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Okay, my day started early as usual. Binka, which is the nickname for my darling baby girl Wynter, woke up around 5 am to eat. Feed her, gave her to daddy, and I went to do my work out. Did Walk Away the Pounds one mile walk this morning. Nothing to strenuous, but enough to get me pumped. After that I made my grocery list, then an avocado shake. I got this recipe from the Dr. Oz show. It is one ripe avocado, 2 cups of low fat milk (I use skim) and 2 tablespoons of honey. Mix in the blender and enjoy. It was right tasty too and had a beautiful pale green color. As I was peeling the avocado I couldn’t help but say to myself, boy I bet this would be nice in soap. We do use avocado oil in some of our soaps but we have never soaped real avocado. So of course it is now on my to-do list. After the shake I hit the Internet in search of how to change my landing page on my facebook fan page. Of course it was a very simple task, just needed to take the time to sit down and do it. For those who would like to know you go to your fanpage, click edit, then wall settings and there is a drop down box to change your landing page. Anyway take a look at our fan page and become a fan.

Back to work....

Well my maternity leave time is just about over. I return back to work on Monday, March 8th. I am having mixed feelings about it. One part of me is ready to go back since I had what I considered too much time on my hands. Not sure how other people operate, but I am at my best when my plate is running over with things to do. I know…I am just weird. Another part of me was getting use to being home and I am going to miss the opportunity to make soap on a whim through out the day. The last thing that I have mixed feelings about is taking my precious daughter to day care. My goodness Monday is going to be a hard day for both me and dad, which is why dad is the one dropping her off…go figure. So have us in prayer. Anyway on with my day….

Today was more of a tidy the house up day. Since I am returning back to work it was time to get some things in order since I had been overlooking a few home chores while I relished in soap making. I did take the time to make up more sample bags. My hubby and I (mainly hubby) give out sample bags while we are out and about. He generally give out about 10 or so a day. Since we have to hit the mall tomorrow for a few things, I thought it would be a good idea to have plenty available. Each flat style Kraft bag comes with our information printed on it along with a discount code to use for future purchases. We fill each of these little guys with a sample of soap, moisturizer and lip balm. Every now and then we will include a sugar scrub. Here is how they look.

Citrus Blossom Soap in the Making

Today is PRODUCTION day again. We are running low on a few soaps so of course we had to get more in the molds. We make some of our soaps 3#s at a time and really need to up the number of pounds to at least 9#s. This way we will not make some of our soaps as frequently. Now we will say that we do have quite a few soap fragrances that we make 9#s at a time and those are the ones we sell the most of. Anyway, here are a few pictures along with the process.

1. Decide what ingredients you want to use and then use soapcalc.com to calculate the lye and water amount as well as the possible finished quality of the bar. Soapcalc.com has a wealth of information about oil qualities.



2. Gather everything you will need, stick blenders, mixing spoons, colorants, fragrance, etc.


3. Weigh liquid (water, milk, aloe, etc.) add lye to it and mix thoroughly. For this batch we used ½ coconut milk and ½ water, we mix the lye with the water and added the coconut milk at trace


4. Weigh oils, butters and fragrance


5. We do the RTCP method, which means we don’t wait for the lye to cool to a certain temperature. Once we have weighed our oils and butters, we then add the lye water. The lye water melts the solid oils/butters (palm, coconut, shea, mango, etc.) Please note when we add cocoa butter to a batch, we melt it in our chocolate melter and then add to the oils/butters.


6. Mix until trace, which is a thick pudding type consistency
   Add colorant and fragrance. We did a two color swirl so we had our bowls ready with the colorants and just added traced soap to each color and swirled in the bowl. We are a bit swirl challenged.


