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That would depend on the IFRA statement for your particular fragrance. You will need to be under the number, generally found in section 10 of the document. They are all different.

Usually the fabric is just interfacing (foundat any fabric store) that people coat with stearalkonium chloride as the actual softening compound.

Depends on your target customer. for wholesale customers i send full size so they know what they are ordering by the case lot. for retail, 1 oz of lotion, IMO, is a travel size lotion, not a sample. Customers pay premium prices for that size, just like in the stores. Elements sells LDPE malibu tubes that hold .5 oz and that is even a lot for a sample, lasting most people many applications. They tend to refill those tubes and use them as pocket or purse sizes. The foil packets look nice and are a snap to label, but are a total labor intensive pain to fill and seal cleanly. If you find them too big, they can be cut in half, or filled slightly less so they remain flat for mailing. As a customer, i don't like too much in the packets as they do not re-seal and make a mess/dry out/get contaminated, etc. after the test application. Do people really need to slather from head to toe several times to know that they like or dislike a product enough to buy or not?

Not true. The DOT rules and regs for flammables and combustables are pretty clear. You cannot ship certain classes of HAZMAT via AIR, but you can ship most common fragrance oils, nail polish, etc. via surface using ORM-D labeling and proper packaging. The regs are tied to the flashpoints of the materials being shipped. http://pe.usps.com/text/pub52/pub52c3_018.htm Packaging appendix 3a. http://pe.usps.com/text/pub52/pub52apxc_011.htm Packaging apoendix 3b. http://pe.usps.com/text/pub52/pub52apxc_012.htm If you're not sure, then don't ship it via USPS.

I have read/heard similar. It is not surprising - there is a lot of interest (read earning potential) in 'hand made' goods. Heck, when hand made greeting cards were all the rage a few years ago even Wally World had them. Whose hands 'handmade' those cards is the question... Had a good laugh not long ago when I read tips from 'pros' for ways to make commercially made items look more home made using photography strategies of blurry, poorly lit photos, etc. Loads of 'handmade' items on etsy are made by commercial importers and resellers. Where there is money, there will be makers.

It depends... Often I can get around needing to melt the cocoa butter by chopping it up into smaller bits and by adding the oils to the pot with the hot lye solution in order of the highest MP to lowest. I admit, most of the time I'm in a hurry and put all solids in the pot together, so I'll at least soften the brick hard CB in the MW to keep things moving. My lab can get cooooooold and cocoa butter takes a little more to melt.

Corn starch is used in a few commercially available deo's - notably in the Lavanila Laboratories products that consistently receive high marks in the natural deo market tests. It all depends on what you like, and what pH your deodorant is at. Arrowroot performs better at lower pH ranges in the kitchen, and seemed consistent with the tests I did for deo. Corn starch seems to be more stable at higher pH ranges. IMO, starches are used more as fillers/bulking agents than an actives. Corn starch often feels nice, though talc feels better than either, as much as that goes against the new trends for natural deo products I read hundreds of patents and about that many manufacturer formulations for deo's that have been commercially available for the past few decades. Corn starch appears in several. Arrowroot in none. That clued me in on where to look at why arrowroot in my own tests was not effective.

I have to agree about the baking soda. Tore my skin up very painfully at any usage rate. Arrowroot seemed to really suck up humidity, and if you happen to sweat it permeates shirts leaving an unsightly ring around the arm pit of dark colored fabric. I am one that does not like the feel of the oil/butter/wax blends for underarm use - Occlusives in the pit area are not a great idea. Deo's are harder to formulate than they first appear. It took me a little over a year to develop a deodorant stick with an active that works, feels right going on and is hypoallergenic. It was a long stinky journey =D

You can use fo's, just make sure you look up the IFRA guidelines for each Fo you wish to try for the usage rate. Often the rate for deo use is much lower than for other uses. Same for eo's. the under arm skin area is very sensitive and thin, not to mention quite close to lymph nodes.

I use that method ( dubbed thermal transfer when i learned about it) for all size batches. It is a huge time saver and allows my formula with a high % of hard oils and butters loads of time to swirl, color and split large batches for different colors and fragrances on a production day. Milk soaps i prefer to keep light in color, so i melt the hard oils to a slurry, mixing them well with the liquid oils while the lye and milk blend. The lye and milk solution* is still very light in color when added to the slurry and retains plenty of heat to get the soap to trace without issues. * milk solution made by adding lye crystals to frozen solid milk. When the milk is all melted and the lye is all dissolved the color is still white to ivory. Still plenty of heat and potential energy to blend well into the oils and trace fully.

