Ladybug Soapworks

Cosmetic Supplies "Garage" Sale

2010-11-26T23:53:00.000-05:00

I am trying to reduce my stock of supplies that I have decided not to use. You can get some great discounts this way. Please check out what I have for sale and send me an email at contact@ladybugsoapworks.net if you would like to purchase anything. I will only take paypal, but feel free to make me an offer if you want multiple items.

Cheers~

Sarah

Melt & Pour Bases

Melt & Pour Vegan Lip Balm 14.5 fl oz Essential Wholesale $20

Melt & Pour Deodorant 14.5 fl oz Essential Wholesale $20

Fragrance oils

Caramel Apple 14 oz From Nature with Love $20

Succulent Pear ~6 oz The Soap Goat Soap Shop $6.00

Cinnamon Cider (candle only) ~15 oz Tennessee Candle Supplies $10.00

China Rain 0.5 oz Bramble berry $1

Sakura Blossom 1oz Southern Soapers $2

Fresh Watermelon 4 oz Wholesale Supplies Plus $7.00

Cantaloupe Lily 1 oz Southern Soapers $2

Cucumber melon 16 oz coop $16

Pumpkin Souffle (Candle Only) ~12 oz Candlescience $10

Christmas Memories ~6 oz Simple Soothings $5

Pink Lemonade ~3 oz The Soap Goat Soap Shop $3.00

Fixed Oils

Rose Hip Oil 16 oz Majestic Mountain Sage $14

Borage Oil 16 oz Majestic Mountain Sage $24

Red Raspberry Seed Oil 16 oz Majestic Mountain Sage $45

Additives

LiquiPar Optima 1 oz Southern Soapers

Germall Plus Liquid 1 oz Southern Soapers

Sepigel 305 1 oz Southern Soapers

White Aluminum Oxide crystals 1 oz Southern Soapers

Pre Neutralized Carbomer 1 oz Southern Soapers

Whit Synscrub Spheres 1 oz Southern Soapers

Herbs prices $1 per oz
Lemon Peel powder 8oz
Mint Leaf cut 6oz
Raspberry Leaf 8oz

Closeout Sale!

2010-11-25T00:02:00.001-05:00

I am trying to clear out some inventory before the end of the year. This is a great opportunity to get some holiday gifts or just stock up on soap for yourself. I have 8 different types of soap listed in my closeout sale for $3.00 and will be adding more soon. Check it out here.


One of the many soaps on closeout. Vanilla Chai Tea Soap

Pumpkin Pie Treasury

2010-11-23T12:19:00.002-05:00

Check out this new pumpkin pie themed treasury that my pumpkin pie soap has been featured in.

Featured in an Etsy Treasury!

2010-11-22T23:13:00.002-05:00

A yummie chocolate coffee cake themed treasury, go check it out an leave a comment. Maybe it will make the homepage with your help! My chocolate espresso shea soap and the coffee kitchen scrub soap are included as party of this treasury.

Ladybug Soapworks on AKYRAMOTO's Crafty side blog!

2010-08-05T15:53:00.000-04:00

AKYRAMOTO's Crafty side blog recently posted about my lovely Tea Tree Shampoo and Body bar! Head over there and read the rave review. The look of this soap has changed to a regular rectangular soap, but that just means you get more soap for your money! If you want to give this soap a try pick some up at Ladybugsoapworks.com or Ladybugsoapworks.etsy.com.

King Arthur Flour Blog...wow!

2010-03-26T11:52:00.001-04:00

Can you say yummie? That was the first thought that crossed my mind when I came upon the King Arthur Flour blog. Just check out some of these pictures! I think I need to start baking.

As promised, more soap!

2010-03-24T10:09:00.003-04:00

Here are the rest of the new soap pictures. I am sure I mention this a lot, but Dylan sure can take nice pictures of soap. Luckily all he "charges" me is for his regular shower/shampoo soap and the occasional shaving soap. Pretty good deal don't you think?

This first soap is my Sensitive skin bar. It is made with all kinds of oils that are great for sensitive skin. This bar feels so smooth in the shower, I just love to use it.

This soap hasn't actually changed in look, but we took some new photos anyways. This is Lavender Shea. It has a nice calming scent and smooth texture. If you look closely you can see the tops are brushed with a purple mica to give them some shimmer.

Up next is Jewelweed and Comfrey. It is made with olive oil infused with both of the herbs. Very nice bar of soap and these herbs are reputed for getting rid of the oils from a poison ivy bush.

This is my Jasmine Salt bar. Lovely scent and pretty color. The salt is a fine grain so it does not scratch. It makes a nice lotion-like lather.

Now to make some ginger souffle salt bars! Just need to decide how to make them look...any suggestions?

New Soap Pictures!

2010-03-21T11:46:00.001-04:00

Ok these are LONG overdue, but finally soap new pictures for you to drool over! Over the past year I changed the shape and design of many of my soaps. Finally some pictures to show you how they look. Enjoy!This one is my Ayurvedic Shampoo and Body bar. It has such a great later and an almost licorice scent (though it is scented with Basil and Lime essential oils).

This lovely is my Irish stout shampoo and body bar. It was made with Guinness which really helps to boost the lather.

This refreshing bar is Eucalyptus mint. It is a soothing and cooling soap. I love to use it on mornings that I just need a jump start to wake up.

This one is my Coffee Kitchen Scrub soap. It is chock full of coffee grounds which help to remove kitchen scents (think garlic and onion) from your hands. This is also a great soap to use after gardening or a mechanics soap.

This is our seasonal Apple Pie soap. Pick some up before they sell out! I LOVE this scent. The scent of apples and cinnamon just relax me.

Check back soon as I will be posting more eye candy!

Another Treasury!

2010-03-18T20:50:00.002-04:00

I love how beautiful people can make these treasuries. Check out my Succulent pear soap in the bottom left. You can pick some of the soap up here.

Treasury

2010-02-07T22:59:00.003-05:00

A lovely treasury on Etsy featured my Eucalyptus mint soap. Check out a picture of the treasury. I love the color!

Tea tree shampoo

2010-01-31T21:47:00.004-05:00

I just put a ton of tea tree shampoo in the oven to speed up the saponification process. It is one of my best selling soaps so I made a super large batch this time! This soap smells so good and I just love the way it makes my hair feel and shine after a shower.

I have a lot of new soap pictures that I will be posting here soon and then updating my websites. I finally convinced Dylan that I needed new pictures. I have changed the design of almost all my soaps over the past year and have been stuck using photos of the old designs. So expect a lot of soap porn in the coming days!

Geranium Rose Soap

2010-01-24T23:35:00.004-05:00

I just put some Geranium Rose soap in the oven. It will be listed in my stores in a couple of weeks, just in time to pick some up for Valentines day!

Monoi de Tahiti Oil (Monoi Tiare oil)

2010-01-17T00:25:00.003-05:00

I just ordered some Scented Monoi de Tahiti oil from Denise at Full Moon Herbs. This seems like a good deal. The best price I could find online was $27/lb and she is offering it for $19 or $21/lb depending on whether you want it scented or not. I thought some of you might like the info on this buy so here is the email I received from Denise:

I have pre-ordered 50# each of Monoi Tiare Oil. They will arrive the week of
January 25th. This an opportunity to place your order to receive the Monoi
first. I am stocking both the scented and unscented.
Monoi Oil is coconut oil infused w/ Tiare (Gardenia) flower petals. Both
types are Gardenia scented. The "scented" type, is a stonger infusion,
resulting in a stronger scent. Please e-mail w/ any orders you may have to
Denise@fullmoonherbs.com. Pricing is as follows:

Unscented Monoi: 1#/ $19.00 or 2#/ $37.00
Scented Monoi: 1#/$21.00 2#/ $41.00

My book list from 2009

2010-01-05T23:26:00.000-05:00

So here is my take off of Anne-Marie's recent blog post about her favorite books she read during 2009.

Running the Amazon This is a non-fiction book about the first kayaking trip to navigate the entire length of the amazon river. I am pretty much obsessed with anything amazon, so this was a great book for me.

The Lost Symbol The new Dan Brown book. I admit it, I love his books. I get so captivated that I read this one in about 2.5 consecutive days. I really like that I can sit near my laptop while reading his books and search the places and objects he talks about to learn more.

The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon Another amazon book. This is the adventure of an early 20th century explorer who search the Amazon for a lost advanced civilization. He never returned. In this book, the author retraces Percy Fawcett's path through the amazon to either find out where Fawcett died or if there really is a lost city. This was a large book, but again very captivating so I read it quite fast.

