Ladybug Soapworks blog now available on Kindle!

I am so excited to announce that the Ladybug Soapworks blog is now available on the Kindle store for a monthly subscription cost of $0.99. This allows you to read my blog even when you are not connected to the internet. This is also a great way for you to take my recipes and tutorials with you into your kitchen or soap "lab" and have them easily accessible without printing them out and wasting paper. Want to sign up?  Click here.

Coloring bath salts

Bath salts can be colored quite easily with a liquid dye or clays. In this experiment, I tried both methods to see what I liked best. I used FD&C dye for the purple, blue, orange, yellow, and green colors and pink clay for the pinkish/salmon color. I really liked the clay colored salts, but after a bit of research I found people complaining that the clay leaves a hard to clean circle on your tub. Have any of you experienced this in your trials?

All my color trials

You can see that the FD&C dyes create a variation of colors in the salts based on the type of salt it is coloring. The sea salt crystals seem to be darker and the Epson salts color lighter.  I really like the color gradation that ends up in the final product.

Mixing up purple bath salts

The color differences are really evident in this picture.  I think they end up looking like gemstones.  So pretty!

Mixing up green bath salts

An assortment of colors

Orange, yellow, blue, and green

New products at Ladybug Soapworks

I have been trying to expand my line of offerings beyond soap as a way to expand my clientele. I used to make bath salts, but then decided to focus on soap. Well they are now back and better! I have whipped up a few batches to have a bit of variety. They are made from a mix of Epson salts, sea salt, and baking soda. I have added a touch of color and fragrance to make your bath time truly relaxing.

Geranium Rose Scented Salts

This bath salt mix is scented with geranium rose essential oil and the pink comes from Bolivian pink salts that I included in the salt mix. I just love how nice these photos came out with the salt in little wooden buckets.

Lime Scented Bath Salts

 This batch was scented with Lime essential oil and colored a light green. It smells so refreshing.

Lavender Scented Bath Salts

Lavender is probably one of the best scents for relaxation. These salts were lightly colored a pinkish-purple.

All packaged up!

Pick yourself up a package of our new salts here and take some time to relax. Each bag holds 18 oz of salts which is enough for at least 8 baths if you use 1/4 cup of salts per bath. In the future, I plan to package the salts in jars, but for now they will come in the same biodegradable bags that I use to package my soap.

Whipping up some soapy goodness!

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!

Vegan Lip Balm

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?