Tutorials on soapmaking, bath fizzies, lotions and more
I’m still in love with our new silicone cube mold (I’m sure you can tell from the recent cube mold tutorials: Holiday Cubes and Crazy for Cubes). I even designed a brand new mini heart mold specifically for embedding in the cube mold (now that‘s love). The technique of combining melt and pour with cold process soap is super simple with lovable results. It’s even easy enough for CP beginners!
It’s a beautiful day here in Bellingham, Washington and we’re enjoying the summer sun and some fun summer soap projects like Strawberry Pie Soap, Summer Lip Balm and Soothing After Sun Oil. What are some of your favorite summer soap projects?
Red, White and Blue Massage Bars
Skeeter Beeter Tips for Summer
Get your soaping supplies at Bramble Berry and get started!
Alkanet is one of my favorite natural colorants to use. You end up with a wide variety of shades ranging from smoky purple to maroon depending on your soap’s PH, base oils and whether your soap gels or not. The most effective way to use it as a natural colorant is to infuse your liquid oil; I infuse my olive oil. I add 1 tablespoon of powdered alkanet and 5 ounces of olive oil into a jar and let it infuse for a week or two shaking it once a day.
We are so thrilled to announce the new non-bleeding colorant arrival at Bramble Berry. Get your sunglasses and feast your eyes on the new neon colorants!
Fizzy Lemonade, Tangerine Wow, Electric Bubble Gum, Fired Up Fuchsia and Ultraviolet Blue.
New Neon Colorants in Cold Process Soap
There have been so many requests for a lotion bar tutorial so I hopped into the soap lab and busted out a twist on the traditional Lotion Bar Kit found at Bramble Berry. It’s made with fun colors, a fruity fragrance and skin loving ingredients. Time to soften up those hands as the nice weather starts to roll in.
Happy Bramble’versary, Leah. You’re a customer service ninja!
Thank you, Kate, from Our Best Bites for the DELICIOUS recipe. Leah in customer service loved her zesty bramble’versary cupcakes (and the rest of the staff gobbled the last of the cupcakes in no time). See Kate’s recipe below!
Meet Silvia from Indulgence by SV. Soaps on Etsy. When I got the soap, they were cute, creative and fragrant. I didn’t even want to use them, I just wanted to smell them and put them on display. What’s even better is that her soaps in person looked just like the soaps do on her site! After opening my soapy package, I emailed the owner, Silvia and asked her if she would do a Soap Queen Interview. Thank you, Silvia- I’m so glad I get to share your rock star soaps with our readers!
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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.
Tune in to Martha Stewart Radio (Sirius112 and XM 157) at 11:30 a.m. PST/2:30 p.m.EST this coming Tuesday (just 1 day away as in, tomorrow!) to talk about some fun Winter projects. I’m taking live callers so give us a jingle. I’m excited to answer your questions LIVE! 1-866-675-6675.
Wondering where your tan is this late in the season? Well, with all the snow comes the dreaded plague: Pasty White Leg Syndrome. Couple that with holiday parties that demand a no-nylons, open-toed-shoe look and you have the makings of a veritable disaster on your hands, or erm, legs. Fear not! We’ve got you covered … in this case, with shimmer bronzer that you can make yourself!
ONE: Melt the perfume base in the microwave on 30 second intervals. Once the base is a liquid, mix in the 5 ml of Coconut Citrus Sorbet and 1 tablespoon of your bronzer. Mix well. On a side note, Coconut Citrus Sorbet is like a tropical vacation. It will bring you out of the haze of dreary winter weather!
Alternate Bronzing Recipe: You don’t have to get the Foundation Kit to make your own bronzer. Check out this fun recipe!
TWO: Pour the mixture into your push tubes and leave a little room in the top (about 3/4″), saving a little of the mixture, just under 1/2 ounce. We’ll come back to it. Let the shimmer sticks cool for about 5 minutes.
THREE: Five minutes later…Do you see the hole in the middle of the shimmer stick? Don’t worry, that’s totally normal and caused by the wax cooling at different temperatures. Melt the remaining mixture and pour it on top of the depression or whole (and no one will ever know it was there).
Variation: Is the Dark Bronzer recipe might be a little too dark? Try the medium or light recipe from the mineral make up book.
Application: Rub the shimmer stick on your legs, arms and decolletage for a moisturized and shimmered look!
While she didn’t come bearing a Philly Cheesesteak, Maureen did come to us all the way from Philadelphia and we were thrilled to have her join us. She came to Otion wanting to expand her melt and pour soapmaking skills. Though she has watched all of the SoapQueen.TV projects (I love a student who has done their homework!), her projects weren’t turning out quite the way she wanted. (She doesn’t know it, but she was my last full-day private class until the baby is born. My back isn’t loving the full standing days anymore.) And bonus, in addition to being insanely off the charts sweet, she is a dog lover! So, her and Toby (our resident mascot dog) got a long really well and Toby helped us make soap for part of the day.
