Given our Chocolate Lip Balm theme for this week, the above photo seems appropriate. For more fun food art, head to Splutch‘s site. The egg one is my fave.
Search Results for: www.brambleberry.com
Spilling Lye Water & Fresh Soap
I taught a beginning cold process soap class at Otion tonight. It was a wonderful class with students from Arizona, Tacoma (WA) and Portland (OR). We had 7 students, two of whom had made soap. It’s always a joy to have experienced soapmakers in class so they can augment my instructions.
I let the students choose the oils so we had a very soft recipe with all the moisturizing goodies they wanted in the soap. The recipe ended up being:
5 oz. Sweet Almond Oil
3 oz. Castor Oil
1.5 oz. Jojoba Oil
10 oz. Coconut Oil
10 oz. Palm Oil
10 oz. Olive Oil
15 oz. water
5.21 – 5.65 oz Sodium Hydroxide Lye (range of 10% superfat down to 3%)
We did two batches. One with a 3% superfat and the second one with a 10% superfat. I like doing soap classes this way so that the concept of superfatting/lye discounting is clear. On the 2nd batch, the students mixed their own oils and got the hang of taring the scale, using a stick blender and scooping out the Coconut and Palm.
We did room temperature (energy transfer) soap for the first batch. I showed my dexterity by pouring lye water all over the table in front of the class. Clumsiness is catching. Erik (Otion Store Manager, also my little brother) poured fresh soap all over one of the student’s papers. It was not our collective finest moment.
The second batch was a normal CP batch. Some of the students got ambitious and did swirling. We did have a few fun trace accelerators. Sea Moss and Applejack Peel really acted up.
The last of the students departed just before 8 p.m. I’ll be teaching a Goatsmilk CP Class and a Goatsmilk Lotion Class at Otion next month. Look for the sign up sheet online in the next week.
The batch to the lest was extra soap from one of the batches. I mixed 2 parts Wineberry Mist (Labcolors) with 1 part Fuchsia LabColor to get a perfect red.
Chocolate Lip Balm, Day One
Sunday was a busy day at our home. Chris painted a new bathroom cabinet while I tried to create a workable chocolate lip balm. Here’s what I started with:
Jojoba OilBeeswax white
Beeswax yellow
Beeswax yellow prills
twist up tubes
chapstick tubes
daisy pots
lip safe mica (for shimmer)
Chocolate, chocolate and more chocolate
plenty of paper towels
lots of disposable spoons & knives
measuring spoons
droppers
heat safe containers
I had basic Hershey’s, bittersweet baking chocolate, Vivian chocolate and Green & Blacks Organic chocolate. Both the Vivian and Green & Blacks have very high cocoa content (above 70%). I expected those two to have a very strong, potent flavor. Just for fun, I had a few extra bars of White Chocolate and Dark Orange Chocolate. Sadly, I did not end up using those but maybe I can try those another day.The final tool used for this project is frozen knives. They are used to test individual batches in a very quick and easy manner. You’ll learn more about that in a future post this week.
This week’s posts will focus on making chocolate lip balm, with real chocolate for flavor. The final results turned out marvelous.
Amigurumi Pink cherry cream cupcake bear
Happy Sunday!
I’ve had a busy day perfecting/ruining chocolate lip balm. This week of The Soap Queen blog will focus on chocolate lip creams. Yummy. I gained a few pounds (strategically placed on my thighs, I’m sure) eating the lip balm samples.
The lovely (improbable) cupcake is a freshly made pink cherry cream amigurumi cupcake, shaped like a bear.
To learn more about the artist or to visit her etsy shop, click here: amigurumikingdom.etsy.com/
I shouldn’t have …
How to make a journal cover
Fab designer Lara Cameron, from Australia, makes beautiful patterns. They’ve recently been featured as Moo cards.
On her blog, Kirin Notebook, she has full instructions for making a reversible journal cover.
I love the look of the cover. It seems like a great project for an upcoming dreary Washington weekend.
The Sincerest Form of Flattery …
Thank yous are in order for Joanna at Product Body for trying our Bath Cupcakes recipe! Read all about her valiant attempt here. Joanna is running a contest for the next few weeks on her blog so check out her generous contest as well!
Stem Organics from Down Under
I am on a huge skin care kick. I’ve been trying out a line for two weeks and moving onto the next. Since skincare lines are getting clever with the try-me samplers, it’s been somewhat affordable to go on this luxurious skin bender.
Stem Organics has a straight forward tag line:
Everything that you touch or touches you, matters.
Not surprisingly, Stem focuses on sourcing as much organic ingredient as possible. They also purport to be the worlds first 100% climate neutral skin care company. Stem Organics buys offsetting carbon credits to make the company energy neutral. Bramble Berry does this as well.
Here is a link to their sampler kit. It’s $9.90 and that includes shipping. The samples are small. There is enough serum in one little disk for approximately 3 to 5 applications. I am almost through my sample kit.
You can read more about the young, environmentally friendly founders here.
Review: The cleanser is gentle and does its job: it cleans without stripping. It feels no better or worse than Cetaphil. It is pricier – aloe vera juice instead of water, copious herbal extracts and 70% organic cost more. For a rinse-off product, it’s dubious whether all the goodies make a difference.
