Check your shipments for this month’s fragrance oil sample, Buttercream and Snickerdoodle! It makes for an awesome blender when you need something just a little bit more special than plain Vanilla, but is definitely amazing on it’s own. Here’s a fun project idea to use your sample!
Tub Time: Goatsmilk Bath Tea
This simple, four ingredient recipe only has 4 steps, making it easy to whip together a luxurious bath after a hard day on your feet. What’s so great about goatsmilk?
Goatmilk is particularly moisturizing and nourishing to the skin because of capric-caprylic triglyceride. Capric-caprylic triglyceride is an effective skin moisturizer that helps to contribute to skin softness by forming a barrier on the skin to help inhibit the loss of moisture. It is the only milk that contains naturally occurring capric-caprylic triglycerides. The protein strands of goat milk are shorter than other types of milk and are more readily absorbed by skin.
Goatmilk also has naturally occurring lactic acid that helps keep skin smooth by encouraging skin turnover (it acts similar to a gentle peel). It also contains many vitamins, specifically A, D and B6, as well as the anti-oxidant Selenium.
Lotion Bar Love
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.
Mango Avocado Balmy Salve
Luck of the Green Beer (CP tutorial)
Chai Latte Love (CP Soap Tutorial)
Guest post from Amanda at Lovin’ Soap. Thanks, Amanda!
My name is Amanda Griffin and I am a soap maker living in Grand Prairie, TX. My passion is sharing, talking and teaching the craft of soap making in the classroom, on my blog (www.lovinsoap.com) and in my eZine, Lovin’ Soap.
One of the best things about soap making is being a part of the soaping community. Whether it’s on a forum, at a meet-up, at a conference or at a local supply shop; soap makers are some of the most passionate, creative and caring people I have ever met. I’m truly grateful to be a part of this amazing community of crafters.
Chai Latte Soap!
I’ve been on a chai kick lately. I managed to wean myself off of Starbucks Peppermint Mochas only to discover the greatness of their Chai Lattes. Those things are addicting. So look-y what I ordered to soap!
I ordered Bramble Berry’s Chai Tea Cybilla. It smells wonderful! I was going to blend it with some coffee but I looked through my FO stash and couldn’t find any. O’well.
I found these little 3 fl. oz. white cups at the grocery store awhile ago and knew that I wanted them for my Chai soap.
This was going to be a test batch so I came up with a small recipe. When you’re doing a recipe this size be sure to measure in grams and be as exact as you can.
The recipe:
Palm oil – 90 g
Coconut oil – 90 g
Olive oil – 90 g
Cocoa butter – 30 g
Castor oil – 30 g
Lye – 46 g
Water – 100 g
*A note on this recipe + BB’s Chai Tea. I knew the fragrance oil would probably accelerate a bit because it does contain spice. I didn’t even use a stick blender; I just mixed with a spoon and it thickened quickly and also got very hot. Also note that my recipe is a pretty quick tracing recipe because of the palm and the cocoa butter. So if you want to slow things down when using fragrance oils like this…use a recipe that contains higher amounts of olive. If you’re okay with lard, lard is slower to trace than palm so works great also. Keep your temps down as soaping cooler tends to slow trace. Adding the fragrance oil to your melted oils helps also if you have a fast moving FO.*
For this soap, I’m going to make this recipe twice. Once for the bottoms and again for the tops. So make your soap as usual and bring to trace. Pour it into the individual cups.
That was easy enough! Now we’re going to make the tops. Since these are hot drinks I wanted a layer of cream on top that molded to the top instead of a whipped top like they put on the cold drinks. I’m going to make our same recipe and do sort of a partial whipped. I used a cold lye solution but melted the oils like I usually do and let them cool a bit. Since I used cocoa butter I couldn’t let them cool too much or it would start to re-solidify. I wanted the topping to be more white so I added some Titanium Dioxide dissolved in water.
Once you have your lye solution cold (put it covered and labeled in the fridge) pour your lye into the melted oils. I wanted to whip some air into this mixture so I used a beater instead of my stick blender. I didn’t add any fragrance oil because I wanted it to stay nice and white.
You can see after I’ve whipped it for a bit it gets more white in color.
I beat it for about 10 minutes. Longer than I thought it would take! You want to look for it to become whiter and a bit frothy/slightly whipped. My goal is to pour it over the tops of the drink bottoms and have it spread on its own. So you don’t want something that you have to spread with a knife. We’re ready to pour the tops on.
I scraped off the tops of the cups to make them more even. I would actually recommend leaving a bit more head room in your drinks than I did so you have room for the cream topping (so spoon out a bit). I’ll add more cream topping for the next batch – lesson learned.
