One of the best parts of my Bramble Berry life is teaching and interacting with customers who want to reach the next level in their business. Yesterday, I had the pleasure of working with Erin of CottonTreeChocolate.com on a special project that is near and dear to her heart. She has a chocolate company that manufactures chocolate in Belize. Her passion is in working with local farmers and providing jobs for women who might otherwise have an opportunity to work. Cotton Tree Chocolate works towards economic, environmental and social sustainability for both their own company and also the local community in Belize. She brought a friend, also named Erin, with her. I had fun calling Erin #2 “Friend Erin” all day.
In the chocolate manufacturing process, there are a variety of chocolate related products – from cocoa, to cocoa butter, to cocoa nibs, to chocolate. Erin has a passion for being environmentally sustainable in her entire supply chain and she came to Otion to design custom formulations to use all of this chocolate (yummy!) product in bath and body products.
We had a jam packed day making all kinds of goodies. We made solid scrubs and stamped them to give them a sophisticated and unique look.
We made emulsified scrubs and oil based scrubs.
We made two different types of soap. First up was Hot Process soap.
Our favorite was definitely the swirled cold process soap. We loved the natural chocolate coloring in the soap and used a heavily colored titanium dioxide white soap to provide contrast to the textured, dark soap.
Erin does chocolate tours to Belize (of amazing scuba diving renown). If you’ve ever wanted to know how chocolate is made (literally picking the beans yourself and making your bars of chocolate from scratch and wrapping it by the end of the week), she does 7 day tours that sound absolutely heavenly. If you’d like to learn more about the tours or her single batch, single origin bars, check out her website here or email her here.
That looks fantastic! I’m going to have to go buy some chocolate now. The edible kind that is.
The divider molds made the swirled soap easy … I can’t wait for you to try it.
Erin really made it easy because she came with a very specific idea of what she wanted and a variety of chocolate-y ingredients to work with so it was just a matter of putting the puzzle pieces together. It was a fun mystery.
You and me both! =)
They smell warm and chocoate-y – but not overwhelmingly so. It’s quite delightful.
You can watch it on a private video site with a password so it’s web based (as opposed to a downloadable video). I hope this will work for you. Fingers crossed!
Got a question about the video. Is it one that you download and save on your computer, or just have access to it for a certain time? It sounds like something I’d want to import and sync onto my iPhone…which I always take into the studio with me.
Oops! Forgot to mention that in my Emulsified Scrub recipe that comes with the video you can use sugar or salt. And there are label designs for both options! https://www.brambleberry.com/Ho…
I created custom recipes and formulations just for Erin so I can’t share the exact recipes we created that day. But I just published a video on the Bramble Berry site that shows how to make an Emulsified scrub. It’s only $5.95 and includes a template for printing your own labels. Find it here https://www.brambleberry.com/Ho…
You’re in luck! I just published a video on how to make emulsified scrubs that you can buy for only $5.95. I also found that it took alot of trial and error to come-up with the perfect recipe. I think you’ll really like my solution – as I say in the video – it’s like a lotion, soap, and body scrub all in one! https://www.brambleberry.com/Ho…
Love the cold-process soap. I have never heard of hot process. Lets you know that I am a novice.
Pleeze give us the receipe for the scrub or something close that uses sugar instead of salt.
The cold-process soap is beautiful. All very impressive.
Pleeze give us the receipe for the scrub…
One of the scrubs is soapy and one of the scrubs is not. Both smell very yummy. I really have wanted products that are very minimally processed. I believe consumers deserve fresh products.
Eating soap and bathing in chocolate, no bathing in chocolate soap and eating……I’m so confused, but I LOVE it!
Whoa Nelly! That swirled soap is DOPE! Beautiful work gals x
Yum I love chocolate. What is the solid scrub – I’ve never seen anything like it before. Is it a scrubby soap?
Yoza those soapies look gorgeous I can only imagine how they smell :o)
They do; you can find the video tutorial here: https://www.brambleberry.com/Ho…
Do you have any recipes for your emulsified scrubs posted? I’ve been making and trying to tweak a recipe I made up…but, so far it hasn’t turned out how I want it to.
Yum!
How awesome to be able to use the by-products in soap and scrubs! (I’m afraid I would just eat it because it’s chocolate…)The swirl soap is beautiful.
A marriage made in heaven….chocolate and soap!
Amazing and delectable. Actually I have put real chocolate in
things too like lip balm and chili (shock and awe to my
Texas hubby)….but this soap is to die for beautiful and
very very fashionable. I cannot wait to try this.
Ohhhhhh, that is so cool! (You had me at chocolate, scrubs and soap…)