One River Most people probably will not find this book that enjoyable. I, however, really enjoyed it. This book is almost a biography of Richard Evans Shultes and two of his students Wade Davis and Tim Plowman. If you are at all interested in ethnobotany you will like this book. It covers all the rainforest explorations of the three men and their discoveries of unknown plants (their specialty is hallucinogenic plants and the study of how the indigenous people use them in their religions).

Ecotopia This book made me dream of living in the fictional country of Ecotopia. This book details a world where California, Oregon, and Washington secede from the United States and form a country called Ecotopia. This is a good quick read for anyone interested in creating an environmentally responsible society.

Eat, Pray, and Love
I am currently reading this book and I really love it. It is such a good story of growth and finding oneself. I highly recommend this book.

Dreams from My Father This is one of President Obama's books. It is really well written and I am enjoying it, though I keep finding myself picking up other books to read. Thus, I have not finished this book even though I started reading it in 2008! Still for those who have not read this book, it is a great way to learn about the life of the President of the USA.

I also regularly read National Geographic Magazine and Martha Stewart's Living Magazine.

I hope some of you will also enjoy these books!

Laundry Soap!

2010-01-05T23:02:00.004-05:00

I hope everyone had a great holiday and New year. I sure did! It was so great to see all my family and friends.

On the soaping front, I just put a ton of laundry soap in the oven. I am basically all out and it is one of my best selling items! I make my soap with a 50:50 blend of coconut and palm oil. I have also tried olive oil and palm and it worked well, too, but is more expensive to make.

Here I have 3 molds filled with my laundry soap. Next step...shredding all of that. Thank god for the Cuisinart!

I wanted to show a close up of some of my molds as well. I really like Upland molds. I have 2 slab molds now from them and the silicone mold makes removal so easy.
I also have this great mold from Silvermoon Molds. I don't use this one much since I have mostly switched over to slab molds, but this one also has a great silicone liner making soap removal so easy.
One of my other regular molds is a Kelsei slab mold that I use for salt bars since it has separators to make individual soaps that do not need to be cut. So what kind of mold is your favorite?

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-24T11:39:00.004-05:00

I hope everyone has a great Christmas season filled with lots of family and friends.

Check out my salt bar tutorial

2009-12-16T19:11:00.000-05:00

Wholesale Supplies Plus recently blogged about Ladybug Soapworks. I provided a salt bar tutorial for them to use on their website. Check it out here. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Yummy Apple Pie

2009-12-08T18:46:00.000-05:00

I have some apple pie scented soap in my oven! I like to put all my soap into the oven at 170F for 2 hours and then leave it in the oven overnight. It helps force my soap into gel stage and speeds up the curing process. I have been meaning to soap this scent for few weeks since I sold out of my stock, but procrastination got the best of me. Good thing this scent sells year round for me.

Cream Soap Update!

2009-12-06T19:12:00.000-05:00

A couple weeks ago I made some Killian's Red Irish Stout and carrot cream soap. I finally have uploaded the pictures from the day I made it. It is now smooth and creamy, but still a bit too hard. I will be adding some more extracts tomorrow to loosen it up a bit. I think I will scent it with a mixture of dragon's blood, oakmoss, and sandalwood. I have been having a hard time coming up with a scent to use, so if you have any suggestions I would love to hear them. :)

This picture was taken just after adding sodium lactate, panthenol, and silk amino acids.

This next picture is at the end of the cook. Over the next day the soap will turn a creamy golden orange-brown.

Here is what the soap looks like now. It needs a bit more liquid and fragrance still, but I am very happy with how it looks.

Whipped Shea Butter

2009-12-05T23:25:00.002-05:00

I have been working on some new products today. Since I have about 100 lb of shea butter in my soaping room and a new hand mixer, I figured why not try making some whipped shea butter. I added some apricot kernel oil to loosen up the shea along with some vitamin e. It feels great. It is so creamy that it almost feels like one is rubbing frosting on their body. I left some unscented and scented the rest of the batch with a combination of sandalwood and rose. It smells really nice and the scent has depth to it.

Soaping with the family

2009-11-27T23:00:00.003-05:00

I just showed my dad how to make soap. He was such a good helper, maybe we will have another soaper in the family soon. We made a yummie smelling coffee scrub soap. They are great to use in the kitchen to remove scents after cutting onion and garlic. To make the soap a bit luxurious, we added some coffee butter and shea butter. Can't wait to try it out! It looked like melted cookies and cream ice cream...yum.

Killian's Carrot Cream Soap

2009-11-21T12:54:00.003-05:00

I am making some Killian's Carrot Cream Soap today following the class on Yahoo's cream soap group. I am currently simmering some Killian's Red Ale to get rid of the alcohol. It smells pretty awful. I will post some pictures of my soap later today. If you don't know what cream soap is check out some of my previous posts where I made it here, here, here, and here.

Won't you be my neighbour?

2009-10-16T21:59:00.002-04:00

This beautiful Tudor style home down the road was just listed for sale. How I wish one of my friends (hint hint) would buy it so that I could hang out in it.

2 Sketches 4 You

2009-09-09T00:26:00.003-04:00

I love making cards, but coming up with ideas can be really difficult sometimes. I have been reading a blog called 2 Sketches 4 You for a while and thought I would share it with everyone. They put up weekly sketches for you to turn into cards. The submissions they receive are just amazing and what is even better is that they pick a winner each week and give them more scrapbooking/cardmaking materials. So go browse your heart out and get some inspirations for your own creations!

The Silver Circle Studio

2009-09-07T19:50:00.002-04:00

Ladybug Soapworks can now be purchased at the Silver Circle Studio at 75 Main St in Putnam, CT. I just dropped off my display yesterday. It is a really lovely shop filled with all things handmade and it looked like they specialize in paintings and jewelry. They were preparing to teach a class when I got there. Check out there website here and be sure to stop by and pick up some soap. They are currently carrying 10 varieties of Ladybug Soapworks soap.

More Ladybug Soapworks Spotting

2009-08-18T21:27:00.005-04:00

From Nature with Love is a great local supplier for me. They carry many hard to find items. They also have a great blog where they regularly describe uses for their ingredients. You should take some time to check it out. They also post lots of great recipes that I love to try out from time to time. Recently, they posted a bunch of soap pictures and included my Chai Tea soap. Check out the blog here.

Treasury!

2009-08-11T22:30:00.006-04:00

My Chocolate espresso shea butter soap has been featured in an Etsy treasury. Check it out here and place a comment so that I have a chance of being featured on the etsy home page.

Shealoe Prebuy?

2009-08-07T11:45:00.003-04:00

I am looking to see how much interest there is in a Shealoe prebuy. I get this stuff directly from the manufacturer and it is sold in 35lb increments. I think it will be around $6 per pound plus shipping to you. I use the Shealoe to make wonderful sugar scrubs. I love the way it leaves my skin feeling so moisturized. The ingredients are Butyrospermum parkii (shea butter), aloe barbadensis Leaf Juice, polysorbate 60, sorbitan stearate, Imidazolidinyl urea, methylparaben, propylparaben, potassium sorbate, BHT, sorbic acid. This is the same Shealoe sold at all the other suppliers only much cheaper. Let me know if this is something you would be interested in. If I can get enough people interested I will get an exact price. To give you an idea of the shipping costs, the last time I did this I was able to fit 10lb in a small flat rate priority box.
Cheers~
Sarah

Whipping up some soapy goodness!

2009-08-03T10:38:00.003-04:00

I am trying to replenish all of my stock. First up is my redesigned Chamomile Shea soap. I have started to make my soap in larger batches and will be changing over all my soap to this new shape. This soap is made with some Chamomile infused oils and a Chamomile tea as my water. You can purchase this lovely soap at my etsy store or my main online store. This next soap is my super gentle Calendula Castile. Again this is made from both Calendula infused olive oil and a Calendula tea as the water portion. This is a very gentle unscented soap. You can purchase this lovely soap at my etsy store or my main online store.
More soapy pictures to come soon!

New Etsy Purchases!

2009-08-02T20:10:00.004-04:00

I have been dying to get some new jewelry from Etsy. There are so many talented artists it was hard to choose what I wanted. My cheap Target bangles have started to discolor so I went on the hunt for some new bangles. Check out these beauties that I just picked up from Painted Metal. I can't wait to wear them!An added plus is that all I had to do is tell the seller how I found her store and I got these beautiful earrings for free.I also picked up a very unique necklace from Meetalls. It is copper with beautiful patina. I think I am in jewelry heaven! I love Etsy!

We have a winner!

2009-07-17T22:12:00.002-04:00

Thanks to everyone who commented on the previous post. You were all entered to win a bag of my new laundry soap. I used random.org to randomly select a number corresponding to the order in which you commented. The lucky winner of the laundry soap is #3, Melody. Congratulations! Please send me an email at contact@ladybugsoapworks.net with your mailing address and I will ship it right out to you.
Cheers~
Sarah

Prize patrol!

