Soap Queen

Tutorials on soapmaking, bath fizzies, lotions and more

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Tutorial: Pistachio Balm Recipe

Filed Under: Lotion

Pistachio Body Balm

balm1I created this recipe for our October Newsletter (not on the Newsletter? Sign up here for specials and cool “insider” opportunities) and it was such a hit I wanted to share it with everyone on the blog.

.5 oz. Candellila Wax
1 oz. Cocoa butter
1 oz. Pistachio butter
1 oz. Avocado oil
1 oz. Jojoba oil
.1 oz. (1 tsp.) Tapioca Powder
a few drops Vitamin E oil
1 ml Orange Spice fragrance

Measure out all of your ingredients by weight before you begin.

balm3

The safest way to melt down the ingredients is in a double boiler – but you can use a microwave as well. Just watch your mixture very carefully (remember the exploding microwave?). And I always pull my container out of the microwave and stir to melt down the last few bits which helps to avoid overheating your ingredients.

Melt the wax until liquid then add the Cocoa butter. Once the Cocoa butter is completely melted add the Tapioca Powder and mix until there aren’t any lumps (hint: a little whisk helps with this). Finally add the Pistachio butter, remaining oils and fragrance to your preference. Mix well and pour into a 6 ounce tin.

balm2
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Have a question about this blog post? Come join us at Bramble Berry’s Facebook page and we can help you out with any of your soapy questions!

Making Skin Firming Cream

Filed Under: Lotion

Crothix has skin firming properties (at least according to the hype). We have a recipe submitted by a reader at TeachSoap.com. It’s meant to help firm skin because of the addition of Crothix. Bramble Berry customer, Jo H. wrote because she was having some problems with the recipe. Since we couldn’t diagnose the problem via email, we decided to make the recipe ourselves.

Here’s all the items set out, ready to make some skin firming lotion!

The recipe that Teach Soap has posted:

Distilled Water 13 oz.
Glycerin .5 oz.
Emulsifying Wax or Ceteryl Alcohol 1 oz.
CroThix .7 oz.
Jojoba Oil .6 oz.
Germaben II or Phenonip .16 oz.
Fragrance or Essential Oil .16 – .50 oz.

I modified it and used only 10 oz. of water since Jo said her recipe was turning out watery and runny.
Directions: Put the oils and waxes in one container and melt thoroughly. Heat the glycerin and water in another container. The ideal temperature is about 170 degrees.


Once the products are completely melted, add the oils and waxes to the heated water and glycerin. The product will start to emulsify immediately and turn white.
In my experiment, the waxes started to harden up far too quickly. The waxes got clumpy and started being difficult. The waters and oils started separating. Maybe this is what happened to Jo H. as well(?). I tossed the entire recipe into the microwave for 30 seconds and then straight into the blender. Notice the water at the bottom and the waxes and oils at the top.


A quick blend of the blender solved that problem! The creme thickened up immediately! There is a lot of water is in the batch. The emulsification system of Crothix and E-Wax is powerful to gel all of that water into a lotion.


I added German Blue Chamomile Essential Oil to the recipe for its skin calming properties. It turned the lotion a lovely blue.

The recipe ended up producing 4 nice bottles of lotion and the original recipe cost less than $2 in materials to make.


From start to finish, it took less than 30 minutes to assemble the ingredients, make the lotion and clean up. If you’re interested in trying to make lotions, we have two kits at Bramble Berry located here.

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Swirling Soap – Preparing the 1st color

Filed Under: Cold Process Soap

Earlier this week, Renee asked a question about swirling soap. Renee, here’s a long, multiple day answer to your question. Watch for short instructional videos from this goatsmilk batch (scented with Herbal Essence) this weekend and next week.


Preparing the color mixture ahead of time is helpful. Working out clumps prior to the soap being poured makes for less stress and worry during the touchy last few minutes of the soapmaking process. The colorant mixture above is a blend of jojoba oil, blue ultramarine iron oxide and loofah.


Mixing the prepared coloring into thinly trace (goatsmilk) soap. I did (approximately) 1 tsp of blue color, 1 tsp of loofa and 2 oz. of jojoba oil in 16 oz. of soap. The 16 oz. of soap was pulled from the larger 6 pound batch at thin trace. The rest of the goatsmilk soap is waiting in the large stainless steel mixing pot.


A photo of the entire set up with digital scale, Sunnybrook mold and spatula waiting to scrape soap into mold to get the last drops out.

