Hey guys..

chunked soap for making liquid solution

while im on a blogging spree - i thought this would be a good topic to cover as i can do it quickly..

did you know any bar of bg soap can be turned into liquid soap? now, there is an actual way to MAKE liquid soap from scratch, which, someday i will probably get into a bit just to see the process, and if it is worthwhile to spend the efforts on bringing a liquid into the company. Basically instead of sodium hydroxide, we would use potassium hydroxide.  However, the process is time consuming and not as exciting to me as making cold process soaps, so i wont be doing it any time soon.

But customers come in and ask all the time if i have liquid soap. i always respond with no - but you can turn this soap into liquid by simply adding it to water. yep. its that easy. it doesnt even need to be hot water. just water. The nice thing is, you can continue to add the soap chunks to the water until you get the desired consistency. a thinner mixture would work well in foaming dispensers, but a thicker consistency would be perfect for any average liquid hand soap pump container.

its convenient due to the fact that you can keep bottles of liquid BG around at all of your sinks without having to have bar soap and soap dishes everywhere. also, there is no soap turning to slop by sitting in dishes that arent well drained enough. or for those of you who are spoiled by bodygoodies soap and can no longer fathom using anything else… you can take a bottle of bg soap turned liquid into work …. or keep a small bottle of it in your purse, for when youre in public restrooms, etc.

Sooooo if you have any little slivers sitting around that youd like to turn into liquid, simply chop them up and add them to water. granted, hot water will make them dissolve faster, but they will completely dissolve regardless of the water temperature. isnt that  nice? i personally use distilled water to make my solutions, but i would recommend spring water as well.

the ratio i use in my home is about 1/2 ounce of chunks for 8 oz water. But i would use about a half that for foaming dispensers. You can play around with your mixtures to get the consistency youd prefer.

a lot of people who have been doing this have also experimented with using it as laundry soap once it is turned to liquid, it makes great laundry soap and leaves clothes incredibly soft. I also personally use bar none as a stain stick ;) it works great!

you can go online and research home made all purpose clearer recipes, or if you feel like you need to add more to your detergent for laundry, there are recipes that call for washing soda or borax, which can also be added to your solutions.

in the shop we have been selling 2 and 3 oz bags of cut up bits of soap and so far they have been a big hit. So, we will be making some available on the website as well :) currently we have bar 21 due to its antibacterial and medicinal properties ( sans any blue dots) and rooibos tea - as so many people use this for eczema .. its really convenient to have at all of the sinks in the house for the person suffering with eczema.

soap is so cool. heh.

-heidi

Thats right.

formulating.

im talking about cologne. The best mens fragrance ive ever smelled. not only is it the best scent ive ever smelled… but it comes with a bonus… it didnt bother my ever so sensitive allergies WHATsoEVER! wooo!  and when i say didnt bother my allergies, it wasnt just a little sniff i took, i had this stuff all over my arms and sheets of paper for nearly two months straight as i custom formulated a soap, to be perfectly paired with the raddest cologne ever - moonshine.

a few months back - boodygoodies took on an enormous task. the biggest most challenging task i had ever personally had to attempt to tackle regarding soap making. to somehow sniff out the amazing scents in this perfectly blended cologne called moonshine, and develop a soap that would emulate the scent. talk about difficult! the chemistry of soap does not allow one to simply add cologne to soap, and have it work. ha.. wouldnt that be nice! nope - i had to sniff out what i believed would work in a soap, using only essential oils - and try my best to make it happen.

the tricky part - well, aside from all of it .. haha.. one of the trickiest parts of formulating it was that the cologne changes over the first few minutes after application. as all scents do, the higher notes will fade and the base notes will linger. I could smell the top notes off the bat - and knew what i was smelling, but in a soap they would not burn off as quickly, still somewhat - but how much? i had to trial and error this one. The base notes ended up being the scent i chased after. as i figured, after showering, the scents if any that would be left to linger, would match the base notes of the cologne that would linger after application.

