Otion Archives - Page 4 of 11

Pumpkins and Bathbombs and Plaid…Oh My!

November 4, 2009 Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

I’ve been remiss in not posting this fun recap yet. We had a wonderful visitor (Michelle from Florida) come to Otion for a full day of classes last month. Check out our packed day of work (errr, I mean, fun!):

8:30 – Settle in, lay of the land

8:45 – Bath Fizzies 101
Witch hazel
Fragrance versus essential oil
Baking
Drying chamber

9:30 – Bath Fizzies Advanced
Herbs
Salts
Extra Oils

10:30 Coffee Break

10:45 Lotions 101

12:15 Lunch – We ordered in and ate at the shop to save time!

12:45 Melt & Pour – Advanced
Plaid
Silhouette

2:45 Lip Balm/Lipsticks/Eye Shadow
Recipes
Skin Safe/Cosmetic Grade
Stains versus lipsticks versus gloss

4:00 Wrap Up/final questions

Here are photos of just a few of the fun things we got done in our class day. The fantastic ELF Industrial Pumpkin Mold (made with Orange Mica and Copper Sparkle, colored in with Non-Bleeding, liquid black iron oxide colored clear soap and a stem made of Super Green Mica).

Fun Pumpkin cut outs made with the Silhouette (Cameo) SoapyLove technique using Non-Bleeding Liquid Black Oxide and Orange Labcolor.

One thing Michelle really wanted to learn was the so-cool-it-should-be-patented Plaid Soap concept that was taught this year at the Otion Soap Weekend Intensive. One thing I love about the project is how complicated the project looks when it’s done but how easy the project is once you understand the technique and pattern. You can learn how to make the same soap from the comfort of your own home with the video or the video + the kit here.

We also made many batches (many many many!) of bath fizzies, lip tints and lipsticks and cupcake Silhouette Soaps. When it was all said and done, we were all thrilled about how Kaolin Clay helped to keep the humidity warts away in the bath fizzies and Michelle was happily stunned by how easy it was to make lip tints. If you’re unsure about how to make your own lipsticks, lip balms and lip tints, we have a Video tutorial here, a kit here & blog tutorials (here, here, here, here, and here.

The day went entirely too quickly and I was sad when it ended. We made lots of great goodies and it was a day well spent.

Plaid Video with SoapyLove

October 12, 2009 Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

When we flew Debbie from SoapyLove up to Bellingham to teach at our sold out Otion Soapmaking Weekend Intensivethere were many, many comments asking for a video of the classes to bring the learning into your own home without having to travel to Bellingham.

Anne-Marie and SoapyLove making soap on the Soap Queen TV set

Debbie and I have done a SoapQueenTV video that is over 13 minutes long and details how to make the amazing plaid soap concept. You can buy access to the video here for $5.95 or buy the video and the supplies kit for under $30 here. The kit comes with access to the video, everything you need to make the soap and a handy full color print out with instructions on how to make the plaid soap.

PS – We’re starting planning for SWI2010 (Soapmaking Weekend Intensive 2010). Are there any teachers you’d like to see on the rostser? Any special projects that would push you over the edge to come and hang out with us for the weekend?

Coconut Milk Soap Volcano

September 30, 2009 Filed Under: Cold Process Soap

In my 16 years of cold process soapmaking, I have heard of of soap volcanoes in various soap forums, books and soap gatherings over the years. But until today, I had not experienced one for myself. The ensuing happenstance was so exciting that I started exclaiming ‘Oh my gosh, Oh my gosh‘ with such glee that Erik (manager of Otion) thought I was thrilled about what he was talking about. When I finally got him turned around to see the soap, his jaw dropped. Erik has been making cold process soap for only 2 years but has made 300+ batches of cold process soap in those two years. He’s never seen the volcano happen either. I shouted at the top of my lungs for the customer service team from Bramble Berry to come watch. They arrived just in time to catch the last of the show.

The soap literally bubbled out of the mold like a fizzy soda fountain, with mounds of frothy, bubbling caustic soap. The entire thing was funny because I was wearing my gloves and goggles but had I not been working on a protected surface with my hands and eyes covered, it could have been a disaster. The bubbling took about 90 seconds to finish. After it was done erupting, about half the soap was out of the mold and on the table.

Notice how much the soap deflated as it cooled down? It lost almost half of its volume!

