fresh ingredients Archives

Farmers Market Inspiration

May 8, 2018 Filed Under: Bath & Body Tutorials

Our new Farmers Market Collection is inspired by fresh finds from around the U.S. There are so many ways you can incorporate those finds into your projects. Whether it’s adding avocado or using a color palette inspired by lavender, we’ve got you covered. Find farmers market inspiration below.

Fresh honey adds an irresistibly creamy lather to soap. This cold process recipe is made with honey, argan oil, and Pure Honey Fragrance Oil. The scent is a sweet mix of jasmine, rose, and peach tea. It’s used in the Beeswax and Honey Lotion Bars and Honey Bee Melt and Pour Soap too.

Clockwise, top: Honey Bee Soap, Pure Honey Soap, Beeswax and Honey Lotion Bars

Milk is another option if you like your bars to feel creamy on the skin. This soap is made with Goat Milk Melt and Pour and the new 6 Cavity Silicone Goat Mold. It has spearmint essential oil for a fresh scent. The Creamy Goat Milk Soap is a treat for the skin. The fresh milk and cocoa butter give the bars a luxurious feeling.

Left to right: Goat Milk and Alfalfa Soap, Creamy Goat Milk Soap

If you want to try something new, alternative liquids are the way to go. Kombucha will set your soap apart. This cold process recipe is made with kombucha, Swirl Recipe Quick Mix, and Lavender 40/42 Essential Oil. You can also experiment with different types of beer, as shown in the Charcoal and Cedar Cold Process Soap. There’s something for caffeine lovers too – this soap is made with freshly-brewed coffee and this scrub is made with coffee grounds.

Clockwise, top left: Coffee Body Scrub, Lavender Kombucha Soap, Charcoal and Cedar Beer Soap, Coffee Soap

The Avocado + Spearmint Cold Process Soap feels amazing on the skin. It’s made with fresh avocado and colored with spirulina powder and French green clay. If you can’t get enough avocado, check out this cold process recipe. It’s made with avocado oil, avocado butter, and new Avocado Fragrance Oil. For something a little sweeter, check out the Blueberry Thyme Soap. It features a blue layered design that’s scented with new Blueberry Thyme Fragrance Oil.

Clockwise, left: Blueberry Thyme Soap, Avocado + Spearmint Soap, Avocado Soap

The Orange Poppy Seed Salt Scrub smells as good as it feels. Dead Sea salt, poppy seeds, and orange peel powder scrub away dirt while avocado oil keeps the skin moisturized. The recipe is scented with 10X Orange Essential Oil.

Looking for more farmers market inspiration? The #BrambleOn tag on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter is full of beautiful products made with a variety of ingredients. See a few of our favorites below.

Top row, left to right: Bearfoot Gypsy Goat Milk Soap, Borden Acres, Nora’s Soap Shoppe
Middle row, left to right: Handmade in Florida, Soaperie + Co., Salt & Shea
Bottom row, left to right: Soapish, Sweet Soft Skin Handmade Soaps, Sunny Peach Soapery

5 Tips for Using Fresh Ingredients in Soap

March 17, 2017 Filed Under: Tips & Tricks

Have you ever looked in your kitchen cabinets and thought, “Huh, I wonder if I can put that in soap?” If so, you’re in good company. It’s a pretty common thought among soapmakers. Also, you are in luck – there are plenty of fresh ingredients you can use in your cold process recipes. In addition to setting your soap apart and attracting customers, fresh ingredients add something special to your recipes. For instance, avocado gives soap a luxurious feeling. Find a roundup of recipes made with fresh ingredients here. Before getting started, there are a few things to know. The tips below will ensure your experiments turn out well so you can focus on the fun part – getting creative and trying something new!

Research Before Getting Started
Each ingredient you add to your recipe will affect how the soap performs. If you add an ingredient with natural sugar, it can cause acceleration and overheating. If you add an ingredient with a lot of liquid, it can make your batch too wet. That’s why research is important. Find out how the ingredient performs beforehand so you know what to expect and can account for any quirks. The How to Add Purees to Cold Process Soap has plenty of information to help get you started.

Honey can overheat in soap and cause discoloration and bubbles, as seen in the photo above. Learn how to work with honey here.

Buy Local
Once you decide what ingredient you want to experiment with, the next step is finding it. We recommend buying local! There are so many quality ingredients at your local stores and farmers markets. For instance, at the Farmers Market here in Bellingham, there is everything from fresh coffee to juicy blueberries. They would be an amazing addition to your recipe. Not only do you support your local economy, but you can tell your customers all about the fresh ingredients and where they come from. It’s an amazing selling point and it shows off your hometown pride.

Consider a Water Discount
To help the fresh ingredients mix in smoothly, they are often pureed with distilled water. Many fresh ingredients also contain a lot of liquid. The added water can make your soap too wet. That’s where a water discount comes in – it accounts for the extra liquid you’re adding to your batch. It also helps prevent glycerin rivers. How much water you discount from your recipe depends on the fresh ingredient. For instance, cucumber is a very watery vegetable, so a higher water discount would be helpful. A good water discount to start with is 10% and adjust from there based on the additive you choose. Learn more in the Water Discounting Cold Process Soap post.

