Soapy Links

Check out Carolyn Friedman's blog Becoming a Radiologist Technician where she has listed the "Top 25 Soap Making Resources Online” All my favorites are there and a couple of new ones I will be checking out.

Free Ad Space for 2 Virgos!

Cathy Winsby of Soap Making Essentials has graciously given me free ad space. You can see my ad as well as some other nice soap shops here. Thank you so much Cathy!

Seducing Swap

That's right, Patrice over at The Soap Seduction put a double whammy on me! She kindly agreed to a swap with me and I hit the jackpot! First up is her luscious Lip Lush Trio, handcafted lip loving balm with a hint of color and a nice taste. Patrice does not use sweetener in her lip balm feeling it just makes us lick our lips and waste this lovely lip balm and she is right! I opted for Cherry Berry, Mango Peach Fusion, and Pina Colada. This formulation of olive oil, castor oil, beeswax, caranauba wax, candelilla wax, fragrance, lip safe colorant, lip safe mica goes on silky soft and stays on, tastes good, and makes my lips nicely moist and soft.

I also swapped for a bar of her wonderfully moisturizing cold process soap, Pinky Muskadero, a delightful mixture of olive oil, soybean oil, avocado oil, castor oil, coconut oil, cocoa butter, distilled water, sodium hydroxide, oxide, and fragrance. This beautiful soap is scented with notes of jasmine, musk, and a hint of peony. I rushed to test it out and found it gave loads of creamy bubbles, scented just right and not reeking, just the way I like it, and left my skin soft and clean. All products came packaged in a pretty muslin drawstring bag, a nice touch!

I encourage anyone wanting to use premium handcrafted lip balm instead of chemical laden store bought stuff and fantastic cold process soap to rush to The Soap Seduction and shop to your heart's content, you will be happy you did! Thank you Patrice!

NEWSFLASH! Greening up My Line

I am now offering my glycerin soaps in all natural pure soap base, the only chemicals in this true soap is the lye used to make all soap and the fragrances and FD & C colors I may add. Melt and pour glycerin soaps are not true soap, they are chemical stews, even the premium glycerin soap base I was using had them in it. Old fashioned glycerin soap is not even SOAP it is classified as a cosmetic by the FDA. It bothered me, I did keep the chemicals to a minimum but I have searched high and low in order to offer a better product that is safer and healthier to use. My NEW natural glycerin soap does not have these chemicals in it. It is true soap, pure and simple. Classified as SOAP by the FDA. The only chemicals will be the little bit of fragrance oils and colorings I add to some of them. I will be updating my sites to show this new greening of my soaps. I am proud to offer this vast improvement in my products, your skin will love it, and I will be able to do it without raising my prices much at all. Remember, it is the synthetic petrochemicals our skin hate, this new soap will be far kinder to your skin. It is a superior product and still affordable. Be kinder to your skin and body, use pure soap!

Terminated New Wholesale Account

2 weeks ago i had had enough and terminated my new venture with the retail company that wanted to feature my medieval product line in thier product line. After a multitude of patient emails to them trying in detail to explain the FDA laws regarding legal labeling of products for retail they kept insisting on trying to make me market my products illegally and completely ignoring my efforts at educating them to keep us both out of trouble. I am out $500, stuck with product I had no intention of investing in for myself, and am glad I found out how unscrupulous they are NOW rather than later when orders started coming in...I was going to dropship the itmes, so that meant they would be remitting payment on orders to me, I probably would not even have been paid for my products. I learned 3 valuable lessons: 1.) CONTRACT, contract, contract. 2.) Insist the retailer invest half the investment monies up front before any work is done. 3.) An exclusive contract costs $20,000 and a license must be signed. They wanted to have exclusive rights to my products, in the bath and beauty business, that is worth $20,000 to cover lost future revenue on my behalf since I would have to remove my products from my stores..Learn from my experince, get it in writing and get earnest money up front to cover your expense. any company that knows nothing about the bath and beauty business MUST follow your lead, it is your business that is on line, when the FDA levies fines, it will be YOU they levy them against if your products are not manufactured legally.

New Wholesale account for Primo's Pawtourage Dog Themed soaps

This morning a very good friend whom I get my custom incense and some fragrance oils from asked if she could feature my dog themed soaps on her wholesale site! YES and YES! suddenly, I have 2 !!! wholesale accounts! I will make less money per item but more sales therefor more money. She makes big buck compared to me and has an established customer base. We shall see. Things are happening for me and it is such a blessing and time will tell.

new layering of Black Knight soap

This looks pretty good!

