Great Cakes Soapworks » Getting Started

12 Days of Christmas Deals – Day Four

Amy Warden — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 14:00:07 +0000

This is the first time the Dead Sea Spa Bars have been on sale like this!

Today Only: get the Original Dead Sea Spa or Facial Bar for just $4.50 each!

Dead Sea Spa Bars by Great Cakes Soapworks

These soaps are specially formulated to cleanse and purify your skin. The Original scent blend is lemon, grapefruit, patchouli and tea tree. It has an overall earthy scent, and makes a great body or facial bar. The Facial Bar is scented with essential oils that are known to be excellent for the face: rosewood, geranium and ylang ylang.

Rosewood has antibacterial properties and is known to maintain the skin’s oil balance and elasticity. The scent is fresh, somewhat flowery, and woodsy. Geranium also has antibacterial properties, and facilitates blood circulation just under the skin which can help reduce scarring and evenly distribute melanin (skin pigment or color). Although there is just a small amount of ylang ylang in the blend, it may assist the rosewood in maintaining the skin’s oil balance. The soap base is the same for both bars – the only difference is in the essential oils added.

Click Here to Buy Dead Sea Spa Bars

Whipped Shea Butter Winner Announced

Amy Warden — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 14:32:33 +0000

Thanks to Kari at Mothering My Miracle Multiples for hosting the Vanilla Hazelnut Whipped Shea Butter giveaway! She has picked a winner (or rather the winner was picked by random.org), and it’s Kirsten from Blonde Ambitions!! She was the 26th (and final) entry, which just goes to show that it’s never too late to win. You can still get your own jar of Whipped Shea Butter for just $4.00 and the cost of first class mail. After the rave review by Kari, I’m sure it must be worth much more than I’m charging! Thanks to everyone who entered and spread the word about the giveaway. I thought it was a huge success! Stay tuned for next week’s giveaway at mommie blogs. It will begin on Monday!

Experimenting with Facial Masks

Amy Warden — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 16:55:05 +0000

Ever since I saw the post about a Champagne Facial Mask on Anne-Marie’s blog, I’ve been thinking about how to adapt it so that anyone could make it with ingredients from the grocery store. You see, the recipe calls for rhassoul or bentonite clay – commodities that people who don’t make their own bath and body products generally don’t have. So this morning I did some experimenting with baking soda vs. french green clay (which I happen to have). The results surprised me! Now, I don’t have any champagne, so just for the sake of experimenting I subbed some Diet Twist Up. Whatever works, right? Here’s what I tried:
3 parts baking soda
1 part Diet Twist Up
1 part heavy cream

It was really runny – even with more powder than liquid, but I smeared some on my right cheek. It felt really cool and soothing.

For the second experiment, I used the french green clay and started with the same ratios as the baking soda, but realized quickly that the clay was going to absorb a lot more liquid. So I ended up with equal parts of french green clay, Diet Twist Up and heavy cream which created a stiff, spreadable consistency. I understood the need for clay! Usually french green clay is recommended for acne treatments and oily skin, so I was expecting a drying effect. I spread some on my left cheek, and it felt cool and soothing too.

Here’s where I was surprised: when I rinsed off both masks, the baking soda mask actually felt more drying than the clay mask. In fact, the clay mask ended up being moisturizing! It felt really great on my skin!

Avocado Facial Mask - Just Do It!

All this to say that I couldn’t come up with a great facial mask recipe made from champagne and other ingredients you can buy at the grocery store. However, you can’t forget about the avocado mask!

Chocolate Strawberry Soap

Amy Warden — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 15:30:44 +0000

Chocolate Strawberry Soap

The Chocolate Strawberry soap has been available at Greatcakessoapworks.com for three days. I’m not quite sure how I forgot to announce it earlier! Over half are sold already, so if you want some, better act quick! It’s everything you would hope for in a chocolate strawberry soap! Loads of rich, chocolate icing made with real cocoa on top of a sweet, luscious strawberry cake. Perfect for that special someone, or pamper yourself with this indulgent, yet no calorie treat! Just $5.95, and they are oversized at 4.5 to 5 ounces each.

Ann O. of Overland Park says,

“I just picked up mine today! It looks and smells sooo good! Great job, Amy!”

Country Clothesline Soap is Coming Back!

Amy Warden — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 01:35:28 +0000

Country Clothesline Soap

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from the Giveaway going on at the Red Clay Diaries (winners to be announced tomorrow!), it’s time to bring back the Country Clothesline soap! One of my faithful customers has been waiting ever so patiently for it. It’s her favorite! Now there are people who haven’t even tried my products before declaring it as their favorites too. Here are some of the comments from the Giveaway:

My favorite is the Country Clothesline Handmade Natural Soap even though it’s out of stock. -Carolyn G.

Oh that Country Clothesline soap must be to die for, it was sold out and as soon as I saw the name I figured I would love it as I remember the days when my momma used to hang our clothes out to dry and the smell when you laid down on those sheets was wonderful. -Mary

Now the Country Clothesline scent that I used before smelled more like laundry detergent. I have a new fragrance that really does smell like lined dried linens. I think I’ll get started on it tomorrow.

