emergency room
Lye on your skin = flush with water (some soapmaker’s swear by vinegar instead of water).
Soap utensils are for soap. Food utensils are for food. Never the twain should meet.
Soap needs to cure, undisturbed, from either pets or small children
Soap molds need to be either lined with wax paper or be made from a flexible plastic.
Never make soap in a glass or aluminum mold.

ONE: Weigh and combine your Coconut Oil, Palm Oil, Olive Oil and Caster Oil. Make sure all of the oils are in liquid form so you might need to melt the coconut and palm oil in the microwave or on the stove.

TWO: To make your lye solution, add 7.4 ounces of lye to 15 ounces of distilled water (you can increase the water to 16.5 if you like a slower trace). Remember to always add the lye to the water- never add the water to the lye. Mix the lye water until the cloudiness clears and the temperature cools. The ideal temperature is between 125 and 135 degrees though some soapers soap all the way down to room temperature lye. I like 125 personally. Notice the water heats all the way up to 191 degrees when combined with the water and lye. Gloves and goggles stay on for the ENTIRE soapmaking process.THREE:Once your oils are combined and their temperature stabilized under 135 degrees and your lye water has reached 125-135 degrees, slowly pour the lye water into your oils stirring at all times. Then stick blend the oil and lye mixture (approximately 2-3 minutes). Turn the stick blender on and off, making sure to mix the entire mixture thoroughly (up down, side to side, around and around).FOUR: Once your mixture has reached light *trace, stick blend in 3 oz of pumpkin puree. Then separate the mixture into two different containers- 2/3 in one bowl and 1/3 in the other.*Trace looks like thin pudding where faint trailings of soap stay on the surface of your soap mixture when lightly drizzled from a few inches overhead.FIVE: Add up to a full Tablespoon of titanium dioxide to the container with 1/3 of the soap and mix with your stick blender. This will keep make a lovely light contrast color.

SIX: To the second container, add 1 Tablespoon of Copper Sparkle mica and use a stick blender to mix well. This will make a beautifully dark and rich pumpkin color.

SEVEN: Once the Copper Sparkle mica is fully incorporated, stir in 3 oz of Pumpkin Spice Fragrance Oil by hand. This fragrance slightly accelerates trace so be ready to pour once your fragrance is mixed in.

EIGHT: In your mold, pour in 6 ounces of the light colored soap followed by approximately 10 ounces of the darker colored soap. The pours do not have to be exactly 6 or 10 ounces – just eyeball it. Make sure you pour two layers of each soap base, alternating colors. Once your mold is filled to the top, swirl the soap with a spoon, spatula or chopstick. Repeat this step using the clear plastic mold. Your gloves and goggles stay on for the entire soapmaking process, even during the swirling part.

TIP: If you’re using a 5 pound mold, just alternate colors until you’ve filled the mold. Then swirl with a spoon. We made this recipe big so we could have fun and play with 2 different molds.

When you make this fun fall recipe, pop in and tell us how it goes! We love the final soap and hope you do too!

Grey to Green to Purple: LabColor Tips

October 28, 2009 Filed Under: Tips & Tricks

On the Teach Soap Forum recently, we had a big discussion on how to work with Royal Blue LabColor in Cold Process Soap. In general, LabColors turn brighter in cold process soap as the soap sets up and cures, especially if your soap gels. For example, the Royal Blue LabColor is a disappointing grayish color when it is first mixed into the soap, even at a high percentage. After 24 hours, it slowly turns a bright vibrant blueish purple. Because of this, many people have a tendency to over color their soap and end up with colors that are more vivid than they originally intended.

If you have added the proper percentage of LabColors (and maybe even a little more!) and the color is still not popping, STOP while you are ahead. Insulate your soap to ensure a nice, cozy gel phase and note the color after 24 hours.

Just after pouring Royal Blue LabColor colored soap. Check out that grey green gross color.

After 24 hours in the mold. See the brighter areas where the soap went through gel phase in the middle? The ‘white’ on top is glitter that I sprinkled liberally on the soap for an extra magical look. Sadly, the glitter doesn’t photograph great.

To see if small batches that never went through gel phase would also turn, I did a couple teensy 1 ounce test pucks. Notice how the soap on the tippy top of the soap never went a blue color? It’s either the soda ash affecting the final color or the lack of heat that retarded the final color turn. To get the bright blue color (top layer below – and in the soap above), I used 2 tablespoon diluted Royal Blue Labcolor (Small bottle [10 ml] of LabColor diluted in 4-8 ounces of water) per 16 ounces of soap soap (oil/water/lye total). This makes such a bright blue color that I recommend using close to 1 tablespoon diluted Royal Blue Labcolor per pound of soap to ensure no soapy blue bubbles.