2009-07-11T12:07:00.002-04:00

Since I ignored my blog for so long, I thought I would try to make up for it with a give-away! I will be giving away a 16oz bag of my new laundry soap. Just visit my website or etsy store and comment here letting me know which item you would most like to try. This will help me to know what types interest the most people and you could win some laundry soap! A winner will randomly be selected on Friday the 17th.
Cheers~
Sarah

Finally time to relax!

2009-07-10T11:46:00.003-04:00

Well it has been a hectic last couple months. We bought a house which was so stressful...I am so glad that the whole process is done. Then we needed to dig a koi pond for our Koi, Biggie, who outgrew his 20 gallon tank a LONG time ago. He is probably between 10-12 inches, way too big for a 20 gallon aquarium. So now he is happy in his pond and he has 4 new koi companions who are much smaller than him so they follow him around like he is the boss. I am sure he must love it! Here is a picture of the pond. I will put up a better one soon.
We have been doing a lot of yard work and I painted the kitchen and hallway. We just got some cool antique furniture for our formal living room so now we just need to furnish the sun porch.

This weekend was really fun we had a 2 day open house for family and friends to come over see the house and hang out. It was really nice to see so many people that I don't get to see that often. A lot of my family travel almost 2 hours or more to get here so I really appreciated them taking the time to come over.

On the soaping front, I have a basic set up for my soaping room, but I still want to paint the floor and walls (some areas still need walls though). I have only made a couple batches of soap since I have been in the new house, but I will have to ramp that up this weekend. My inventory is getting low. I have made a bunch of laundry soap and started selling it the CT Farm Fresh Express. They are a wonderful local food delivery service in Connecticut. I will be listing it soon on my website and etsy. I am selling 16oz and 32oz bags which is enough for 25-50 and 50-100 batches, respectively, depending on the type of washing machine you have.

I have missed you all. I will attempt to update the blog more frequently now that things at home have settled down a bit.
Cheers~
Sarah

Updated Garage Sale-Items still available 7/10/09

2009-04-05T22:16:00.007-04:00

I am trying to purge a bunch of soaping supplies. If you see anything you would like please contact me —contact@ladybugsoapworks.net. Every effort will be made to ship the package out within 24 hours after payment is received. All orders that come in during this time will be handled in the order they were received and product will be filled accordingly. All of the items are priced as listed or best offer.
Shipping is from 06451 and I require Paypal.

Fragrance/Essential Oils
Simple Soothings: Youth Dew Amber Nude Type 8oz glass $10
Tennesse Candle Supplies: Cinnamon Cider ~16oz plastic $10 Candle Safe ONLY

Herbs
Lemon Peel powder 8oz $0.70/oz
Mint Leaf cut 6oz $0.70/oz
Raspberry Leaf 8oz $0.30/oz
Yellow Sandalwood Powder 5oz $0.70/oz
Spirulina Powder 0.8oz $3.00
Turmeric Powder 8oz $0.30/oz

Carrier Oils
Wheatgerm oil 32oz $25
Flax Seed Oil 29oz $13
Hazelnut Oil 24oz $10

Other
Smelly Jelly Crystals 1.3lb $4.50
11” unscented incense sticks 6 bundles of 100 sticks $1.50/bundle
DryFlo (2) 1lb bags available $6.50/lb

Thanks for looking!
Sarah Auclair

We got the house!

2009-03-17T00:45:00.002-04:00

The sellers accepted our bid, so now we wait for the home inspection. Considering it was built in 1924, I am expecting him to find some problems. Hopefully, they will not be anything major. I can't wait for the home inspection. It will give us an opportunity to see the house again. I plan to take a ton of pictures and measure the rooms so we can start planing what we will need to buy. Everything has happened so fast. I can't believe that we only started looking at houses on Thursday and are already in contract on a house! So excited, yet so nervous. Ah...let's hope I can stop thinking about the house and get some sleep tonight.

Long time, no blog :(

2009-03-14T21:07:00.003-04:00

Well and for good reason. I have been very busy finishing up my research, working on papers for publication, applying for jobs, working on my thesis, and searching for a house. Wowzers...way too much on my mind! Well Dylan and I found an awesome house today and just pit in an offer. We are so excited! We will know tomorrow if they accept or counter offer. We heard there may be another offer going in today so hopefully our offer is good enough. This house is really a gem. It is a beautiful 1920's brick Tudor style home with nice landscaping and a gorgeous slate roof. The owers have really taken such great care of this house and have upgrated the kitchen and bathrooms. I am still a bit shocked that this house was in our price range. Anyways, I have attached some pictures. Wish us luck! Hopefully, they will accept our offer, then I can start thinking about where to set up my soap lab!

Organic Oils---not worth the cost!

2009-02-01T12:38:00.001-05:00

After looking at oil prices, it seems that organic is not in my foreseeable future. They are SO expensive. Many are over $200 for a 35lb pail...I think I will stick with conventional oil at this point which is about $50 for 35lb. Maybe when I start making lotions and other leave on products I will use organic oils in them, but for wash off products it is probably not worth it. Thanks for all you helpful comments. :)

Artfire

2009-01-31T18:15:00.002-05:00

How many of you have checked out Artfire? I have created a LadybugSoapworks shop there. I have not uploaded any items yet, but it looks like it may be a better place to list than Etsy. I am going to be working on my shop this weekend. Click here to sign up. Right now they have about 2500 stores left that can be opened at a rate of $7 per month. No listing fees or commision fees. Pretty good deal for those who have lots of sales. After the remaining 2500 or so people sign up, the price goes to $20/month. They also have free accounts. Go check it out and if you decide to sign up, click here to give me credit for recommending you or type in LadybugSoapworks when you sign up.

Organic Oils?

2009-01-26T22:41:00.004-05:00

I have been thinking about changing all my oils over to organic oils as I run of of my current stock. How many of you currently use organic oils in your soap and other bath/body products? What is the general preference...do you care if your soap is made from organic oils or not? This would require me to raise my prices by probably 50 cents to $1, though I will have to price everything out to make a final decision on that. I would love to hear your opinion on the use of organic oils.

Finally, since it has been sooo long since I last posted pictures I will tease you with some new items that will be listed in my store soon. The first is some Pumpkin Pie Cream Soap. This is the real stuff...real soap not the foaming bath stuff.

This is Lavender Shea soap made with lavender essential oil. I brushed the top with mica so that is has a nice sparkle.

This red hot soap is cinnamon scented.
Lavender bath oil. Made with turkey red castor oil so that your tub does not get slippery. Turkey red castor is a water soluble oil.
Patchouli roll-on perfume.

Price Drop!

2009-01-23T21:29:00.002-05:00

I have gone through my ETSY store and decreased prices on many of my soaps. Head over there and check out the great deals!

I will soon be releasing shealoe scrubs and whipped shealoe butter, so keep your eye out at ladybugsoapworks.etsy.com and ladybugsoapworks.net for the new products! I will post some picture very soon...I promise. I know the blog has been lacking lately on pretty picture. Must find a way to get my awesome boyfriend to take some pictures for me! I have had some cinnamon and eucalyptus mint soap waiting for pictures for over 1.5 months!

Exploding Frog Soaps!

2009-01-17T23:16:00.003-05:00

I came across these soaps on ETSY at Howards Home and just had to post about them. They are little green glycerin soap froggies that are basically filled with bath bomb materials. The bomb ingredients are dyed red to look like guts! Haha...how fun would these be for little kid bath time. I think I am going to order a couple for myself. Check them out here.

Testing out Windows Live Writer

2009-01-15T20:11:00.001-05:00

I finally got around to replacing my OLD laptop. This new computer is running vista, so I am trying to figure out all the new things it can do. I just spotted the Windows live writer for blogs and thought I would test it out. Any one else use this program to update their logs. Do you like it? Okay lets see if this posts!

Free Shipping!

2009-01-12T17:11:00.004-05:00

I am trying to get more people to shop at my main website as opposed to my Etsy site. So, for a limited time when you purchase $20.00 worth of product at LadybugSoapworks.net, you will get free shipping! Enter the code "FREESHIP01" in the coupon code box during checkout.

Offer only applies within the continental United States. Offer ends January 31, 2009.

Happy New Year!

2008-12-31T19:38:00.002-05:00

Just wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Year! I hope all of your holidays have been filled with fun and family. I am looking forward to getting back in the blog mode and updating you all on Ladybug Soapworks news.

