Wax and Bubbles

There are several ways to go about pampering yourself. Some simple ways are to turn on some quiet music, sip some tea and soak in a warm bath. There are other ways as well that are so simple you will wonder why you didn’t know about them before.

1. Homemade Facial: Clean you face and apply an algae mask on your damp face. Lay back and relax with the mask in place for about 15 minutes. Rinse off and pat your skin dry. Apply a facial serum that contains some sort of skin rejuvenating ingredient. Finish off the facial with a lotion that contains age fighting ingredients.

2. Relaxation Facial: Clean your face and place a warm wash cloth of your face and lay back and relax for about 5 to 10 minutes. Remove the wash cloth and pat your skin dry. Apply a facial lotion that contain age-fighting ingredients and relax for another 5 to 10 minutes.

3. Age-Fighting Hair Treatment: Take 10 drops if your favorite scented essential oil and blend it with 1/2 cup of olive oil Massage your oil mixture into the scalp on dry hair. With green French clay, part your hair and apply the clay to the scalp in sections of the hair. Rinse the entire application of oil and clay mask under warm water and wash your hair with shampoo and then condition as normal.

4. Full Body Spa: With sea salt and essential oil mixed, massage into the body and on your arms and legs rub the mixture into the skin toward the heart. After rinsing the sea salt scrub off the skin, and while your skin is still damp, apply lemon body oil over the entire body. Pat your skin dry and apply your favorite body lotion all over the skin. Warp your whole body in a warm towel from the dryer and lay back and relax for about 15 minutes.

You are probably familiar with cardamom if you tend to eat a lot of Indian foods that also use curry or curry oil, but cardamom has added benefits other than the use in food dishes. Cardamom can improving digestion and stimulating the metabolism, but it can also have added benefits when added to soaps or hand lotions as well.

Pangea Organics has the most extensive line of cardamom products available. Such as the Lavender and Cardamom bar soap. It contains soybean oil, coconut oil, extra virgin olive oil, hemp seed oil and vegetable glycerin. It also contains sweet orange oil, Roman chamomile oil, with other essential oils as well. These cardamom ingredients also come in hand soap and a lotion and shower gel too. The soap come in a 3/75 ounce size and runs $8 a bar.

River City Soaps also carries a cardamom soap variety as well. Their soap is in solid form and called Texas Tea soap and it contains orange, patchouli and cardamom blend that leaves a nice lingering scent. It comes in a 5 ounce form and runs $5.50

Crabtree & Evelyn offer a body bar that contains cardamom and cocoa butter and nutmeg. It is an all-natural body bar that promises to leave the skin feeling super clean with no trace of a film when washed off. It also contains no sodium laureth sulfate either. The bar comes in a 3.5 ounce bar for $8.

Baudelaire Soaps offers a hand soap that is made of pure cardamom powder straight from India. The soap is made also with glycerin and other oils to deliver a clean feeling to the skin with the nice smell of cardamom left on the skin. The soap comes individually wrapped and is a 4.4 ounce size for $5.

IMAGE Skincare was founded in 2003 and is based in West Palm Beach, Florida and they bring forth unparalleled results for licensed physicians and estheticians. Their products are FDA-certified and they use the most scientifically advanced formulas in today’s marketplace to create pharmaceutical grade skincare products that give the ability to offer professional treatments and products.

They offer in house education classes to further your knowledge of skincare and how to properly take care of one’s skin. Their in house education classes also help you understand their products a bit better. The product lines include, Ageless Silver, Vital C Orange, Ormedic Green, Clear Cell Blue, Sun Yellow, Body Spa Body Spa, and I Peel.

Available to only licensed professional and estheticians currently, but if you want to give IMAGE a try, as your local skincare specialist to help you find the combination that is right for your skincare needs. Your skin maybe in need of some tender loving care and Image is the best way to achieve those needs.

Their mission statement is clear:
IMAGE Skincare, a professional corporation, is dedicated and committed to providing our customers with the highest integrity of service, professional products and continuing education in the field of skincare and esthetic procedures.

They utilize the purest ingredients from an organic source which have been combined for the utmost effectiveness in bring your best face forward. Their products contain the most powerful anti-aging properties available in diminish the fine lines and first signs of aging within the face and lips. So be sure and ask about IMAGE the next time you speak to your skin care specialist.

