Category Archives: Projects

2011 Central NY Soapmakers Gathering

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On Saturday, July 30th 2011, 30 bath and body company owners from all parts of New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts got together in near the Binghamton area for the annual Central New York (CNY) Bubbles and Blazes Gathering. This all-day gathering held every year at a chosen destination gives owners like me a chance to meet and discuss shop, network and make new friends in the bath and body industry. For me, it was my first time and I was excited months before the date.

We were met by our gracious hostess Maria Gelnett of Soap Studio Brookside and were treated to vendor bags full of great samples from various bath and body suppliers.

We were able to participate in a product swap – which was fabulous! I participated and went home with 17 different bath and body goodies! There was a mixture of different types of soaps, creams, hair products, dream pillows and scrubs just to name a few.

 

CNY Product Swap


In addition, some of us participated in a Yankee swap also. It was actually my first time and it was so much fun. I went home with a brand new crockpot

New Crockpot
 – perfect for making larger batches of hot process soap! Some of the goodies scored included: mud bath kit, gourmet oils, and gift cards to fine restaurants.

Demos shown were: how to make felted soap, the latest craze – column swirling, and making whipped cold process soap.

Everyone participated in a potluck and so we were treated to some amazing cuisine from our colleagues including lavender water which I absolute fell in love with.


Door prizes were awarded to every single attendee. I received a jug of grapeseed oil! I love using that oil in toiletries. And also, raffle for great prizes were awarded to 4 very lucky people. I wasn’t one of them – but next year!

If all that wasn’t heavenly enough all attendees were encouraged to bring soapmaking tools for the garage sale. I scored a few things as I couldn’t pass up the deeply discounted wares.


I made some amazing new friends, reunited with colleagues including my first soapmaking instructor The Handmade Soap Coach who did the demo on whipped cold process soap. Of which I must try of course! and learned a great deal more about the art of making bath and body products.

 

CNY 2011 Gathering


Needless to say I am clearing my calendar already for next year. If you are interested in learning more about the gathering or the group please visit their site Central New York Soapmakers.

Become a member, participate in the discussions, make new friends and learn so much from them.

 

Batch Test: Salt Bars

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I made a batch of salt spa bars via the cold process method. I used a blend of two fragrance oils that really remind me of Apple Jolly Ranchers!

The great thing about these bars is that they bring a “polish” feature to the skin whilst cleaning.

They will take about 4 weeks to dry and should be ready at the end of August. I can’t wait to try and report!

 

 

Salt Bars


Formulating: Lesson I Learned

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One of the things I love to do as a bath & body company owner is the ability to learn how to formulate my own products. Formulating helps not only to know what ingredients I prefer to use but also to perfect my product. Taking accurate notes of the process from beginning to end ensures that I have a record of the ingredients and how much I used. This helps to duplicate future larger batches.

So what lesson did I learn today?  Label your finished product by adding a sticky note with the percentages to cross-reference with the formula. Why? I made a whipped mango body butter for the first time several months ago. I followed the percentages according to my formula, but I realized as you can see from the picture below my body butter didn’t come out exactly as I wanted.



I decided to change my formula but failed to label the two batches. I now had two different formulas but couldn’t remember which formula went with which batch. I won’t be able to make any batch a potential candidate as a “finished” product to sell later on but, I went ahead and added avocado oil to make the body butter softer. I can still use this batch for my own personal use, and this time I labeled my finished batch. Even though I can’t figure out the exact amounts of my ingredients but at least I’ll know what avocado oil will do for my body butter.  And maybe I’ll use it for future batches….to be continued…..



New Test Soap Mold

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My youngest brother who is only 15 years old and is an aspiring carpenter made me the cutest wooden soap mold for me! This is perfect for creating small test batches of soap.This is how I know whether a particular fragrance blends with my soap recipe. From this I can take notes. Whenever I decide to try out a new soap recipe with new additives including new fragrance oils, a small test batch is the perfect solution.  If the soap turns out great then I can create bigger batches for you!

 

Wood Soap Mold


Here it is lined up with parchment paper and ready to go! Thanks Miguel Colon!

Oil Extraction Methods

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Oils are obtained by pressing of the vegetable or fruit. What is extracted and filtered is what many soapmakers use.  The techniques involved are cold process, solvent process, heat process, and refined process.  Each technique produces different grades of oils as some are used differently for different formulations. Let’s look at the different techniques used.

Cold pressing involves pressing and filtering. As the name implies, no heat is used to extract the oil from the seed. The oil that is produced afterwards is called virgin oil and it’s of the best quality and pricier but quantity is minimum compared to the other processes. Such examples are virgin olive oil and virgin coconut oil.

Heat process involves pressing and filtering of the vegetable/fruit with of course the aid of heat. Results of this process produce oils with a slight variation in color, taste or composition.

Solvent process will produce the highest amount of oil extracted. A solvent is mixed in with the solvent and once the solvent has evaporated the batch will produce oils. Although the quantity of oil produced is greater however, actives such antioxidants or extracts are removed in this process. Actives are key ingredients to have in leave-in body products as the skin can greatly benefit from them.