Have fun tonight!
Sarah

Offers at Ladybug Soapworks

2008-11-29T22:23:00.003-05:00

I am currently offering 2 specials at Ladybug Soapworks. The first is free shipping on all orders over $50 until December 19, 2008 (just wait to pay until you get a revised invoice from me). The second offer is FREE gift wrapping on all orders. I will put your items into a holiday gift bag with tissue paper and a gift tag. Please just let me know when you check out in the comments section if you would like the gift wrapping.

Enjoy!
Sarah

Garage Sale

2008-11-29T20:28:00.002-05:00

I have a bunch of fragrance oils that I have decided not to use in my product lines, so i am offering them up to you at a discount off the retailers price. Check them out and let me know if you would like any of them.

Every effort will be made to ship the package out within 24 hours after payment is received. All orders that come in during this time will be handled in the order they were received and product will be filled accordingly.

Shipping is from 06457 and I require Paypal payment.

For Sale
The Soap Goat Soap Shop
Amaretto on the rocks 7-8 oz amber glass $10

Wholesale Supplies Plus
Mango 2 oz amber glass $4
Caribbean Coconut 2 oz amber glass $4
Berries & Cream-16 oz amber glass $16
Sexy Little Thing 2 oz amber glass $5

Brambleberry
Island Coconut 4 oz amber glass $7
Ocean Rain 4 oz amber glass $9
Ginger Pear 8 oz amber glass $11
Smokey Patchouli 16 oz amber glass $26
Dark Rich Chocolate 4 oz amber glass $9
Sugared Walnut 4 oz amber glass $8
Plumeria 2oz amber glass $4
Pecan Praline 8oz amber glass $11

Lebermuth
Coconut 1 oz amber glass $1.50
Coconut Beach 1 oz amber glass $1.50

Candlemaker’s store
Coconut cream 1 oz plastic container $1.50

Tony’s Fragrance
Coconut 1 oz amber glass $1.50
Buttercream 16 oz amber glass $8.00

From Nature with Love
Enchanted Forest 4oz amber glass $9

Simple Soothings
Cherry Almond 8oz amber glass $7

Unknown Supplier
Sugar Cookie 4oz PETE container $4

Thanks for looking!

Holiday Gift Guide

2008-11-28T20:31:00.002-05:00

The CTEtsy Team has put together a Gift Guide for all your holiday shopping needs. Check it out!

Chocolate Variety Pack

2008-11-03T11:18:00.000-05:00

I made up a yummy chocolate themed gift basket. I am going to list it in my store in a bit. I have included a chocolate covered nuts salt bar, a dark chocolate and coconut soap, a chocolate espresso shea soap, and a cocoalicious vegan lip balm.

Oops!

2008-11-02T21:48:00.000-05:00

I thought I was going to save time and make a double batch of soap the other day and then split it to make two different types. Well for some reason I decided one type should be my Jasmine salt bars. The problem here is that I was making a regular soap recipe and not the recipe needed for salt bars! I couldn't figure out why the soap was so sweaty and soft. Usually salt bars are very hard...finally it occurred to me that I used the wrong recipe. So while these look really nice they are still soft enough that I can push my finger into it and make a dent and I made them about 2 weeks ago. Arrgh...what to do with all this soap now? I am going to give it a try in the shower this week, I am hoping that maybe it will be nice but who knows.

Lucky Winner!

2008-11-02T13:50:00.002-05:00

The winner for last weeks contest is Elizabeth from Gassner Custom Soaps! Congratulations! Please send me an email (contact@ladybugsoapworks.net) with your mailing address and I will get them out to you this week.

Little Munchkins

2008-10-26T02:21:00.003-04:00

I made some pumpkin soap and oatmeal, milk, and honey soap a couple weekends ago. When I was finished filling up my wooden loaf mold, I still had a bunch of soap left. SO I decided to try out some new molds. I think they are adorable. I have not decided if I should sell these or include then in orders as a free gift.

Oooh I have a good idea! How about a give away for one pumpkin and one OMH soap. Make a comment on this post and I will randomly select a name on Friday.

The top two photos are of the pumpkin soap and the bottom one is of the OMH soap.

New creations

2008-10-26T02:12:00.002-04:00

Well, these are actually a month or so old and I just never got around to posting the pictures. So here we go with some soap porn for you all. The first one is gingerbread soap...it smells delicious! It turned a nice creamy brown color from the fragrance oil. This next soap is a new batch of one of my regulars, Oatmeal, Milk, and Honey soap. I decided to leave out the titanium dioxide so that the soap would be a bit more "natural". It turned out well, it is darker than previously as expected, but I am still debating if I should put the titanium dioxide back into the recipe.
This pretty little soap is scented with geranium rose and colored with pink clay. I think this will make a great soap for Valentine's Day gifts.
This last soap is scented with bayberry and colored with ultramarine blue. This is a nice holiday/winter scent.

New soap pictures!

2008-10-26T00:56:00.002-04:00

This first soap is scented with coconut lime verbena. It smells amazing, this is probably my new favorite scent. The green swirl was made with a green oxide.

This next soap is scented mulberry. This is part of my winter seasonal soap selection. Again this one smells really great as well, I have always had a thing for mulberry. The color is from a mix of oxide, ultramarine, and clay.I re-designed my succulent pear soap from the half-circle shape to the regular bar shape.
The long awated pumpkin soap. I mixed in 3 oz of pumpkin. I love the color this turned out and the fragrance oil is to die for!
This last soap is my apple pie soap. I colored it with a mix of red and pink clay and sprinkled a little cinnamon and glitter on top of the soap.

New products in the works

2008-10-19T01:54:00.002-04:00

I tested out another batch of hair conditioner today. I made some scented with tango mango and the other scented with ginger. Both smell really great! I added panthenol, silk protein, honeyquat, and dimethicone to boost the benefits for your hair.

I also made a small batch of oil-free body butter. I am still trying to figure out the benefit of this type of body butter: oil-free verses made from oils. Any one know why people would want one or the other? I have to say I am really impressed with the body butter. It is very light and absorbs very quickly.

Updates on website

2008-10-16T22:56:00.002-04:00

My website has gotten a makeover! It still needs some work, but at least it now looks like a Ladybug Soapworks store. It is up and running for those who would like to purchase some of my soap. Check it out here: LadybugSoapworks.net

Please feel free to give me any suggestions on the site.

I have also added a few new soaps to my etsy store. :)

Soap and scrub

2008-10-11T19:21:00.004-04:00

Just whipped up a batch of pumpkin soap, using real pumpkin, and a batch of jasmine salt bars. I changed up the salts in the salt bars to a fine grain from the medium grain and I think they look better. I am also working on a double batch of oatmeal, milk, and honey soap to replenish my stock and for a custom order that wants an entire loaf.

I have also been playing around with my pumpkin cream soap that I made a while ago. I finally got it to the thickness that I like. I want to make some of the cream soap into a scrub, so I have been testing out different ingredients. I tried raw sugar, sea salt, luffa, and jojoba beads. The sugar turned out fantastic. I scented it with brown sugar FO and it is really to die for. The salt seemed to "melt" into the soap and turned it very thick--too difficult to use. The luffa and jojoba beads would probably be good for a facial scrub, but they just didn't do too much for me. I may try out some exfoliating waxes, apricot kernal, aluminum oxide, or synscrub spheres. I think I will stick with the sugar for the body and test out some of the other options for the facial scrub.

I will try to get some photos of the new soap up tomorrow.
Hope you all were able to enjoy the beautiful day!

Working on my holiday inventory

2008-09-29T00:22:00.001-04:00

I have been developing my holiday inventory. Since this is my first year in business, I am still planning out my product lines and seasonal items. I have been considering putting together more gift baskets for sale, but I don't know if that is what people prefer when buying soap as a gift. Give me some opinions here...what do you prefer-purchasing a ready-made gift basket or buying individual items and giving them that way or making your own gift basket?

Coming soon to Ladybug Soapworks!

2008-09-24T10:01:00.000-04:00

Lots and lots of soap pictures for you all lately! I hope you love looking at them as much as I do! I can never get enough of nice soap pictures. This soap is my lemon poppy seed. It has some shea butter in it (as do almost all the soaps shown in the last few days). I put some calendula in the lye solution to try and tease out some yellow color. I strained out most of the calendula petals, but I left a few which look like pieces of lemon peel. This soap is scented with pink sugar. I really like the way the top turned out. It is colored with titanium dioxide and i let it get very thick before I spread it on top of the pink/brown part of the soap. I sprinkles a bit of sugar and glitter on the top of the soap. The other part of the soap again gave me issues with color. I keep having trouble getting the pink/red colors I want. I now have some pink clay, so I think I will use that in the future for the colorant.
This soap is scented with sandalwood. I colored the top with titanium dioxide and then did a swirl with heavy gold mica. If you look you can see the mica turned from gold to green. No clue why that happened. The mica was from Brambleberry...anyone else experience this before? Dylan used this soap this week and he told me that he actually felt moved to let me know how much he enjoyed the look, feel, and scent of this soap. That is a pretty rare thing...I think the salt soaps was the last time he felt the need to praise me. haha
This last soap is vanilla scented. I let the soap discolor naturally because I like the brown. The top has sugar and glittler sprinkles. All of these soaps will soon be liste on my Etsy site and my main website (which is still a work in progress).

