Soap Advisor

The batches I made yesterday are doing great!  They are still foamy and haven’t shrunk at all.  There appears to be no color bleeding at all so far.

I made my 2nd formulation to improve lather.  It didn’t improve it all that much unfortunately.  I was looking for oodles of lather and got good lather still.

I thickened up the 2nd formulation and it looked fabulous!  Nice and thick before whipping.

Then I had this brilliant idea.  I’ll add some citric acid to lower the ph and finally we’ll all have a low ph soap!

Ut-oh.  It totally turned it to soup.  Apparently, if you thicken something with sodium cloride then you cannot stay thick when adding citric acid?  Who knew?  Everyone but me, apparently.  At least that is what I think is the conflict.  Could be something else, I dunno.  No more lowering the ph in this stuff regardless.

Now my way cool batch of whip soap is dish soap.

Sigh.

Gotta start over.

It is much stiffer now

Okay, I’m making some progress.

I got it to stiffen up some and I think this might work.  But I think my customers are going to want a lot more bubbles.  People just love oodles of lather.  This has just a nice lather.

I am re-writing the formula and changing out the detergent additives to another one to get oodles in the lather dept.

I still don’t see any signs of color bleeds.  Cool.  Really bleeding happens over a couple of days, so we’ll see on that.  So far, so good, though.

A New Parfait

Soap Whip Experiment

I’m playing around in the lab today trying to come up with one of those Soap Whip soap bases I’ve been hearing about.

I look forward to days like this, just playing around like I’m an actual chemist or something, which I’m not!

So far I’ve got a soap that whips and has a nice, thick lather but not bunches of bubbles.  It is really moisturizing on the skin, doesn’t leave you dry feeling at all.

I’m afraid it needs to be thicker and more stiff though.  I don’t think my whipped soap is going to stay whipped.  I’d like to see it a lot stiffer after whipping.  I think I’m going to have to tinker some more.

I’d hate to cut back on the Shea Butter I put into it.  We’ll see what I can do.

I’m testing it to see if our liquid colorants will bleed into each other if you layer it.

I have had only one disaster so far.  The mixer fell into the huge pot I’m using and it got soaked in foamy soap.  I dunno if it is going to be the same….

A Soap Whip Parfait

Lip Balms

Lip Balm addiction.  So where do you stand on the issue?

One of my favorite sites to visit is Lip Balm Anonymous which is dedicated to spreading the strength and hope that you too can quit lip balm.  It cracks me up.  But then, I am pusher.  I sell everything you need to keep the costs down for you and your lip balm junkie friends.

We sell flavors, bee’s wax, the empty tubes, shea butter, almond oil, and all sorts of goodies you can stuff in those tubes.  I used to sell a flavoring oil that smelled just like a rose, but it didn’t catch on.  I thought flower scented lip balms was a great idea, but apparently I was decades ahead of my balm pushing time.  In case you’re wondering, cherry is the flavor of the year.

So, is it addictive?  My Rabbi was strung out on putting Vaseline on his lips instead of lip balm.  He had it stashed all over the house while insisting he did not have a problem.  He was never far from his stash, though!  He had it tucked away in his closet, stuff in a drawer, everywhere.  He had not gotten as far as hiding it in the toilet though.  But then, I haven’t spoken to him in a while.

If you want to cash in on all that Chapstick and Burt’s Balm fortune, you can make your own and become a pusher too!

Here is the recipe for Powerfully Cool Lip Balms:

1 Tablespoon Bee’s Wax
1 Tablespoon Shea Butter
1-1/2 Tablespoons Avocado Oil
1/4 Teaspoon Mint Flavoring
This lip balm is delightfully cold on the lips, very refreshing!

Melt Bee’s Wax and Shea Butter on the stove. Make sure it gets to over 180 degrees Fahrenheit, keep it at 180 degrees for 15 minutes. Take off the heat, mix in avocado oil. Mix well, then mix in the Soap Crafters Mint flavoring . Pour into 7 Soap Crafters Lip Balm tubes or Lip Blam jars.

For easier pouring, use a rubber band to hold all the tubes together. Then they stand upright easily. Use a Soap Crafters Pipette to fill them. Keep filling until they are a little overfilled. This gives each lip balm a rounded top and not a sunken in one. After a couple of hours they will be cool, put on caps and clean up to label. They are ready to use!

Soon, people will be hooked and lining up at your door demanding more.  You will have lots left over for your own lip use, plus lots of extra cash to throw around and look like a big shot.  It is win-win!  And it is perfectly legal!  Well, for now….

Bathing with Soap Crafters

I had a customer call me recently to let me know how much her daughter and son-in-law depend on our melt and pour soap base. Apparently, they have multiple chemical sensitivities and this is the only soap they have been able to find that they can use. So, of course, they got mom hooked on it too, haha, so she was calling to tell me this story.

I’m happy we were able to help with their sensitivity issues. The mom insisted that I should start a marketing campaign to those like her daughter and son-in-law. I’m not so sure I will go full board with that idea, but I did think it was certainly important to mention on the blog.

Soap Crafters Inc., offers a good variety of products that do not contain fragrances or colorants. Our intentions were not to help those with multiple chemical sensitivities, but to supply fine cosmetic bases and products to those who make their own soaps, lotions, and other cosmetic type bases at home and resell them, or just make them as a hobby for their friends and family. If people with sensitivities are being helped by our products, then so much the better!

When I designed our Super Concentrate, the base you use to make your own shampoos and shower gels, I was just trying to something nice to offer our professional soapers. I spent a year fiddling with the blend to get it right. One employee I had at the time was testing each version. One version of the stuff gave her massive dandruff because I had the formula way off in the beginning. I don’t think she ever forgave me for that! So anyway, I tried and tried and finally got it perfect.

In the end, the Super Concentrate makes a fine, thick shampoo that is gentle on the scalp, lathers great, hold fragrance wonderfully and doesn’t contain mostly water. Our formula is a blend of cleansers only, it is not a watered down shampoo. This is very unique and looks a lot like apple sauce. You add the water to it to make shampoo, you are not buying the water.

Our professional soap making customers love our Super Concentrate and make all kinds of personal care products from it. One makes a hand wash that removes the smell of fish and crab from the hands, another makes a horse shampoo, another makes a foaming hand soap with those foamer bottles, but most just make shampoo and hand soap from it. They all have great sales with their personal care recipes and order from us in large quantities.

Personally, I just make shampoo out of it for my own home use. It leaves my hair clean, doesn’t make my scalp itchy like commercial shampoos do and it doesn’t bother the color I put on my hair. I’m a simple person, I suppose.

I’m happy to hear that people with multiple chemical sensitivities are enjoying our products too! We offer many things for them like unscented, bulk lotion, a variety of soap bases from melt and pour to our Soap Noodles Shredded soaps, a good line of pure essential oils if they do want some scent, bulk, unscented bath salts, pure vegetable oils, unscented massage oil, a natural jelly that is like petroleum jelly but make with vegetable oils, a hair conditioner that is derived from palm oil, a linen and body spray one customer told me helps with her eczema, a fruit derived humectant to help rehydrate the skin, and we continually add to our line up.

If you are selling the products that you make, you might think about adding a line of unscented , uncolored shampoos, soaps and lotions for the chemically sensitive people out there. I guess they are having quite a time of it trying to find products to use.

Feel free to use the reply box at the end of this article to let me know the experiences you’ve had with our unscented, uncolored products. Or ideas you have using our products to help your customers with sensitive skin.  (If you don’t see the reply box then click on the article heading and it will display.)

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