Gently spoon the topping on. If you do it slow enough and a bit at a time it will form a nice dome without running over the sides.
Depending on what drink you’re making, you can sprinkle of some topping. I added a bit of cinnamon to these. If I were doing a peppermint mocha I would shave a bit of brown soap to look like chocolate shavings on top.
These cups are super easy to unmold. Let them sit like this for about 24 hours, pop in the freezer for 10 minutes or so and gently push from the bottom while squeezing the sides gently. They pop right out.
On Bramble Berry’s website they do state that this fragrance oil discolors to brown. This is exactly what I want so I didn’t add any colorant. If I wanted a darker brown I could have added some brown mica or even some cocoa powder.
Here are the chai soaps labeled. You could leave them naked, put a label around the naked soap or my favorite (see below)…put them back in cups and put the label on the cups. They ended up being about 3.5 ounces (so if you download my label template, make sure to check the size of your batch).
Download the label template here.
-Amanda
Want more from Amanda at Lovin’ Soap? Check out her Lovin’ Soap E-Zine.
Hearts, Love and Rainbows!
Valentine’s Day Mash-UpNot sure what to make for that special day? We’ve got you covered!
Soap Queen Cuisine
And check out the Valentine Themed Page at Bramble Berry for molds, fragrances and colorants!
Exotic Belly Balm – Oil Choices & Why
Even though I’m only 18 weeks along, my belly is stretched tight and it’s itchy and peeling. It’s really not all that attractive. Given that I make yummy products for a living, I took this on as a personal challenge! Stay tuned for the recipe later today. The oils I used:
Cocoa Butter – Long used for centuries for stretch marks, cocoa butter has proven to be no better than a placebo for actually preventing stretch marks (NYTimes article). So, why did I put it into my formula? Cocoa Butter has a compound called CMP (cocoa mass polyphenol), a substance that helps with dermatitis.
Vitamin E – Vitamin E beat out Cocoa Butter for stretch mark relief (citation here). Vitamin E is a an anxi-oxidant that helps to defend skin from free-radicals. Free-radicals attack the skin structure leading to aging, wrinkles and generally unhealthy skin.
Jojoba Oil infused with Calendula Petals – Jojoba oil is a liquid wax. Out of all the oils (or in this case, liquid waxes!), it is closest to the human skin in its make up. Calendula is incredibly nourishing to skin, especially irritated skin. For infusion directions, click here.
Hemp Seed Oil, Unrefined: Hemp Seed Oil is fantastic to use in skin care products because of its lipid profile; it has over 80% Essential Fatty Acids. Additionally, Hemp Seed Oil has been found to help with eczema.
Shea Butter: If there was only one butter I could be stranded on a desert island with, this would be it. High in unsaponifiables, this butter is extremely emollient, making it a key ingredient in many body butters and lotions.
Essential Oils:
Carrot Seed: Carrot Seed Essential Oil is well known for its help with aging skin and to protect skin against wrinkles. Carrot Seed has a very earthy smell.
Frankincense: Used by some of the large cosmetic companies in their anti-aging skincare, Frankincense is known to be soothing and skin-loving.
Helicrhrysum: This essential oil has almost a magical lore about it for healing bruises and soothing dry skin.
German Chamomile: One of my favorite essential oils for skin care, German Chamomile helps calm itchy, irritated skin because of its high azulene content. German Chamomile smells herbal-y and not sweet at all.
Dressing and Soaping Green
I was super impressed with my order from Dress Green on Etsy. So, of course, I have to give the creator, Lauren, a soapy shout out. I love everything especially my Tricky Lip Lush and CP Soaps (Cocoa Addict and Cucumber & Guava). Her packaging was darling, her branding consistent and she even stuck in a couple of samples for me. I also ordered Fresh Start Skin Serum and Grapefruit Bergamot Body Cream. Yum! Thanks Lauren!
Here’s a little more Lauren and Dress Green. Enjoy!
Anne-Marie: Tell us a little bit about yourself. What keeps you busy when you’re not making soap?
Lauren: My name is Lauren and I’m currently living in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Although I’m a native Michigander, I just recently moved back after spending the last few years exploring various other states and areas including Washington, Oregon, Arkansas, and Panamá.
It’s rare that I get out of my work studio, but when I do, I can usually be found spending time with my partner, Justin, and our pup, Porthos; on a hiking trail; at a great local brewery; sitting in my backyard with a cup of coffee (and even better if there’s chocolate involved too); or just reading in a corner. Oh and I’m also now found at the local community college taking classes in my *spare* time (this semester is Chemistry).
