Faerywren

Kelly's warehouses suffered some damage in recent bad weather. A lot of her inventory had to moved to alternate locations for storage while contractors come in to survey and make repairs. She mentioned losing phone and computer service. I thought I had an alternate number for her, but can't find it right away. I'll keep looking.

~Julia

I like that the soaps are natural colored but your label is dark and provides a real contrast. I'd stop and take a look (and probably spend too much $) on your products. I love the square spray bottles, too. Those are too cool.

~Julia

Hey Sassy!

Yeah, there are plenty of familiar "faces" over here! lol.

~Julia

Do you do anything to the tops to make sure they aren't sharp? I had debated using recycled tins for candles, but was worried about sharp edges.

Hope you'll post some pics of the Christmas graphics!

~Julia

Those are super adorable! Are those just recycled vegetable cans or do you buy them? I love the sayings on the side, too.

~Julia

I always assume that people are idiots. Maybe include a warning that trimmings need to be kept away from the flame? Sounds like common sense, I know. But you can never tell with some folks.

~Julia

Perfect to market your products to an "adults only" store maybe?

~Julia

Those are great swirls for M&P! I play with M&P some, but haven't tried swirling. Are the clear and opaque soap, two different kinds? I wonder if the different densities is what allows these beautiful swirls. Great job, girly. *thumbs up*

~Julia

Gorgeous! I love the rustic and natural look of them!

~Julia

if you use powdered the best way for me is to sprinkle it over the soap chunks BEFORE you melt, if youre melting in the micro at 30 sec take it out stir, keep melting this way has worked for me using mica powders without having flecks of the powder floating in the soap

That is a great idea! I usually just mix my powdered colorant with a little glycerin then pour that into my melted soap. I've tried taking out a portion of the soap, but it always cools too quickly.

Rebecca, one thing to remember with micas is that the shimmery quality is lost in opaque soap. In clear soaps it's most awesome.

~Julia

Candy, I use WSP's ground pumice in my foot scrubbie soap. It does give a slight grayish cast. I use an olive oil soap base with light green colorant because it is scented rosemary peppermint. I'm guessing the gray cast may have been more from the pumice making the clear base more opaque. It didn't bother any of my customers. I used a foot shaped mold and they thought it was neat. :-)

~Julia

Some ideas:

Bulk PM her address to all of us and we can all email her and ask her for one of her gift baskets!!!

I love this idea! Copy and past her exact e mail, but insert our name instead of hers and "gift basket" instead of samples! Diabolical!

~Julia

That rent sounds a bit exorbitant to me.

I checked into a kiosk at an awesome mall outside a very affluent suburb (house prices go into the millions) and it was only going to be $750/month. I had to make sure I carried at least $1 million in liability insurance, which upped my premium a bit. But that was all.

If I asked myself now if I could stand to lose $10k...that answer would be a resounding "No". I don't know when it would ever be "Yes", actually.

Be careful.

~Julia

Patty, just remember, ALWAYS run your recipe through a lye calculator. There is some pretty sketchy information floating around the internet. Mistakes/typos happen. You don't want to make something that could harm you or your family, not to mention the $ wasted on ingredients!

~Julia

As far as I'm concerned, Lush's labeling leaves a lot to be desired anyway. So what if they say they aren't using palm. There are a lot of ingredients in their products I'm sure they aren't listing.

~Julia

My fave OT scents would be

Green Irish Tweed

Dragonfire

Absolutely Awesome Oakmoss

Chai Tea

Ginger Lime

I don't do candles, so I've only ever used them in bath and body products.

~Julia

I bet any of the Rain scents would be hits, too. Those are nice and clean and SPA smelling.

~Julia

You didn't mention which books you had, but some that I highly recommend would be Simple Soapmaking by Anne Watson, The Soapmakers Companion by Susan Miller Cavitch (although these are medium to large batch recipes) and The Everything Soapmaking Book by Alicia Grosso any of Sandy Maine's books would be great too.

Like the others have mentioned, in the beginning, simplicity is best. Simple recipe, color and fragrance. My first soap had no fragrance...(my first soapmaking book was all about hand milling and adding fragrance then) Ugh, I won't be doing that again!

The idea about hot process is excellent too! If you can find it, Delores Boone's book on the subject is invaluable! I do almost all hot process now, just because I don't have the time to wait for CP to cure out.

Take your time, learn and play, and have fun!

~Julia

So, yes, my bath salt issue was definately a debacle.

It seems Rebecca has ordered quality supplies from reputable suppliers, so she shouldn't have any issues. It's morons who think they can use fragrance oil from the potpourri section at Wal-Mart in their b&b products that we have to worry about.

I don't remember if it was on this forum or on The Dish, but one lady was talking about a M&P party she had for her son's birthday and a few days later one of the moms tried to accuse her that the soap gave her a rash. Just saying, people are petty and ridiculous. Sometimes it helps to have time and experience on your side.

~Julia

Candybee- I've always heard that liquid color are quicker to bleed (especially reds) than powdered colors such as oxides and micas. I don't know if that applies to powdered colors that are pre-mixed in glycerin or not *shrug*. Good luck!

~Julia

I know you are really excited about soaping and all, but in my humble opinion, 3 months is not long enough to determine whether you have a good/safe product. I made that mistake when I first started. A friend of mine was begging me for bath salts to put in her massage therapy office. I figured, "how hard can it be?" Little did I know that bath salts need to be packaged in nice air tight containers, not the little decorative bottles with loose cork lids that my friend wanted. So in no time, my bath salts had attracted moisture, gotten hard as a rock and then the oils went rancid. It made me look very unprofessional, and I was terribly embarrassed that some half-a$$ed product was out there with my name on it.

That was years ago, but now I'm secure knowing that anything I put my label on has been tried and perfected before it is offered for sale. I also carry business/liability insurance, because no matter how much I know or think my products are great, there is still the chance that a customer will think differently.

In the mean time, enjoy your new hobby, keep tons of notes and have fun!

~Julia

I got some of the stevia powder from Brambleberry and it worked pretty well. I always added it to my warm melted oils to make sure it incorporated. Lately, I've been doing more glosses and I've been passing on sweetener and using just the plain flavor oils. They smell yummy, anyway. :-)

About the food grade oils. I have used the LorAnn brand in a few different balms..pina colada, watermelon and strawberry. Luckily, I didn't have any ill effects. I have a few balms that I held back to see how they stood the test of time, and now, 2+ years down the road, they look great. Maybe I added the flavors when my oils were hot enough to evaporate any alcohols? *shrug* I've also used the actual lemon and mint oils as flavoring and they've done well, also. As Sister Kya mentioned the usage amount is very important!

~Julia

I add about 1% to mine. Seems to work pretty well. :-)

~Julia

Looks lovely. Would like to see it cut, too.

~Julia