Tutorials on soapmaking, bath fizzies, lotions and more
Halloween is fast approaching, and with it comes scary movies, trick or treating, carving pumpkins and enjoying lots of candy. At Bramble Berry, Halloween also means spooky soap projects! This week there were plenty of tutorials to inspire you. You can see several fun recipes in this Halloween Project Roundup.
Aromatherapy is a form of therapy focusing on the use of essential oils to alter ones well-being. Recently, the popularity of aromatherapy has expanded tremendously. With a wide variety of applications both professionally and in everyday life, aromatherapy is a timeless and valuable ability.
For those wanting to take their aromatherapy education to the next level, Otion Soap Bar in Bellingham, WA is offering two “Intro to Aromatherapy” weekend sessions! These classes cover everything from basic safety information, proper usage in bath and body products and ethics for application in professional health care practices. Both classes include all materials needed, just bring a notebook for notes! To learn more about each class and reserve your spot, visit the links below or call Otion at 360-676-1030.
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At the end of a long stressful day, nothing beats a steaming shower. The hot running water and soothing vapors create a great way to relax and unwind. If you’d like to improve your next shower, these Aromatherapy Shower Fizzies harness the power of aromatherapy to create a calming experience. Use the ‘Soothing Blend’ to unwind in the evenings and, the ‘Awakening Blend’ to perk up your mornings.
Simply toss the fizzy on the floor of the shower and let the aromatherapeutic vapors envelope you. The “Awakening Blend” below is the perfect way to get moving in the morning. The citrus essential oils are uplifting to the spirit and smell amazing too. Easy to make, these shower fizzies will make showering your favorite part of the day!
In this quick little short I show how to make a lovely bath soak. It’s filled with skin-loving ingredients like Calendula, Lavender, and Colloidal Oatmeal. It’s so fast and easy to make you’ll never take a plain bath again!
Click here to get everything you need for this project added to your shopping cart!
To make this recipe you will need:
Learn how to combine 2 melt & pour techniques in this episode of Soap Queen TV. First, make a pink and white jellyroll soap which is a variation on the Pinwheel Soap Technique from the 4th of July Special Edition video. Then, embed the jellyroll into a melt and pour loaf, demonstrated in one of the earliest episodes of Soap Queen TV.
What’s the S.O.A.P. panel you ask? Soap Opinion (Awesome) Panel members will receive 6-7 one ounce fragrance samples of my top floral choices for Spring 2011. Give the cutting-edge fragrances a sniff AND test them in any product you like (really, anything you want). Then fill out a survey to help distinguish the top choices. I want your honest opinion and notes on testing!
How to apply: Tweet, Facebook or Blog about your favorite Bramble Berry product (including links) and why you should be selected for the S.O.A.P. Panel. We’ll announce the finalists on Friday, February 18th so get your tweets, posts and blogs done by the 17th. Note: your Tweets should have @brambleberry someplace in the body of the Tweet but make sure they don’t just get directed directly to @brambleberry or else no one else can see them! =)
Fine Print: I will be sending out the fragrances by Wednesday the 23rd (at the latest) and I would like the surveys complete by April 4th, which gives you about 4 weeks to test the fragrances. Please keep these dates mind before you enter. I’m looking for an accountable and enthusiastic panel!
I’ve long been fascinated with how to make Labcolor’s inherent bleeding qualities work in a bar of soap. It does a great tie-dye look and the swirls are romantic and ephemeral. But, the idea of a sunset or a rainbow really drew me in. I started with a simple but sophisticated color graduation. It’s a very easy concept in theory but in practice, takes precision and weighing … and patience.
My husband and I are using this bar in our shower at home right now at home and it has fantastic lather and a great balance of bubbles with moisture and creaminess. Coupled with the absolutely exquisite scent and sophisticated color, it’s one of my favorite recipes I’ve made in a while. Read through all the instructions; it requires prep and precision.
Get everything you need with the click of a button.
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| photo by Michael Lorenzo |
Energy is a fabulous fragrance that we designed ten years ago because we were inspired by an energetic scent we smelled in a well-known bath and body line. It’s comprised heavily of citrus notes with some fun notes like Blackberry, Pineapple and Champagne thrown in to sweeten it up. Energy provides a great blending palette as well. I hope you like the blends we came up with below. If you like the fragrance as-is, you’re in good company. I just ran the fragrance numbers for last year and Energy was our #2 best seller.
Click here to buy all the fragrances in one easy swoop for the blends (remember, you can delete any individual items from your cart even when using this handy “Buy It Now” button). It’s enough to make full blends of everything so long as your “part” is 1/2 ounce. Not sure what a part is? Jump to the bottom of the post & I’ll explain.
Sweet ‘n’ Citrus
2 parts Energy
2 parts Hello Sweet Thang
1 part Vanilla Select
Tart Fruity Delight
2 parts Energy
2 parts Moonlight Pomegrante
1 part Cream Cheese Frosting
Blended Big Red
2 parts Energy
2 parts Red Apple
1 part Cranberry Sweet
Tropical Beach Party
2.5 parts Energy
2.5 parts Coconut Cybilla
The Big Purple
2 parts Energy
2 parts Blackberry Cybilla
1 part Sugar Plum Fairy
Green Mean Machine
3 parts Energy
1 part Lettuce
1 part Cucumber Melon Cybilla
PS – We also sell straight Energy as a pre-made CP loaf or individual bar. Click here to check them out.
Green Tea is a perpetual staple in many diets for its reputed health benefits. Because of this, there’s a large cross over to bath and body care as well. Bramble Berry’s Green Tea fragrance is a “fantasy blend” meaning that actual green tea (the drink) has little smell so this is our interpretation of what green tea smells like. It’s herbacious, green and works well in other blends as a middle note. I hope you enjoy the blends I came up with to make this versatile scent go even further.
Are you wondering what a ‘part’ is? A ‘part’ is simply a unit of measure – any unit of measure, a drop, an ounce, a cup. So 2 parts of Green Tea and 1 part Lemon could be 2 drops Green Tea and 1 drop Lemon or 2 ounces Green Tea and 1 ounce Lemon. And if you have any great ideas for a Green Tea Blend, share them! I’d love to expand my collection.
Q: What exactly is a fragrance oil made out of? I went to buy some today and noticed there was no ingredients listed.
A: Fragrance Oils do not have full ingredient disclosure; they fall under ‘Trade Secret’ status with the FDA and so simply putting “Fragrance” on an ingredient list will suffice.
