Soap Shout Out! These darling and detailed apple soaps were sent in for the last Bramble Berry Soap Swap. They were scented with a yummy apple fragrance and packaged in a hand painted muslin bags. And keep in mind that she sent in 24 of these soaps…that’s 24 hand painted bags and 24 super detailed apple soaps. Now that’s what I call attention to detail. Get your own Garden of Eden Apple Soap at Her Best Apple. P.S. We’ll be doing another Bramble Berry Soap Swap after the holiday season so you have time to start brainstorming your next project!
Archives for August 2011
Foaming Bath Whip Frosting
Recipe
1 Cup Foaming Bath Whip
1 Cup Clear Melt and Pour
1 Tablespoon Liquid Glycerin
3 Tablespoons Meringue Powder
7 ml Clementine Cupcake Fragrance Oil
We tested and tried many recipes before settling on this one. Here are a few key characteristics of this recipe:
- Hardens up and could easily be packaged.
- Easy to frost the cupcakes.
- Have roughly 5 minutes to work with it
Get everything you need for the frosting in the click of a button!
Fall SOAP Team Search
Looking for a New SOAP Fall/Winter Team
We’re itching to test some of our new Fall fragrance samples that were specially formulated just for Bramble Berry. Do you want to be on the Fall/Winter S.O.A.P. team and be the first to test them?
What’s the S.O.A.P. panel you ask? Soap Opinion (Awesome) Panel members will receive 9 one ounce fragrance samples of our top Fall choices for Fall/Winter 2011. Give the cutting-edge fragrances a sniff AND test them in any product you like (really, anything you want). Then fill out a survey to help distinguish the top choices. We want your honest opinion and notes on testing!
New S.O.A.P. Fragrance Arrival
After weeks of built up anticipation, it’s finally time for the big fragrance oil reveal! Our new S.O.A.P. fragrances (Summer edition) are here and ready to order. Here’s a link to the S.O.A.P.(Y) Round Up from the Summer Soap Panel.
Try all three fragrances in the click of a button!
Southern Peach (mystery fragrance #3): This isn’t your traditional peach; it’s softer, more rounded with some white floral notes and supporting softer tropical notes (think guava, mango and ripe papaya) thrown in to make a complex, sweet peachy dessert scent. It goes a yellow in CP soap (but you can easily make this work with your design).
S.O.A.P. Team Reaction: “Out of the bottle, this is a sweet, smooth fragrance. One of my favorites, for sure! In CP soap, it turned lemon yellow initially and still smells really good. Really hasn’t discolored much over time either. In the lotion test, it performed quite nicely, and took 2nd place in my customer’s poll.”
Essential Oil Feature: Bergamot
Bergamot (Citrus bergamia): An orange-sized citrus naitive to Italy, most people are familiar with it’s scent from Earl Grey tea. The juice was onced used as an anti-malaria remedy in southern Italy. It takes about 100 bergamot oranges to get about 3oz of essential oil!
Raw *Carrot Cake* (food recipe)
I can’t believe that Courtney has been with Bramble Berry for 3 years now . Happy Bramble’Versary, Court! It feels like she’s been here forever (in a good way)! Time really does fly when you’re having fun. Courtney and I are both competitive health nuts, so I can’t make her the standard Bramble’Versary cookies or cupcakes. I had to make her an insanely healthy Faux Carrot Cake recipe that I found from Gone Raw. A note to the skeptics: These are amazing. Honestly! The entire warehouse loved them and Courtney was a happy camper too!
Oodles and Oodles of New
We’ve been hard at work adding new products for your soaping and toiletry needs – molds, additives, colorants, new fragrance kits and more! Read on to be introduced to the latest products in the Bramble Berry warehouse. And be sure to add a few to your shopping cart on your next visit to show ’em some love. =)
Healing Under Eye Serum
Nothing does more damage to your skin than being outside in the elements in the sun and wind. Treat your overly sunned face to some pampering oils to help nourish, replenish and reduce inflammation. We’ve had a string of nice weather here in Bellingham, WA so you better believe that I’ve been wearing SPF protection and treating my eyes at night with this serum. Stay away wrinkles! You are not welcome here!
What makes this recipe so healing and skin loving?
