Anne-Marie Faiola, Author at Soap Queen

Bag o’ Fizz question

July 26, 2007 Filed Under: Personal Ramblings

On the comments yesterday, Tami posted an interesting bath fizzy problem.

I know you’re working on M&P molds this week, but I have a question about bombs that I didn’t find an answer to on your site, hoping maybe you could answer? I have made small ones that I’ve had no problems with, but in making a larger batch and making 10 larger size bombs, am experiencing most of them cracking. They are very firm and not crumbly, but have large cracks in them, my daughter is devastated, as she was planning to sell them since (we) made them. I know that we compressed them as much as possible, what could be other causes for the cracking?

My response was a total shot in the dark.

Hi Tami –

It sounds like the bath bombs might be expanding – and the top is already hard – and this ends up making the larger bombs crack. The smaller bombs, with less volume, don’t expand as much and so don’t crack.

Of course, this is all an educated guess since I haven’t seen your fizzies.

You’re using witch hazel and not anything water based, right? That would be my first suggestion – make sure everything is totally non-reactive with your fizzy mixture.

A little bit of oil will also keep the swelling to a minimum. So, less liquids overall, no water based products and a tiny bit of oil should do the trick for you.

In the meantime, take heart. Your bath fizzies will work wonderfully. Maybe breaking them into smaller bits, selling them in a bag and calling them something creative (Fizzy Rocks, Bag o’ Fizz, Bag o’ Bombs) might help your daughter feel better about your cracking bath fizzies. The photo on the right is of fizzing bath salts. Hopefully it will help inspire your daughter to think outside the proverbial box and turn her “Oops” into something unique and different.

Anne-Marie

If anyone has any better ideas for Tami to help save her daughter’s school sale, please post them in the comments and let us know. Stay tuned for news about our drawing (hint: it’s going to be even better) and the final touches for soap-on-a-rope.

Wild Sarsaparilla Handmade Shaving Soap

July 25, 2007 Filed Under: Personal Ramblings

Wild Sarsaparilla Handmade Shaving Soap
Originally uploaded by fetosoap

Lisa from Feto Soap (www.fetosoap.com) has created a lovely bar of Wild Sasparilla Shaving Soap.

Lisa says “This soap was born while being filmed on In Context – but it’s been in my head for months now.

Ingredients: water, palm oil, olive oil, coconut oil, castor oil, sodium hydroxide, stearic acid (from palm oil), fragrance and brown oxide.”

Kudos to Lisa for such a beautiful swirled batch!

Using 3-D Molds – Unmolding, Part 2

July 25, 2007 Filed Under: Melt & Pour Soap

This is what the unmolded 3-D soap looks like. Because the soap naturally squishes out over the edges, the finished soap does need to be trimmed. Thursday’s posts will touch on trimming and coloring your soapy 3-D creations.

If the soap does not fully harden, it will leak all over. It is difficult to see inside the mold and impatience is easy to give into. If you do accidentally pry open the soap mold too early, leaks will happen (hopefully not over carpet).

In this case, the middle was not full set up and liquid soap poured over the table and side of the mold. Thankfully, this error was easy to correct.

After scraping the soap off the sides of the mold, I snapped both sides of the mold back together and poured a new bit of soap through the open spigot. The soap turned out fine in the end.

Smilies and Daisies

July 25, 2007 Filed Under: Personal Ramblings

Smilies and Daisies
Originally uploaded by Swissy Missy

How cute are these cupcakes? They are perfect for a summer party. The leaves are made with fondant so are edible in addition to looking spiffy. I love how smiley and happy they are. Happy Wednesday!

Using 3-D Molds – Unmolding

July 25, 2007 Filed Under: Melt & Pour Soap

Welcome to Day Three in using 3-D Molds. Monday covered set up. Tuesday dealt with pouring and fill linesand today is all about unmolding and trimming.We recommend waiting a full two to four hours when unmolding your 3-Dsoap. The longer wait period is necessary because the soap retains its heat (and therefore stays liquid) longer than a traditional, open-topped mold. You can put the soap in the fridge for a few minutes to help with the release process. If you leave the soap in the fridge too long (fifteen minutes plus), it is prone to forming condensation and sticky glycerin dew.Using both hands, gently pull both sides away from each other. Most of the time, soap will seep out of the edges of the mold. This makes the mold harder to pry apart. Be gentle and patient. While 3-D molds are very heavy duty, they can crack if you apply too much pressure.