Personally, I spend my skin care money on leave-on products. Stem sent 1 serum and 3 moisturizers to try. The serum works well. It absorbs in quickly. It fills in crevices and makes my skin appear instantly smoother. This feels nice and gives me a mental boost (“My my my, you look so spry and young! You can go take over the world!”). However, I will not spend $66 for smoothness alone. Vaseline could perform the same function. The real “Wow” factor in this serum is that my skin looks brighter. I can actually see clear pores. It’s a beautiful thing. Seeing more pores and a naturally glowing complexion is worth $66 to me.
The moisturizers are only okay. I didn’t love then because I felt like I needed to apply another moisturizer after them. They were light and not fulfilling (similar to most diet food). Also, there is no SPF in the moisturizers. With skin cancer and wrinkle concerns, SPF would be a welcome addition.
Future reviews to come include Juice Beauty, Daniel Pry Organics, Stella McCartney and Benev. I am hoping to look like a 12 year old once all the testing is done.
Etsy Poster Winners
Etsy came out with their Poster winners this week! This one is my favorite. I like the way the colors interact with each other. The green seems particularly soothing.
The link to see all the winners is here.
Some of the posters chose by theme (sculls, anyone?) and some of them went with color coordination (like my fave) and others followed a scheme only decipherable in their imagination.
It was genius of Etsy to come up with this mash-up poster concept. 901 people entered the contest. Etsy had 901 people scouring their site, in search of the filling the perfect square. Perhaps in search of the perfect final filler, those 901 people also bought something? Etsy promised nothing to the winners – just the glory of getting a shot at being on an Etsy promotional poster. Buzz was created, 901 people entered (and shopped) and Etsy gets marketing material for free.
Watermelon Cupcakes
This makes me want to do a watermelon soap project! There are so many projects to do and so little free time!
This weekend, I am going to perfect a chocolate lip balm, flavored with real Dagboda chocolate. Since chocolate is made with cocoa butter and fats, it seems chocolate should provide a good base and flavor for lip balm as well.
If anyone has tried this and wants to share their recipe, please do. It might save me a few hours of trial and error.
Ikea $.99 Soap Dishes
A bargain at $.99! Ikea … if only you were closer.
Alicia is here today!
Alicia Grosso, noted author and soapmaking artist, is at Otion today. She is racing us with her presence and teaching a beginning cold process soap class. I am flitting back and forth between Otion and Bramble Berry today. I am doing poor job of multi-tasking payroll, L&I taxes, emails and assorted management minutiae today. Today is not one of my finer self-employed moments.
Tonight, we’re (Alicia, me, spouses, and soapers contingent) headed to local Mexican favorite, Jalapeños on Holly Street around 5 or 6 p.m. So, if you’re in Bellingham and you want to meet Alicia, please stop on down to join us!
Alicia is starting her soapmaking class at 1 p.m. and there is one slot open if you’d like to learn from a soapmaking master. The store # to reserve the spot is 360.676.1030
So, who does the housework in your home?
We don’t have a dishwasher in our home, at least not one that doesn’t have two legs and a brain. That means a lot of handwashing dishes. I’ve heard the rumor that it’s meditative but I don’t believe it. It just seems to take a lot of time, dry my hands out and I always manage to use the green scratchy side of the sponge on the silverware and scratch them.
Last week, I felt like I was scrubbing too much. I washed dishes in the morning before work and then, I washed dishes in the evening after dinner. I could have sworn my husband was not washing any dishes, whatsoever. Of course, in his defense, he was busy doing other things like the laundry, taking out all the trash loads and filling up the bird and chipmunk feeders, but still, his absence from the sink was duly noted.
So, I deliberately left dishes in the sink. The dishes did not miraculously get cleaned. I then felt justified to mention something about the inequality in the dishwashing.
Chris has done the dishes conscientiously for the last week. Because he’s a competitive guy, he’s suggested that we have a little check off list of who does what. That seems a little extreme to me. I also suspect I might lose.
Our household is not the only one that goes through this little housework tug-o-war though.
Women spent approximately 18 hours a week doing housework, according to a 2001 study by the University of Maryland. This is about 40% more than the men contribute. This doesn’t make much sense now that 49% of women work outside the home and contribute about 35% to the total family income. In fact, in 24% of homes, the woman outearns the man.
Yet, I suspect even in those homes, she’s still doing the bulk of the housework.
Chocolate Scrubby Soap? Fun times!
Jessica, a student in New Zealand just wrote me to ask how to make a chocolate scrubby soap. I thought I would post my suggestions for making a chocolatey scrubby confetion delight here for everyone to enjoy!
Chocolate Exfoliant soap using melt and pour is super easy, fun to make and smells amazing. It will lather a very light brown due to the discoloring nature of the fragrance.
I’d recommend these ingredients:
Goatsmilk Melt and Pour soap
Dark Rich Chocolate fragrance
Square or Rectangle Mold
Orange Peel, Crushed Grape Seeds or Lavender for an exfoliant
If you want to have a scrubby soap that actually suspends the exfoliants, you’ll be stirring for a bit. Melt and Pour soap gets more viscous as it starts to set up. If you add your exfoliant and continually stir for 3 to 5 minutes, the soap should suspend the scrubby additives more easily.
Follow basic melt and pour instructions for melting the soap, adding the fragrance and pouring into the mold and you’re done: http://www.teachsoap.com/mp.html
The entire project should take 15 minutes, including clean up.
The Chocolate soap pictured is sold by The Fragrant Lemon Peel, an at-home, spa party business. The photograph makes me drool.