Tutorials on soapmaking, bath fizzies, lotions and more
Find this patriotic DIY project here.
Happy Independence Day! I hope you are all having a wonderful holiday. This week, we rounded up our Summer Hair Series and featured a wide variety of guest posts. Then, Jodi of Empire Rose Soap Co. shared her takeaways from a HSCG 2014 session, regarding formulating scrubs and body butters. Dawn from Horsing Around Soap also shared her HSCG experience with tips and tricks for turning your hobby into a business.
This week was jammed packed with inspiration and exciting events. If you are looking for a fun way to try new soap projects and connect with fellow soapers, there are still a few spots open in the Spring Subscription of Soap Crafting Club. For more information about the club, head over to this post. This week we also announced a contest to win a Soap Crafting Book and Soap Crafting Kit for your mom or other loved one. Entering the contest is easy; simply upload a photo of a crafty gift you have made to Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter with hashtags #ShowMomLove and #BrambleBerry. Don’t wait, the contest ends April 20th!
Speaking of handmade gifts, this recipe for Cherry Blossom Solid Perfume would make the perfect, quick and easy present. Not only is solid perfume easy to make, it’s easy to use. If you’d like to learn more about making solid perfume, check out the “How to Make Solid Perfume” Soap Queen TV Video. If you’re interested in making liquid perfume, this tutorial for White Ginger and Amber Spray Perfume will show you how.
The Cherry Blossom Solid Perfume is a perfect spring gift.
This tutorial for the Natural Colorant Taiwan Swirl proves that natural colorants are anything but dull. If you need more convincing, look at the Facebook Photo of the Week from Herbolution Natural Body Care.
Look closely! The soap stamp says, “Chocolate: It’s not just for breakfast.”
It may be the middle of February, but I’m ready for spring to arrive. It’s exciting to watch the days get longer and feel the temperatures slowly rise. In the meantime, why not get a head start on your spring cleaning? This guest post from organization goddess Michele Connolly is the perfect place to begin. Michele has tons of great tips on when to sell, donate or throw away your clutter. This week I also shared a recipe for a Blueberry Kale Smoothie, which is a delicious way to “declutter” your breakfast. It’s full of body-loving ingredients such kale, chia seeds and blueberries. Yum!
The delicious Blueberry Kale Smoothie
While you wait for temperatures to rise outside, get crafty inside. The Soothing Baking Soda Oatmeal Bar is made using the double boiler method, and it’s a great natural recipe for sensitive skin. If you’d like to learn more about this technique, How to Make Rebatch Soap walks you through the process. Looking for more natural soap inspiration? Check out the interview with Janelle of Jangle Soapworks. Janelle makes all her soap with goat milk from her own farm, and prefers to use natural colorants and essential oils.
If you’re looking for a project bursting with cuteness and color, our Rainbow Hearts Melt and Pour Tutorial is sure to fit the bill. Scented with Pink Grapefruit Fragrance Oil, this tutorial not only looks bright and spring-like, it smells equally cheery. Speaking of cuteness and color, our Facebook Photo of the week has plenty of both:
Soaping is a hobby that requires practice and persistence, and when a project turns out beautifully it’s all worth it. But unfortunately mistakes happen, and sometimes soap doesn’t turn out as you’d expect. To help you diagnose any soapy issues, Soap Behaving Badly is a comprehensive overview of a wide variety of soaping mishaps caused by fragrance oils, including ricing, acceleration and seizing. It’s a must read for both beginners and advanced soapers! If you are interested in learning more about preventing soapy blunders, our Explaining and Preventing Soda Ash, Why Did My Soap Turn Brown? and How to Prevent Fading and Browning posts are there to help.
The aftermath of our soapy fragrance testing. Check out Soap Behaving Badly to see what happened to (and how to salvage) these poor bars.
But let’s focus on projects that were successful! This week we shared a super easy and refreshing Infused Aloe and Rose Water Toner recipe. If you’re looking for more of a challenge, we also shared our Striped Berry Champagne Cold Process Tutorial featuring ombre layers separated by thin lines of mica for definition. If you’re a fan of ombre, check out these other DIY projects:
Tired and hungry after all that ombre crafting? This Ombre Layered Cake Recipe is sure to pick you up! Speaking of sugary treats, this week we also shared this Brown Butter and Basil Shortbread Recipe, which is a fun spin on the traditional cookie. As for the the Facebook Photo of the Week, the whipped soapy frosting on top certainly looks good enough to eat!