Despite the overfill, there is still a hole in this bar. As the soap was cooling and contracted in volume, the soap shrunk up, leaving a hole as bubbles drifted to the top of the surface. In this case, the bubbles caught at the top of the mold and became more concave as the soap shrunk. To help prevent this, tap your mold several times on the counter right after you’ve poured the warm soap. This will force the majority of air bubbles to the top of the mold and out the spout.

Watch for a post later today about trimming and finishing your 3-D soaps.

Contest Update

July 25, 2007 Filed Under: Personal Ramblings

As of this morning, not many people have posted in the comments section to be entered into a drawing for your choice of 5 3-D soap molds and a soapmaking DVD. At these rates, the chances are pretty good that your comment will win free soap molds!

Post a comment to any post this week and you’re automatically entered.

Helpful Management Article

July 24, 2007 Filed Under: Business Musings

This article is a how-to method for working on overcoming resistance to change. The method seems like it would be useful in business as well as family life.

Here is a teaser from the article:

When most managers encounter someone who won’t change, their natural
impulse is to push back even harder. We might launch into our prepared
talking points about the inevitability and necessity of the change. Or we
may tell the employee what will happen to them if they don’t change. Or
we may just get irritated and fire them. But whatever our particular tactic of
choice, all are predicated on the notion that we can beat down the walls of
resistance.
The problem is that the truly resistant typically have more energy for
resisting than you do for breaking down their resistance.

If you read the article, I would value your feedback and thoughts. And don’t forget, all comments this week are entered to winfive 3-D molds and a Soapmaking DVD.

Next Week’s Project

July 24, 2007 Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

I already have my soaping project for next week! I just got this note from Elsa in Germany:

I hope everything is doing fine over there. Oh! I saw your picture with your husband today at the web page; you make a very nice couple. Congratulations!

I would like to know if if the cold cream soap can be made with the melt and pour process, that is the one I do. I have not seeing the cold cream among the products you offer on the page, and I wonder if it is not one of your preference. Do you have any good recipe on this? Should it be crafted with an specific soap base?

I suspect that making a melt and pour “cream soap” would take either the addition of 10 – 25% oil or maybe 10 – 25% actual cream. I’m going to experiment this week and share next week. If anyone has any hints, feel free to post them for me and shorten my learning curve!

Using 3-D Molds – Pouring & Fill Line

July 24, 2007 Filed Under: Melt & Pour Soap

Making 3-D Soap-On-A-Rope is easy and produces a specialty bar that will retail for $7 – $10, depending on your local market and your unique differentiation.After you have your entire set up laid out, it’s easy to do melt and pour soap. Put your soap in a heat safe glass (I used a mug in the photo below) and microwave your soap on bursts of 30 seconds. You do not want your soap to boil. If it does, the soap is more prone to glycerin dew and takes on a more brittle texture.

Once your soap is melted, add your color (1 drop Labcolor per bar) and your fragrance (3 – 6 ml of fragrance per bar). Remember to only use utensils and glassware that you are happy to donate to the soaping craft. Fragrance generally sticks with your utensils and glasses long after the soap is made. Pour your soap slowly and evenly through the slot in the 3-D molds.

The molds have a natural fill level line. You’ll want to fill your soap just a little over the top of the soap and into the spigot. This is because soap naturally shrinks as it cools. If the soap is filled “perfectly” and not overfilled a little bit, the end result is a shrunken bar of soap that does not look entirely spherical. The bubbles at the top of the soap can be spritzed away with isopropyl“rubbing” alcohol.

Once your soap is poured, take the soap rope and slowly push it down into the mold, making sure to push down far enough that the soap rope is fully into the mold and not just in the spout. Using clear soap allows the soap rope to be seen inside the soap. While this is an okay look, using opaque soap produces a more professional bar.Check back tomorrow to learn about unmolding your soap rope creation. Posts to any of the entries for this week are automatically entered into the contest to win 5 3-D molds & a soapmaking DVD.

Contest! Prizes! Fun!

July 23, 2007 Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

Anyone that posts a comment this week on any article/blog post through Sunday will be entered into a drawing to win an assortment of 3-D soap molds! You’ll get five 3-D Soap molds and, if you’re a brand new soaper, let me know and I’ll make sure you get a free copy of the beginners Melt & Pour DVD as well.

If you’re looking for things to post about, a simple “Hi” would suffice. A “Hi! I wish you would focus more on XYZ on the blog” would be very helpful if you want extra-credit bonus points.

The winner will be chosen on Monday.