Champagne for any occasion is great. And why not? Champagne is packed full of health benefits. Champagne was actually the first wine which was made 2,000 years ago, was named after a small town in France. And a sparkling wine is considered champagne if it is made in the champagne district of this area in France. All others are known for just being sparkling wine. Sparkling wines usually come from areas where grapes don’t have enough sun to ripe according to other wine standards.

Champagne may help protect the brain against injuries incurred during a stroke and other ailments, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. The reason for the Champagne’s ability to cope with the brain according to the researchers lies in the high presence of polyphenols packed within every bottle. Red wine was declared as the healthiest types of wines to drink, because of the highest concentration of polyphenols. Champagne is similarly beneficial to those in red wines. Measurable levels of polyphenols were extracted from Chardonnay and Pinot noir/ Pinot Meunier. The amount of polyphenols in Champagne varies greatly from variety, vintage and a wide range of environmental factors. Of course the presents of chemicals and other pesticides could throw the health benefits off as well.

Red wine health benefits have been circulating for years on having a glass of red wine with dinner or at least once a day. Champagne may off there same benefits as well. Of course drinking red wine or even champagne the key is “all in moderation”. So toast to your health and your brain!

As a new candle maker one of the biggest problems is finding the perfect blend of wax, fragrance oil, candle dye and wicks to create the perfect soot free candle. Truth be told though anything that has a flame or burns is going to produce soot even cooking on a gas stove. As a candle maker we try to prevent this soot as much as possible.

When you’re aiming for a soot free candle the biggest thing you need to remember is that each wick is specially designed for a certain type of candle. If you are using a zinc candle wick that is made for a 4 inch wide jar, but you are using it in a two inch wide jar you are going to have soot. On top of that you run the risk of an exploding container since the wick will burn much to hot for the type of jar you are using it in.

You will also want to make sure your customers know of to take care of their candles. Trimming wicks to the proper size which is ¼ inch from the top of a candle greatly reduces soot. If a candle wick is left burning to long it will produce soot on the jar. But it seems no matter how many warning labels and how loudly we speak of this issue their will be customers who just do not follow these rules of proper candle burning.

The only thing we can do to help prevent soot is to use self trimming wicks. With the use of wicks such as HTP, flat braid, and square braid to name a few we can help cut back on soot from a customer’s lack of trimming.

Now if we could only come up with something that would self extinguish a candle that burns 1 hour for every inch wide it is we would be almost virtually soot free. A properly made and burned candle will diminish the amount of soot a candle gives off to minimal amounts.

If I had $300 dollars I would buy________.

What would you buy with $300? Or even $200 or $100? Now is your chance to find out! Comment on any 451 Press site during the month of August and you could win! Three comments will be chosen at random to win a cash prize of $300, $200 or $100. The more you comment the more chances you have to win. So start reading and let those fingers fly.

If I had $300 dollars I would buy________.

What would you buy with $300? Or even $200 or $100? Now is your chance to find out! Comment on any 451 Press site during the month of August and you could win! Three comments will be chosen at random to win a cash prize of $300, $200 or $100. The more you comment the more chances you have to win. So start reading and let those fingers fly.

This site is currently in need of a blogger. If you have any interest in blogging about Wax & Bubbles, feel free to submit an application at 451 Press. Thank you.

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Ah, summertime. Heat, sunshine, humidity - depending on where you live, summer cranks up the heat sometimes to dizzying degrees. As a soap and candle maker, this can cause you to encounter a great big mess.

Finished soap and candles, as well as other bath and body products, can turn into big lumps of mush in the summer heat and humidity. Hot and cold process soap, as well as fat candles such as pillars and votives should be just fine as long as they’re not placed in direct sunlight or humidity, but melt and pour soap, bath products rich in butters, and taper candles will all suffer in hot weather. Your supplies are at risk too! Some solid dyes or dye chips, wax beads, butters, solid oils, melt and pour soap base, wax or soap embeds, and lip balms can get soft or even liquefied when exposed to heat. Soap base will also suffer from humidity, which causes the soap to “sweat.”

Last summer, I had a few taper candles on display in my dining room and forgot to move them before the real heat waves began. They ended up bent over completely, with the wicked tips melting into a puddle on the shelf. Never again! What a mess!

Keep your products and supplies in a cool, dry, place, away from sunlight and direct heat. Store individual items in airtight plastic containers or zippered freezer bags just to be safe. You don’t want something melting and getting all over your other supplies.

You can store some items in the refrigerator if need be, but this type of storage can cause loss of moisture in things like butters and soap base. Once the items are brought back to room temperature, they can end up crumbly and brittle. Adding a bit of water when melting these items will help to restore them to their original moisturizing selves.