Refining process alters the composition of the oil by means of bleaching, deodorizing. This process removes properties such as color and odor from the oil.

A great example of oil that goes through the process mentioned above is coconut oil.

What Is Melt & Pour Soapmaking

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What is melt and pour?

This is a pre-made soap base made with vegetables oils and solvents. The solvents allow the soap to be re-heated many times. Some bases might contain surfactants which help the soap to lift off dirt from the skin and also increases lather. Melt and Pour soapmaking expands the soapmaker’s creativity to create visually striking effects.  A multitude of transparent to opaque finishes and sometimes both can be created with melt and pour soaps. Another great thing about melt and pour soaps is that they can be used right away.

Why melt and pour soapmaking?

Melt and pour soapmaking is great for the new soapmaker in training. There is no handling of sodium hydroxide (safety is very important when handling this) or calculating percentages of oils, butters, etc. Melt and pour soapmaking is very basic and easy to understand. The real challenge is deciding what colorants and fragrance or essential oils to choose!
SoapQueen.Tv has dedicated a series of videos of melt and pour soapmaking tutorials for easy learning.

A glycerin soap handcrafter can create detailed soaps using molds or creating his/her own. Great glycerin handcrafters such as Debbie Chialtas of Soapylove has created a niche in the soapmaking industry with her amazing creative and talented skills.

Melt & Pour soaps make great gifts as custom soaps. Instead of making a big batch you can make a custom soap using an individual mold. You can select the color and the fragrance and it’s ready to be used the same day.



How to Make Cold Process Soap Lye Safety & Ingredients, Episo

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As promised here’s the latest video from Anne-Marie Faiola from SoapQueen.Tv. Not only have I learned so much from watching Anne-Marie’s videos but I love going back to them time and time again. I always learn something new each time. Sit back, take good notes and enjoy learning!

How to Make Cold Process Soap : Lye Safety & Ingredients, Episode 1 from Soap Queen on Vimeo.

4 Ways To Make Soap

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A few readers have asked me, Rose, how do you make soap? Is it easy? What are the main ingredients in soap.  Is it like cooking?  Here’s a great post to read on the different ways to make soap.

There are generally 4 ways to make soap.

  • Melt & Pour: a pre-made glycerin base and the easiest to make. The name itself implies the process. You “melt” the base and “pour” into a mold. Additives such as oils/butters, colorants, fragrances, etc may be added to your soap base.  Once the soap has cooled in its mold you can unmold and use right away.  This method creates visually striking soaps for the handcrafter.
  • Cold Process:  Mixing vegetable/animal oils and butters with a saponifying agent such as sodium hydroxide, poured into a mold.  The soap “cooks” itself.  The drying time generally takes 6 weeks. This method of soapmaking allows the soapmaker to be in the “Director’s Chair”.  A soapmaker has control of what ingredients go in a batch of cold-process soap. The soapmaker can omit ingredients such as fragrances or any other allergens for those with sensitive skin.
  • Hot Process: This method has the same foundation as cold process soap except that soap is “cooked” before pouring into a mold.
  • Rebatching (Handmilling): Is a pre-made cold process soap that allows the soapmaker to handcraft beautiful soaps without having to touch caustic soda (sodium hydroxide). Choice of fragrance and additives can be added to the soaps.

In the next post I will share the first installment of a video series from Anne-Marie Faiola of SoapQueen.Tv on the process of making Cold Process Soap.

Hot Process Soap

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What is the main difference between hot process and cold process soap?

Hot process soap involves “cooking” the soap before it is placed in a mold. You can “cook” your soap in the oven (OHP), in a crockpot (CPHP), double-boiler (DBHP) and other various ways. I used a crockpot to make my soap.

CrockPot Hot Process

The drying of hot process soaps takes relatively a shorter time; about 2-4 weeks. Letting the soap dry out beyond the 4 weeks makes the soap even milder. Hot process soaps tend to have a textured look and feel, but expert soapmakers have mastered techniques to make their soaps look almost like cold process soaps.

As with scent, fragrance is retained more with this process.

Cold process soap is “cooked” after it is placed in molds. The drying process takes at least 6 weeks and the look and feel of this soap is much more smoother and creamier.

Sncikerdoodle Latte

I scented this batch of hot process soap with Snickerdoodle Latte. I also added ground coffee for mild exfoliation.

Can I get an order of soap um with Heineken©?

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beer soap

 

 

This wonderful soap was created with natural vegetable and plant oils such as olive oil, palm oil, coconut oil and castor oil.  The great thing about making soap is the control you have in your ingredients.  One of the ingredients I was able to incorporate in my recipe was Heineken beer at 50% of my water content.

It’s not intoxicating as you may think! The only benefits from using beer in your soap is that you get more bubbles in your lather as well as the faint aroma of hops.

Nonetheless, isn’t it a novelty to know that you can take a shower with Beer Soap and brag about it?