More Soap Porn

2008-09-23T12:55:00.000-04:00

Another teaser of soaps that will soon be listed on at my store. This first one is a chamomile soap. It is made with some chamomile infused oils, chamomile EO, and a bit of ground chamomile for texture. This soap is called chocolate espresso. I colored the bottom with cocoa powder and the top with titanium dioxide. I love this photo...part of my payment to Dylan for his photo skills was that delicious espresso I made for the picture. We got a nice espresso machine about a year ago and have since turned into coffee snobs.
On the theme of taste hot drinks...this soap is scented with green tea and cucumber. (Okay okay...I would probably never drink a cucumber tea, but it smells amazing with green tea!) The green swirls are made with my favorite colorant, french green clay. I also sprinkled the top with some clay, spirulina powder, and sparkles for a little pizazz.
This beautify soap looks a lot like the chocolate espresso, but it is lavender vanilla. The color is not quite what I was going for, but I think it looks nice anyways. I had been hoping for more of a lavender color instead of the brownish purple I got. Ah well...it smells great.

Candle Seconds

2008-09-22T10:23:00.000-04:00

Back in high school I made a lot of candles using paraffin wax. I recently started playing with candles again, but wanted to change to soy wax. Soy wax is more earth friendly and I love its rich creamy color. I bought some wax that is 100% soy and is a one pour type since soy wax shrinks very little as it hardens. However, I have been experiencing issues with blooming or frosting. The candles that I pour start getting white or discolored in regions a few days after I pour them. See the mocha candle pictures below. I can't figure out what I am doing wrong...any suggestions? I may just need to get some Ecosoy advance wax which does not appear to be 100% soy, but it also does not bloom as far as I can tell. I have had a hard time finding information about making soy candles. All the books I have bought or got from the library on candle making either do not talk about soy wax or they only have a page about it. Any suggestions would be appreciated! :)

A Bad Apple

2008-09-21T12:44:00.000-04:00

I made a batch of caramel apple soap that Dylan likes to call the "clown" soap due to the colors. After seeing the final product I am really not sure what I was thinking when I colored the batch. The scent is delicious, but the colors are just horrible. I used a green oxide, red clay, and turmeric for the colors. I think I added too much clay because there are obvious streaks of red from cutting the soap. If I remake this batch I need to get rid of one of the colors. These soaps may be sold on my site as seconds. I just can't imagine selling these ugly babies for full price. Those of you that sell your soap, do you have a seconds/dent & ding section? Do you find that they actually sell?

Lots of new soap...

2008-09-20T19:48:00.003-04:00

I have been super busy lately, so I have not had a chance to upload photos of my new soap. All these lovely pictures were take my my partner, Dylan Maxwell Reilly. I will be posting a bunch more over the next few days. This first soap is a shampoo bar that is loaded with luxurious ingredients. It was made partially from olive oil that was infused with a bunch of Indian Ayurvedic herbs that have been touted to prevent and stop balding, gray hair, and it is supposed make your hair thick and very healthy. I am not sure if it really can stop balding or gray hair since neither of them are a problem for me, but it certainly makes my hair thick and shiney. I have some guy friends that are testing it out for the gray/balding issue. These herbs have been used for over a thousand years, so I would not be surprised if they do work. Too bad I can't actually market the product as a gray/balding prevention without breaking the law.

This is the same shampoo as above, but in a more manly shape for my friend, Will, that will not rub a ladybug in his hair. haha
This is part of a Bayrum shaving soap that I had to rebatch because only some of it poured nicely into my pvc pipe mild. You can see the soap that poured nicely and did not have to be rebatched here.
This soap is scented with black raspberry vanilla, which is now my favorite scent! The purple swirl was made with alkanet root powder.

FDA Globalization act of 2008 survey

2008-09-12T18:48:00.002-04:00

I just received this email from Debbie May of Wholesale supplies plus. I would encourage you all to follow the links and complete the survey so that she can better represent us to those in DC.

The United States Energy & Commerce Congressional Committee is discussing a draft bill they have entitled "The FDA Globalization Act of 2008".

While this discussion bill is not yet a formal bill, which can be voted into law, it addresses problems of food chain supply and consumer safety as it applies to drugs and cosmetics. It is expected to become a formal bill soon.

I am most concerned with this draft bill as it pertains to small businesses producing cosmetics such as lotions, lip balm, bath salts, shower gel, moisturizing soaps, etc.

If this bill becomes a law, as it is currently drafted, and you are producing cosmetics you will be required to:

· Annually register your company with the FDA.
· Pay a fee of $2,000 per year.
· Register all ingredients in each of your individual formulas.
· Document good manufacturing practices.
· Report all adverse reactions.

I know the hardship this potential legislation will have on small businesses in our industry. Now is the time to act. This discussion bill is not a full bill. There is still time to have the language modified so that it does not interfere with your business, product innovation and the entrepreneurial spirit of the American Dream.

On September 24th, I will be making my first trip to Washington DC. I will be meeting with several people including Senator George Voinovich, Senator Sherrod Brown and Congresswoman Betty Sutton.

I need your help for this important visit. Please take the time to answer 10 important questions. I will be binding your answers into a book for presentation with additional support materials.

Now is the time to "Be Informed & Get Involved". Please pass this link to every appropriate blog, website and social network. It is time for us to stand together so that our voice can be heard as one!

Complete your survey now and have your voice heard! I will personally deliver your message to Washington on the 24th!

Sincerely Yours,

Debbie May
President & CEO
Wholesale Supplies Plus.com, Inc.

New Website!

2008-09-11T00:34:00.002-04:00

I am in the process of building a new webstore. It still needs a bunch of work, but I am pretty proud that I have been able to do this much alone. I still need to make the site look pretty, but I have many of my products set listed and shipping and billing all set up. Let me know if you have any suggests. Again this is still a big work in progress, but any feed back is appreciated! See the store here http://ladybugsoapworks.net

Costa rica part 2

2008-09-02T22:55:00.002-04:00

This is a continuation of my Costa rican adventures. I will hopefully get back to my soap soon. With school starting this week I am really busy with my other (less exciting) job. But here are some pictures that I really liked from our trip. This on is of a large lizard that jumped onto a tree very close to the dining area in our rainforest lodge.
This is a white-faced capuchin monkey. He kept trying to steal bananas from the lodge kitchen.

This is a picture of Arenal volcano in La Fortuna. It is an active volcano as evident by the big smoke plume. In the evening you can see the lava flow if it is a clear night.

Cool bug we saw in the rainforest. Dylan has some amazing photography skills.

Dylan spent a morning taking pictures of all the butterflies that he could find. I really liked this picture.

Hope you all had a great Labor Day weekend. I went to Vermont to see my parents and we went to Montreal and then I went for a hike on the Long trail up Jay Peak. It was a nice and relaxing weekend...though the hike was tough and my body is still recovering from it.

Costa rica part 1

2008-08-28T20:42:00.003-04:00

I am back! I thought you all would like to see some pictures so I will be posting some cool ones over the next few entries. On our trip to Costa rica we initially flew into the main international airport outside of San Jose. We rented a car and drove as far down to the Osa peninsula as we could and then had to take a boat the rest of the way. There are very few roads on the Osa peninsula. We spent a lot of our time hiking in the Corcovado national park and snorkeling around Cano island.

This photo below is of a Tapir. It is in the horse family and is huge for an animal in central/south american rainforests. They are nocturnal animals and we happened to see one during the day in Corcovado.

This is a Coati we spotted on the Corcovado beach.

A beach picture in Corcovado.

I think this is a gecko. Geckos and lizards were everywhere and are basically as common as squirrels or chipmunks here in the states.

After the Osa peninsula, we took the boat back to our car and drove to the other end of the country where we stopped at La Fortuna, the town near Arenal vocano. This picture below is from the eco thermales hot spring that we went it. It was really amazing...how I wish I had a hot spring to go to everyday. So relaxing.

Okay that is all for now, but I will post more soon.