Welcome to the end of another week! We started the first Monday back from the Thanksgiving break with an interview with one of our favorite soapers, Andrea from Soap4Squares. Then, we shared a scrub to buff away that wintery dry skin with our Rough Patches Wash Tutorial. Walnut shells are a super gentle exfoliant, and they’re quickly becoming one of our favorite additives. In fact, we used them again to mimic sand in our Stormy Seas Cold Process soap! Finally, we posted a quick vid on how to properly prep colorants for cold process soaping. If you’re new to cold process, it’s a great skill to learn!
Speaking of color, this week’s Facebook Photo of the Week includes plenty of color. The gold top really makes the fuchsia embeds pop!
It’s a very special Facebook Photo of the Week because today we’re celebrating one year of featuring your Facebook photos on the Soap Queen Blog. We’re delighted each week by the dozens of photos we see, and I’m so happy to be surrounded by such creative soapers and crafters. We wanted to take a chance to look back at some of our favorite Photos of the Week and share them with you.
Do you have any favorites from this past year? Be sure to leave a comment below with one that has inspired your soapmaking! If you have missed some of the past photos, you can see them all in the archives here. Scroll on to see 12 months of incredible photos!
Halloween is creeping and crawling closer and closer, and this week we’re focused on creating all kinds of ghoulish crafts. If you need some extra-spooky soapy inspiration, check out our Spooky Eyeball Soap and the SpiderWeb Cold Process Soap. If melt and pour is more your style, you might like our Jack-O-Lantern, Candy Corn or Fall Leaves Project.
In related soapy news, we kicked off this week with a quick primer on how to use our fragrance calculator. You’ll never again have to guess how much to fragrance your holiday-scented goodies! On Thursday, we discussed something all cold process soapers dread: soda ash. Check out the post for tips on how to prevent the ash from forming or strategies to clean it off so your bars look shiny and clean.
Speaking of shiny and clean, this week’s photo is a beautiful milky-white bar of soap with a spooky twist. Read on to learn more about our winner!
This week’s feature is a delightfully spooky set of soaps from LeeAnn, owner of Rowan Tree Bath Works. LeeAnn showed of the new packaging for her line of Bathtime Oddities Soaps, which are a line of macabre-inspired soaps (perfect for the Halloween season!) We just loved the cute mini-bathtubs that were part of her presentation, and thought that the packaging was spot-on. For more inspiration on packaging, check out this #packaging album on our Facebook page. Thank you so much to LeeAnn and all the soapers and crafters who are a part of our amazing soapmaking community. You continue to impress me with your creativity, determination and dedication to the craft. =)
LeeAnn’s Facebook Page: Rowan Tree Bath Works
Post pictures of your soap creations on the Facebook page each week for a chance to be featured on the Soap Queen blog and receive a sweet soapy package from Bramble Berry.
Happy October, everyone! We’ve officially entered the season of pumpkin patches and trick-or-treaters, and we’ve been keeping warm by making batches and batches of soap. Earlier this week, we showed you a rustic Leopard Spot Melt & Pour project, discussed pesky (or awesome, depending on what you’re after!) vanilla discoloration in soaps, and capped off the week by introducing you to the Frog Foot Swirl.
We’ve been busy coming up with tutorials for the holiday season and we can’t wait to share more of them with you in the following weeks. Are you ready to see which soap inspired us this week?
Our Facebook Photo of the Week is a layered soap with a very artistic twist. Patricia, owner of Lathered Pony Soap Company, made a soap she said imitates the “…evening sky when the Montana mountain moon rises.” Using Bramble Berry’s Indian Sandalwood Fragrance Oil and vibrant, deep colors, she definitely pulled off the imagery she was going for. The soap almost looks like an oil painting! She has even made her own versions of the Peacock Swirl, Swirled Hearts and Leopard Spots (see below). Thank you so much for sharing your soapy creations with us, Patricia. Expect a lovely soapy package on your doorstep soon.
For the rest of our fellow soapers, we encourage you to keep posting and sharing your soapy creations with us on Bramble Berry’s Facebook page — we love seeing what you create!
Patricia’s Facebook Page: Lathered Pony Soap Company
Post pictures of your soap creations on the Facebook page each week for a chance to be featured on the Soap Queen blog and receive a sweet soapy package from Bramble Berry.
“I don’t think that there are any limits to how excellent we could make life seem.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything is Illuminated