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Jelly Rolls! Jelly Rolls! Day Three

December 13, 2007 Filed Under: Melt & Pour Soap

Click here for Day One (Set – Up for Jelly Rolls)
Click here for Day Two (Color and Liquid Glycerin Addition)

I couldn’t resist this photo. The contrasting colors are striking. The wet, moving Super Pearly White soap seems almost alive with its light catching undulations. Colors that contrast in a wow! way are important to making Jelly Rolls really eye-catching.

Pour each of the layers as soon as the layer beneath it is hard enough to support the new layer. Time is not your friend. The more fresh each layer of soap is, the higher chance you have for the layers to adhere together. After each of the layers has been poured, it’s time to get the soap out of the mold.

Whoops. I can immediately see that this is too thick to roll. But, on the plus side, the beautiful layers are sticking together (the first hurdle), there is no running between layers (the second hurdle) and the soap came out in one piece with no splitting between layers (the third hurdle).

Now, the soap is ready to roll. It’s important to roll quickly after plopping your soap out of the mold. If you wait too long, the soap will harden and become inflexible.

Check back later tonight for a video of the soap release.

Rare Bird Finds Likes Us

December 13, 2007 Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

What a pleasant surprise to toodle over to one of my favorite blogs and see that they’ve reviewed our Organic Fusion line. They loved the body butter, stating: ‘My skin literally DRINKS this stuff up. It’s soft and luscious, and leaves me feeling moisturized but never greasy. I loooooooooove it.’ Click here to read the full post.

Blue Chamomile EO in Soap

December 13, 2007 Filed Under: Personal Ramblings

When My Skin Soap Studio blogged about her luxurious soap bar that included Blue Chamomile, Bergamot and Vetiver Essential Oils, I was intrigued. I wouldn’t have the guts to make a soap with Blue Chamomile Essential Oil – it’s $505 per pound!

Tracy was generous and sent me a bar of the soap. It smells deep, musky, sophisticated and unlike anything I’ve smelled before. In addition to the super splurge on the essential oils, she has extra skin-loving oils in the recipe (Avocado, Mango Butter, Babassu, Sesame, Macadamia Nut) to make a well-formulated bar that leaves the skin feeling moist and supple.

As you can see from the photo below, it’s a smooth, even bar of soap. In the shower, it lathers well with a dense bubble structure that washes away cleanly. The smell is heavenly with unique layers of exotic scents bubbling up everywhere.

The little vial (in the top photo) is a bottle of one her exquisite Amber Sambaca. Her all-natural perfume blend is a complex blend of Arabian Jasmine Sambac, Mandarin, fresh Ginger, Orange and Rose absolute with final notes of Vanilla Bean Oleoresin, and Vetiver. It warms on the skin and turns into an entirely different scent after a few hours of wearing.

If you are still stumped on what to get that special someone for Christmas and you’re not making your own goodies, consider getting some of the of the unique and special blends that Tracy designs at My Skin Soap Studio.

Advertising Double Takes

December 12, 2007 Filed Under: Personal Ramblings

I’ve blogged about my irritation with media potrayls of women and aging here and here. The clever Bellingham-based branding agency FLIR found this clever bit of advertising (above) here.
Seeing how easy it is to manipulate photos doesn’t help my already-limited faith in advertising and the media.

I’ll post more on the Jelly Roll tutorial tomorrow.

Holiday Soaps

December 12, 2007 Filed Under: Melt & Pour Soap

Aren’t these little guys cute? I made them with Patina Sheen Mica in white and clear soap. The star is Patina Sheen Mica in clear soap and the background is Patina Sheen Mica in white soap. Isn’t it interesting how gray the Patina Sheen looks in white soap? The soaps are scented with Christmas Spice. The mold is the Mini Snowflake Mold from our Guest Soap Molds collection.

These handy little 3-D soaps on ropes were made with our 3-D Molds, soap ropes and a variety of colors. The red is our non-bleeding red, the white is white soap base, and the light green color is Opalescent Green in Clear Soap and the Orange is Cellini Red in Clear Soap.

If you haven’t seen the tutorial on how to make 3-D Soap on a Rope, click here.

Indie Press

December 12, 2007 Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

Thank you to Donna Maria from Indie Beauty Network for interviewing me and including our interview in her subscription (it’s free!) based newsletter. Click here to read the interview if you’re already a subscriber.

Jelly Rolls! Jelly Rolls! Day Two (Video)

December 11, 2007 Filed Under: Melt & Pour Soap

Below is the first layer for our Jelly Roll Soap. It is colored with Lavender Mica and Liquid Violet Colorant in clear melt and pour soap. It reminds me of a delicious vat of molten blueberry taffy.

The secret to successful Jelly Rolls is 2-fold – timing and 10% liquid glycerin addition to melted soap. Add 10% liquid glycerin to your melted soap base along with the fragrance and color for each layer.

There is approximately 3/4 of a teaspoon of Super Pearly White Mica in 8 ounces of melted soap. It is overkill to use this much mica. The same density of color could have been achieved with half of that amount.
Note: The Sparkle Violet Mica previously used in this recipe will be discontinued when supplies run out. You can use Super Pearly White Mica instead.

Alcohol is essential for mixing in the mica. The mica tends to ball up on the surface of the soap, similar to how hot chocolate clumps when you’re making hot chocolate. As you can see in the photo below, there’s a large mica bubble that is stubbornly refusing the mix in.

The video below shows the magic of Isopropyl Rubbing) Alcohol to break up mica bubbles by breaking the surface tension of the soap. The video quality is poor but it should get the point across (sorry, I was stirring while trying to hold the camera and spritz with mica at the same time).