Anne-Marie: What inspires your recipes? Do you follow trends? Listen to your customers?
Lauren: My background is in mechanical engineering and industrial design, and my interests have always tended toward product design. I love combining the practical, problem-solving aspects of engineering with the aesthetic, user-focused aspects of design. These two worlds come together perfectly, allowing me to create all facets of my line – from the product ‘designs’ (recipes) to the packaging and labeling solutions.
I try to keep the focus of DressGreen products on not only effectiveness, but also user enjoyment. And I always try to choose sustainably-sourced and organic ingredients when available. Most every product I make is inspired by either a personal need I have had, or by a request from a friend, family member, or customer. I like to hear (and really do listen to) feedback, and always appreciate thoughts on new products people would like to see in the line.
Anne-Marie: What’s your favorite product (that you make or sell)?
Lauren: My facial care products! I can’t begin to describe how my skin used to freak out at most commercial products before I started the DressGreen line. It has been such a relief to have products that not only keep my skin from reacting negatively, but actually keep it healthy. Staples in my bathroom cabinet are the Calming & Clarifying Facial Cream, unDressed Facial soap, Toning & Clarifying Facial Serum, and Delicate Toner.
Anne-Marie: What’s your favorite fragrance?
Lauren: Hands down my Grapefruit Bergamot blend. I’ve literally been using this same scent for my body cream for years now, and still haven’t gotten the least bit bored with it.
Anne-Marie: Oh I agree. The Grapefruit Bergamot is fabulous. I’m so glad that I ordered the Body Cream! And I am loving the Fresh Start Facial Serum. I’m even using it on my belly to maybe stave on stretch marks. Thanks again, Lauren for the fabulous products!
Report from DC – Education Matters
Hi from DC! It’s been a jam packed day. I can’t even convey how much work, how much energy and how much commitment everyone that is here with me has to this issue of ‘Safe Cosmetics.’ If you are unfamilar with bill H.R. 5786, the ‘Safe Cosmetics Act’, you can familiarize yourself with it here (Soap Guild Site). Here’s what we told the offices we met with:
1. Small Business will be negatively impacted – Regulatory issues around cosmetics cannot be more stringent than than are with food (as they will be with this bill). Small business especially will bear the brunt of this regulatory climate.
2. Trace elements are not feasible to include on labels – This is what a label will look like for a lotion bar with Cocoa Butter, Olive Oil and Lavender Oil
Ingredients: Olive Oil (Tri-Glycerides of Palmitic, Di-Glycerides of Palmitic, Palmitoleic, Stearic, Oleic, Linoleic, Arachidic Acid, Linolenic Acid, Squalene, Beta Carotene, Campesterol, Methylenecholesterol, Stigmasterol, Sitosterol, Fucosterol, 28-Isofucosterol, Stigmadienol, Brassicasterol, 7-Cholestenol,Ergostadienol, Avenasterol, Triterpene Alcohols, Tirucallol, Taraxerol, Dammaradienol Beta-Amyrin Germanicol, Butyrospermol, Parkeol, Cycloartenol, Tirucalladienol, 24-Methlene 24-Dihydroparkeol, 24-Methlenecycloartanol, Cyclobranol, 4-Methyl Sterols, Esters of Tyrosol, Esters of Hydroxytyrosol, Vitamin E (Tocopherols), Carotenoids, Oleuropein) Cocoa Butter (Tri and Diglycerides of Stearic Acid, Palmitic Acid, Lead, Oleic Acid, Linoleic Acid, Isoleic Acid, Beta Carotene, p-Hydroxybenzoic Acid, Vanillic Acid, Ferulic Acid, Syringic Acid, Phenylehtylamine, Theophylline, Aliphatic Esters, Aromatic Carbonyls, Caffeine, Theobromine, Diketopiperazines and Alkylpryazines), Lavender Essential Oil ( Cineole Octanol, Octanone, Alpha Bisabolol, Alpha Cadinol, Alpha Humelene, Alpha Phellandrene, Apha Pinene, Alpha Terpinene, Alpha Terpineol, Alpha Terpinyl Acetate, Alpha Thujene, Alpha Thujone, Beta Bisabolol, Beta Pinene, Beta Thujone, Borneol, Bornyl Acetate, Camphene Camphor, Cineolealpha Terpineol, Carvone, Caryophyllene, Carophyllene Oxide, CIS Alpha Terpineol, CIS Alpha Bisabolene, CIS Carveol, CIA Linalol Epoxide, CIS Ocimene, Citronellal, Citronellol, Coumarine, Cuminaldehyde, Eugenol, Furfural, Geraniol, Geranyl Acetate, Geranyl Butyrate, Hexanol, Hexyl Tiglate, Isoborneol, Lavandulol, Lavandulyl Acetate, Limonene, Linanlol, Linalyl Acetate, Methyl Heptenone, Myrcene, Nerol, Neryl Acetate, Oleanolic Acid, P Cymene, Rosemarinic Acid, Sabinen, Terpinenol, Terpinolene, Trans Carveol, Trans Epoxy Linalyl Acetate, Trans Linanol Epoxide, Trans Ocimene, Ursolic Acid)
3. Reporting requirements are draconian. This bill requires you report when you hire someone (to the FDA), when you change suppliers (like when you switch to Bramble Berry from another vendor), who your distributors are (hello? competitive advantage out the window) and all of your ingredient formulations (without guaranteeing your confidentiality).
