Lip Butters

Pina Colada – 11/26/11
Butterscotch – 11/26/11
Nourishing – 11/26/11
Root Beer – 12/1/11

If you happen to have a lip butter from one of these batches and you would like to trade it in for a new one, I will be happy to make that substitution. Or just send me an email and we’ll work it out. If you are ok with your grainy lip butter, then I’m ok with you keeping it. It’s not going to affect the way it moisturizes; it’s simply a texture issue. However, if you’re like me, it will bother you and I will gladly replace it for you!

In the meantime, I’ve taken the rest of these off the website, ordered more of the GOOD shea butter, and will be making new batches as soon as it arrives!

Today, my friend Cynthie came over and spent the day helping me make videos. I made two different soaps, plus some Valentines bubble bath in the same fragrance as the South Seas Siren soap. Lots of footage to go through and edit, so there are three more things to look forward to!

Hope you are all having a great week! I’d love to hear about your projects as well!

Copy of the receipt from the American Red Cross

You guys are incredible, and I pray that God blesses each and every one of you for allowing Him to use you to benefit His people who are recovering in Texas from the wildfires. As of today, the fires have been contained, but not all the flames are completely extinguished. People are returning to evacuated areas, but not everyone has power. There is still much work to be done! My prayers go out to all who have been affected by this disaster. If anyone else would like to donate directly to the American Red Cross of Central Texas, you can do that here.

Since that first soap, I’ve heard of all sorts of lovely blends – especially since I asked my Facebook folks yesterday what they would blend with anise. Everything from mint to citrus to fennel to other spices. I gathered up these responses and created a free survey in SurveyMonkey, then sent it to all my Preferred Customers via MailChimp (yet another great service they offer!). And since this is a new integration for them, MailChimp surprised me with a free t-shirt just for trying it out!

So far the top response from the survey is anise + other spices. FYI, the second highest response is “anise stinks, and I don’t want any soap that has anise in it…” Note to self: Do not make a double batch of anise soap.
Some people did say that they might like it in a blend, however. So, I’ve been busy in the blending lab today, trying out virtually every suggestion for an anise blend. If you are new to blending, there are just a few basic things you need to know. This is how I do it – others may do it differently. First, I gather all the bottles of essential oils that I think I might want to use. Then I cut up paper towels into fourths, grab a pen and some disposable pipettes and get to work!

Each drop of essential oil becomes a “part” of the blend. So if I use 3 drops of anise to 2 drops of clove, that can translate into 3 ounces of anise and 2 ounces of clove. Except that would be way too much for one of my regular batches of soap, so I would probably use 1.5 ounces of anise and 1 ounce of clove instead. Always write down what you did! Here are my paper towels all laid out:

Anise essential oil blends - brown dots are from cocoa and vanilla absolutes. I didn't care for those blends much.

Out of the spicy blends, my personal favorites were these three blends:

#1: 3 parts orange, 2 parts anise, 1 part clove, #2: 2 parts anise, 1 part cinnamon, 1 part allspice, #3: 2 parts cinnamon, 1 part ginger, 2 parts anise - peppernuts, anyone?

I like the idea of a peppernut blend. Many people are familiar with peppernuts. I’m just not a big fan of my ginger essential oil. It has an earthy quality that just doesn’t smell quite right. I might be able to add a bit of clove or allspice to help it out… Any peppernut fans out there? Or anyone else want to take my quick survey?

As you can see, about half of the people who read my blog are reading it via email (the other “half or so” are using Google Reader):

Feedburner Stats for Great Cakes Soapworks blog

Long story short, the reason my posts look different (hopefully better!) for my email subscribers is that I’ve moved all the active email subscriptions from Feedburner into MailChimp. The best part is that you can now click over to the live blog to comment! And oh, how I hope you will! Let me know how you like the new format, please! (You can still reply to the email as well if you prefer.)

And if you haven’t subscribed – either via RSS feed or email, what are you waiting for?

Ruth of Sirona Springs wrote:

I use water almost exclusively with my oxides and UMs, and then only about a teaspoon. Most of the ones I use work just fine. It’s worth trying each colorant in water just to see. Only one or two really need oil, and then I use some of my oils before adding the lye.

I asked Ruth if there were certain oxides that had to be dispersed in oil, or if it varies by supplier. Her response was that it must depend on the source because she has heard of different people having different experiences.

So tonight, I decided to try it. I’m starting the sunflower soap in the PVC pipe, so I needed some yellow and brown oxides. First, I added a small amount of water to the yellow:

Water added to yellow oxide, then swirled around - no stirring

The yellow definitely seems to disperse in water, although it did settle to the bottom after awhile. Here’s the brown:

Brown oxide and water - looks like dirt!