Midwest Crafts & Recipes soap Review

Shannon at Midwest Crafts and Recipes kindly sent me an absolutely delightful bar of cold process Angels in the Garden Soap she handcrafted. It is the bar in the middle in the above photo. This is a wonderfully creamy bar of soap scented with a fruity floral combination consisting of magnolia blossoms, apple, peach, strawberry, jasmine, rose, raspberry and lavender. Simply divine with a wonderful scent "throw." The bar is silky smooth with a nice slip with the addition of jojoba and is nicely hard, creamy white with sweeping amber swirls. A pretty bar of soap crack that left my skin soft and smooth. Thank you Shannon so much, let's swap again sometime! You can find her blog here:

Ingredients: Coconut Oil, Palm, Castor, Canola, Olive Oil and jojoba...a touch of beeswax to keep that white ash from forming, Fragrance.

I received a wonderful bar of cold process soap from Kelly Bloom at Bloomworks Natural Soap Company a few weeks ago and have tested it out. I tried Moon Lake Musk, one of her Elemental Soaps, and it is a delight, with good scent throw, a pretty dusky blue color, great suds, and is a nice hard smooth bar of soap. I loved using this moisturizing soap, it left my skin so soft!

Moon Lake Musk Soap: Golden Olive, Coconut, Palm Kernel, Palm, Sunflower, Soy, Babassu, Grapeseed, Rice Bran, & Castor oils; Cocoa Butter, Shea Butter, & Mango Butters. Natural Herbs, Fragrance, & natural clays, oxides, ultramarines, or FD&C's for color. Net Weight: 4.5 - 5 oz

Moon Lake Musk is a moody Musk Unisex fragrance with notes of fern, lily, hyacinth, jasmine and a hint of orris and a powdery and sweet amber note. I love it! And so will you! Thank you Kelly!

Premiering Handmilled Emu Soaps

I am switching to handmilled (rebatched) cold process goatmilk and all vegetable oil soaps with added emu oil to further enrich the soap and add emu oil's famous healing powers to this luxurious and affordable soap with excellent lathering and moisturizing qualities. Right now I have 3.5 oz bars of Aussie Vanilla Dreams Goatmilk Emu soap and Aussie Pumpkin Patch Goatmilk Emu soap 4 oz bars all made in my soap goddess mold. Each of these bars are $1 an ounce plus $1 each to cover the extra labor involved in the handmilling process and the cost of the emu oil. Send inquiries or ask about custom scents at 2 Virgos Designs Etsy Shop.

2 Virgos Designs Etsy Shop

Essential Oils for Arthritis

Right now I am doing extensive research into essential and carrier oils and botanicals useful in easing pain from arthritis. Here's what I've found: tamanu oil, helichrysum essential oil, eucalyptus, peppermint, cedarwood, lavender, benzoin, nutmeg, yarrow, clove bud, sage dalmatian, juniper, cypress, rosemary, emu oil, black pepper, German & Roman chamomile, ginger and marjoram. All of these oils and botanicals need careful research into their safety, for instance tamanu oil is a nut oil and must be avoided by those with nut allergies, quite a few people. Emu oil is an animal byproduct and Vegans won't like it. I am NOT a Vegan, follow my Native American traditions in that I believe the whole animal/plant is to be used wisely. I will be testing and developing both a Vegan product and a non-Vegan natural prodct that can be used by those who suffer so from arthritis.I will be investing in a small portion of emu and tamanu oils, they are costly but a little goes a long way, and adding one or two of the other essential oils, helichrysum and maybe lavender and benzoin or chamomile. I use cedarwood a lot and i have noticed it helps my pruitis (extreme itchies) and my joint, bone and skin pain seems less and lasts for quite a while after I take my hot bath when I use it in combination with either lavender or patchouli. I will make a milk bath using them so it will only be a total of about 8 drops of the blend being used in the bath at a time for safety. I will also make a dilute ointment usng grapeseed oil as the carrier base. I will report on my success or not after I test these mixtures. It's going to take me a while. I have my eye on adding it to soap and making milk baths for resale.

Pagan Pride Show Report August 2008

I did great at this show making 4 times my booth rental ($35). Told to expect 500 people or so this is what came, and they came with discerning eyes, open pocketbooks, and knowledge about what they appreciated. A totally pleasant experience. Blows everyone's theory that the reason the July Shop Till You Drop did so badly was because of the economy, NOT! The only things I did not sell were my lotions and shower gels, will not invest any more money in developing them until I get requests for them. My soaps, sachets, dream pillows, milk baths, and even gift baskets did well.