tricky-er?  i was formulating in the middle of winter. my nose was taking a beating as it was from the weather. on top of that, right in prototype phase 2 i got smacked with the worst cold i had in years. i couldnt smell a thing. my nose was already half burned out just from weeks of endless sniffing to try to formulate the first round! haha.. i am not exaggerating here ..  when i say, i had at LEAST 200 test strips laying around the table as i continued to formulate. test 1 … test 1.a test 1.b… test 1.c lol.. etc etc.. omg it was madness. pure madness! getting the base oils right to do the least amount of pH changing was a task in itself..  to hope the end result didnt change much from what i had mixed up in my little sciency beakers. haa….

anyhow - long story short - i got the bar. i chased and chased and finally got it. ….. we sent out a few prototypes and the awesome guys over at moonshine all decided on one of the prototypes and we put it into production. bodygoodies does not sell the moonshine soap - but if youre curious to what the heck i was so busy busting my behind doing for two months - you might wanna hop over to their website and pick up an awesome bar for yourself :)  oh yeah, and while youre there —- you REALLY may want to pick up some cologne too — in all seriousness …. ive got an extremely picky nose and i am telling you flat out, this is the best mens cologne ive ever smelled. If youre a chick, pick one up for the man in your life ( or the one you want lol) and if youre a dude, pick one up for yourself!

the scent of moonshine is wow - just awesome. its SO SO masculine and earthy. Id go into a description of it here … but id rather you check out the moonshine website for yourself and read about it there. good stuff. real good stuff.

a little over a month ago, there was an article on bodygoodies featured in the local paper. I was contacted by one of our local area high school teachers. The chemistry class. She wrote to me inquiring about perhaps bring her students in, and the art students as well, on a field trip - as they thought how cool it would be to bring both classes, as my business mixed both art, and chemistry.

i loved the idea.

it was the first time ever we had a school field trip come to make soap at bodygoodies for a day. it was definitely a blast.

anywho, i decided the night before, that i would make a soap that is unlike anything else i had in the line. The plan for the field trip was that each student would be bringing home a bar of whatever it is we made the day they come in. I didnt want them having a heads up on what bar it might be, by going to my website in advance, so i decided to surprise them all with something i had been secretly formulating for a while. The bars name is now AMYST. while i was formulating it - i had no name ideas in mind and i allowed the students to come up with the name for the bar. they cleverly mixed art and chemistry - and came up with amyst. i like it - its like an art-chemist. amyst.

meet amyst!

fluffy coconut milk lather :)

when we made the bar that day - i asked the students - should we put poppy seeds in it? ” YES!!”…. soap balls?? ” YESSS” so on and so on… i already had my possible ingredients set out - coconut milk, washed blue clay, poppy seeds, with possible additives like pumice and whatnot. I had previously decided to make the bar a neutral scent that hopefully all of the students would approve of. peppermint and rosemary. i mean, who on earth doesnt like that mixture?  up until now i didnt include such a bar in the line because it seemed so cliche’ …. but combined with all of the right ingredients, i cant imagine the bar smelling like anything but this now.

the washed blue clay was a new ingredient for me, years ago i had done a coconut milk soap i was less than impressed with - but as my soaping evolved - i decided it was time to give it another go and see if i could make it into something i loved this time around. ……….. i did so.

the blue clay alone gives the bar a very creamy feel to it, but paired with the coconut milk - man. this bar rocks. the coconut milk gives it a really fluffy but somehow tight and stable lather. you can feel the bubbles cascading down your arms as you handle it. I definitely dig the lather on this one. The smell - now typically im not a big mint fan, nor much for the medicinal rosemary scents, however, combined - its just perfect. for those mornings when i just need a pick me up - fresh burst of something to get me going?? this is the bar ill be reaching for.