The brown oxide didn’t want to have anything to do with the water! I dumped it out and mixed more brown oxide with a tiny bit of the oils out of my recipe, and it worked much better.

So there you have it! Some oxides will disperse in water, and some won’t. And you won’t know which are which until you try.

So which method is the BEST method? I’ve attempted all of these, and no matter which one I’ve tried, if I am adding water, glycerin or oil to my soap recipe, it can alter the final soap. Add extra water and the soap can be sticky coming out of the mold. Add extra glycerin and the soap may never fully harden. Add extra oils and you may have the same problem – extra superfatting which can make the soap too soft.

The best solution I’ve come up with (whenever possible), is to use part of the oils from the soap recipe so that I’m not adding extra oils. This works very well with micas, pigments, oxides, and powdered herbs. The only downside to mixing soap colorants with oil is the clean-up. You have to use plenty of soap to wash up your containers, unless you are using something disposable.

What if the colorant is water-soluble? Most of the water-soluble colorants really don’t require that much water to disperse them. Especially the FD&C colors – a little goes a LONG way! Water-soluble titanium dioxide can be added to the lye water (I like to add it after the lye has heated up) to lighten an entire batch without adding any extra liquid. Even if I am only adding titanium dioxide to part of a batch, it doesn’t take more than a few tablespoons of water to dissolve it. Even clays and activated charcoal can be dispersed in water. The only time I had issues with sticky soap was when I tried to add water to micas because it took a lot more water than other colorants.

I used to LOVE using glycerin with micas and oxides because it was so easy to clean up afterwards. No soap required! That was before I ended up with a soft soap. I couldn’t figure out why it was taking so long for the Caribbean Diva soap to cure, compared to the Tahitian Vanilla. I had made them the same week! Until I remembered how much glycerin I had to use to disperse the orange mica in the Diva soap. It did eventually get hard enough to sell, and thankfully its size makes up for the fact that it’s a little bit softer than my other soaps, but I won’t make that mistake again.

Caribbean Diva Soap (5 oz.) vs. Tahitian Vanilla soap (4 oz.)

I’d love to hear about others’ experiences and preferences!

Follow-up post on the subject is found here.

All the SOAP Panel fragrances in cold-processed soap

Then I made a set of lotions to give away to one of my local customers for participating in a survey. I couldn’t wait to give them away, however, so I named them the best I could…

#1 I called “Buttercream Orange”
Actual name: Orange Cream Cupcake (woo hoo – so close!)

#2 I called “Lemon Verbena”
Actual name: Ginger Verbena (another close one!)

#3 I called “Mango Smoothie”
Actual name: Southern Peach (not bad…this one is actually for sale now!)

#4 I called “Pomegranate”
Actual name: “Tropical Punch” (eh. wasn’t too close on this one, but it’s also for sale!)

#5 I called “Garden Path”
Actual name: Exotic Fruit Smoothie (what??? how did I miss that? also for sale…)

#6 I called “Country Cottage” (I had no idea, obviously!)
Actual name: Caramel Vanilla

#7 I called “Caramel Coffee”
Actual name: MAPLE SYRUP! (I was truly surprised!)

#8 I called “Green Apple” (I’m telling you, when I compared it to a green apple fragrance that I already had, they smelled very similar!)
Actual name: Poppy Fields

So there were a few curve balls thrown in, but what a fun experience! Brambleberry will be announcing the chosen participants for their Fall/Winter Team on Wednesday! I decided to pass this time around, but I would definitely do this again. Did any of you guys apply?

Then I had to get ready for the farmer’s market on Saturday. It rained/sprinkled off and on all morning at the market. Fortunately I had just gotten my tent up when the first shower came through. It ended up being a decent selling day, despite the weather. The Soap of the Week is Banana Honey, and there are 7 left. I’ve been using one of the end pieces on my face this past week, and it feels really smooth and slippery. Not sure if it’s from the aloe vera juice that I used for the liquid, or from the banana, but the lather is super creamy and I love it! Even though I’m not a huge fan of using synthetic fragrance on my face…

Banana Honey Soap by Great Cakes Soapworks

Now I’m getting ready to help out with a short youth retreat at our church. It starts tonight, and ends Tuesday afternoon, so hopefully I will be back on Wednesday with photos of the Pumpkin Pie soap. After that, it will be a mad dash to get ready for school to start on the 17th. I think the girls are ready. I know I’m ready to get back to a regular routine!

Is everyone else feeling the rush right now too, or is it just me?