We're adopting orangutans!

As most of you know, I use palm oil in my soaps. There is some concern about the safety of the orangutans in harvesting this product. This is why all my palm oil is from a sustainable source.

In an effort to help these animals a little more, starting January 1, 2014, 10% of all soap sales will be dedicated to helping these beautiful creatures. I'm researching different organizations but I think I found the one I want to go with. I'll be sure to update you all with adoption certificates, pictures, and any other news as I receive it!

Finally Slowing Down

Craft show season is officially over for me!

(Sorry for the blurry pic. It was taken with my ipod)

Saturday was my last year. I have a love/hate relationship with craft shows. I love meeting customers in person. I love hearing feedback firsthand. I love selling lots and lots of items in one day! But...I hate getting up at 6am, loading everything into my truck and having to set it all up, just to take it all back down 6 hours later and lug it all home again. Shows make me want to start up an actual store. Then I can leave all my products set up all day and never have to take them down again and move them somewhere else. But then I remember that I have an 18 month old and another on the way and think "how the heck could I run a store?!

Oh, did you hear the good news? IT'S A BOY!! He's due sometime between March 28 and April 1. We're so excited!

So, now that the busy season is over it's time for me to start slowing down a bit and enjoying the holiday (and my pregnancy). I still need to do a lot of restocking and getting ready for the baby to be born but I can do that slowly over the next few months. It's also about time for my annual craft room overhaul. This time of year my room becomes a disaster area and I reorganize the entire thing after the season is over. It's gonna look good this year! I have some great ideas and I'll post them as I get it done.

Happy Holidays everyone!

New products! Finally!

With the holidays coming and craft show season having already begun, I figured it's about time I roll out some new products! 

Gift Sets!

These sets contain a bar of soap, solid lotion stick, solid perfume, and soy wax melt. They currently come in 5 scents: Sandalwood Vanilla, Brown Sugar Vanilla, Sugar Dust, Jasmine, and Raspberry.

Soy Wax Melts!
These are made to add an amazing fragrance to your home by melting in your wax warmers. They are made with soy wax which burns clean and cleans up with soap and water. They currently come in 15 different scents.

Penguins!
These cuties will waddle right into your hearts. They are wintergreen scented glycerin soap. The perfect scent to wake you up in the morning!

Be sure to keep checking my shop for new items. I have some great ideas for the new year!

2013 Craft Show List

Locals, it's that time of year again! You get the chance to come see and smell all of my products in person instead of trying to guess what they smell like by looking at them on the computer. (Still waiting for smell-o-vision to be invented) Here's the list of shows I've been approved for so far. There may be one or two more added to the list later on.

September 28th 11am-3pm
Church of the Holy Cross
2455 Gallows Road
Dunn Loring, VA 22027

October 26th 9am-2pm
Colonial Forge High School
550 Courthouse Road
Stafford, VA 22554

November 2nd 10am-4pm
Thomas Edison High School
5801 Franconia Road
Alexandria, VA 22310

November 9th 9am-3pm
Centreville United Methodist Church
6400 Old Centreville Road
Centreville, VA 20121

November 16th 10am-4pm
T.C. Williams High School
3330 King Street
Alexandria, VA 22302

December 14th 9am-3pm (application pending)
Gar-Field High School
14000 Smoketown Road
Woodbridge, VA 22193

Inspired

I'm not a good writer. Most of you can already tell this by the lack of posts on this blog. I mean, it's been about 6 months since I posted last! Today, however, I was inspired to write. I wrote a letter to the editor of Women's Health Magazine.

Why?

Because of this:

This is an article that was published in the July/August issue of their magazine. After reading this I was completely horrified! Detergents are better than natural ingredients?? Bar soaps are drying?? Sodium Hydroxide is a *bad* thing?? Here's my response:

Dear Beauty Editor:

A friend recently emailed me a copy of the enclosed article from page 50 of the July/August issue and I was completely appalled by these horrifying claims!

I began formulating my own soap 7 years ago due to the synthetic detergents in most commercial soaps. Not only are these detergents drying, but most soap companies remove the glycerin (a natural moisturizing byproduct of the soapmaking process) from their soap and sell it for use in lotions which are more profitable. Sodium Hydroxide is not a detergent, but a chemical used to turn moisturizing oils, such as olive and coconut, into soap. Without an alkali such as sodium hydroxide it is not possible to make soap. It even explains this in the very definition of the word “soap” in the dictionary.