i do plan to change the aesthetics. after working with the blue clay, and finding out what color it turns to once its in soap - ive decided i love the color so much, i would like the bar to be a solid blue/gray/green.  its somewhat mossy looking. just very very natural. i think for its next go round i am going to make it a solid bar, with a smooth wavy pattern at the surface. not sure which tool ill choose to do that with just yet, but it will come to me when its time. quite possibly a very few little black sesame seeds to top it all off…. but im undecided on that just yet.

anywho……….. thats the story behind amyst. it is currently available in its test run trial - waiting for feedback from the lucky people who purchase it before round 2. Its available on the website as well as in store. take advantage of its trial run price - as i have a feeling the feedback on this bar is going to earn it a spot in the line for good.

must.get.coffee.now.

-heidi

man, i am totally obsessing over crud.

i was a little nervous that customers wouldnt take to it like they did the salt bar, but so far the feedback has been awesome on it. I think ive accomplished my mission. when i was designing crud, i really wanted its natural smells to be present in the final result. This is often difficult to achieve in the soaping process as most things you put into your soap mixture, change quite a bit as it goes through its saponification process.

When i open up the buckets of dead sea mud at the shop… i sit there and just sniff it. Hoping a little bit will drop as im scooping it out of the container just so i can put some on my own skin when i am done. ha! the natural smell of the ingredients in this bar are just so so wonderful. I love them. they are hands down my favorite smells in the entire shop - aside from patchouli ;)

when i was dreaming up crud - i had a few things in mind, 1. its wonderful natural mineral scent 2. a mildly scrubby yet somehow soft bar 3. a kickass lather 4. moisturizing.  i believe i have achieved all of those things. i really spent some good time tweaking the base recipe on crud.  crud, has my absolute favorite kind of lather in the entire line. yes, much like my beloved, fij. i never thought i would come up with a soap that i ever loved quite as much as i do fij, but i stand corrected. i love these two bars equally. completely different bars, but loved exactly the same.

a brand new bar of crud.

the brand new bar after one good hand washing.

the brand new bar after going back for a second washing! haha see that lather? thats what im talking bout. my fav.

every time i use crud i find myself using the bar more than i need to, just because i love it. lol…. ill make it lather, do it again, do it again.. blahblah over and over. i just cant get enough of the bar. im flying through them because i love them too much!! dont get me wrong, although i held back on scenting the bar so much - it does still include essential oils - they are just much lighter than the other bars from bg you might be used to. The blend in this bar is one of my favorites. its earthy, yet clean.

i was excited to do this post because i knew i would be using crud yet again today, in order to get photos for the post! haha.. now, im having trouble typing as fast as id like to because i keep lifting my hands to my face to sniff crud a little more. whew… if it was legal, id probably marry this soap.

anyhow, just wanted to share a little crud love with you all… i will be back to post about tiggys garden and amyst later on tonight.

until a few hours from now…:)

-heidi

*photo by rebecca sloan*

bodygoodies was recently featured on socrafty.com - on squidoo.

so i thought id share the very well written article by rebecca sloan, about bodygoodies.  in case anyone is interested on the story behind it all.

http://socrafty.squidoo.com/crafting/bodygoodies-soaps-lotions-and-serums-by-heidi-goldberg-of-liberty-ohio

stone-dish

It’s pretty obvious by now i believe nature has to offer, everything we need. im sure ive said it over and over. well, i thought tonight i would blog about one more reason i believe so. heh. this is nothing to do with skincare or health, but rather - decor and functionality.

maryannes gorgeous dishes!

locally, in the shop i sell beautiful handmade dishes my personal, and extremely talented friend maryanne makes. They are so gorgeous, and functional. stamped into the clay are designs ranging from my company logo, to natural branch impressions from a tree in her back yard, i know.. cool right?  anyhow- if i had enough space, i would have her dishes all over my counters and in my shower, but i dont have that much space, nor would i risk breaking one of the works of art by bringing it into my shower stall.  so for those of you who would like some ideas as to good dishes or ways to store your soaps to keep them from “melting away” in a dish that holds water… or a dish made of a material that is too “sticky” for the soap? ………… i have a solution i am going to share with you.

