“While I relish our warm months, winter forms our character and brings out our best.” – Tom Allen
Facebook Photo of the Week (December 7th ~ December 14th)
And just like that, another week has flown by! This week we shared a simple and quick tutorial on how to make your own Cucumber Melon Deodorant using our sample of the month, Cucumber Melon Cybilla Fragrance Oil. In addition to this fresh deodorant, we also made a Fall Sherbet Cold Process soap made with pretty pastel hues.
We also explored different preservative options with a guest post by Susan Barclay-Nichols — the woman behind the fantastic Point of Interest cosmetic chemistry blog — who shared great information regarding preservatives as well as a body butter recipe in our Perfectly Preserved + Body Butter Recipe post (want more cosmetic chemistry goodies? We carry a few of Susan’s books, including Back to Basics, Lotion Making 101 and Formulating Lotions & Creams). And even though we are only halfway through December, we shared some Valentine’s Day inspiration with our Valentine’s Day Roundup. Never too early to plan your gift giving! =)
Speaking of holiday inspiration, we have loved seeing all the festive holiday soaps on our Facebook page! This week’s Facebook photo is full of holiday cheer and sparkle.
Fall Sherbet Cold Process Soap
This soap ended up being a happy accident. We were originally going for a marbled scarf look (very similar to this pattern) but ended up with something quite different though equally as beautiful. We combined several dispersed micas to achieve soft pastel colors, and fragranced this soap with a blend featuring our brand new Palmerosa Essential Oil, giving it a gentle floral scent. The pouring pattern leads to an exquisite and interesting inside pattern during the cutting process. Here’s to happy accidents!
Surprise your Sweetie: Valentine’s Day Gift Ideas
Even though we’re only halfway through December, it’s never too early to start planning for special handcrafted treats you have in mind for Valentine’s Day. This is especially true when making cold process soap, which takes up to 6 weeks to fully cure. The frigid weather can also delay packages and lengthen transit times. Plan ahead to ensure you receive your items with plenty of time to create your perfect gift. It’s cold outside so there is no better time to cozy up in front of the fireplace and plan how you will share the love for Valentine’s Day than right now!
Pictured above from left to right : Color Blocks for Melt and Pour in Non Bleeding Perfect Red, Shimmer Light Gold, Shimmer Super Pearly White, and Shimmer Merlot Sparkle. Fragrance Oils; English Rose, Hello Sweet Thang, and Vanilla Bean. In jars, Rose Petals and Buds and Rose Hips. In front, Rose Clay and Heart Lip Butter Pot. Molds in the back, Heart with Rose Mold and Simple Heart Mold.
Cucumber Melon Deodorant Tutorial
After creating your own deodorant with our Aluminum Free Deodorant Base, you’ll never go back to store-bought deodorants again. Simply melt down the base, add your fragrance or essential oil of your choice and as soon as it’s hardened it’s ready to use.
For this project we used the Sample Fragrance of the Month, the light and refreshing Cucumber Melon Cybilla. With every order you place at Bramble Berry this month, you’ll receive a complimentary .5 oz. sample of this fresh fragrance.
Because underarms tend to be sensitive areas, we don’t recommend more than a 1 % usage rate when adding fragrance oil or essential oil to this base. In this case, we fragranced the entire 4 oz. container with only 1.5 mL of fragrance oil!
Guest Post: Perfectly Preserved + a body butter recipe
Lotions and butters are some of the most popular bath and body products, but they’re also products that can raise the most questions. Questions such as “Do I need a preservative for my product?” “Which preservative do I use?” and “Are preservatives safe?” are some of the most common ones we see, and we hope this thorough guest post by formulation guru and fellow crafter Susan Barclay-Nichols will help clear up some confusion.
Susan is an expert in cosmetic chemistry, and in this post she gets down to the nitty-gritty of which preservatives work best in which products, their usage rates and their ingredients. It’s a one-stop-shop for everything preservative related! Read on to learn about the wide world of preservatives and how you can safely use them in your products.
A-M Note: If you’re concerned about parabens and the safety of preservatives in bath and body products, we’ve found these following resources to be helpful explanations: Parabens Puzzlement, More to the Parabens Puzzlement and Debate Over Parabens – Truth and Research. Borrowing from the blogs: “The FDA supports the use of Parabens as does the European Union….and under regimented testing by the cosmetics directive of the European Union they too, found no direct correlation of Parabens and cancer.”
Keep in mind, the type of preservative you choose is up to you, and I’m glad that there are effective options for everyone out there who wants to responsibly use a full spectrum preservative. All Bramble Berry preservatives have been approved for use in body products. Now onto the guide! – A.M.
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You’ll notice there are actually two areas of contamination in the product. The first is the great big green spot on the left side, but did you notice the brown-y orange streak to the right hand side of that on the side of the jug? Yep, there’s a little more contamination for you!
I made this lotion without preservatives to show you how quickly things can go off. I made this sixteen days ago. (It might have gone off earlier. This was the first chance I had to check it, to be honest!) I did all the things I generally do – I heated and held both phases, I made sure all my equipment and workshop was clean – but I left out the preservatives. I covered it tightly with Press & Seal in this jug after it had cooled to room temperature. It’s been cold in the workshop – below 10˚C – which is quite chilly considering a fridge should be kept at 0˚C to 4˚C, and room temperature is 18˚C to 22˚C. It is also quite damp back there as we’ve had a bunch of rain since Halloween – just about every day – which is normal for this time of year.