I’ll post photos and instructions of the swirling technique this weekend.

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Day 7 Coco Balm – Final recipe

Filed Under: Lip Products

After testing the chocolate balms all week and overdosing on chocolate this weekend, there is a clear winner. The Brambleberrians in the office (Nicole, Amber, Jen and Anne) agree with my choice of chocolate winner.

I was surprised when we all chose the Bittersweet Baking Chocolate as the best texture and taste. The Bittersweet Baking Chocolate beat out all the other expensive, organic, fair-trade chocolates. Of course, there’s not much marketing cachet with regular Bittersweet Baking Chocolate so keep that in mind when formulating your product for sale.Our favorite recipe is easy and simple.
1.5 oz. Bittersweet Baking Chocolate
1 oz. Beeswax
1 oz. Jojoba Oil
Here is an easy variation to make your ingredient label more exotic and your marketing pop!

Marketing Genius 101 Variation
1.0 oz. Bittersweet Baking Chocolate
.5 oz. Organic, Fair-Trade Certified Chocolate (like Seattle-based Theo)
1 oz. Beeswax
.3 oz. Sweet Almond Oil
.3 oz. Jojoba Oil
.3 oz. Avocado Oil
.1 oz. Vitamin E Oil

Marketing Points: Contains Organic, Fair-Trade Certified Chocolate! Vitamin E oil promotes supple lips! Avocado Oil is high in essential fatty acids for moisture! Jojoba oil closely mimics the skin’s natural lipid profile!

The basic proportions for our winning recipe is:

42% chocolate
29% beeswax
29% liquid oil

You can take these proportions to create your own recipe. The math looks something like this:

3 oz. total recipe

3.0 x .42 = 1.26 oz.
3.0 x .29 = .87 oz.
3.0 x .29 = .87 oz.

If you want to make a larger recipe, just substitute the “3” for whatever total weight you want your recipe to be and multiply out the math.

Questions? Comments? Just post and I’ll get back to you in a timely manner.

Now, go forth and choc-i-fy!

The best soap supplies on the internet are found at Bramble Berry. Click here to browse Bramble Berry.

 

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Choco Balm, Day 3

Filed Under: Bath & Body Tutorials, Lip Products

After the Double Boiler did not melt Hershey’s Chocolate successfully, I got impatient. I put 1 Tablespoon of Hersheys, 1 Tablespoon of Jojoba Oil and 1 Tablespoon of Beeswax (pre-melted) into a microwave safe bowl.

I shoved the bowl into the microwave for 60 seconds. My haste was not rewarded.

The stinking lumpy mass of goo that ensued was disappointing. My house smelled of burnt chocolate. I was stymied but regrouped and tried again with shorter microwave bursts.

It was with much excitement that I tried the melt process a second time. I stared intently at the chocolate goo whirring around in the microwave, stopping the process to stir every 10 seconds.

After 1 minute and 20 seconds, the batch with the Hershey’s had melted but was not incorporating. I stirred with more vigor. It held together better.

I triumphantly pulled out my frozen knife from the freezer. I plunged the cooled implement into the piping hot mixture. The chocolate, waxes and oils instantly solidified on the frozen knife. The insta-cooled balm was easy to spread on my lips, tasted delicious and the proximity to sugar made me euphoric.

I carefully poured the balm into the clear twist up tubes. There was some cackling with glee and delight as the chocolate started to cool.

The cackling turned to dismay as the Hershey’s concoction started layering, with the heavier waxes dropping out and the milk solids rising to the surface.

Undeterred, I started on the Bittersweet Baking Chocolate. The Bittersweet Baking Chocolate batch was successful. The photo below is poor but the Bittersweet Chocolate did not layer, scorch or turn into a stinking lump of disappointment.The Bittersweet Chocolate Recipe that held together was:1 part Bittersweet Baking Chocolate
1 part Jojoba
1 part (pre-melted) Beeswax

Check back tomorrow for more recipe trials, spills and outright disasters.
The best soap supplies on the internet are found at Bramble Berry. Click here to browse Bramble Berry.

 

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Chocolate Lip Balm, Day One

Filed Under: Lip Products

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 Oil
Beeswax 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.
The best soap supplies on the internet are found at Bramble Berry. Click here to browse Bramble Berry.

 

Have a question about this blog post? Come join us at Bramble Berry’s Facebook page and we can help you out with any of your soapy questions!