Oops, sorry for being so absent for so long!  No excuses - I've just not been diligent enough.  I do however have some news.  I'm back to making soap full time and have left my sales position with the magazine.  So now I can focus on growing this business.

I love my retail customers so I will continue to sell retail on a monthly basis here in town plus have my on-line store available.  I am however, going to move more towards the wholesale end of the business since Powell River is such a small community.  It would seem that the universe is with me and I already am getting inquiries from Bed & Breakfasts as well as a nice order from a high end hotel.  The hotel wanted unscented product for the customers who request it.  I shipped the order out yesterday.

I still have hours and hours of organizing to do for the business in the basement suite where I take up 2 rooms and will shortly be taking up a 3rd!

So that's my news and I will try to be better about posting here....

Cheers and I hope you have an amazing day................

Powell River: Where history comes to life

Powell River: Where history comes to life

This is a really great article on the amazing community that I am fortunate enough to live in.....

Cheesecake Cupcake SOAP!!!

 Cheesecake Soap Saga Continues

The next step in the the cream cheese soap saga is the cupcake.  This one has made using olive, coconut & sweet almond oils.  To this I added the cream cheese and scented it with a new fragrant oil I just got that smells like fruit loops cereal so I am calling these cupcakes Loopy Fruit..

This time the "frosting" set up a little harder than I was hoping for and the fragrance had a fair amount of vanilla in it so I have a beige soap.  Of course beige is a natural colour for cakes so I think these will be okay.

Next up ....... beer shampoo!  Stay tuned.....

Taa Daaa - Cherry Cheesecake Soap is in the house.

Cheesecake Soap Label

 I think I might have mentioned that I love this soap?  Maybe at least once, or more?  In case you missed it, I really do love this one.  So much so that I am developing a whole line and I can now introduce to you the label that you will find attached to all of them, whether they be cupcakes or traditional bars.

The soap is much softer than others I have made and it will take the full 4 weeks, if not 6 weeks to cure out.  Next time I make it I will reduce the amount of water in the recipe as well as add beeswax to it or sodium lactate to get a harder bar of soap.

The lather this soap produces is worth the wait though, thick and creamy, just like washing with a lotion.  My next batch will be made up as cupcakes and I already have the ingredients for 2 so I think I'll do Mango Papaya and Fruity Loops.  I will make the icing/frosting of a different recipe so I can get it thick enough, soon enough to put on cupcake.  I am really hoping to be at this tomorrow.

Thank you for joining me in my rambles and see you next time.

Cheers

What a week.....

It has been a week.  Spent it sick with a rotten old cold trying to do two jobs at once, which is never good and then yesterday I decided to get into a fight with my garden turtle - he won. LOL  So limping and coughing today.

The good news is that it is the weekend and I get to make soap.  I'm going to work on some more soap cupcakes as well as cheesecake soaps.  Yup I owe you all some pictures.  Here is one of the cupcake soaps I made last weekend.  Next time I will pour the soap right into these cupcake papers and make the icing just that little bit higher.  Overall I am happy with how they look.

The cheesecake soaps are a success too in that they make the most amazing lather I have yet to experience.  The only problem with them is that they take forever to set up.  So this weekend I am going to combine the two.  Make cheesecake cupcake soaps.  How does that sound?  I got some amazing fragrance today called fruit loops and it smells just like the fruit loops cereal that I loved as a kid, so that will be one fragrance I'll use and then maybe a citrus scented one.  So many choices.

I have confirmed that I will be at The Powell River Blues Festival the first weekend in June.  Now that is going to be fun.  You can learn more about the festival here including the line-up.  If you can come up for the show it will certainly be worth your while.  At least if you love the Blues!

I'm still trying to decide if I am going to do the Renaissance Festival in Langley, BC.  Stay tuned as I make up my mind.  That one is always fun, but a lot of work and a lot of expense.

So next up I should have some pictures for you of the Cherry Cheesecake soap.

Edited to add:

I've been asked for pictures of that notorious turtle who is so incredibly vicious and and strong!

So here they are.... LOL

Bad turtle!

Stepping Outside the Box

A soapmaker friend suggested that cheese might be a really great ingredient in soap.  After all we use all kinds of dairy including yogurt and eggs too, so why not cheese.  Of course I had to jump in with both feet.

I chose to make a cream cheese soap and do it cold processed.  I fragranced it Cherry and am naming the soap Cherry Cheesecake.

This was a really, really interesting experiment and I thought that there was a good chance I would end up with soap on a stick.  I decided  that I would melt the cream cheese along with my coconut oil.  That didn't go so good, it didn't melt!  So now I decided to add the olive oil and stickblend it all together and that was interesting, it looked like rice particles.  Hmmmm, now what.  Deciding that I needed to be ready for anything I prepared my crock pot in case I had to hot process this.