A water discount keeps your recipe balanced.

Watch Those Temperatures
Fresh ingredients with natural sugar have the potential to overheat in cold process soap. That can cause discoloration, an unpleasant smell, heat tunnels and, worst case scenario, a soap volcano. That’s why it’s important to keep your temperatures low. Soaping around 100-110 ° F will keep things cool and give you time to work with your design. If you’re using an alternative liquid, you may want to cool or freeze it beforehand to prevent scorching. Learn more about working with coffee and tea, alcohol and milk in your soap. Once the soap is in the mold, put it in the fridge or freezer for 5-24 hours. If you’re using a fresh ingredient without natural sugar, they can still cause glycerin rivers or partial gel phase. You can leave the soap at room temperature or cool it in the freezer to be extra careful.

Milk needs to be frozen before the lye is added to keep temperatures low. Learn more in this post.

Test it Out
Whatever fresh ingredient you choose to jazz up your cold process soap, make a small test batch of your recipe. If you’ve never worked with that ingredient before it can do unpredictable things. The test batch allows you to make adjustments before making a larger batch. It’s also a great time to test the bars on your skin to see what you think. If you add avocado and the bars are too soft, you can add more hard oils like coconut and palm. If the honey overheated your batch even with cooler temperatures, you can add less next time. Before you know it, you’ll be a pro at adding random cabinet ingredients to your handmade goodies!

The Avocado + Spearmint Cold Process Soap took several tries to get just right.

What’s your favorite fresh additive for cold process soap?

The Value of Fresh and Local Ingredients + Recipes

March 6, 2017 Filed Under: Tips & Tricks

There are a variety of fresh ingredients that can be added to cold process soap, from honey to goat milk. They are a great way to make your soap stand out, and each ingredient adds special properties to the recipe. For example, goat milk adds skin-loving properties. Honey is great for boosting lather. Using fresh and local ingredients strengthens ties in your community and strengthens your brand identity.

If you sell your products, customers are delighted to know where the ingredients come from. This is especially true if the ingredients are from their local area! For example, here in Washington state, we are known for our coffee consumption and apple production. Adding locally roasted coffee or puree made from Washington apples in your soap is a way to showcase what the state has to offer.

Locally roasted coffee is a great way to incorporate a local ingredient in your soap.

If you’re thinking about adding fresh and local ingredients to your soap, check out the blog posts below. They have information on how to work with alternative liquids, purees and honey, as well as recipes for each. Be on the lookout for recipes this week using local ingredients for more inspiration!

Alternative Liquids (milk, beer, tea, etc.)
In place of distilled water, liquids like milk, tea, coffee and alcoholic beverages can be used to make cold process soap. Using them in your recipe is a great way to highlight locally made goat milk or beer from a local brewery.

Informative Posts:

Tutorials:

Fresh Ingredients & Purees
If a fruit or vegetable can be blended to a smooth texture, it can probably be used in cold process soap! When added to the batter, the puree goes through the saponification process along with the oils and lye solution. Fruit-based purees often add to a fluffy lather because of their natural sugar content. Additionally, many purees are great from a marketing standpoint and can add skin-loving benefits.

Informative posts:

Tutorials:

Honey
Honey is a natural humectant, which means it helps draw moisture from the air to the skin. Adding honey to your products is a great way to support local beekeepers. Honey can overheat in soap, so give your soaping temperatures extra attention.

Informative Posts:

Tutorials:

Is there a fresh and local ingredient that you like incorporating into your products? Be on the lookout for several tutorials featuring ingredients from the Pacific Northwest.

Purées & Fresh Ingredients in Melt and Pour Soap

September 28, 2016 Filed Under: Tips & Tricks

I love how a block of melt and pour soap base can be transformed into so many things. If you take a peek at the melt and pour section of this blog, you can see just how many possibilities there are. From color and fragrance to exfoliants and embeds, there are so many design options. It’s easy to understand why crafters of all skill levels enjoy it!

Despite the vast possibilities for melt and pour, there are a few additives that don’t work well. Fresh ingredients like purees and milk are at the top of the list. To understand why these ingredients don’t work, it’s important to understand what melt and pour soap is. Melt and pour soap is ready-made soap that has gone through the saponification process. That means sodium hydroxide lye, oils, glycerin (and sometimes other ingredients) were combined together to make the base – just like making cold process soap! If you’re unfamiliar with saponification, this video explains the process further.

The fact that saponification has already occurred in melt and pour soap is what makes melt and pour soap “easy.” You don’t have to worry about working with lye. Melt and pour soap is ready to use once fully cooled and hardened, so it’s fast too. No cure time is needed for melt and pour. But, because saponification has already occurred, it means that you don’t have as much control over the ingredients in the soap. Ingredients that require saponification to become part of the soap (lye, oils, butters, purees, milk, eggs, etc) don’t work well when added to melt and pour.

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