The soap was super hot (over 200 degrees) as though it was going through a full hot process (or in-the-oven-hot process) gel phase. Since the soap hadn’t separated much, I just plopped all the soap that had overflowed back into the mold, patted it down (with gloves on – the soap is still caustic) and smoothed it out. The soap isn’t the most pretty soap I’ve ever seen but hopefully it will be usable.

I’ll cut the soap tomorrow to see how it looks and am hopeful I saved the batch. The experience reminded me of the valuable lesson about making soap with too many unknown variables. Coconut Milk + Cocoa Butter + Coconut Oil + Untested Fragrance = Super Pow Volcano Soap. This is why buying fragrance oils from a proven, tested vendor is so important for you too. If someone else has done all the testing for you, there is one less variable for you to worry about when you’re soaping at home or in your soap studio.

The Soap with the Hole

September 22, 2009 Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

“I just wanted to thank you two for a great class and let you know how much I learned and enjoyed it [the class]. The four hours went by in a snap!!! I wish you were closer so I can take brush up classes every 3 months, but maybe I can make it twice a year.” – Student from Private Class at Otion

I had the extreme privilege of working at Otion yesterday where I taught a relatively new soaper how to do advanced melt and pour techniques. All in all, we made at least 8 different projects in four short hours.

We cut, chopped, tilted and manipulated soap in all sorts of ways to make some lovely bars of soap. More important than the bars of soap we made at Otion during the actual class were the lessons learned. One of the joys of melt and pour soapmaking is that once you master any of

the techniques, you can apply it to many different projects all in the soaping sphere.

We did have a happy accident with the loaf soap below. We were in a big hurry to finish the loaf soap up so our student could get back on the road so we put the soap in the freezer and as soon as it was hard enough, popped it out (love our loaf molds!). The loaf looked amazing but the second we cut into it, the entire middle spilled out all over the entire table. It was a little surprising but turned out to be fortuitous. We just propped the soap on its side and poured Royal Purple colored Labcolor soap into the hole and voila! The soap (pictured top left above) looks incredible!

Right now, I’m really gearing up for a big class on Friday. I’m doing a private class with a full 7 hours of personalized instruction. That private class will cover Bath Fizzies, Lotions, Advanced Melt and Pour AND Mineral Make Up.

If you can’t make it for a class at Otion, don’t despair – there’s always www.soapqueen.tv video library, the longer instructional 45 minute DVDs on melt and pour and cold process soapmaking or any number of books for you to teach yourself.

Plaid, Tarts, Colors & CupcakesOtion, SWI

July 20, 2009 Filed Under: Personal Ramblings

The final day of our Otion Soap Intensive ended yesterday and I’m already getting excited about planning our next one. Have suggestions on what you’d like to see at the next one or a special instructor that you’d love to see at Otion? Let me know! Class is limited to 12 people and we already have one person on the sign up list for next year. You can get on the sign up sheet by calling Otion at 360.676.1030

Sunday started with an Intro to Melt and Pour. I crammed as much information on the basics in as I could in one short hour so that Debbie from SoapyLove would have the maximum time possible to showcase the versatility that melt and pour provides.

She taught two of her signature projects: Perfect Plaid and Soap Tarts.

Despite the complexity of the projects, every single student came away with amazing soaps to take home and recreate themselves.

Debbie’s teaching style is easy to follow and every student left with many ideas on how they could take the techniques she taught and apply them to their own soap projects to give their businesses a unique and personalized twist.

Lori Nova from The Nova Studio finished our day of instruction off with the ever-so-helpful, ‘Color with Confidence’ class.

She has tested over 70 colorants in cold process soap and saved everyone hours of testing by showing us the colors in soap and explaining how and why the colorants act the way that they do. It was a useful class that illuminated the mystery of colorants in a easy to understand way.

The big soapy reveal happened at the very end of class when we unmolded our layered and swirl soaps. Lori’s precise method of soapmaking produced gorgeous bars with perfect layers and swirls. Everyone got a chance to try three different beveling tools to give their soap the final professional touch.

We wrapped up with a sweet treat dessert and graduation. All of the students received certificates of completion and a cupcake to send them on their soaping journeys.

It was an enjoyable weekend for everyone and we are excitedly planning Otion Soap Weekend Intensive 2010!

Mad for Plaid

July 18, 2009 Filed Under: Personal Ramblings

Me being silly around Debbie’s (Soapylove) in-process soap pieces for plaid soap! Debbie’s fun and amazing projects are coming soon to SoapQueen.TV as a special project tutorial – I can’t wait to share the process with you.