………rocks. yep. just as the post title says. one more reason to love nature.

my daughter has always loved rocks. she would pick up things that looked so ordinary, and find something so beautiful in it. we have boxes of rocks here and there throughout the house that shes collected over the years. when she would bring a new one in… it would sit around a while until eventually it made its way into a box. one day, while testing out some soaps i brought home.. i had no room left in the dishes at my sink and decided to sit my soap on a flat stone she brought home. thinking well, no big deal, its a rock… i can wash the soap from it and it wouldnt do any damage to the rock. when i went to remove the soap the next day - i was pleasantly surprised how easily the soap lifted from the rock. DUH thought me………… makes perfect sense!! how had i not thought of this sooner???  the rock absorbs any of the water left on the soap when it is sat there after use. then slowly, it will dehydrate out of the rock …as nature would have it.  stones make amazing soap dishes!! another nice thing about them, is they are organically cool. It may not be for everyone - to have stones sitting about on their countertops - but for an artsy hippy like me, it makes perfect sense for the decor. ………. awesome. stones, natural! no paints, no chemicals, no glues or plastics. totally absorbs any water from the soap, yet solid enough to not absorb the actual soap. keeping them dry, which means your soaps last longer! stones are cool. really cool.

another nice thing about them …………. if you find a few stones with flat surfaces, you can somewhat stack them like little step-shelves  and store your soaps in “steps” on the stones, which is perfect for someone like me that always has more than one soap sitting around to use at any given time… ha! love. oh… and one more awesome thing about stone dishes?  - they’re free. ;)

so excuse my lame photos… i just snapped a couple real quick with my iphone. nothing great quality here… just a photo example of how i store my soaps. ;) hopefully some of you may find this little soap dish tip useful and organically-aesthetically pleasing.

oh yeah….. and the beer soaps turned out wicked :) cant wait to do the fest! pics below..

beer soaps!

....more beer soaps ;)

thats all for now………..

-heidi

milk+stout

if youve figured out by the title..yes, i made the beer soap tonight.

man did it whoop me too! i dont know what i was thinking. …..  i knew i was going to be making a couple of different kinds for the beer fest next month.. but i wound up making more kinds than i thought i was going to make. lol weird. youd think i suffer from adhd or something. ;)

its been quite a while since ive worked with small batches. we’ve been doing just about everything in the large pot tippers these days. so - i had 6 batches measured out … and i had a game plan. ha. oh… i should know better by now. i was going to do one milk stout, one unscented regular stout, and one red. i had the scents all planned out and thought it was going to be a smooth operation.  instead, i wound up with 1 milk stout, 1 milk and chocolate stout,  2 chocolate stouts without milk, and the red to be made tomorrow. i forgot how many pots and utensils and such it takes to work in only 15 lb batch sizes!! wow did i ever make a mess tonight. … craig is going to love coming in to work tomorrow lol.  ( sorry craig)

for those of you who dont know - making beer soap is quite intense. the properties of the beer make the soap heat up very quickly and turn to a state that is very difficult to work with - in about less than a minute. im talking - as soon as you mix your lye/beer mixture in with your oils, you better have an auto-whip cracking something!  .. so there i was with pots all over the place, milk and beer, chocolate and beer, bowls and spatulas, thermometers and paper towels, essential oils everywhere because i couldnt make up my mind on how i wanted to scent them all. running over to one pot - stirring, check temps, then over to the milk/beer/lye bowl to add a little more lye in ( you can only add it in small amounts as you go, so the milk doesnt curdle) etc… oh i was all over the place. i was alone making soap tonight, usually someone is there to help but i figured i was formulating new stuff and would rather have the quiet time to think, umm.. now im thinking.. what on earth was i thinking!!! heck …tonight…. - id have even grabbed a customer had i been open!! i stood there laughing like .. what am i like? i had a plan.. why did i just do this to myself? hopefully the results tomorrow will tell me it was all worth it. if i had to pick a word for tonight - chaos would be it.

