Thanks to Carrie Gigi From Mud Puddle Girl for the shout-out and the “You Make Me Smile” award.
Look for another candle making installment later today or tonight!
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The Day That Got Away
I am mid-way through the Wick Setting and Fragrancing instructions for our candle tutorial but the day has gotten away from me! I will work more on the post at home and (hopefully) get the 2nd part of our candle tutorial posted to the blog tonight.
Back from Denver!
I am back from the National Dairy Goats Association trade show and excited to start working on the Beeswax Container Candlemaking tutorial this week. Also, I have the “Best in Show” winner from our soap judging to announce!
Hiking at Mt. Baker
We love Washington State – the beautiful hiking is a side-effect of the large amounts of rainfall we have. My family came up for the weekend. We all piled into the car and drove an hour to Mt. Baker for some hiking (slipping and falling) in the snow.
This is me and my Dad, after hiking past an avalanche on Mt. Baker
Me, happy to be descending
My crazy husband swimming in a pond surrounded by snow!
My freezing husband shivering dry after his snow pond swim.
After the hike, we had a wonderful dinner at Milanos and took in a sold out Circus Show by the incredibly talented U & I Productions. We finished off a wonderful weekend by making beeswax candles. The Soap Queen blog will focus on our container candle trials this week.
Hiking at Mt. Baker
We love Washington State – the beautiful hiking is a side-effect of the large amounts of rainfall we have. My family came up for the weekend. We all piled into the car and drove an hour to Mt. Baker for some hiking (slipping and falling) in the snow.
This is me and my Dad, after hiking past an avalanche on Mt. Baker
Me, happy to be descending
My crazy husband swimming in a pond surrounded by snow!
My freezing husband shivering dry after his snow pond swim.
After the hike, we had a wonderful dinner at Milanos and took in a sold out Circus Show by the incredibly talented U & I Productions. We finished off a wonderful weekend by making beeswax candles. The Soap Queen blog will focus on our container candle trials this week.
And …. Back to Soap!
After three days straight of cupcake talk, The Soap Queen Blog is back to soap and making toiletries … at least for the next few days!
Bramble Berry had some exciting arrivals this week:
Champagne Fragrance Oil – Perfect for the turning of the new year (2008 is here very soon!), Champagne is a limited edition but could easily go to our permanent line if there are enough requests. This fragrance smells just like champagne or the fizzy bubbles in ginger ale. The scent is incredibly strong and long lasting in CP soap and behaves like a dream when soaping. It’s a unique and versatile scent that can be blended to make all manner of Italian iced soda scents or general pop scents (mix it with a berry for a yummy soda pop scent).
Kumquat Fragrance Oil – We had the Kumquat tester loaf out at Otion and out of the 15 of them set out, the Kumquat universally elicited “Wows!” and “I want this!” Kumquat is along the lines of pomegranate – bright, fresh, purple with notes of green. It performs admirably in cold process soap and is divine in lotions. Kumquat is considered one of the hot new trends for 2008 so you’ll be seeing this fragrance (along with other purples like pomegranate, mangosteen and acai berry) showing up in bodycare and fine perfumes.
Pink Grapefruit Essential Oil – All hail the return of this versatile, sprightly oil! During the cold snap in 2004, Florida’s grapefruit production took a downturn, causing Grapefruit Essential Oil prices to take a massive upturn. The pricing has returned to somewhat normal levels though still not as low as 2004. We love to blend Pink Grapefruit with Spearmint Essential Oil for an uplifting cool treat. As an aromatherapy oil, Pink Grapefruit is associated with feelings of happiness and well being.
Look for Bramble Berry’s new Foaming Bottles & Candle Container glasses & deodorant style containers in the upcoming week on the site.
Things we’re testing this month: Conditioner-Maker (a chemical that you add water and fragrance to and viola! conditioner), jojoba beads, fragrances galore, and fennel essential oil.