The Soap Intensive finished this evening with cupcakes, laughter and chaos. I’ll post photos and a full run down tomorrow. Until then, happy soaping!

How Much Can You Learn in One Day?

July 18, 2009 Filed Under: Personal Ramblings

The second day of the Soap Weekend intensive was… well, intense! There was so much information and hands-on projects that we are all exhausted. The students all seemed a little shell-shocked by the end of the jam-packed day.

Here were the highlights:

First I discussed and demonstrated the basics of Cold Process Soapmaking. Yes, I know I should be wearing long sleeves – but it was so hot. We were so lucky to have my husband’s borrowed air conditioner form his office but the temperatures still got above 80 degrees in the Soap Instructional Lab; thus the short sleeves.

For the second part of my class each student was able to come up and weigh out one of the ingredients or try their hand at stick blending the soap. Notice the bag they are pouring out of. They are the Bramble Berry boilable fixed oil bags so that you can melt solid oils in the microwave or boil them. Plus, they are space saving from a shipping standpoint saving money and saving the planet through less packaging.

Every student ended up with 2 bars of soap that they fragranced and colored themselves. The bars use the nearly same recipe with the only difference being one had a superfat of 1% and the other 10.5%.

Next up, was Lori Nova sharing her incredible swirling and layering techniques.

Lori generously shared her award winning and precise way of swirling soap perfectly. Her method of soaping is detail oriented and she keeps copious notes for every batch, assuring that she can replicate every success, every time.

Here is one of the completed soap batches getting ready to be covered and insulated. Can you believe she actually made this gorgeous soap while 15 people watched? Lori is the consumate professional who kept cool and delivered a perfect batch of soap, even with questions being fired at her from left and right.

Finally, Jill ended the day with a hands-on lotion making class. She has a wonderfully organized way of teaching lotion making in stations all around the class room. We had a bit of a kerfuffle when beeswax was put out instead of emulsifying wax. No one could figure out just why our perfect, fail-safe lotion recipe wasn’t turning out until we realized that the emulsifying wax container was filled with bleached beeswax. Whoops. We quickly reset and everyone made perfect lotions with just a little delay. The mishap proved two things: beeswax isn’t the best emulsifier and that everyone makes mistakes. So, if you want to lessen your chance of mistakes, do the Lori Nova method of taking copious notes and follow a preparation check-list, each and every time.

Fany and Audrey working together to weigh out their oils for lotion.

Check back tomorrow night or Monday morning to get the Sunday wrap up. Debbie from SoapyLove is going to be teaching us her fabulous Soap Tarts and Plaid Soap.

Soap Intensive Weekend Starts

July 17, 2009 Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

Greetings from a packed and thrilling kick-off day for the Second Annual Otion Soap Intensive Weekend. We have a full class with 12 students who have flown in from all over the nation to learn from the best soap and business minds in the nation.

Today, we did a mini business boot camp taught by Ron Huntington, from Executive Mentors and Trainers. He covered important business basics such as:

Defining Vision

Determining Annual Priorities

Defining your Values

If you’d like to learn more about what he covered, buy the book “Mastering the Rockafeller Habits” by Verne Harnish. It’s a great primer for all businesses.

Then tonight, we started work on two very special episodes of SoapQueen.TV with special guest Debbie Chialtas from SoapyLove. She’s up here for the Soap Intensive Weekend (to teach her original Plaid Soap project and Jelly Donut Soap project). While she’s here, we started brainstorming on how we can bring more of the Soapmaking Weekend Intensive to you. Last year, you asked for a way to bring more of the classes to you and I think we have a great solution.

Shhhh … I’ll let you in on a BIG secret: we’re going to do a super duper, awesome, incredible paid tutorial fusing the best of ‘Let’s Get Soapy‘, SoapQueen.TV and SoapQueen.com Expect a the details and sign up to start the first week of August.

I can’t wait to start TwitPic’ing photos tomorrow from The Soap Intensive Weekend at Otion. Be sure to check the blog or my TwitPic stream for lots of fun photos from the day. And, of course, there will be a blog round up tomorrow night (late) after the classes and clean up are done. Until then, happy soaping!

Funnel Soap

July 3, 2009 Filed Under: Cold Process Soap

I’m excited about what Kat did at Otionthis week – tried making Funnel Soap. I can’t wait to cut it!