Leadercast Advice
A Summary of Dave Ramsey’s Chick-Fil-A Leadercast Advice
Guest post by: Donna Maria (originally posted May 7th, 2011)
I had a fantastic time at the Chick-Fil-A Leadercast yesterday. Along with thousands of other people on site, and many more thousands around the nation, I enjoyed 20-minute presentations by inspirational business leaders, including John C. Maxwell, Seth Godin, Allison Levine and Suzy Welch. One of my favorite speakers was Dave Ramsey.
You may know Dave for the personal financial advice he delivers in books and a television show. He has a fantastic sense of humor. He speaks from his heart, and shoots straight from the hip. I like that. Yesterday, he offered five reasons to explain his phenomenal business success. Paraphrasing of course, here’s what he said:
- People matter. Your management team, staff and customers are people. They are not replaceable commodities at your beck and call. Your customers aren’t units of revenue. Your team isn’t units of production.
- Fire the jerks. Dave gives one warning to employees who violate company policies (including a zero tolerance gossip policy). After that, he invites them to find another job.
- Slow and steady matters. Don’t grow so fast that you cannot keep up with yourself. Take measured steps toward specific goals. The tortoise always wins. (This reminded me of this blog post.)
- Be financially fit. Manage your money wisely. Live on a budget. Don’t carry debt. Debt magnifies your mistakes.
- Embrace a higher calling. You’ll play harder and act smarter by playing for something that’s bigger than you.
Dave knows what he’s talking about. A real estate business he once owned was so heavily in debt that Dave was forced to file for bankruptcy. He has turned that situation into a debt free business that helps others avoid getting into the same type of financial situation he had been in. You can learn more about him at his website.
I had a fantastic time, and you can check my Twitter stream from May 6 to get some great tips I Tweeted live during the event. You may also enjoy browsing the #cfaleadercast Twitter hash tag to see what others shared. And you’ll enjoy Brian Dodd’s post: 50 John Maxwell, Seth Godin, and Dave Ramsey Leadership Quotes From The Chick-Fil-A Leadercast.
Question: What do you think of Dave’s advice? Do you follow these basic principles?
Essential Oil Feature: Star Anise
Star Anise is a sweet smelling essential oil that smells just like black licorice! Since I adore black licorice (I’m drooling right now thinking about salted licorice from Norway), of course I love this essential oil. It’s great for soaps, lotions, scrubs and soaps beautifully in cold process soap (who got one of our bars from the last soap swap?). Below is more information and reasons why you should try the fabulous essential oil.
Star Anise EO (Illicium verum) : Known as star anise, star aniseed, or Chinese star anise. Star anise is a naitive evergreen shub of China. Star Anise essential oil is steam distilled from the star-shaped seeds. The oil is very high in the chemical compound anethol, which is responsible for the distinctive aroma similar to liquorice. It is used to make many liquors, and (warning: random fact ahead!) is also the primary chemical source for the anit-influenza drug, Tamiflu. Some reports claim that over 90% of the annual harvest of Anise goes to the manufacture of Tamiflu.
Star anise can be used in chest rubs to help alleviate bronchitis, coughing, cold and other respiratory congestions as well as rheumatism. It can be used in massage oils to help relieve sore muscles, and works well in bug repellent sprays. It is also a relaxing oil, and helps relieve stress and insomnia. Star Anise blends well with rose, lavender and orange. Our Star Anise is lip safe at 1-3%, and makes a wonderful licorice lip balm!
Anise often arrives “frozen” in colder months. Not sure how to get a solid essential oil back to liquid? Read our handy tutorial here.
Night time blend: 4 parts Orange, 3 parts Anise, 3 parts Cedarwood, 3 parts Neroli, 2 parts Chamomile. Blend with a carrier oil for a massage, or drop into a hot bath.
Anise also blends awesome with Lavender (1:1), Spearmint (1:1), Orange (3:1), Chocolate Fragrance (1:1) and Patchouli (1:1).
Who is using Star Anise Essential Oil? What are your favorite blends?
The Art of Cultivating Friends
I’m in a few different business Mastermind Groups. I cherish each and every group I am in and find value in their interactions. One of the questions that has been extremely popular lately among all my groups is this: How do adults make friends?
When we were in high school and college, it was easy to make friends. We were thrown into natural groups because of the shared schooling experience and then from there, it was just a matter of finding the people that ‘fit’ with you. As adults, it’s considerably more difficult to find and form close friendships. There’s a variety of reasons for this. We’re busy with our own lives, focused inward on ourselves and our families. Any extra time is usually spent on self improvement (from working out to meditation to reading) or doing fun things with family. Outside of work, adults don’t spend a lot of time in groups, or tribes.