I added colour and lye.  Started blending, it looked like it was going to rice, which means that it is actually separating into different parts with the fats solidifying out of the oils.  Kept mixing, it came together.  Time to add fragrance.  Since it was a fruit scent I expected it to turn into greased lightening so I had my mould ready to go and handy.  Well this is strange - it's not thickening so I keep blending.  20 minutes later it is still not getting thick.  Of course my first thought is that what I thought was lye water wasn't.  I turned off the stick blender and look around to see if I had somehow made a mistake.  Nope I but the lye in just like I'm supposed to.  I decided to let it sit for a minute to see if it would start to move when I wasn't looking after all that happens when I forget to have my moulds ready.  Stubborn thing it still doesn't want to go beyond what we call thin trace.  What that means is everything is emulsified and it is properly mixed, but I usually like to get it to a medium trace which looks like pudding so I can play with the tops.  Back to blending but my poor stick blender is getting a little but warm.  Time to just pour it and hope for the best.  I poured it and had a little bit more that wouldn't fit into the regular log mould.  This is the part I would usually use to creates peaks on top of the soap so I poured it into some rose moulds.

I checked on the soap and it has thickened up nicely so it is going to be just fine.  Very excited to try it, but it will be a couple of days at least before I can cut it. 

I will do a follow-up post when I cut.  These will not b available for sale until the end at the of April.

Cheers

Fleas & Ticks & Your Pets

We are quickly approaching the season where you are going to start having some itchy pets.  So let's talk about what you can do at home to help them, naturally.

Let's start with your cat.  Go see the vet for flea and tick medicine.  A cat's metabolism is so different from any other animal that essential oils build to toxic levels so fast that you go from itchy to very sick to dead in a very short period of time.  Sounds dramatic doesn't it, well unfortunately it is true.  As a clinical aromatherapist one of my pet peeves are the snake oil sellers who are going to try and sell you their natural essential oil cures for your cat.  If you love your cat, run, don't walk, away from that person.  If you use essential oils in your home, make sure your cat can get out of the room and that there is lots of fresh air available to them.

Okay, now that I have the drama out of the way, let's talk about your other pets.  In particular we're going to talk about your dogs and if you horses, they will be addressed by the same treatments.  Horses are bothered more by midges, flies and mosquitoes, but the treatments I'm going to describe for dogs are very effective for the other insects deterrents too. 

First, never, ever use essential oils in their pure form, you must use a carrier oil for these.  If you can get a pure, unscented lotion that isn't full of silicones and a bunch of chemicals then this would be a great vehicle to use to apply your essential oil blend.  If you must, get some water into a spray bottle and add your oils to that.  The problem with this method is that the oils are not mixing with the water so now you are applying drops of pure oil rather something that is cohesive.  So yes, I could go into some self-promotion here, but I'll leave that to my store.  If you do want more information on any discussion, please, feel free to email me.

Now let's move into the essential oils that are going to be the most effective to you in creating something safe to use at home.

Lavender essential oil is the one oil that is a must for any home.  This has to be the hardest working essential oil out there, doing not just double duty but a multiple that I can't come up with.  Read my post on Lavender here to be able to see all the properties.  Lavender is insecticidal as well so it is good to include in your formulae.

Lemongrass essential oil is another great ingredient when you are creating something to protect your fur baby against insects.  This oil is analgesic, anti-depressant, antimicrobial. anti-pyretic, antiseptic, astringent, bactericidal, carminative (helps relieve gas and bloating), deodorant, diuretic (fluid reduction), febrifuge (reduces fever), fungicidal, galactagogue (increases lactating/milk production), insecticidal, nervine or nervous system sedative and tonic.  It is also an insecticidal.

Citronella essential oil goes without saying.  Wonderful insecticidal properties with this one.

Tea Tree essential oil is another good ingredient for this.

Now here is what you need to know, do not ever apply these without being diluted.  Therapeutic levels for an animal is 3%.  You also need to avoid this is you are pregnant or nursing as these oils are not recommend for your use.  Also, please, research each oil so you will know what the contra-indicators are.  You may have health issues that will limit your own exposure to these oils.  Remember, just because it's natural doesn't mean it's safe.  Would you take a roll in Poison Oak or Ivy?  Nope.  Are you going to get honey from a hive without protective clothing?  Not a chance.  These are the things you need to think about.  Treat essential oils with the respect they deserve, they are over the counter drugs and the whole reason we learned to create them was to take medicinal qualities and increase the effectiveness in small quantities.

I hope you found this post helpful and perhaps even thought provoking.  To use these oils on your horse you again are going to follow the same guidelines.  And make sure you do not  get this into their eyes or other mucus membranes....

Cheers