7. Pour in mold


8. Unmold after 24 hours


9. Cut and Cure for a minimum of 4 weeks

Pictures of New Soaps

I have been home since late December on maternity leave and have my days when I am bored out of my mind. Since I have the time I have taken the opportunity, while the little Misses is asleep, to make up new batches of soaps, which I discussed in a previous post. Well today, I had the opportunity to take photos of the cut soaps and to learn many features in Gimp. Gimp is a really cool photo editing, enhancement, creation, etc. software that is FREE and from what I have read on various forums it is much like Photoshop. Here are the pictures that I took using my new Sunpak light box that I got for Christmas and my overdue for replacement Sony Cybershot Digital Camera. By the way my 11 year old who is home due to Track Out stamped each soap for me. He has been a great help these past 3 weeks. From top to bottom, Herb & Sprice, Cucumber & Aloe and Brighter Days. Thanks for looking

Soaps in the making

Today is production day, which is the day we set aside time to restock products and formulate new ones. We made four new batches of soap which are scented with only premium essential oils and colored with either clays and/or herbs. These soaps will not have any fancy look to them like you can achieve using cosmetic coloring however they will have an eco-friendly appeal. Here is a brief look into what we have in the making:

Brighter Days will do just that brighten your day with its inclusion of Aloe Vera Juice, Kaolin Clay, Paprika and essential oils of Pink Grapefruit, Lemon, Sweet Orange and Litsea Cuebeba

Herbal Spice has an herbal water infusion of Hisbiscus, Marshmellow Root, Nettle and Burdock Root and an Essential oil blend of Cinnamon, Rosemary, Black Pepper and Clove

Pink Ginger has coconut milk, orange peel powder and essentials oils of Clove, Ginger, Sweet Orange and Pink Grapefruit

reneU has coconut milk and rice powder with pink grapefruit, peppermint, rosemary and spearmint essential oils.

We used a variety of different vegetable oils and exotic butters in each batch. Each batch contains Olive, Rice Bran, Palm, Coconut, Castor, Sunflower/Safflower and/or shea, cocoa and mango butters.

Here is a picture of Herbal Spice in the making

And a picture of all the logs (don’t laugh we still use garbage bags to line our molds that Hubby took time to make from his busy schedule) From Left to Right: Brighter Days, reneU, Herbal Spice and Pink Ginger

Lip Balm Flavors

Our lip balms have been receiving a lot of rave around the Net. They are made with wholesome ingredients that will moisturize dry lips with just the right amount of glide. Each tube comes
choked full of hempseed, sweet almond, palm and castor oils, beeswax, vitamin E and irresistible flavor. This is a wonderful way to pamper and nourish your puckers with the finest oils and flavors nature can provide.

- New Flavors -

• Berryliscious


• Cappuccino


• Caramel Crunch


• Cotton Candy


• Cucumber Melon


• Orange Sorbet


• Pineapple & Tangerine


• Smackin' Strawberry

Here is what others are saying:

Review 1

Review 2

Sugar Scrubs

Sugar Scrub, what is it? And why bother to use it?

A Sugar Scrub is a body treatment designed to slough away dry, dead skin. Our sugar scrub is comprised of sugar, vegetable oils, exotic butters and vitamin E and come in an array of fragrances. We even offer our sugar scrubs in a sampler size.

How to use it?
Sugar scrubs are used on thoroughly wet skin and when used properly the skin’s appearance and texture is improved. To use simply rub the scrub on wet skin, particularly dry skin and apply a little pressure then rinse off.

Why bother to use it?
The sugar granules peel away dry, dead skin cells to reveal healthy skin with a glistening glow. The moisturizing ingredients found in our scrubs help retain moisture, thus keeping skin soft, hydrated and supple. This process will help retain the skin’s healthy appearance and texture. It is important to exfoliate the skin, especially during/ in dry and cold weather when the body easily loses moisture.

Why do you use sugar instead of sea salt?
Our main reason for using sugar is because of the size of the granules. Sea salt granules are larger than sugar granules, which makes a salt scrub much rougher on the skin than sugar. In addition sugar is gentler on the skin particularly if you have a small abrasion. Just imagine how it would feel if salt comes into contact with an open cut, it doesn’t leave a good feeling.

So start caring for your skin naturally and properly