Scenting soap and candles for women is pretty easy. Most fragrance oils cater to us, with floral, fruity, or perfumey scents, which can be used alone or combined to create a more complex scent. But it can be difficult to find a scent that will appeal to the guys.

Lots of companies carry brand name cologne “type” fragrances, such as Obsession for Men or Cool Water, which are copycat fragrances that tend to smell very similar to their namesakes. Scents will differ slightly between suppliers, however.

It’s lots more fun to create your own men’s fragrances, using base scents like musk, sandalwood, amber, and “ocean” fragrances. You’d be surprised at the types of scents you can add to these bases to bring out a truly unique smell! Try adding citrus notes, or a touch of lavender, patchouli, mint, or something spicy like cinnamon or sage. Scents like fresh cut grass or other nature-inspired smells are also a good place to start. Pine and balsam are great to work with too, but use a small amount of these oils as they tend to be overwhelming.

Try creating a whole line of products for men, including soap (on or off a rope!), candles, bath bombs, and lotion. You’ll be surprised at how well received they are!

While the craft of soap making is certainly not new, technology has definitely made things easier for the home soaper. Not only can we connect instantly with others who share the hobby from anywhere in the world, we’ve also got access to some terrific tools to make our lives easier. For me, anything that saves a bit of time and money is definitely something I want to look into!

One of these things is this wonderful little lye calculator that you can download and run on any Windows computer. It’s got the saponification values already listed for most oils and fats, and if there’s one that you want to use that isn’t there, you can add it yourself. The calculations seem to be right on the money for making soap from scratch. The page itself also has a tutorial showing you how to use the calculator.

If you prefer an online calculator with no downloading required, try this one from Majestic Mountain Sage. Easy peasy! There’s also a measurement conversion calculator and a page of scent blends that you can try.

Need to find out the saponification values for your fats or oils? Kathy Miller, who has the best website I’ve ever used for soap makers, has a handy chart that gives you the numbers you seek. There’s a whole lot more just on this page too! Properties of various oils, information on scents, colours that you’ll get from adding anything from crayons to spices in your soap, and advice on how much lye to use are all here. Kathy Miller also has some very well-written handout sheets that are free to use if you’re planning on teaching a soap making course. Print them off and keep them even if you’re not teaching - the information contained in these sheets is very valuable.

If you want to try creating your own soap recipes, download Soapsheet from Soul Gazer Sundries. This spreadsheet runs in Excel and is really a lot of fun to play with. It’s colourful and easy to use, and you can add all kinds of things like fragrances and number of bars you want to end up with.

Finally, the Fragrance Oil Finder is a really helpful website that lists attributes of popular scents and where you can purchase them. All scents listed are suitable for use in either cold process or melt and pour soap making.

All of these tools allow cold and hot process soap makers a level of security in knowing that our own calculations are on the ball. Or, as I’ve experienced a couple of times, they point out just why our recipes won’t work, and how to correct them. Enjoy!

If there’s one drawback to making soap and candles, it’s the expense. Things like molds are a good investment because you can use them over and over again, but the soap base or wax, colourants, scents, and additives can end up costing quite a bit. That’s why I started selling the soap and candles that I made - I had to justify the expense to my husband!

There are a few ways that you can save some money when purchasing your supplies. First, try looking for a wholesaler close to your home. You’d be surprised at how many outlets there are! Search Google for “soap making supplies wholesale,” for example, and see what turns up. You’ll also find online retailers selling their supplies at discounted prices, so it’s worth the time to compare these and see if you can find some good deals. Remember to factor in the shipping costs though - they can really add up.

You can also find some good bargains on eBay. Be careful here; make sure that the item descriptions are detailed. You’ll want a manufacturer’s name and an ingredient list on base products, a manufacturer on colours and scents, and if you’re making candles, a flashpoint on any additives. You need to know that the product is suitable for what you’ll be using it for.

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I’m thrilled to welcome you to Wax and Bubbles, the candle and soap making blog!

Making soap and candles is a very creative and rewarding hobby. Whether you’re a novice at the craft or an experienced pro, I hope to be able to share lots of tips, methods, recipes, and project ideas with you as we navigate through the many ways to make these useful items.

I’ll also cover handy tips and suggestions for purchasing materials and supplies, joining swaps, storing your candles and soap, and selling your wares in various ways. If there’s anything in particular you’d like to see covered here, please feel free to leave a comment or drop me an e-mail with your suggestions. I’d love to hear from you!