i was going to document the steps with photographs..

lol the calm before the storm

- i managed to get a couple of shots of the milk/stout mixture. it ended there. lol………. from that point on it was impossible to photograph the steps as i went. so, hopefully ill get some shots tomorrow after i cut them up. and what we ended up with?  1 earthy scented milk stout. 1 citrus+spice scented chocolate and milk stout. 2 (unscented on the bottom later) chocolate beer stout - with a layer of white, herbaceous+citrus+ pepper scented soap on top.

at the end of it all.. i just stood there laughing. i didnt want to sit down because i knew i would end up sleeping at the shop if i did, and i really needed to get home to let my dogs out. i learned a few things tonight.

1. dont make 50+ lbs of beer soap in 5 separate pots. ( and especially all at once!!)

2. dont make 50+ lbs of beer soap alone, no matter what you make it in.

3.dont make any amount of beer soap, without having beer that is designated for the soap maker, too. ha.

im happy to say, i pulled it off. im not even sure how. …. id go back over it all and tell you, but im pretty sure ive already blocked out the traumatic events from my memory. for some reason every time i close my eyes now all i see is this…

my friends. oh how i missed you tonight.

i shall return to report how the chaos turned out at a later date…for now, im going to go have a nice…. tall…. cold…. glass of water.

-heidi

the punisher

punisher slabs

2 weeks cure left to go!

as promised… some shots of the new bar coming to the line…. punisher.

if you’ve seen the webpage you may notice the blurb  ” you better watch your mouth” and that is because of the history of this bar. as i mentioned a post or so ago - one morning i received a hilarious email from a customer. long story short- they were joking with their daughter about the whole ” wash your mouth out with soap” thing.. and mom decided to “demonstrate” with a bar of last call. problem was, it tasted good. so they suggested i come out with a bar called the punisher. i thought that was a fantastic idea!! i almost named crud the punisher due to all of the mud and such - but the bar just didnt seem rough and tough enough to live up to the name. this one did.

this bar has all sorts of rough: clay, pumice, salt, 2 different kinds of seeds. its got every level of exfoliating - mild clay, smooth but bumpy seeds, rough salt, and scratchy pumice. this thing is wicked. in all the ways you would hope a kitchen hand soap would be. Now, some people love and can tolerate super super scrubby bars in the shower- so perhaps some people may like to use this on their body as well - fair warning though, youll probably have some seeds left in the shower to wipe up and i definitely hope your skin is tolerant if you choose to use this on your body. I prefer it at the sink. 1 because it scrubs anything from grease to paint, 2 because its antiseptic and i know its getting my hands super clean. washing any nasties straight off my hands. its a medicinal+ mint essential oil blend that smells super fresh  ……and gets the job done. i definitely would not want this bar of soap in my mouth. no way. euclayptus and salt? ACK.

ok,ok... it will be on the website soon!

so keep an eye out for punisher to make its way to the website in a couple of weeks. its listing is already there and ready to go - just needs that little bit of cure time :)

until next,

-heidi :)

march 2012

hey all -

we recently did an interview with the paper… as you might assume, we typically have our production scheduled out a couple weeks in advance, however - the article published about a week before we were expecting it to. this has been great for exposure and ive met many new faces over the last week because of it ( which has been awesome!! i looove meeting new people!) - however it also causes an unexpected surge which has unfortunately set us back just a few days. anyhow, i hope you understand the delay on shipping, and my delay in blogging photos of some of the soaps coming out.