Check back tomorrow for more on how to make Jelly Roll Soap!

Jelly Rolls! Jelly Rolls! Day One

December 10, 2007 Filed Under: Melt & Pour Soap

Making Jelly Rolls with melt and pour soap is easy, fast and fun! The Jelly Rolls are the soap on the far left and far right (bottom). This tutorial will focus on how to make Jelly Rolls out of melt and pour soap. The project takes about 30 minutes to complete and requires singular purpose (no multitasking) to ensure success.

The set up is simple:

White Melt and Pour
Clear Melt and Pour
Non-Bleeding Colorant
Fragrance or Essential Oil
Flexible 9 x 9 pan
Rubbing Alcohol
Liquid Glycerin

This is a silicone baking pan, commonly used for making cakes. It has a higher purpose – soap. You can buy one from Bramble Berry here or try and find one at a local high end cooking store. Glass pans are virtually impossible to get the soap out of.

Once all the ingredients are prepared, cut the first layer’s worth of soap into smallish blocks – the size of a domino or so.The smaller surface area of the soap allows for a more smooth even melt. In my microwave, eight ounces of the Bramble Berry soap brand of base melts perfectly in one 45 second melt, stir a few times, and then an additional 30 seconds.

Shorter microwave spurts are better than one long melt. Boiled soap smells badly and will not roll when needed.

Check back tomorrow for coloring and layering timing tricks.

Skillful Newbies, Artistic Wonderment

December 10, 2007 Filed Under: Personal Ramblings

These soaps were made by first timers at Otion’s Soap Bar. Aren’t they amazing for first timers? Our soap bar is open to anyone that wants to come make soap. You rent the bar for $7.50 (and get unlimited use of fragrance, color and molds) and only need to buy the soap base that is used.

Of course, Erik did a great job instructing them and helping out in between customers but I think that they had some soapmaking blood in their veins because these are very artistic soaps.

Copious use of glitter makes these Alien Head soaps really stand out.

Today, Monday, I teach a Cold Process Soapmaking class at Otion. We have two spots left for the 5:15 class. If you’re in Bellingham, sign up by calling the store at 360-676-1030.

Hunting Christmas Trees

December 9, 2007 Filed Under: Personal Ramblings

Today was our Annual Christmas Tree Hunt.

There was a light dusting of snow on the ground as we took off to find the perfect tree. We were bundled up tight against the weather with scarves, gloves, hats and ski jackets.

We settled on a seven foot Douglas Fir. Here’s my hubby sizing up the best way to saw the froen tree down.

Ten seconds later, success!The perfect Christmas tree for our holiday hosting joy is ours.

Hunting Christmas Trees – The Sawing

December 9, 2007 Filed Under: Personal Ramblings

The sawing only took about 15 seconds; our saw was sharp (or maybe my hubby is just super strong!)

And we have our perfect Douglas Fir for our holiday festivities.

Is Rose Oil Good for Your Skin?

December 9, 2007 Filed Under: Personal Ramblings

The Beauty Brains has a good post today about Rose Oil’s supposedly great benefits for skin. Since many of us formulate our own products for face, body and hair, this article is particularly pertinent.

Excerpted from the post:

It’s true that rose oil contains over 300 different chemical compounds and that several of them do have some functional properties. For example, citronellol, been shown to be an antioxidant while geraniol and eugenol have antibacterial properties.

Click here to read the full article. It draws an unexpected and interesting conclusion.

Testing New Trends

December 8, 2007 Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

Trend Testing for 2008

I had a fun afternoon today, testing new trends forecasted for 2008. These are the same exact recipes but look at how different the soaps look. The color, the texture and the trace thickness are all vastly different.

This small test batch shows the importance of using fully tested fragrance oils for cold process soap. After all, when you are making a 5 pound soap batch, it’s always nice to know if a fragrance will accelerate trace or turn a nice shade of brown (ruining the perfect swirl or geometrically balanced layers).

In the photo above, the soap on the right top looks lumpy. It is in fact, very lumpy. The fragrance made the soap get all clumpy with the appearance of cottage cheese. Whoops. That is one fragrance that Bramble Berry will not be bringing in.

In the photo above, the soap on the left is starting to rapidly heat up. It also showed an alarming propensity to accelerate trace (as evidenced by the nicely formed peaks on the soap).

For every fragrance that Bramble Berrycarries, we’ve tested at least 100 more to find that one fragrance. The two problem soaps above are not the end of the testing. Each of the bars in the batch will be sniff tested at the 6 week mark and, if they happen to make it through that (they normally won’t), we’ll retest the same fragrance in a 5 pound batch and a 8 pound batch to ensure that they will hold up to the rigors of real life soaping.

Gen Y Employees

December 8, 2007 Filed Under: Personal Ramblings

According to Experience Inc., 58% of new college grads moved home after school and 32% stayed more than a year. Pew found that 73% of 18 to 25 year olds have received financial assistance from the parents in the past year.I wonder what this level of parental involvement does over the long term? It seems like it would retard Gen Y’s overall decision making abilities. After all, if Mommy and Daddy are always around to steer you to the correct decisions or bail you out of poor financial choices, it might be hard to function in the real world.

I read in an editorial Gen Y has been so coddled, been told they are so special (so special in fact that some high schools are doing away with the Valedictorian for fear of making anyone feel left out) that they have a hard time with the cut throat concept of a corporation where hard work counts and you are not told you are special and “okay” if you fail.

This article discusses traits of the Millenial Generation. It’s a “Must Read” if you’d like to market your bath and body products to the 20-somethings out there.