This one is really interesting to me. It is the Pool Blue LabColor (middle layer on the left, bottom layer on the right). Look at what happens when you change the addition rate just slightly. The shade of blue is the same but the hue is much darker, deeper and brighter just by upping the usage rates. Curious about LabColors? Here is more information on how to dilute the concentrated colors and use them to get every color imaginable.

The best soap supplies on the internet are found at Bramble Berry. Click here to browse Bramble Berry.

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!

Bramble Berry on Fox Business Center

October 28, 2009 Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

A big thank you for Fox Small Business Center for interviewing us for a story on ‘Accidental Entrepreneurs.’ You can read the story in its entirety here.

Pelt the COO with Eggs

October 27, 2009 Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

This time of year is really exciting for us at Bramble Berry and Otion. It’s when people start to think about Christmas – if they’re a small business, they’re thinking about Christmas and stocking up for holiday shows and if they’re a hobbyist, they’re thinking about what they can make to show love to their family and friends. Either way, we’re excited to help in any way we can to make the holidays a huge success. One of the ways we try and help is by getting orders out as quickly as we can with no mistakes. We’re not always 100% perfect but we really really do try.

Our COO, Norman, came up with a fun way to help our new and seasonal helpers (and lucky kids visiting their Moms!) understand the concept of customer service and how precious each and every customer is to us. He explained that each one of our orders is like an egg – it’s important, it has lots of steps that go into making it and each order needs to be handled carefully – like an egg.

He staged an egg toss (with prizes for everyone) and an egg run with tablespoons. The monetary prizes may have motivated some but they definitely weren’t the only motivation. For every egg that we didn’t break in the egg toss or egg run, we could throw the eggs at Norm.

After Fed Ex had picked up for the day, Norm suited up in rain gear and protective eye wear and let us all pelt him with eggs. I am proud to state that I hit him the most of anyone. Either everyone was scared to hit him or I had a lot of motivation stored up.

It was a great way to bring the whole Bramble Berry team together to laugh, to learn and to form strong bonds that will help get us through the busy holiday season with grace and speed.

What Did You Miss This Week?

October 26, 2009 Filed Under: Business Musings

If you don’t follow me on Twitter,you might not have seen these business related articles I posted about this week. There are some gems in there; enjoy!

37% – 48% of entrepreneurial propensity is genetic: http://ow.ly/wfvl

Blog post: Looking for a mentor? Check out, “How To Find A Mentor”: http://bit.ly/2k0BlH.

What every small business should know about pricing their products: http://ow.ly/w5hX

What you can learn about your small business from The Food Network: http://ow.ly/w4f3

If women-owned businesses were a country, they would be the 5th largest GDP in world. http://ow.ly/weUa

Free help for entrepreneurs – advice coupled with pragmatic reality checks: http://ow.ly/vs02

Incredible article about a young man with cancer who convinced world-class musicians to record an album with him: http://ow.ly/wcFh

Mica Stability Tests

October 26, 2009 Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

This summer, I was lucky enough to meet Patti, one of our long time Bramble Berry customers and a very talented cold process soapmaker. She recently soaped up with some of our micas (including two new ones – the Matte Yellow and Super Green) and graciously agreed to share her results and thoughts with all of us. Thanks Patti!

Red Lip Safe Mica, Super Green Mica & Matte Yellow

Patti swirled some of the micas into the soap directly and then mixed a teensy bit of oil in with some of the micas and swirled on top so that the colors would stay true on top of the soap, no matter what happened.

It took two days to unmold the soap to make sure that all that extra oil up on top would absorb back into the soap. But in the meantime, Patti peeked at the mixing bowl and noticed a few things that gave a preview of what the final bars might look like.

In the bowl, the Super Green turned to a light gold color – sparkly and pretty but not green. But, the Matte Yellow stayed the same nice yellow color. Even though the oil hadn’t fully absorbed into the top, Patti just blotted at the top of the soap (leaving a lovely pattern), unmolded and cut.

The slices turned out wonderfully fall-like and beautiful on top.

It’s pretty clear which colors are which. The Red Mica turned orangey peach, the Matte Yellow stayed totally stable yellow and the Super Green went a lovely yellow and definitely did not stay a pretty green when reacted with the lye. Patti used a fragrance that discolors a bit which is why the soap looks a little darker than you might expect.

Thanks for letting us all in on your experiments, Patti!