kidsngarden

They weigh just under 8 oz. They are about baseball size or just slightly bigger.

Scented - I know the electric lime coconut should be green - but I thought the "lime" would be green, but the more I added the brighter it got, not greener. Started to sell them and that's what stuck!

I hear ya' on colors. I've practically stopped using liquids in CP altogether so I have liquids for bath bombs and powders for soap...

I tried some new colors after your threads. These are all done with labcolors or la bomb colors BTW

BRV (a blend of LaBomb lilac, fuschia and red labcolors)

BB Energy (lilac and a blend of True tone orange and canary lab)

BB Plumeria (lilac LaBomb)

This isn't new, but pretty bright (the picture doesn't show how bright it REALLY is! AH da lime in da coconut - I call it Electric lime coconut (lime lab). If people think it makes the water look like they peed in it they aren't telling me! It's my # seller in bombs!

He was not upfront with me as I ordered from him directly, not through etsy. Then when I began emailing him about custom orders he did not respond so I figured he didn't want my business.

Every order I send out has a sample. Sometimes it is some new product I'm trying to promote, or I try to find something I think they would enjoy based on what they bought and send a sample of that. Bar soap samples are pretty generous - 1/4 bar or so. 1 oz samples of lotions, sheas, and LS. 2.6 oz bath bombs (the bombs I sell are about 8 oz)

I did not have a wonderful experience as far as customer service with TOG. Pauls molds are very lovely and work very well. I ended up wanting a custom size, and sold my TOG. I would have loved to have him make me a custom mold, but he took so long in just returning my inquiries that I finally did the smart thing - my hubby made A LOT of very rustic but functional log molds out of a single piece of 1/2 inch plywood. I cover them with saran (I do fresh GM soap so getting it to gel is rarely a problem - stoppin it is however!) I do have to line them - but for the price it has been well worth it!

I prefer powders - mica, untramarines, oxides, clays, botanicals - they morph much less than liquids (which also have completely disappeared on me!)

I mix all my powders with a bit of glycerin or some of the oils from my recipe before adding to the soap, it really helps to get them to blend.

I didn't know that was standard terminology. I do make from scratch and I have been using handcrafted because it sounds more upscale to me than hand or homemade. Hmmm, maybe I will need to change things...

ditto to MMS. These days though I need too much to use them consistently so I have a variety of suppliers. When I just started they were what I used all the time though if I had to buy online (BB is local to me so I can go there if I want - but often MMS was cheaper than BB even if I paid shipping!)

Well, I did it! I made my own Lotion!

Thank you for such an awesome class, I was able to follow it easily!

I had to sub a few oils but hopefully the lotion will be awesome! I can't wait to try it.

Thanks for having this class, I doubt I would have taken the leap to make it on my own without your tutorial!

dana

Oh, you are a better woman than I, I've got that lotion tried as soon as it's poured (and sometimes before!) I'm glad you had success!

vanilla mint sells well for me.

I do a straight chocolate that has cocoa butter in it that I call hot chocolate.

The thing I hate with the food FO's is that they turn brown. Vanilla is a dark chocolate brown, and of course so is the chocolate, OMH went tan (I put oats and honey in that one!

My bath bomb selection has plummeted since the holidays and I really need to make some new fragrances.

I did some from AH that were fab last year - Lemon verbena, vanilla lace, cucumber mint, da lime in da coconut, and raspberry!

What's the wattage on the bulbs?

I think the skylight must filter out some UV rays (guessing), but you may need to try a filter on your camera if that's possible.

Cloudy is pretty much ideal or sunset when the light isn't so dang harsh. Couldn't get one setting to work right till I went into the shade one day, so sometimes this stuff befuddles me too.

Next time I have the stuff out I will check the wattage.

All I can say is that the pictures I am taking now are WAY better than the pictures I (not my BIL) took before getting the light box! And it's such and improvement I am WAAAAY happy!

You might need to adjust the color balance on your camera a little bit.... I've run into the same yellow/orangish issue, too and that seems to help.

Ok, that would require some kind of knowledge beyond power, zoom, no flash and macro!

I will see what I can figure out!