Sunday Night Spotlight: Suspending Nail Polish Base
As a quick and easy gift or for a crafty night in, homemade nail polish can’t be beat! I also have it on good authority that nail polish parties are the hot ticket at Otion. We have rigorously tested our Suspending Nail Polish Base to make sure it can suspend all sizes of glitters, and we’ve found the best usage rate is 5 – 7.5% (max) for the glitter. If you add more than that, it won’t matter how lovely and light the glitter is … it’ll still sink. Our nail polish base is also formaldehyde, toluene and DBP free.
Keep Calm and Try On
“Energy and persistence conquer all things.” – Benjamin Franklin
Photo explanation: Jamisen is trying to learn Tic Tac Toe. We are focusing on the power of hard work and perseverance as personal traits on the way to success. Right now, he just looks confused =)
Facebook Photo of the Week (November 30th ~ December 6th)
Welcome to the end of another week! We started the first Monday back from the Thanksgiving break with an interview with one of our favorite soapers, Andrea from Soap4Squares. Then, we shared a scrub to buff away that wintery dry skin with our Rough Patches Wash Tutorial. Walnut shells are a super gentle exfoliant, and they’re quickly becoming one of our favorite additives. In fact, we used them again to mimic sand in our Stormy Seas Cold Process soap! Finally, we posted a quick vid on how to properly prep colorants for cold process soaping. If you’re new to cold process, it’s a great skill to learn!
Speaking of color, this week’s Facebook Photo of the Week includes plenty of color. The gold top really makes the fuchsia embeds pop!
Soapy Social Media Roundup
Welcome to the end of a very chilly week, everyone! We’re packing up the kids this weekend and driving 4 hours out to the coast for a mini vacation at a cute little cabin. The kids have never been in the car for that long, so it’s going to be an interesting drive for sure. We’re bringing one of Jamisen’s good friends along, and we’re prepared for an energetic — I’m avoiding the word ‘exhausting!’ — weekend.
We’re also gearing up for hosting Christmas at our house this year, so I’ve got the holidays in mind. I definitely started playing Christmas music in the office the day after Thanksgiving (and would have started before that if the team had let me). Before all the holiday hustle & bustle hits, take a look at my favorite pins, tweets and ‘grams from the past two weeks.
Pins:
Stormy Seas Cold Process Tutorial
If the frost on car windshields this morning was any indication, we’re in for a long, cold winter. With temperatures dropping in the 20s this week (brrr!), we decided to embrace chilly December by making this winter weather-inspired soap.
The walnut shells in this tutorial not only make for realistic looking sand, but they’re also one of our favorite gentle exfoliants. This tutorial also uses our brand new Round Mini Silicone Column Mold to create a milky white moon above a stormy ocean (p.s. looking for more cold process embed molds? Check out the Mini Heart Silicone Mold and the Mini Square Mold too!).
Shout out to the Lathered Pony Soap Co., our Facebook Photo of the Week winner back in October, for inspiring this soap. It definitely makes winter feel a little less dreary! 
Click here to add everything you need for the embeds and the loaf to your Bramble Berry shopping cart!
Prepare Your Colorants for Cold Process Soap Making
Are you excited to make your first batch of cold process soap? Make sure you prep your colorants! In this Soap Queen Short we show you what you need to prepare your colors beforehand to ensure an even pigmentation and give you more time to work with your soap. The more prepared you can be with all of your ingredients, the better your soap design will turn out. We use a few simple pigments and oxides and mix them into some of our favorite lightweight oils like sweet almond, sunflower, and canola.
Learn to Prepare Colorants for Cold Process Soapmaking from Soap Queen on Vimeo.
This link will take you to a great list of our pigments, and below you will see some of our best lightweight oils for mixing colorants:
We also have a battery powered 4-in-1 Mini Mixer that will make the job fast and easy.
For more information on coloring your soap consult some of our other resources like Lori Nova’s great E-Book, Color with Confidence and the Color with Confidence Starter Kit or check out Kathryn Hackney’s E-Book,Cold Process Colorant Master Class.
Rough Patches Wash Tutorial
When it comes to scrubby washes, there are hundreds of options. I’m picky about what goes on my body (working at a soap company will do that to you!), and I wanted a scrub that was gently exfoliating as well as leave my skin feeling smooth and soft. This Walnut Shell Wash was the result. It contains finely ground walnut shells for scrubiness as well as colloidal oatmeal to serve as a gentle, skin-soothing cleanser. It’s great for rough patches such as elbows and feet, and the combination of Spearmint and Hungarian Lavender Essential Oils give this wash a mild, fresh scent. Next time, skip store-bought scrub in favor of this easy scrub you quickly make yourself.
Squeaky Clean with Soap4Squares (Interview)
The soaping community is as diverse as they come, but it’s safe to say we all have one thing in common: we all like to “nerd out” when it comes to soap! Andrea Edgar took that idea step further in 2010 when she opened Soap4Squares, her soapy business that caters to fellow soapy nerds. Andrea has been a long time Soap Queen reader, and last year she was even one of 11 sponsored athletes for our first ever Bramble Berry Athletic Club. Read on to learn more about her soapy business and geek out over some totally cool soaps!
Soap Queen: How long have you been soaping for? And how did you get started?
I began soaping in 2010 while pregnant with my son. My skin became so incredibly sensitive during the pregnancy that almost everything on the market caused me to break out in hives! In my search for a gentle, natural, and fun cleansing option, I stumbled upon the Soap Queen blog and Soap Queen TV channel. I was intrigued with the idea that I could make amazing products at home, that were better for my skin, and a fraction of the cost of store bought soap! I dove in head first and haven’t looked back.