All of the soaps were made using Non-Bleeding Red in Bramble Berry House Base Clear with White House Base.
Teaser Photo
Look for more photos and (eventually) a tutorial for making these fun Holiday soaps.
Christmas Soap Already?
It was a very full day at Otion. Erik, Sarah and I worked all day helping the stream of customers coming for help with Christmas gifts.
I made our first Christmas display (is it that time already?) of Peppermint Essential Oil (1st distilation) melt and pour soaps, including some Peppermint Candy soap. The photo on the right is from the “Project Of The Week” site. Click here for the project.
I’ll have photos of all the soap I made, including peppermint jelly roll soap, uploaded tomorrow. I’m pleased with how they all turned out and can’t wait to get your feedback.
Light Posting Day
Hi Happy Soapers!
I’ll be having a very light posting day today because one of my perfumers is here for a visit. She flew out from the midwest for the day to sniff, soap and plan out our fragrance map for the year. We’ll be at Otion all day, soaping and smelling the latest and greatest trends. If we have time, we’ll take a trip to Bath and Body Works, Victoria’s Secret and The Body Shop to see if there’s anything that inspires us there.
Just a reminder that today is the last day for the contest. Enter to win all the beautiful prizes pictured above. Click here for the details or to enter.
Cabela’s Experience Based Stores
I am totally having a jealous moment over Cabela’s coming-soon Lacey, Washington store. For the uninitiated, Cabela‘s sells hunting and fishing gear, at excellent prices.
Shoppers come from far and wide to shop at Cabelas, many times driving well over 100 miles to visit a Cabela store. The most amazing statistic is that the typical Cabela’s customer spends 3.5 hours in the store. Three and a half hours, shopping, in the same store! Even I don’t do that at Nordstrom’s (which is like a toy store for adult females).
The latest Cabela’s store in Lacey Washington will include:
- Hundreds of mounted animals displayed in dioramas
- Conservation Mountain, a two story simulated mountain equipped with working waterfalls, a stream and a trout pond
- A 16,700 gallon walk-through aquarium stocked with fish native to the Northwest
- A restaurant serving venison bratwurst and smoked elk sandwiches.
This isn’t a store. It’s an experience.
No wonder people will drive for 100 miles and spent over three hours browsing. The latest store is expecting to have the same annual draw as a Costco or Wal-Mart and generate over $70 million in gross revenue for Cabelas. They will employ 350 full-time and part-time stores.
This Disneyland like store has gotten me thinking – what if Otion had scheduled times that they made soap, every day or once a week, so that you know that if you show up at Otion at X time, on X days someone will be doing something fun and interesting.
We have to test new products and formulations so why not make it an experience that becomes a cult-like phenomenon? It’s something that deserves more thought and discussion.
Halloween, a Day Late
I can’t believe I forgot to post these yesterday! Oh well, they are still glorious examples of great melt and pour by the soap artists at Otion!
Sunflowers and Triscles
We’ve been having a great time at Otion with melt and pour.
These dual colored Sunflowers were made by Andrew, my brother-in-law. He is certainly getting talented at melt and pour, isn’t he? The mold is by Milky Way and the colors used are Cellini Red, Emerald Green Labcolor and Canary Labcolor. Detail work was done painstakingly by hand with a dropper.
These two lovely soaps on the left were made by yours truly. The blue soap pictured on the right of the photo is a difficult soap – three pours. Sadly, the photos don’t show its true glory. The top layer is clear soap with lovely navy blue sparkles. The blue used is Labcolors Aqua. The soap on the left is a dual pour soap utilizing copper sparkle mixed with merlot mica for contrast.
Have fun trick or treating tonight and be safe!
Feelin’ the Love
Thank you Joanna at Product Body for a wonderful ego-enhancing post about Bramble Berry, this blog and (eyes downcast modestly) me. Click here to read the post.
And then DesperateHorseWife (aka Tracey) has a very nice post, complete with awesome photos about her experience with Otion, Bramble Berry and soaping. It’s a well-written funny missive (just like Tracey is when you meet her in person). Click here to read it.
Kiwi Soap from Otion!