New Soap

2008-08-06T01:22:00.005-04:00

Well no luck getting Dylan to take pictures, so instead you will have to check out my bad photography skills. I have a few more new soaps that the pictures are just way too bad so I will have to hold off on them. All of these soaps are made with a newer recipe I have been using that has olive oil, palm oil, coconut oil, castor oil, and shea butter. I really love the silk lather that the shea butter provides.

The first soap below is scented with pink sugar. Unfortunately, the FO had and orange tint to it and it turned my soap a funky could instead of pink. So, I am trying to come up with another name for the soap...any suggestions?
This soap is scented with green tea and cucumber FO and the green comes from French green clay. I sprinkled some sparkles and spirulina powder on top.
This is my sandalwood soap. I colored a portion of the soap white with titanium dioxide and another portion with heavy gold mica. Too bad the mica turned green. I still like the look though.

Chamomile soap made with chamomile tea and chamomile infused oil. I also sprinkled a bit of ground chamomile in the soap and on top.
Lemon Poppy Seed Soap. I tinted the lye solution with calendula petals and at trace mixed in poppy seeds and a lemon FO.

Vacation!

2008-08-04T02:16:00.003-04:00

I am leaving for Costa rica on Wednesday!!! I am so excited. I will attempt to blog while there, but we are going to some very remote places so I may not have access to a computer or internet.

Hopefully, I can get Dylan to take pictures of the many soaps I have curing on the rack before we leave. Last weekend I made a chamomile soap, green tea and cucumber soap, pink sugar soap, sandalwood soap, and some soy mocha cafe candles. So that is at least 10 picture that are due. I really like how all these soaps have come out. The scents are all great too. I think I will be keep them as permanent scents in my line. I will probably start making my Halloween/Thanksgiving soaps when I get back. I am planning right now to make the following scented soaps pumpkin pie, cranberry, caramel apple, apple pie, and brown sugar.

Tomorrow I am going to try to make nag champa soap, neroli soap, white tea and ginger soap, and coconut lime verbena soap.

I have been tagged!

2008-08-04T01:42:00.002-04:00

I've been tagged by Trisha over at Sud's To Love

These are the rules:

1) Link to the person who tagged you
2) Post the rules on your blog (this is what you are now reading)
3) Write 6 random things about yourself (see below)
4) Tag 6 people at the end of your post and link to them (This is only a game)
5) Let each person know they have been tagged and leave a comment on their blog
6) Let the tagger know when your entry is up

Random items:
1) I dislike cooking.
2) I play with proteins at work that I purify from bacteria and then label them with fluorescent dyes so that I can measure distances within the protein.
3) I have two wonderful kitties (Maya and Toshi).
4) I have been learning wheel thrown pottery since February...I am still pretty bad though. ;)
5) I love to travel and wish I could take more than one trip a year.
6) People who do not use their directionals (turn indicator) really annoy me.

People I'm tagging:
1) Anhoki
2) Morgan Street
3) Great Cakes Soapworks

There are many other blogs that I love and read regularly, but I think they have all been tagged recently.

Productive Weekend!

2008-07-21T23:07:00.003-04:00

After having spent all day Saturday at a renaissance fair that Dylan's kung-fu demo team performs in, I was feeling the need to make LOTS of soap. So, Sunday I made 5 batches of CP, rebatched some shampoo soap that was soft, and made a batch of cream soap. It was a lot of fun! For the cold process soap I made them all with a blend of shea butter, olive oil, castor oil, palm oil, and coconut oil. For scents I made a vanilla, lavender vanilla, black raspberry vanilla, lemon poppyseed, and chocolate espresso. They all smell marvelous. The cream soap contained coconut oil, cocoa butter, olive oil, jojoba oil, castor oil, stearic acid, palm oil, and glycerin. For additives I included hydrolyzed silk protein, hydrovance, panthenol, kaolin clay, and calendula petals. The calendula petals provide a light yellow color which should look very nice once the glistening sheen develops in the soap. I will post picture of all the new soap soon!

Recent creations

2008-07-19T00:15:00.002-04:00

It seems that I have not posted pictures of all the new soaps I have made. So here are some soaps that I have made during the past month or so.

Frankincense and Myrrh Salt bars. The light green color comes from French green clay.
This one is my unscented Goat's milk soaps.

This soap was specifically designed for sensitive dry skin. It was made with neem oil, avocado oil, castor oil, evening primrose oil, sweet almond oil, flax seed oil, hemp oil, olive oil, palm oil, and mango butter. I also included Tea tree EO and Lavender EO. It smells a bit like neem oil, which I am hoping will go away with a bit more time, but it is still a very nice bar of soap.

A new shaving soap in a slightly larger size. The soap contains bentonite clay and a blend of Bay rum and patchouli.

Another treasury...I am on a roll! :)

2008-07-17T11:36:00.002-04:00

I have been included in another treasury made up of items from members of the Mad Scientists of Etsy. Check it out here and comment!

Treasury

2008-07-14T08:41:00.001-04:00

My Kahlua Vanilla Coffee soap has been included in a treasury made by a member of the CT Etsy Team. You can check it out here and please comment so we might have a chance to be on the Etsy home page!

Grumpy Girl Soaps

2008-07-13T12:01:00.001-04:00

Some of my Yahoo groups have been talking recently about the amazing swirled soaps at Grumpy Girl on Etsy. Check out this soap called Acid trip.

You can find a tutorial she gave on how to make these amazing 9 color swirls at Craftserver. The tutorial is here.

Yay Finally!!

2008-07-12T11:15:00.000-04:00

After many months of finishing experiments and tweaking my paper, I was finally given the approval by my Professor to submit my manuscript to the Journal of Biological Chemistry on Monday. Now I have to wait about 6 weeks for it to get peer reviewed before I hear anything. Hopefully, I will not have to do any more experiments. So, with that project behind me I now have to finish up my two other projects. With lots of luck I will graduate this May...or that is what I keep telling myself.

Salt Bar Tutorial

2008-07-11T22:44:00.003-04:00

I was recently asked by Joanna at Product body and The Soap Bar to write up a salt bar tutorial. For the pictures I made a Frankincense and Myrrh scented soap with French green clay. I am really loving how it came out. If you want to check out the tutorial it is now on The Soap Bar blog.

I also came across a blog about my Jasmine salt bars on E-tailer's Mall...thanks for checking out my store! :)

So little time in each day....sigh

2008-06-30T00:50:00.002-04:00

Lots to update you all on, but like always time has flown by and I need to sleep very, very soon. In the next few days I will show pictures of the cut and cured goat's milk soap, my sensitive skin soap, a new shaving soap, and a yummie smelling candle! I have also been working on a Salt bar tutorial for Joanna over at the soapbar.

Pirate Party

2008-06-25T18:30:00.006-04:00

It has been a busy few weeks planning for our annual Pirate party. The party was on the 21st and we had a great turn out. Probably around 50 people showed up. My brother came down from Vermont and we had a lot of friends that came from all over New England and New York. This party is always held sometime between May and July depending on when most people can make it. We started the annual party as a party for Dylan's birthday, though he would never tell people that. So every year I make a pirate boat type cake and I thought you all would like to see a picture. I am quite happy with how it came out. It is certainly my best so far. Of course I have only made a couple fondant covered cakes so I am sure there is much I can improve on. The cake was a chocolate vanilla swirl covered in a layer of buttercream frosting and then decorated with fondant.

Dylan and I always get decked out in costume. I made all of mine except the corset and Dylan has compiled his costume over the years. He bought the Jacket last year on Ebay and had a local tailor put in pockets this year. He also had the tailor modify the pants he picked up at Goodwill last year so that they tied off just below the knees. Dylan made the shirt he was wearing and I made his hat a couple of years ago. I was excited to see that many of our guests actually got dressed up in costume, too, though none quite as elaborate as ours. Next year I may try to get some on my girlfriends to wear wench costumes like mine.

Liquid Soap

2008-06-17T13:39:00.000-04:00

I finally got the courage to dilute my liquid soap paste and while I thought I was being modest with the amount of water I added to dilute, it turned out a little too watery. In one of the yahoo groups I am a member of people have been discussing ways to thicken liquid soap. One method was using Hydroxethyl Cellulose (HEC). So since I don't have HEC and it reminded me of Pre-neutralized carbomer I tried using the PNC that I had on hand. Well it worked okay, but it seems like the PNC "crystals" just sink to the bottom of the container. It does make the soap thicker, but it is not pretty. Compare the two photos: the top one was from yesterday and the bottom from today...see the separation? :( I do like the color though and I scented it bubblegum!

Soy Wax Candles

2008-06-16T00:07:00.002-04:00

Here is a picture of the 3 candles I made this weekend. the pink one is scented a cinnamon spice, the blue is blackberry, and the yellow is banana. I really love the look of soy wax and it is so much nicer to work with than paraffin wax. Now if only I can figure out how to get the banana candle out of the mold. I am wondering if I need to use the pillar type wax for that type of mold. Anyone know the difference between pillar and container wax?