To address her statement that bar soaps are more drying than liquid because they are made with the chemical sodium hydroxide, I just want to say that liquid soap is also made with a chemical. It’s called potassium hydroxide. Neither ingredient causes dryness.

The second thing that shocks me is that she puts down sodium hydroxide but recommends a product that uses that very ingredient. Kiss My Face Olive Oil soap has “sodium olivate” right in the ingredient list. Sodium olivate is the INCI name for olive oil that has been saponified using sodium hydroxide. There are two ways that soapmakers are allowed to list their ingredients. One is by listing what goes into it: olive oil, sodium hydroxide, etc. The other is to list what the result is: sodium olivate. Just because sodium hydroxide isn’t listed, doesn’t mean it was not used.

Please, please, properly educate your readers. As the owner of a bath and body company it simply breaks my heart to read such false information.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I understand that you may think my view is biased so please look this information up for yourself. I would love to hear your opinions once you do.

Sincerely,

 

 

I can only hope that she'll take the time to look into this herself. Even if she doesn't write anything stating that this article was incorrect, at least she'll be informed for the future.

DIY Soap Mold Dividers?

I received some new molds as a birthday gift and I've been wanting to get some dividers for them. Since nobody sells dividers the size that I need I'll have to have them custom made which I imagine will be pricey. So what does any crafter on a budget do? Try to make them myself!

I've been looking for a good material to use and couldn't find anything to my liking. While browsing at Lowe's the other day my husband came across this No Parking sign. I would never have thought to use this! Perfect thin plastic material. Easy to cut, yet sturdy enough to hold it's shape. The best part...only $5! So I bought it and decided to give it a try.

First i measured my mold and drew lines where I would need to cut. I cut the strips with a good, sharp pair of scissors.

After cutting the strips I marked where the strips would interlock. Here I had to cut halfway and make the slits wide enough so the other strip would fit smoothly.

Then I put them all together to see if they fit. As you can see, some spots needed some more trimming.

After I finally got them pieced together properly I made sure they fit in my mold, remembering to allow some space for my mold liner. Looking good!

Now for the real test. Do they actually work? I whipped up a batch of soap to test them out. They fit in smoothly and everything looked good. I decided to do a basic CP batch instead of CPOP. That way if something went wrong I would know if it was the dividers themselves or if the oven affected them.

Here's where I find out if they really worked. Unmolding day! Most bars came out smoothly. 2 of them stuck in one little spot but aside from that I had nice clean lines. What I feared would happen though, did happen. Some of the lettering from the sign transferred onto the soap:( If it wasn't for this it would have been a success.

Does anyone know where to get this type of plastic material that wouldn't have any writing on it?

A Year of Chocolate

I love to bake. I love chocolate. When I saw the year of chocolate desserts in this month's issue of EveryDay with Rachael Ray, I didn't even have to think twice about making them.

January's recipe is One-Bowl Mocha Cake. The recipe can be found here. I did make a few slight modifications to the recipe. I was trying to use what I had on hand instead of running out to the store and I didn't have any unsalted butter. Instead I used salted butter and eliminated the salt from the recipe. The only coffee I had in the house was vanilla biscotti flavored. I thought I had mini semisweet chocolate chips but it turned out I used them for something else recently and I forgot. My husband just so happened to be going to the store for something so I asked him to grab some. If I get too detailed with him he just tells me to get it myself so I asked for chocolate chips and figured I'd work with whatever he got. He brought home regular sized milk chocolate chips.

I don't know how different it would have tasted if I followed the recipe exactly but it turned out delicious! It's kind of like a big fudgy brownie. I had some yesterday right after it came out of the oven and another piece this morning. I honestly can't decide if I like it better warm or cool. I'll have to warm up another piece later to try to figure it out:)

Next month's recipe: Cran-Raspberry Truffles. Can't wait!

DIY Dry Erase Board

Here's a cute idea for your office, kitchen, craft room, etc. I made this with supplies I already had around the house.

You'll need:

Picture frame (I used an 8x10)
Scrapbook paper cut to fit your frame
Ribbon
Thumbtacks
Paint (optional)

If you're going to paint your frame do that first. I chose to paint mine a light green to go with the paper I chose. Allow the paint to dry. Cut the ribbon to the size you need for hanging and holding a marker. Attach to the back of the frame with thumbtacks. Insert scrapbook paper. The glass works as a dry erase board. Now you have a cute memo board!