Using 3-D Molds – Set Up

July 23, 2007 Filed Under: Tips & Tricks

This week’s blog postings will be a daily series on using Heavy Duty 3-D Molds ($6.50 – 8.00 each) and soap ropes along with the normal random musings about business and soapy self-employment.Using the Heavy Duty molds is convenient because they withstand very hot 165 °F sustained oven temps and 180 °F degrees poured-soap temperatures (sorry, you in-the-oven-hot-process soapers – not that hot!). They are made out of a food grade 60 ml plastic. You can make really large chocolate or marzipan goodies in them as well!

The 3-D molds come with two sides. Snap both sides together, making sure to match up the pouring spout on the top. If you accidentally put one side of the pouring spout on the bottom, your mold will not seal and soap will come rushing out the bottom, all over your table. Once the molds are snapped into place, simply slip the large rubber bands (included with the mold) around the mold to ensure a tight fit.

Because of their large open pour spout, 3-D molds are perfect for using soap ropes! Soap Ropes are a fun throwback to the past and handy for hanging soap up in the shower (no goop on your soap dish!). Using a hanging soap ensures that your soap will dry out faster and thus, last longer. Bramble Berry’s soap ropes are made from a braided nylon rope, measure 9 inches tall and sell for $1.15 each. The ropes are sealed with a plastic tab at the bottom, making them easy to insert into the open pour spout.

I used extra nourishing Goat Milk Melt and Pour for this project. Notice the soap has a slightly ivory or off white look. This coloring happens because of the goat milk. It’s easy to color over the yellow tint, as long as you remember that you are starting with a slightly yellow palette and not a pure white. Colors like purple are difficult to achieve when starting with a yellow base.

Here is the entire set up: Soap Ropes, Fragrance, Labcolors (water soluble and easy to mix in), the assembled soap mold, a sharp knife, a cutting block and my chopped up goat milk soap. Check back tomorrow for tips on melting, pouring, and fill line tricks as well as a contest (with prizes!).

Estrella Soap Company

July 22, 2007 Filed Under: Personal Ramblings

Estrella Soap Company in Seattle WA makes very sophisticated soap, brilliantly executed swirls with clean packaging. Their site is functional and not too messy.

Using 3 – D Molds

July 22, 2007 Filed Under: Tips & Tricks

This upcoming week will focus on 3-D molds and how to use them to make delightfully different bars of soap. Because they are a speciality item, they command higher pricing and are a good addition to your soaping repitoire. Here’s a sneak peak of the process.

Reason #4,598 not to believe the media

July 21, 2007 Filed Under: Business Musings

Or as Jezebel called it, “The Annotated Guide to Making Faith Hill Hot.

They’ve also done a very nice PHP/flash site (takes longer to load, those of you not on DSL) that really shows the before and after pictures of this lovely Faith Hill photo shoot.

What’s shocking is that Redbook felt like they needed to airbrush one of the most beautiful mothers in America. For goodness sake, she’s had three children, has a busy career and appears to have a stable loving marriage. That’s like the holy trifecta of happiness in some circles. I would (sadly) expect massive airbrushing from Vogue or some other very high end fashion magazine. Redbook (whose masthead proudly proclaims, “Love Your Life”) purports itself to be for middle America, for mothers and the middle-aged women in America fighting a losing battle against gravity, stretch marks and time. One does wonder how we can “Love our Lives” when we’re constantly bombarded with reminders that we are too line-ridden, that we’re not skinny enough to be (insert your own word here) loved/rich/contented/
healthy/happy.

The gossip rag Jezebel’s outing of the unretouched photo caused a bit of a media firestorm this week with everybody from ABC News to VH1 weighing in on the photoshopping of an already- beautiful role model. The ultimate message is that women are doing everything they can to live up to the unrealistic images portrayed in the media and … we’re failing, thus disapointing ourselves, our spouses and our kids. After all, if Faith Hill can look that good with a career, three kids, and a busy life, what’s wrong with us that we can’t

There is a business angle to this controversy however. Redbook is doing it for the money. Somewhere, some study has shown that women (yes, those same saggy, overworked, stretch-marked Mothers) are more likely to buy magazines with the beautiful, line-less, nymphs on the cover rather than a woman that looks vaguely like themselves on a good day. The recent closing of pro-real-women magazine, Jane, showcases this point. That’s the true business shame in all of this. The companies that keep pushing super skinny, super airbrushed on us wouldn’t be doing it if there wasn’t money to be made.

Next time you see a candid photo of a celebrity, before you start picking on her, “Ewww, look! She hascellulite!” be happy that you actually saw something real – not something that was manipulated into a more-pretty facsimile of reality.

At the rate we’re going, you won’t be able to see “real” for much longer.