New items in Etsy shop

2008-06-15T02:01:00.002-04:00

I posted a few new items in my Etsy shop today and I will be posting 2 different soaps tomorrow. Feel free to check them out here.

I played around with some candles today and I must say I am so impressed with the new one pour waxes. I had not made soap for many years and what I worked with back then was just paraffin wax or beeswax and both would get divots as they cooled. I will post some picture of them tomorrow.

I also made a super luxurious soap for those that have very sensitive and irritated skin. All the ingredients are known to help with eczema and dry skin. I used neem oil in this soap and man does it smell bad. I have had the neem oil for about a month, but it stank so much through the unopened container that I have avoided using it until now. The smell is supposed to fade during the cure and I can already tell that it is getting milder in scent.

Goat's milk soap

2008-06-11T09:09:00.001-04:00

This was my first attempt at replacing some of my olive oil with soybean oil. I did not plan to do this but once I started weighing out my oils I saw that I only had about half the amount of olive oil I needed. So I went back to my soapmaker program and reformulated to add soybean oil. This was also a larger batch practice...instead of my normal 4lb batch I did 8lb. I may be getting a wholesale customer that will require me to work more efficiently if I am to keep up with her demands. This soap looks nice, but I did not incorporate the GM powder as well as I should have and now I have little chunks of GM powder in the soap. I think it actually looks cool, but I am not sure if I should sell this batch. I will have to try it out and see if the powder feels gross or nice or scrubby. I finally made a fairly nice top though...I used my whisk to create the little peaks. I guess if I don't like the specs of goat's milk powder that i could try to rebatch it.

Homemade Toothpaste

2008-06-10T09:56:00.001-04:00

I have been actively commenting on the soap dish to try and get my 100 comments needed to use soapsaver. There has been discussion about homemade toothpaste or tooth soap on there and someone happened to mention using cream soap as a toothpaste. This sparked my interest due to my recent batch of cream soap. So I went and tasted my soap to see if it was nasty tasting...but low and behold it tasted great! It must be due to the glycerin in the soap, cause it has a light sweet flavor. I am planning to add a bit of baking soda and some peppermint EO and make a bit of tooth paste to try out. I am not sure how much of each to add so any suggestions would be welcome.

Cream Soap 2

2008-06-10T09:55:00.002-04:00

Day 2 for cream soap. This soap was formulated with some palm oil since it is rich in stearic acid. Stearic acid is really what gives cream soap its sparkling white luster. Often cream soap is made entirely with stearic acid or just a little liquid oil. When you add palm oil to act as some of your stearic acid it apparently makes the cream soap very very thick and almost salve like. My last cream soap batch (see here) was basically a thick sticky liquid after 1 day. I do not think I like this recipe as much as my last one. Though I have be able to get a better consistency if I whip in in my kitchen aid and add some water or aloe gel. I will keep you updated on how this soap changes over time.

Cream Soap

2008-06-09T09:41:00.000-04:00

I am in the process of making another batch of cream soap. This time I tried a recipe from the Failor bulletin on cream soap. This batch is made with stearic acid, palm oil, coconut oil, and avocado oil. The picture below shows the soap after the cook and super creaming. It was in the process of cooling and you can see how it is starting to turn a creamy white color instead of a translucent gel. It is really quite interesting all the stages cream soap goes through before it actually becomes the nice creamy soap it is destine to be. Any suggestions on what to add to this batch?

Soap curing rack

2008-06-08T09:28:00.000-04:00

When the undergrads moved off campus a couple weeks ago, I did a little scavenging. I found some large plastic storage containers that now hold most of my container supplies for packaging product. I also found a bunch of those 1ft x 1ft metal cube rack pieces. I decided that they would be great to use for shelves in a soap curing rack. We had some extra wood just sitting in the basement so I asked Dylan for help cutting the wood and I was lucky enough that he decided to do the whole project for me! He put some caster wheels we had in a toolbox on the bottom of the rack so I can move it around. I really love it...I am wishing that I had another! There are plenty of shelves left so I would just have to get some more wood. So maybe in the future I will have more..Dylan are you reading this? Haha

Anyways, I thought I would post a picture since I always love looking at others soapers spaces, I thought you all might enjoy.

Not so pretty bath bombs

2008-06-07T09:45:00.000-04:00

Well my first try at bath bombs did not turn out as nicely as I had hoped. They looked great until about 20 minutes after I made them, when I noticed they were swelling. I tried packing them again in the mold, but they just kept expanding. They did not get overly large, but they are somewhat misshaped. They still work great as "shower steamers"; I have not tried one in a bath yet. I LOVE the smell...it is called china rain and is such a relaxing scent. The blue color turned out very nice. I used FD&C blue 1 and just added a drop at a time until it was the desired color. In the future, I will add my citric acid after I add the liquids and I think it is best to spritz the witch hazel or water instead of dumping it in all at once.

Purple Rain Soap

2008-06-06T12:00:00.000-04:00

I really love the way the swirls came out in this soap. I swirled in the pot for the first time and really like the effect much more than in the mold swirls...well at least for loaf molds. I have yet to swirl in a slab mold since I don't have one yet. I ended up making this batch way too big and had enough left over after filling the loaf mold to fill 4 milky way Celtic type molds, a hard white mold that I got for free from Brambleberry, I believe, and a silicone ice cube tray (triangle shape). I think the little guys from the ice cube tray will make nice free samples. I always include a sample in all my orders. This batch was the soap I had planned on being a sky blue, but morphed into this lovely purple. Ah well...I think the name purple rain will work well for the soap.

Sandalwood Incense

2008-06-05T12:07:00.000-04:00

I dipped these incense in sandalwood FO. They smell really nice right now, but they are still slightly damp so I am waiting to burn one. I burned an unscented stick and they seem to last about 40-45 minutes. I am really excited to make more scents and add them to my Etsy store at some point. I haven't quite figured out how these would be best packaged. I bought the appropriate sized zip lock type bags for them, but I do like how they are wrapped in the photo with just raffia. I was originally thinking the zip baggies with a paper fold over label on top.

Vegan Lip Balm

2008-06-04T11:00:00.000-04:00

After many trials, I think I finally came up with a recipe I like for lip balm. I gave a tin to a friend and she liked it so much that she just bought a container to give to another friend. I really like the feel of Candelilla wax much better than beeswax. It seems to spread much nicer, though it could just be that I added extra liquid oil. Let's see if I can reproduce the lip balm. I am excited to try new flavors. So far I have made mango flavor and chocolate flavor. I have a few other flavors on hand that I try soon. How do you all get the lip balm sweetened? Do you add a sugar substitute of just get flavor oils already pre-sweetened?

Lavender Almond Facial Scrub

2008-06-03T11:00:00.000-04:00

This is a face wash/scrub that I recently made and am currently testing. I will let you know what I think of it soon. I have to give props to Dylan, I am in love with the photos of this scrub! They look so professional, but back to the scrub now. This is made with very finely ground almonds, ground lavender buds, lavender EO, and glycerin. It smells great and I think it will make a nice night time scrub since the lavender EO will help you to relax.

French Clay and Ginger Cream Soap

2008-06-02T11:25:00.000-04:00

I just received my containers for a bunch of new items I will soon be adding to my store. They are all a little smaller than I expected. I may get 16oz containers in the future instead of 8oz. The picture below is of my French Clay and Ginger Cream soap in one of my new containers. It also shows one of my new labels (though I forgot to change the net. weight from that of my lip balm...haha lucky I only printed two labels). I really love this cream soap. I just put a little dab on my mesh poof and wow...so much lather! Plus the ginger smells great and it feels nice as a facial soap too. I think it would also make a great shaving soap, though I have yet to try it out as such.

Food and Drug Administration Globalization Act of 2008

2008-06-01T20:54:00.005-04:00

There has been a lot of talk lately about the Food and Drug Administration Globalization Act of 2008. It has come to my attention that Donna from the indie beauty network is going to write a letter on our behalf (as small business owners). She has asked for opinions about the Act so that she can better write the letter on our behalf. I urge you all to go to the forum she has (link below) and put in your opinon. I have attached the letter she wrote to IBN members.

Dear Indie Beauty Network Members,

I write to you with an update on a regulatory concern that threatens the Indie Beauty industry, and the action I would like to take.

First a bit of background.

Before 2000, the year I founded the Indie Beauty Network, I worked as an attorney for many years, mostly as an advocate for various companies before federal and state regulatory bodies. When I started making cosmetics of my own, and later selling them, I often pondered and appreciated the regulatory freedoms that participants in the cosmetics industry enjoyed.

