It's Been Awhile...

Wow. I'm rather disappointed with myself. I just decided to hop on over here and write a little something cause it's been a few months...and I realize it's been A YEAR and a few months!! How did I let that happen??? So, I'll do an update post on what's been happening in the past year.


I had another baby!! And it's been so long that he's no even a baby anymore. He turned one in March!

Added some new products to the website:

And we're moving to Kentucky this summer!

This one was a big surprise for all of us. My husband was offered a new job and we decided it would be a good move for us. Which is one of the reasons I've been a little behind on things lately. Getting ready to sell a house and move 10 hours away with 3 children is a lot more work than you'd think it would be. My soap room has been turned back into a bedroom for showing purposes:

But I'm still working! I just have to keep pulling out my folding table and cleaning everything up immediately after I'm finished. All of my products are hiding behind those mirrored doors in that closet there. I'm keeping my inventory to a minimum right now so I don't have to move too much but I'd go crazy if I had to stop completely!

The move is already only about a month away! Which means I probably won't be posting again for awhile but I promise I'll show you my new place in Kentucky as soon as we find one. I'm looking for one with a good soaping room!

DIY Cocoa Bomb Bath Bomb Kit

Who wants to make bath bombs? This great kit from SupplyEmporium gives you all you need to make luxurious, moisturizing bath bombs in your own home!

Following is a step by step, picture tutorial of how to make these. Please note, I've never made bath bombs before so even though I'm an experienced bath and body maker, this process was completely new to me. My point? You don't need to have experience in order to do this!

Here's what the kit comes with:
2 bags of dry ingredients (marked "1" and "3")
1 bottle wet ingredients (marked "2")
1 bottle fragrance oil (fragrance specified upon ordering)
1 bag fair-trade unrefined cocoa butter
1 pipette
1 60mm round bath bomb mold
1 80mm round bath bomb mold

You will also need:
1 large glass bowl
1 small glass bowl
whisk or other stirring implement
gloves (recommended)
eye protection (recommended)




Let's begin!
Step 1:
Add contents of bag "1" to a glass bowl. I used a large Pyrex measuring cup for this.



Step 2:
If you decided to grate the cocoa butter, add it to the large bowl with the dry ingredients. (You can either grate the cocoa butter or melt it. I chose to melt it so you'll see me add it later)

Step 3:
Add any other dry ingredients such as micas, flower petals, dried spices, etc. I added some purple amethyst mica:

Step 4:
Mix dry ingredients until well incorporated.

Step 5:
Pour half the liquid (or 1oz by weight) of bottle "2" into a small bowl.

Step 6:
Add desired amount of fragrance to the liquid. (I used .5oz)

Step 7:
If you're using a liquid colorant, or if you melted the cocoa butter, add it now. Here's a pic of my pre-melted cocoa butter:



Step 8:
Mix the liquids.

Step 9:
Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Add slowly in small amounts and incorporate thoroughly. You should have a barely damp consistency after adding. (I recommend using a spoon instead of a whisk for this part. My mixture kept clumping in the whisk so a spoon made it a lot easier)

Step 10:
Add the ingredients from bag "3". You may need to sift the clumps out. Add slowly and mix thoroughly.
You can see there were some clumps in mine so I just broke them up with my fingers.

Step 11:
At this point, you want to get the consistency to exactly where you want it. It should clump and hold when pressed but not be too wet or show signs of reactivity (fizzing or expansion). If too dry, add drops of liquid from bottle "2" with the pipette.

Mine was perfect without needing any extra liquid!



Step 12:
Pack into the molds and gently release them and place on a tray to dry. With the round molds, it is suggested to pack each hemisphere tightly then dump a generous amount in the middle and press together.

A picture of a filled mold:

This is a picture of the smaller mold. For some reason, this one didn't want to cooperate with me so I dumped it out and proceeded with the larger mold instead. The large one didn't give me any problems.

Let the bath bombs dry fully (2-3 days) and store in an airtight container.

My finished bath bombs. Obviously, practice makes perfect. My third one (top right) looks the best out of them all.

I was able to get 3 large and half a small bath bomb out of this kit. The large bombs weigh between 8-10oz each.

Now for the fun part! Testing!
The bath bombs developed some cracks during their 3 days of drying but they were solid as a rock. They also lost some weight, which I expected due to the moisture drying out of them.

Here's a pic of the bath bomb in the tub:

Of course, no testing is complete without actual human testing! So, for the sake of this blog post (poor me, I know) I had to take a nice long bath with it:) The result? I love it! The scent was just perfect. Enough to smell good but not overpowering. It remained on my skin after I was done. The cocoa butter...Oh my gosh! I didn't even need to use lotion after my bath. I give this kit 2 thumbs up!

Here's a video of the bath bomb in action. Listen to that fizz!



Are you ready to buy a kit yet?
Here's where you can get them:
www.SaharasSupplies.etsy.com
www.supplyemporium.com

And be sure to follow them on Facebook:
www.facebook.com/SaharasSupplies?ref=hl
www.facebook.com/SupplyEmporium?ref=hl

If you make these, be sure to come back and leave a comment!

Studio Tour

Every January I completely redo my workroom. I get rid of everything that I don't need anymore and reorganize everything that I do. While it's clean (this won't last long, trust me) I thought you all might like to see what my room looks like.

My new door shelf to hold my fragrances:

One of my worktables and new curtains I made: (Made with two $5 bed sheets from Walmart. I even had enough left over to make curtains for the window!)

Random crafting and shipping supplies: (see the window curtains?)

Soap curing racks and storage cabinet: (those shelves need to be restocked!)

Wanna see what the curtains are hiding? Random supplies:

And another messy worktable!

I hope you enjoyed the tour! I'd love to see your workrooms if you're willing to share! Post a link in the comments.

Let the Games Begin!

Guess what?! On New Year's Eve I hit 2500 sales in my Etsy shop!!

As promised, that means a game and contest!! Here's what we're gonna do. I've hidden the image below in one of my Etsy listings. You find the picture and message me through Facebook or Etsy, telling me where you found it. In addition, comment "found it!" HERE on my Facebook page. Please do NOT leave a comment with where you found it. You don't want to give away the answer!

The contest will end on January 17, 2014. Everyone who messaged me with the correct answer will be entered into a drawing to win a $20 gift certificate to my shop! The lucky winner will be notified on January 18, 2014.

Good luck everyone!

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?