Litigious Society
I recently received this question from Karen. The question is a serious one involving business and liability insurance. My response to her is below the question.
hi! say i want to make a real strawberries and cream soap(actually i did in Mexico where there are few rules and regulations for soap making;it was a delicious, yummy, creamy bar and no one had any trouble with it- i made a sign saying real strawberries and real cream were in each bar) here in the states and i put all my ingredients on the label. the person breaks out with a rash due to an allergy to strawberries. if i put all the ingredients on the tag,why then, liability insurance? wouldn’t that be up to person to read the label or maybe they didn’t know they were allergic up to that point? i realize insurance is important but isn’t it part of the responsibility of the customer to read the label first? my question may sound silly but just how valuable is liability insurance?? thanks, Karen
Thanks for your note.
If a person breaks out in a rash due to an allergy to strawberries, you could be liable. If a person breaks out in a rash due an allergy to soap, you could be liable. Even if they KNOW that they are allergic and still use the product, you could be liable.
The realities of this happening are slight as most people need to ingest strawberries in order to get an allergic reaction to them. In the 10 years that I’ve been selling to over 29,000 customers, I’ve never heard of anyone being sued *but* that doesn’t mean that it couldn’t and won’t happen.
Our society can be quite litigious when it wants to be. That is why basically all food now says “Processed in a facility that processes nuts” whether it has been or not because the general public has proven itself to be not responsible for reading ingredients labels.
In theory, if common sense law ruled the world, yes, the customer would be responsible for their own actions but when you read about buglers suing home owners for injuries sustained during the burglary, you know that the legal system has gone a bit amuck! =)
The best way to protect yourself against frivolous claims is to make good, safe products and to get product liability insurance. Two places to buy insurance specifically designed for soap and candle makers are: Handcrafted Soap Makers Guild www.soapguild.org has insurance for about $450 per year. Indie Beauty Network also has insurance for $395 per year through a broker. Click here to find out more details about IBN’s insurance.
Contest Schwag!
I just put the contest goodies together for the week. The box is brimming with handcrafted goodness. My favorite thing in the box for today is the Maple Custard Lip balm from Squeaky Queen.
I’m currently using Squeaky Queen’s Carmel Latte Lip Balm (yum!) on an obsessive basis. You’ll be an addict after you try her lip balm.
Also pictured is one of the more successful cream soap recipes – using 25% sweet almond oil. It’s the pink bar on the right made with the Japanese Crest mold. You’ll get a chance to try out a very luxurious bar of soap. I’ve been using mine for shaving. It works great!
The Palm Oil Candles come with their own personalized matches to match the label design. They are Carrot Cake and Country Linenfragranced.
Contest for this week!
Wow, someone had fun with fondant for the adorable birthday cupcakes! They are very creative and colorful.
We’re having a contest this week to share handmade bath products.
Anyone that posts a comment this week, to any posting, about anything, will be entered to win a bath & body basket. Included in the bath and body swag will be handmade palm oil candles, 3 bars of handmade soap, including one by “An Indigo Rose”, a soap dish, a sisal scrub washcloth, handmade lip balm and (drumroll please!) a bath cupcake made by Open Sundaes!
The winner will be announced on Monday!
New Favorite Online Shop
I just stumbled on the Savannah College of Art & Design online gift shop and I just love it! They feature products made by students, teachers and alumni. Based on the incredible range they offer, it must be a school inhabited by extremely talented folks.
The card to the right is from the ‘Frames’ collection in the stationery section. It is a particularly good example of the nice color choices and interesting juxtaposition of shapes and items.
The packaging of the candles and soaps in the beauty section is very
inspiring! As usual, packaging really does make a difference in elevating the usual to the un-usual and sublime. And remember, unusual and sublime means that you can charge a premium. For small businesses, charging a premium is often the difference between being one of the 3% of small businessesthat are still open 10 years after founding versus the 97% that fade away.
Yellow Beeswax Surplus
Bramble Berry has an awesome deal on Yellow Beeswax, candle grade. It’s just $3 per pound in the 55 pound bag. That’s a very aggressive price. You can use beeswax for candles, fragrance tarts, fragranced wax ornaments, or wax dipped bears.
At $3 per pound, your fragrancedwax ornaments would cost about $.50 to make and your nicely sized 4 oz candle, only about $1 with fragrance, color and wick.