Unlike other industries, cosmetics industry participants do not have to register their businesses or their manufacturing facilities with the federal government. Registration is voluntary, and estimates are that less than 1/3 of the operating cosmetics facilities in the US are registered under the FDA's voluntary registration program. While a few states require facility registration, the vast majority do not. In addition, companies do not have to obtain state or federal pre-approval before selling cosmetics.

One of the reasons I started IBN is because I have a passion for cosmetics and beauty products. I also have a passion for you -- the Indie beauty business owners -- who make and sell them. I have always felt strongly that, as the industry grew and flourished, increased regulatory oversight would follow.

Today, Congress is poised to give the Food & Drug Administration the ability to implement what I consider to be burdensome and costly regulations that go far beyond what is required for the agency to effectively perform its legislative mandate.

I formed IBN in part so that, when the time came, IBN members would have an advocate in the event this type of unfair regulation became a possibility.

It seems as though that time has come.

Food and Drug Administration Globalization Act of 2008

The draft of the Food and Drug Administration Globalization Act of 2008 was announced late last month. The legislation is aimed at giving the FDA authority to promulgate new regulations that are supposed to protect consumers and also provide the funding the agency needs to enforce existing laws in a global market.

Since its announcement, several industry participants have testified before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Subcommittee on Health about the draft, including Stephen F. Sundlof, DVM, PhD, Director of the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition at the Food and Drug Administration (see: http://www.fda.gov/ola/2008/devices051408.html), and a representative of the Personal Care Products Council, formerly known as the Cosmetic, Toiletries & Fragrances Association. (See: http://www.personalcarecouncil.org/Template.cfm?Section=News_Room&template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=5976)

You can read the full text of the draft legislation here: http://energycommerce.house.gov/FDAGlobalAct-08/Dingel_60AXML.pdf. As you can see, the proposed legislation would, among other things:

1. Require all cosmetics companies serving American consumers to register annually with the FDA, and pay a registration fee of $2,000 per facility per year, and to list in its registration the cosmetics is manufactures, processes, packs or holds, and also, for manufacturers, to list all ingredients in each product contained in the registration listing.
2. Require all cosmetics companies to report to the FDA "serious adverse events" resulting from the use of the products.
3. Require all cosmetics companies to comply with the FDA's Good Manufacturing Practices.
4. Require all cosmetics that import cosmetics to register annually with the FDA, and pay another registration fee to do so.
5. Give the FDA authority to levy substantial fines for violations of the new requirements.

The implications of passage of this draft legislation are obvious and far reaching, and should it become law, it will have a definitive and immediate effect. While I feel we must acknowledge the critical role of the FDA in protecting consumers from unsafe or misbranded cosmetics products, we also must ensure that they appreciate that imposition of registration fees, registration requirements and burdensome reporting requirements on small businesses will snuff out an entire segment of the cosmetics industry. It will also have the devastating effect of hampering the creativity and robust competition that consumers have come to expect and appreciate.

What I'd Like To Do On Your Behalf

I would like to prepare a position paper on behalf of the 700+ members of the Indie Beauty Network to will address the draft legislation and share IBN members' perspective. Of course, I first need to know what your perspective is, so I have set up a forum for you to post your opinions: http://www.indiebusinessforum.com/forumdisplay.php?f=41

Please share your suggestions, opinions and questions here.

Please post your comments as soon as possible. Once they are reviewed, I will call a member-wide teleconference meeting to address our options so we can collectively decide what steps to take next.

I will also post updates here from time to time.

Please note that this forum is open to the public at this time, but any draft letters sent to any authority on this topic will be vetted only among IBN members in a private forum. Members of the public are invited to submit comments via the forum and join the discussion. Only IBN member opinions and input will be included in any filings made on this issue. Non-members will not be able to review draft letters, or the edits we make to them before filing.

Please feel free to post this email to your blogs, discussion groups, newsletters, etc. I know it's kind of long, but if you post it, please do so without making any changes.I look forward to hearing your thoughts and questions, and to working with you on these important matters.

Thank you,

Donna Maria Coles Johnson
Founder & President
The Indie Beauty Network

Resources & Links:

Committee on Energy & Commerce: http://energycommerce.house.gov/FDAGlobalAct-08/index.shtml
Discussion Draft Legislation: http://energycommerce.house.gov/FDAGlobalAct-08/Dingel_60AXML.pdf
Testimony of Janet Woodcock, M.D., Director, Center for Drug Evaluation and Research http://www.fda.gov/ola/2008/fdaglobalact050108.html
Testimony of Center for Science in the Public Interest: http://www.cspinet.org/foodsafety/fdaglobalizationact.pdf
__________________
Donna Maria
Founder & President
Indie Beauty Network
Indie Business Media, LLC

New Logo!

2008-06-01T11:11:00.000-04:00

Dylan created a new logo for Ladybug Soapworks. He took a macro picture of a leaf and placed a little ladybug graphic on the stem. I think it came out great, though we are hoping to find a ladybug at some point and replace the graphic with a picture.

Spirulina

2008-05-31T11:00:00.001-04:00

For those interested in using spirulina in cold process soap for color...I would suggest that you do not bother. The soap below was made March 15 and you can see the picture on the bottom how bright the green swirls were. The photo on the top was taken to show you all that after a little more than 2 months the green has faded to a pale green/tan color. Very disappointing...though I have found that stinging nettles makes a really great natural green color that lasts. Now I need to find something else to do with all my spirulina powder. Maybe it would work as a colorant in lotion...but would people want to rub a green lotion all over their body? Maybe it could be marketed for children.

Chocolate Covered Nuts Salt Bar

2008-05-30T22:49:00.003-04:00

I recently made this yummie scented batch of salt bars. This is a fragrance blend that I came up with and I am really pleased with how it came out. When this batch was fresh out of the mold and just cut it had a nice swirl pattern of brown (cocoa powder) and white, but as time passes it is turning more of a solid brown. The swirls may pop back out after it gets wet, but we will have to wait and see. I tried a sliver of it in the shower yesterday and it had a great lotion like lather.

Obama Speech

2008-05-30T00:23:00.002-04:00

This past weekend I had the honor of hearing Barack Obama speak at the Wesleyan commencement. It was really exciting getting to see him. So many people from the area, but not Wesleyan related, came and apparently there was about 15,000 people that attended. Though it was kind of sad that as soon as Obama finished speaking about 10,000 people left even though no diplomas had been handed out yet. Obama talked about the need for people to volunteer, join the peace corps, or do anything to make a positive difference in the world. He was very inspirational and I recommend everyone to watch his speak on youtube.

Ramblings

2008-05-23T14:44:00.002-04:00

Well...I guess I have lagged. It has been too long since my last post. I have been working on some new items though. I have made a chocolate covered nut scented salt bar that I swirled (more like marbled) in cocoa powder. They smell delicious and have a great lather. I also made an ocean rain scented soap that I swirled in what was supposed to be blue but it turned a lovely shade of purple. Anyone else every have trouble with this? It was an FD&C colorant. I also just received my package of incense so that I can dip my own. I am pretty excited about making them.

On another note, I am really excited for Sunday. This weekend is graduation at Wesleyan and Ted Kennedy was supposed to speak, but now Barack Obama will be taking his place! So, I am really excited to hear him speak. I will try to take pictures to post.

Mango Hair Conditioner

2008-05-13T22:41:00.000-04:00

I have been lurking in some courses being given by the yahoo group southern soapers classes for the past 3 weeks. I finally received my class kit from southern soapers and made a hair conditioner as taught in one of the classes. I really love how silky the conditioner feels and how silky it leaves my hair. I did not add any additives to the conditioner besides preservative and FO but I will likely add some proteins and other goodies in future batches. I just love the Mango FO that southern soapers put in my kit. It leaves my hair smelling of mangoes ALL day long...yum!

Liquid Soap

2008-05-12T22:32:00.000-04:00

Well I attempted to finish making my liquid soap. When you make liquid soap you first have to make a gel-like soap from oils and potassium hydroxide. Then you have to take some of the gel and dilute it to your desired consistency. Well, I tried to dilute the soap by placing first an equal amount of water and soap in a sauce pan and boiling it on the stove. This did not dissolve all the soap and the water evaporated away so I added another part of water. Still did not entirely dissolve the soap...finally I added another part of water but still no luck. The picture below shows what I ended up with once the soap cooled. I think the chunks are from boiling the soap. I will probably try to make it in my Crockpot next time over low heat until the soap dissolves and I will likely start with at least 1 part soap to 2 parts water. Lets see if I can get this soap dissolved tomorrow. I give up for now.