I have been using that version of Royal battery powered register for several uears and love it. The printing is a little slow on battery, but not to the point of being a hinderance when it is busy. I use maybe one set of batteries per season - even during a 9 week event. As someone above mentioned it has an auto sleep mode. I use the departments so it is easy to tell what products are selling well. It is one of my most favorite things for events.

http://swiftcraftymonkey.blogspot.com/2011/03/aside-ph-and-lotions.html Did you use a fully calibrated pH meter to test the pH? I would not change anything for the next show. I'd change, then test, challenge test and observe some more before offering anything for sale. But that is just me.

I use 100% milks and a 7-8% sf. I get loads of lather. Castor is one oil that has some synergy with other soapings oils. I have noticed diminishing returns with it at higher than about 3%. Castor as a single oil does not lather worth a darn. In last year's lather lovers swap, we used 50% olive, 25% coconut and 25% palm to test 25 additives. The soap in this video is only about 2 weeks old, yet it lathered great from day 1 at 8% superfat and 100% fresh goat milk.

those are spectacular Janet. love them.

I love the status jars for GG. They are beautiful to watch burn and very easy to wick. Unlike many, I do not wick for a FMP in GG, preferring that it slightly tunnel and begin to weep wax into the tunnel starting at about the 1/4 - 1/3 mark. By the end of the candle all of the wax is consumed and the container remains cool enough to easily touch and move through the entire burn. Bonus that the wax shell glows for much longer. The scent from a MP that amounts to slightly larger than a tea light fills the entire bedroom half of the house at 6% of most FO's. I also love the look of libbey squares in GG, though they are a little more challenging to wick.

Hi! He is a custom mold - scuplted in clay then cast in silicone. I just love him.

My beekeeper friends warm the dirty wax in their 100 lb melter, then run the melted wax out the spigot to a waiting bucket on the floor with a layer or 2 of felt on top to catch whatever debris comes through. She goes through a few hundred lbs a season with that setup.

Too much of a good thing can definitely kill lather. Plus clay is drying. Too much clay will dry skin it is applied to. Shaving soap is a specialty. If you are formulating a shaving soap for men, may i suggest joining a forum dedicated to that? What works and what men prefer to use on their delicate facial skin may surprise you. Just adding a little clay to bathing soap will not cut it.

My guess? Not too many people take the time to calculate the costs before they list. Nor do many pay attention to the end of month statements. I have always been charged insertion fees even though the promo emails show up. Must be for people with Ebay stores or something, but not for the type of seller I am set up as. I look at Ebay like Craigslist: a way to liquidate surplus inventory. It is not geared toward my target market, so I don't spend a lot of effort there.

You make an excellent point poppy! Tack on another 3-ish% plus $.35 and you might as well just send the buyer $1. It would be cheaper and quicker! All of this totally discounts any compensation for labor to make the product or the time/labor to pack it up.

The fees and commissions from Ebay are really high. It's hard to maintain a decent profit IMO. Candles and such fall under the 11% commission structure - and the commissions are also calculated including shipping. The fees listed on my monthly statement were an eye opener. Example: a pair of tapers sold for $4. "Insertion fee" = $.50. Commission on sale ("Final Value Fee")= $.44 (11%). "Final Value Fee on Shipping" $.50 (11%). Total commissions on a $4 sale = $1.44 or about 36% of the selling price. Deduct the COGS, State Sales Tax and Fed Income Tax and you about break even on a small $ sale.

Good to hear. I'd save that other FO to HP - or have a plan to deal with the rapid acceleration (such as soaping cool or just moving really fast! )

Love love love Peak Glass Glow. It is so nice to work with a wax that is pretty much guaranteed to have great HT with any FO I decide to use. CDN's or CSN's work great in every thing I have tried.

Pko can get rock hard depending on the ambient temp. It is normal. My money is the acceleration was caused by your FO. Synthetic retail available FO's often contain compounds that cause speedy acceleration in CP. If it gets too hot in the pot, you can usually let it get to gel stage and then get it into the mold more smoothly.

You will likely need a heating pad too for small volumes like that.