I hope to get some of that done today while im also busy cranking out some beer soap. I know i had said id get the soaps up here over the weekend, that just didnt seem to happen. lol. BG is adding a beer soap to the line for those of you who missed my post a few posts back. it just so happens there is a very large beer event coming up in late april as well, which we will be attending with 3 different kinds of beer soaps. so if youre local, be sure to check out “the big tap in” april 21st at the covelli center in youngstown. :)

If i get time today - im going to take some snaps of our kitchen hand soap coming out. it is next in line to make its way to the website. im still messing with the aesthetics of tiggys garden. even though everyone loves it so far, it just doesnt settle with me aesthetically. everyone absolutely loves the scent, which, i must admit - even though i tend to prefer earthier scents myself - i absolutely love the way tiggys garden smells and feels. im really excited to bring the bar to the line.

so- what to expect over the next few weeks? the punisher ( kitchen soap) making its way to the website. updates on tiggys gardens launch date, and some awesome beer soap headed this way soon!

bebacklater!

-heidi :)

meet crud

hey guys,

i am happy to announce crud has finally made its way to the website.

its a big deal to me personally, for quite a few reasons.  - ill do a quick splain.

years ago i had soaps in the line that were not essential oil only. i messed around with fragrance oils, trying to appeal to everyone out there. theres a whole mass of people who love fragrance oils, and there is a whole mass who love essentials. so …. i tried to keep everyone happy and make a bit of both.  but well, you all pretty much know by now how i feel about fragrance oils.. so i dont need to go there again. ;)

i slowly phased out or transitioned bars which were once fragrance oil.. into being essential oil only bars. everyone was fine with it until i mentioned changing the ever popular ” the salt bar” - granted, the bar was always a mix of fragrance and essential. however, the scent was so adored -   there was nothing that would compare. i had tried once or twice over the years - but felt bad when people would say how much they missed it, or liked it. SO, its the last bar i had in the line that was fragrance. I hated the bar.  i hated making it,  ( fragrance oils give wicked headaches ) - and i never brought the bar home. i didnt care to use it, personally. i hated the smell.

i wanted this bar gone.  -  so after some careful thinking - i decided its time to get rid of the bar completely. a few factors contributed to that decision. but i made the decision and i have decided to bring crud to the line instead. you see, so many people used the salt bar for psoriasis. as psoriasis sufferers benefit tremendously from sulfur and other minerals. which, dead sea salt and muds and all sorts have good amounts of. so -  it made sense to use the salt bar to help. but to me - knowing how much better essential oils are than fragrance - it just never sat well with me to have them use that bar. when i knew full well i could make one that worked better, and not use fragrance oil in, but rather, essential oils which help even more. so thats what ive done.

crud - you rock.

dont be mistaken, crud isnt made specifically to treat psoriasis, its just a bar in the line that has the highest amount of ingredients that are known to be good for it. well, crud and rooibos tea would both be great for that actually… anywho..  i dont have psoriasis, and ive been using crud all week simply because i love the bar. I love the fresh, real, mineral smell. This bar is much lighter than most of our bars - its hardly scented because i wanted to smell like the awesome muds it is made from.  the way they smell is pure and organic. they smell like walking into a spa. they smell earthy and mossy, like fresh clay and crystal clear springs. they smell like minerals. …no better way to say it. i love this stuff.  aside from the scent making the bar so nice, the muds in the bar give it a soft exfoliating feel, yet the salts in the bar give it a rougher scrub at the same time. i love this bar. my skin feels sooo good after i use it.

getting rid of the salt bar was like putting a bad energy to rest. bringing to life crud, was rising above it. wiping my hands clean………. with mud. ha.

so, now that we’ve got crud on the site, the salt bar will be making its exit this weekend. if you want to get your hands on some, please order before sunday.

alright guys.. thats all for now. i think. i may be back later depending on how well ive adjusted to the time change, cause if not - ill be wide awake with a mind full of info i could be sharing.

until next,

-heidi