Taking Inventory

Amy Warden — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 20:20:22 +0000

Inventory Sheet

Every year, I endeavor to update my inventory of ingredients, containers, and finished products. *yawn* Unfortunately, in the six (or is it seven?) years since I started making soap, I have acquired way too much inventory. Such as the unopened container of BTMS (Behentrimonium Methosulfate) which I bought to make hair conditioner at least a year ago and still mean to try it. Or all the ingredients for cream soap – extracts and additives….or even the expensive anti-aging ingredients for facial moisturizer that didn’t end up being very user friendly. Even though I try to keep track of the ingredients I’ve used in my notebook, I’m not always very good at transferring these numbers to the inventory sheet. Let’s just say that it has been many months (September???) since I have updated some of these, so I’m feeling a bit buried in paperwork right now.

Some days I think I ought to purge everything out and just make soap. Soapmaking is still my passion. The other stuff is great once it’s done, but it’s not nearly as fun to make as soap. There’s something about choosing just the right ingredients, having a picture in your mind’s eye of how it’s going to turn out, and then that little bit of suspense as the soap sets up overnight before the final reveal.

In reality, I don’t think I can give up some of those other products. The Jojoba-Shea Lotion really does work so much better than what you get in the store, and now that my Lip Butter recipe has finally been perfected, I’m really happy with the results! So I guess the lesson to be learned here is just to make sure I keep on top of my inventory a bit better this year. Anyone want to volunteer for the job?

Holiday Highlights

Amy Warden — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 02:15:23 +0000

Family times were good for the Warden’s. We spent some quality time with both sides, eating more than our share of holiday goodies, playing games, and just talking. Here are some of the highlights from our holiday break in chronological order:

1. My father-in-law in really good spirits – teasing the girls and making jokes.

My Father-in-Law

I wrote previously about the book I bought for my father-in-law for Christmas and the health issues he faces. There have been times when he’s been fatigued, or even downright depressed, so it was really great to see his personality back – even if his body is still weak.

2. My dad’s white beard!

My Santa Dad

My dad hasn’t had a beard since I was little! My mom made some comment about wondering what color his beard might be, and the next thing she knew, he quit shaving. While thankfully his physique doesn’t even come close to Santa’s, the beard was definitely a conversation piece this year.

3. My adorable twin nephews – and my cousin is pretty cute too.

Twin nephews - 20 mos.

My nephews are 20 months old now, and starting to say real words!! They’ll snuggle up to anyone who will read to them, and I even got a short video of one of them doing the motions to the little teapot song. Too cute!

4. Playing Kubb

My brother and hubby

This is a Swedish game that my parents picked up from some friends. We all have a Swedish heritage, so I guess that gives it more appeal. The guys enjoy throwing the stick to knock down the posts, and even my girls gave it a go. My dad is a woodworker by trade, so he crafted all the posts and sticks.

5. Visiting my grandma

My grandma and older daughter

Grandma still lives out on the farm in northwest Kansas. All my aunts, uncles and cousins on my mom’s side gathered at her house for several meals and, of course, to open presents. My girls loved the kitties. They are semi-tame, so we were able to catch at least one of them – especially when Grandma came out to feed them.

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year! I pray you receive many blessings in 2009!

Peppermint Soap Back in Stock!

Amy Warden — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 22:25:11 +0000

Peppermint Soap by Great Cakes Soapworks

Just a quick note to let you know that Peppermint Soap is back in stock. Get yours while it lasts! Just 14 available!

Last Call for Christmas Cookie Recipes!

Amy Warden — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 15:50:04 +0000

As of this moment, there are five people who have submitted their best Christmas cookie recipe to enter the contest to win four soaps from Great Cakes Soapworks. If no one else enters, these five will automatically win!! I know there are more people out there who would like to win some free soap. So get out your recipe book, and comment on this post for your chance to win by the end of the day tomorrow (Saturday)!! On Monday, there will be a poll, because I am confident that others will enter. Get your friends to vote for you!! It will be fun!!! And you could win some free soap – even Peppermint soap!

The Fruit of My Labor

Amy Warden — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 01:22:33 +0000

So are you curious about how I got through my plan to take care of my crazy mess? I finished labeling the soaps that I needed yesterday morning. I even got one of the lotion scents bottled before lunch. After taking my youngest to kindergarten, I had the house to myself and worked on bottling the rest of the lotions. Making labels for the new lotions proved to take the longest. I finally had all the labels printed before dinner. After dinner the girls & I watched “Nim’s Island” while I cut apart the labels and applied them to the bottles. I had a total of 138 labels to cut & apply since I use two per bottle (front & back). I finished this around 9:00pm. Then I had to get all the soaps into my baskets and everything ready to load in my van. About this time I discovered that three out of five of the stands my husband made to support my soap baskets were damaged in the garage. So about 9:40pm, my sweet husband started fixing them for me – with glue and screws this time. I finally fell into bed at 10:36pm. The good news: I sold a lot of soap & lotions at the market today!! Next Saturday I’ll be at the Overland Park Fall Festival. I’ve already made my list of things to do for this week…