The soap geniuses at Otion made this plate of kiwi and cream soap. It looks edible and smells delicious. Melt and pour is a wonderful medium to work with; it gives great artistic freedom and creative options for crafting with.
Otion Soapy Creations
We had a fun field day at Otion with a reporter (stay tuned for our October 14th story about Otion). Erik and I taught her the basics of melt and pour. If you’ve never made melt and pour soap, check out our instructional here.
Here are some photos of our creations. The above photo is done with the Aloha Molds Plumeria mold (which has been discontinued), orange and coral mica and Cellini Blue and Stormy Blue Mica. We used our ever-popular Energy Fragrance Oil for a positively uplifting tropical vacation feel.
Erik and I also started our Halloween display for the store. Check out our use of Vintage Gray Mica and Silver Glitter (discontinued) in our fun Skull Mold. The soap is ghoulish, kid-pleasing and scented with anise essential oil.
Vocation Vacations
Otion recently signed up to be a Vocation Vacation. What is a “Vocation Vacation?” A Vocation Vacation is a short trip where curious job seekers or career shifters can test drive a new job for one or two days. A vocationer pays a mentor to download the good, the bad and the ugly part of their jobs. There are Vocation Vacations designed for cheese making, running an opera house, being a cowboy or running a public relations firm. Click here to see all the jobs currently open to test drive.
For the last two days, I have been in the heart of downtown Seattle at Richmond PR, learning the fine art of public relations from Louie Richmond and his staff at RPR. Yesterday was a full day, run with military like precision. Louie had me going from staff member to staff member, learning all I could about the individual jobs that they do. I even got to have lunch with all the interns and hear what their perceptions are about the field of public relations. Their fresh (just out school) perspective was an interesting contrast to some of the vetrens.
I am amazed at how much access Louie has given me to his staff and his openness about the difficulties of setting up a public relations shop. After just a day and a half here, I have come to the conclusion that the work done at Richmond PR would be difficult (if not impossible) to duplicate at my own company. The machinery and experience that RPR has makes all the flailing around I do with media relations look pathetic and downright inept.
Today, I will be learning about budgeting, planning a media campaign and reviewing some press kits for product launches. Louie will also be finishing up his philosophy on ethics and truth telling in media relations. After this positive experience, I would definitely consider another Vocation Vacation.
If you’re interested in learning about how to run a small soapmaking retail store, you can come to Otion for two days to learn from our management team (Erik and myself) and also take private classes on soapmaking. Click here to learn more about the Otion Vocation Vacation.
Goatsmilk Soapmaking Class at Otion
I had the privilege of teaching a sold out goatsmilk soapmaking class at Otion. We had nine students who came from all over the Pacific Northwest to learn the technical aspects of goatsmilk soapmaking.
Some of the students really took to swirling.
Here I am, measuring out the lye.
This class had a particularly joyous time picking out their fragrance and color combinations. They were positively giddy at the possibilities for artistic choice.
I made an extra batch of brown sugar and mulled cider swirled in our 5 pound collapsible wooden log molds.
Here is Erik, demonstrating how to use the stick blender.
Some of the students got very creative with their second batches, doing layers, swirling and experimenting heavily with additions.
A few of the students colored their batches so dark that they will have colored lather when they shower with their creations.
The students also loved the exfoliants. Some of them will be finding out just how effective apricot seeds can be when added to soaps in large quantities.
Some of the students really took to swirling.It was a wonderful class. I’ll be teaching a goatsmilk lotionmaking class this upcoming Wednesday. There are still a few spots available here. If you’re in town, sign up and learn how to make lotion using goatsmilk as your base.
Gorgeous Soap
Look at this beautiful soap made by Mark at Otion the Soap Bar here in Bellingham.
It was made using one of Bramble Berry’s newest molds – the white tailed deer.
And the paper in the background is from one of my favorite scrap book paper makers The Paper Element
Custom Soaps at Otion
Erik, my younger brother, made these custom soaps at Otion. This special order was for goatsmilk soap, with ground oatmeal and the fragrance Oatmeal, Milk and Honey.
I think Erik did an amazing job. His talent at melt and pour is rapidly progressing to that of a true soap artist. 