4. This bill is based on bad science – Cosmetics are not killing you. Diet, lack of exercise, obesity, smoking, and excessive drinking are positively linked to cancer. Cosmetics have no conclusive link. Yes, 1,4 Dioxin is terrible (in high doses, ingested by rats). Yes, Formaldehyde is bad if you are massively exposed to it (in 100% concentration high doses, bathing in it) but small businesses are trying to formulate with natural ingredients and yet they are the ones that will be most affected by this.
The meetings were our opportunity to express how small business would be affected. We were thankful to have the time and understand that there is more time for us to comment, educate and share how small business will be affected before a bill is passed.
There is still time, Soap Queen Readers and Bramble Berry Customers – keep up on OpposeSCA.com, write your Representatives, sign the petition and vote your opposition to the bill here.
The most important thing? Your Representatives are on BREAK right now. They are likely visiting/staying in your district (where they live). CALL THEM! Visit them while they are home. You have thirty days starting now. You can do it! Call me if you want talking points – 360-734-8278 or email me. I will help you talk to your Representatives and tell your story in a way that makes an impact. We can do it – we can educate and inform lawmakers on how this bill (as currently written) affects us.
New Soap Queen TV series – CP Soap
You asked for it and I listened! There have been numerous requests for a video on how to make Cold Process Soap. But the Cold Process soapmaking process is too complicated to show in one 5 minute video. So I have broken down the basics into a 4 part series. Once you’ve seen all 4 videos you will be ready to make a safe and successful batch of CP! Of course, if you just can’t wait you can always buy the DVD I made a couple of years ago. 🙂
Without further ado I present you “How to Make Cold Process Soap: Lye Safety and Ingredients, Episode 1″
How to Make Cold Process Soap : Lye Safety & Ingredients, Episode 1 from Soap Queen on Vimeo.
In this episode, I show how to safely handle Lye or Sodium Hydroxide by wearing gloves, goggles, long sleeve shirt, and pants. I also give the poison control hot line number (which is 1-800-222-1222) with a reminder that you should always call 911 first in any emergency.
I briefly show the free Bramble Berry Lye Calculator for soap as well as our nifty iPhone app. I also talk about some of my favorite soapmaking books like The Everything Soapmaking Book and The Soapmaker’s Companion.
Next, I go over some of my favorite soapmaking oils like Coconut Oil, Olive Oil, Palm Oil, Jojoba Oil, Castor Oil, as well as butters like Shea Butter, Cocoa Butter, Sal Butter, Lanolin, and Avocado Butter.
Special guest Cold Process soap samples purchased from: Arcadia Aromatics, Ltd., Sherri’s Scents & Soys, Sagegold Soaps, SV soaps, Intentions soap, and KB Shimmer. Making this series was such a great excuse to go shopping and sample some new soapmakers as well as some old favorites. Everyone’s soaps arrived carefully packaged and looked as good if not better than the pictures on their websites.
Remember, this is a basic building block video so if you’re rarin’ to go and don’t want to wait for the last episode to put all of the knowledge together, you can buy the The Everything Soapmaking Book and The Soapmaker’s Companion or Basic Cold Process Soap DVD here.
Are you a blogger? Please feel free to embed this video on your blog. If you need any help just let us know! [email protected]
Chocolate, Scrubs & Soap
One of the best parts of my Bramble Berry life is teaching and interacting with customers who want to reach the next level in their business. Yesterday, I had the pleasure of working with Erin of CottonTreeChocolate.com on a special project that is near and dear to her heart. She has a chocolate company that manufactures chocolate in Belize. Her passion is in working with local farmers and providing jobs for women who might otherwise have an opportunity to work. Cotton Tree Chocolate works towards economic, environmental and social sustainability for both their own company and also the local community in Belize. She brought a friend, also named Erin, with her. I had fun calling Erin #2 “Friend Erin” all day.