And Scented - I'm in the pacific Northwest so it's pretty much cloudy here all the time this time of year - which I thought was preferred for photos? Pretty bright out there even though it is overcast. And then of course one never knows when a cloud will burst and sprinkle you!

Tomorrow it's supposed to be 70 which is good because I will be working on goat fencing for 3 new goats!

Here's what I've tried -

My first round with light in my light box and a white background was the two lights that came with the box going through the sides and an artificial light through the top - these were orangey I couldn't even tweak em on photoshop to make them look right, but I'm not exactly a pro on photoshop. All the blue pics on here and my site were done that same way that night at only required resizing.

The ones in this post were done under a west facing skylight at about 4 PM. there were the two lights on the sides and just the skylight coming through the top.

Now if you look at the pics my BIL did on my site like the one below these were taken under the skylight with no light box at all. He tweaked things with photoshop too (and he's much better than I).

So I'm just befuddled!

I'm finding unless the the light is totally perfect the white backround works better at high noon under the skylight with no box, just lights...maybe...I'm clueless really. The white ones were doctored a bit in Photoshop, but still don't look right to me.

BB Champagne

Lavender Essential

Bee my Honey (with honey and oats)

Farmer's Scrubby - with cornmeal and citrus

lovely!

When I first started making bath bombs I used mica's cause I wasn't so smart me thinks. If you look at this picture you will see some pretty dark ones:

Sorry it's so big...OUCH!

anywho I still keep the picture on my site cause I think it's pretty cool, but my friend tested the burgundy big one (broke it in two by gouging away with a knife and used half) Her water was so burgundy she could shave her legs and see where she had shaved. so I stick with liquid colors now and know that dark bombs probably won't fly. (my vanillish ones go chocolate brown though)

My very best selling bombs are Energy (bright blue) and Electric lime coconut (flourescent yellow) No complaints about the color there!

People around these parts don't want bubbling bombs with SL - crap I forgot the abbreviation - but the bubbling stuff! They really like just the fizzy bombs!

Love it! Cut pics please!

Oh yes, you can use it right away.

As for formulating your own recipe...You can start by playing around with different oils for your liquid oils. then if you want a thicker cream take your water as low as 45-50% and maybe add butters for the balance. 70-75% water for lotions.

This recipe has these percentages:

water 73%

glycerin 2%

Stearic 2%

Ewax 4%

liquid oils - 17%

preservative 1 %

FO - 1 %

I would keep the preservative and FO at 1% each unless your preservative mfr says otherwise.

Stearic can be taken up or down a percent or two (sub with oils) I usually don't mess with e-wax too much. you can sub out some of the liquid oils for butters too if you want, but you will end up with a thicker product depending on how much you sub out.

Karen,

I'm so glad things went well for you!

I bet the hydrovance thing will be just fine. I've never used it, but I'm sure it feels great!

Have fun!

This was the best investment I think I have made thus far. I still have some pictures I took without the lightbox on my site and man - you can REALLY tell the difference!

I use a clean sheet of freezer paper (dull side up) over the gray for my white.

Thank you all for your advice!

Im leary of adding the e-wax and stearic acid to this recipe because I want to keep it as natural as possible.

We will definatly tweak' date=' and more than likely tweak some more *wink* and hopefully it will work out.

Ang and Mal[/quote']

stearic acid (n.) A colorless, odorless, waxlike fatty acid, occurring in natural animal and vegetable fats and used in making soaps, candles, lubricants, and other products.

Sounds pretty natural to me!

I know ewax can be petroleum based. It will require a lot of experimenting to find a recipe that will stay emulsified without it, though

I used to make the meatballer size and sold them in a two pack. Didn't sell nearly as well as my mega size (7.9-9 oz) so I discontinued them. I use an ornament. There are three tricks I have found...

1. get the right consistency in you mixture - damp sand.

2. pack it really tight.

3. tap the filled mold all around to release the mold, take top half off, gently turn over into your had and remove the other half.

HTH!

I have a good idea how much paste I will have in the end, but can never really be sure because of evaporation.

I don't think there is a way to do it precisely without weighing it.