One of my favorite parts of being in charge of Bramble Berry ‘SoapNation’ is the one-on-one instruction opportunities at Otion. From time to time, soapers and toiletry makers come to Otion for private instruction on how to make everything and anything that their heart desires. The days (and weekends) are all custom designed to meet  the interests of our students. Selena came to us from Africa by way of London. And poor dear, because of the Icelandic volcanic eruptions, she is in Bellingham for a bit longer than she intended.

We designed a jam packed two days for Selena. Cold Process soap – swirled with the Bramble Berry ‘World’s Best Divider Molds’ and a couple double layer loaves (with a sprinkled mica vein in the middle of each layer, above). The above soap is the dark color because of the honey. It gets hot and burns in the soap, causing it to turn brown.

Most of our cold process soaps included a generous serving (up to 10%) Sierra Leone honey, fresh off the plane (and brought in at some trouble for poor Selena who was stopped by customs so long that she missed her flight to Bellingham!).

We made four different types of scrubs. The two pictured below are both emulsified scrubs (similar to the ones I teach in this video here).

Not to worry though – we hot processed the entire batch out and made some luscious soap (above) despite the initial horrifying leaky honey results. And then we redesigned the batch – less honey, lower temperatures, no insulation and presto! successful batch.

It was a joy to spend two days with Selena. She’s headed back to Africa with three massive boxes bulging with goodies. I’m excited to watch her company progress in the next few years. Thanks for spending the day with me Selena!

I had an AWESOME Saturday at Otion. I was there all day working with Julie from a lavender farm in Sequim, Washington. Though she is already one busy lady, getting her Masters in Horticulture and running her farm and burgeoning toiletries business, she has big plans. Rather than experimenting with recipes for the next year, she decided to get all her questions answered with a custom designed day, including recipes already figured out, at Otion.

Here was the schedule of the day:

9:30 start (lay of the land, coffee, bath rooms)

9:45 – 11:30 – Advanced Lotion with Whipped Butter (includes preserving and shelf life)

11:30 – 11:45 – break

11:45 to 12:45 – lip balms/lipsticks (4 different recipes)

12:45 – 1:15 lunch delivered from Old World Deli

1:15 – 2:15 – Body Scrub (three emulsified scrub recipes)

2:15– 3:15– Soy container candles

3:15 – 4:00 – Bath fizzies

4:00 break

4:15 – 5:15 – Spritzers & follow up questions

5:30 End

We jammed all of that into the day and Julie left with a huge pile of goodies by the end of the day between all the recipes we made. And most importantly, she now has a stable of successful recipes to turn to when expanding her line.

Julie was super smart and brought a store bought lotion that she loved. We dissected the ingredients and created something similar both in feel and performance. It was fun to make similar recipes with and without IPM to feel the difference in slip and feel. We also played with the addition of talc to reduce oiliness in the oh-so-rich body butters.

We made lip balms and lipsticks. We had lots of fun experimenting with manly-man type lip balm flavors and ideas. Julie is a huge fan of unrefined hemp oil so we spent some time talking about the tradeoff with the unrefined hemp versus shorter shelf life for products.

We had a delicious lunch delivered by Erik, the Otion Store manager, from Old World Deli. I got my typical (homemade pickled onions, with fontina cheese & spinach, grilled to perfection) and Julie had a delicious chicken pesto sandwich.

Then we were back in the thick of things (literally!) with emulsified sugar and salt scrubs. We made a variety of recipes and discussed the pros and cons of each. It was fascinating to see how much salt and sugar needed to be added to get any sort of legit ‘scrubbiness’ to the products.

We did have one small mishap. The emulsifying wax/oils/stearic acid mixture spilled a bit on our protective paper towel. We didn’t think much of it and kept using the microwave until we smelled smoke. Whoops! The oil/wax combo coupled with the dry paper towel caught fire in the microwave. That was quite a surprise and we put out the (small) fire quickly, marveling at the strange occurrence and vowing clean up thoroughly after each and every spill from here on out.

Then, with barely a pause, it was back to the races to finish the busy learning schedule with bath fizzies, candles and making body spritzers (Polysorbate 20 is your friend for body spritzers). We did take a quick break to run across the street for donuts for a late afternoon pick-me-up. We were both pretty tired but satisfied when 5:30 rolled around.

Thanks for a fun day, Julie!