In the chocolate manufacturing process, there are a variety of chocolate related products – from cocoa, to cocoa butter, to cocoa nibs, to chocolate. Erin has a passion for being environmentally sustainable in her entire supply chain and she came to Otion to design custom formulations to use all of this chocolate (yummy!) product in bath and body products.
We had a jam packed day making all kinds of goodies. We made solid scrubs and stamped them to give them a sophisticated and unique look.
We made emulsified scrubs and oil based scrubs.
We made two different types of soap. First up was Hot Process soap.
Our favorite was definitely the swirled cold process soap. We loved the natural chocolate coloring in the soap and used a heavily colored titanium dioxide white soap to provide contrast to the textured, dark soap.
Erin does chocolate tours to Belize (of amazing scuba diving renown). If you’ve ever wanted to know how chocolate is made (literally picking the beans yourself and making your bars of chocolate from scratch and wrapping it by the end of the week), she does 7 day tours that sound absolutely heavenly. If you’d like to learn more about the tours or her single batch, single origin bars, check out her website here or email her here.
Want to design your own DIY Toiletries Day at Otion? You can find more details here.
Successful? Coconut Milk Batch
From this: 
to this:
to this:
I made a new Coconut Milk Batch today and switched out two variables:
1. Temperature
2. Fragrance
As cold process soapers know, fragrance makes a huge difference in how your soap performs. At Bramble Berry, we test each and every fragrance three times before adding it to our line. At least one of these tests is a larger batch. Sometimes, what happens in a small batch isn’t how a fragrance reacts in a large batch. The Orange Blossom I tested in the Coconut Milk Soap Volcano had performed admirably in one large batch already and done well in a small batch as well. But, when I tossed in the added stressors of a hot milk batch, well … that was enough to throw the Coconut Milk Soap over the edge.
This batch, I paid attention to the temperatures. When I mixed, my soap was a warm 137 degrees which was still too hot for my liking. The big change was the fragrance switch. I made this soap with Buttercream & Snickerdoodle (2 parts) mixed with Relaxing (1 part). I did 100% Coconut Milk in place of the water and reacted the lye with the Coconut Milk.
The soap did great. It traced quickly and had a wonderful texture once the stick blender had worked its magic. I fragranced the majority of the soap, leaving a bit out for a white swirl to provide texture and contrast to the soon-to-be-brown soap (thanks to the Vanilla in the two fragrances I chose).
I split the batch three ways: 1 log mold, 1 Pumpkin Mold (to test release with this hard CP soap) and 1 Flexy Fast mold.
The non-fragranced soap stayed a cool 103 degrees in the mold.
The fragranced pumpkin soap got nice and warm, up to 159 degrees while starting gel phase.
The loaf mold stayed a similar temperature at 153 degrees. It did start to expand with all of the heat produced during gel phase and cracked the top of the soap.
The soap in the loaf did not get as warm as the 100% fragranced individual soap because the loaf soap had swirls of cooler, non-fragranced soap running throughout. The crack started small, when the soap was around 140.
After the soap hit over 150 degrees, the crack started widening and pushing outwards and up. It never got taller or wider than this. Heated soap expands. Since the top layer of soap was cool and more hard than the gelling middle, it gave way to the expanding soap by cracking.
I’ll take photos of the final soap in the next week to share with you. I feel confident that if I lowered my temperatures to 120 and used frozen coconut milk that the soap wouldn’t have cracked. Cracked or not, the soap is one luxurious bar with 75% Coconut, 25% Cocoa Butter and Coconut Milk in place of water. I can hardly wait for the 6 week cure time to use it!
Coconut Milk Volcano Update
This aftermath of the soap volcano turned out pretty good and I loved playing the role of Mad Scientist. Get caught up and read the explosion blog post here.
It has the look of hot process soap with a fabulous texture. Thank goodness the ammonia smell from the milk has dissipated. It smells like Orange Blossom now, a potential new fragrance that I’m testing. I know it’s not the most attractive soap that you’ve ever seen but it’s already pretty hard and it will be great in the shower. The ingredients are definitely luscious! Coconut Milk, Coconut Oil and Cocoa Butter – yummay!
I’m going to do more testing with this recipe next week so stay tuned. You never know what’s going to happen but I’m hoping with lower temperatures to avoid the soap volcano. Either way, a little bit of fast work with scooping the exploded soap back into the mold and the soap is saved. It may not be sleek enough to sell but slap a cute cigar band on there and it’s definitely friends’n’family gift worthy. Then again, the rustic look is always ‘in’.