"It was beautiful. Loved it."

June 22, 2009 Filed Under: Personal Ramblings

Get on the waiting list for the Otion Soap Intensive Weekend and have your own ‘beautiful’ soaping experience. We’ve got a great weekend planned and all it’s missing is you!

Otion SWI 2010 Schedule

June 13, 2009 Filed Under: Personal Ramblings

There are still two spots left for this awesome weekend series. We’re flying in some of the best minds in the soaping industry, just for you! Here is the tentative schedule for the weekend extravaganza:

Soapmaking Weekend Intensive 2009

Friday – Business Development time with Ron Huntington

12:00 – 4:00 – Ron Huntington

Developing a Vision

Defining your Mission

Making a ‘BHAG’

Saturday

9:00 a.m. Orientation by Anne-Marie

9:45 a.m. Anne-Marie – Hands ON!

Cold Process I

12:00 Lunch – Farmer’s Market

1:00 Lori Nova on Cold Process swirling & layering

4:00 Lotion I with Jill (Hands ON!)

6:00 End

Sunday

9:00 a.m. Beginning Melt and Pour Anne-Marie

10:00 a.m. Advanced MP – Jelly Donut – Debbie (SoapyLove) (Hands ON!)

12:00 noon Lunch on your own

1:00 Plaid Soap with Debbie (SoapyLove) (Hands ON!)

3:00 Lori Nova on colorants

4:00 Cut CP soap/Cupcakes/Graduation

All this for just $350 ( includes materials fees and handouts).

Sign uphere.

"It was … VERY intense"

May 20, 2009 Filed Under: Personal Ramblings

How to Convert %s to Weight Amounts

April 15, 2009 Filed Under: Lotion

One of the questions I frequently get when I’m teaching classes at Otion is:

I got this great recipe from my grandmother. It looks like fun. But, it’s all in %s! How can I turn this awesome balm recipe into something I can work with? Help!

Answer: Your grandmother’s (fictional!) balm recipe can be recreated. Here’s an example of how I would do this.

Step one:Formula in percentages – everything equals 101% (preservative isn’t included in the 100% since you need preserve 100% of the product)

Mango Butter 25%
Stearic Acid 19%
Sweet Almond Oil 40%
Jojoba 11%
Polysorbate 20 4%
Lemongrass EO 1%
Preservative 1%

Total: 101%

Step Two: Convert these percentages to decimal numbers. Here is how that is done:

25% divided by 100 = .25
19% divided by 100 = .19
40% divided by 100 = .40
11% divided by 100 = .11
4% divided by 100 = .04
1% divided by 100 = .01

Step 3: Finally, multiple the decimal by how much you want to make. In this case, I’d like to make 22.5 ounces so this is multiplied by 22.5

.25 x 22.5 = 5.625
.19 x 22.5 = 4.275
.40 x 22.5 = 9.0
.11 x 22.5 = 2.475
.04 x 22.5 = .9
.01 x 22.5 = .225

= 22.5

Optional: Now, let’s do this in grams. Wha? Why grams? Ounces are not as preferable as grams because the unit of measure is much larger and clunkier. Converting this to grams gives us: 638 grams (1 ounce = 28.3495231 grams)(22.5 ounces x 28.3495231 grams = 637.864)

.25 x 638 = 159.5
.19 x 638 = 121.22
.40 x 638 = 255.2
.11 x 638 = 70.18
.04 x 638 = 25.52
.01 x 638 = 6.38

= 638

Viola! Simple math gets you a recipe that you can use. As for this recipe, it will be heavy, waxy and spreadable. I imagine it would work well for an elbow and foot cream and will not absorb in quickly.

It’s Official! People love SWI! (video)

April 11, 2009 Filed Under: Personal Ramblings

Note: Email and RSS subscribers won’t be able t see this video. You need to click through to the blog to see it (which wouldn’t kill you. There’s lots of things that update on the blog frequently, like the booklist and TwitPics).

Soap Intensive Weekend 2009 is shaping up to be chock-full of helpful hints, camaraderie and the best that Bellingham has to offer. Click here for our helpful, handy list of things to do and places to stay while you’re here. With instructors like Lori Nova, Debbie Chilatis and business coach Ron Huntington, you’ll learn melt and pour, cold process and basic business practices. $350 covers your classes, materials and a once-in-a-lifetime learning experience.