DIY Room Spray

I went shopping with my daughter last week at Kohl's. We were heading for the check-out when my daughter stopped and picked up a bottle of Linen Spray.

"OMG", she said. "I love this stuff. You spray it on your sheets and they smell wonderful."

I took one look at the price and gently pried it from her hand.

"What are you doing, Mom?"
"I'm going to make you a home-brew and trust me, it will be 1/4 of the cost."

I had a container of a new linen base that I was sampling and this was the perfect opportunity to give it a try. I had some extra bottles and sprayers lying around and I knew I could whip up a scent similar to the one my daughter coveted. I used a 3 to 1 part ratio (1 being the fragrance oil). A few vigorous shakes of the bottle, and the results were awesome. I used Lavender, Island Retreat, Silk & Cashmere and Martini Rose fragrance oils. I kept the labels very simple using natural kraft 2-inch round circles. A few squirts in the air and.... wow... the aroma lasted for hours.

I can't wait to give my daughter her new home-brew linen and room spray. I'm giving serious consideration to stocking this linen base. I'm certain that you could do a 2 to 2 part ratio and still have a powerful scent. I'm pretty impressed with this product, but want to do some more testing. I'll keep you posted if we decide to add this product to our line-up.

Christmas Countdown: STRUT YOUR STUFF!

STRUT YOUR STUFF! Here is a chance to showcase your handmade soap or toiletry goods. Email your best holiday wares. It can be lotions, gels, body butters, soaps, sprays.... we will be showcasing them on my blog. A great opportunity for a business shout out. I will be showcasing the best of the best and posting every day until Christmas. What are you waiting for? Strut your stuff! This is part of our Christmas countdown.

Soap Dishes: Display Your Handmade Soaps in Style

I had a chat with a couple of neighbor friends about an upcoming charity event. In the process of that conversation, they shared these beautiful handmade garden art shaped from "real" leaves casted in concrete. Of course, my soaping mind went haywire thinking of all the neat things you could do with this concept... like making handcrafted soap dishes to go with your handcrafted soap!

I meet with my friends next Tuesday and they are going to show me how to make these incredible handcrafted items. I am going to make a few that are a smaller soap dish size as well as other larger trays. What a great way to display your handcrafted soaps for the holiday season. I'm lovin' it!

I'll be sharing the "how-to". So make sure you stay posted.

A Sweet Little Cosmetic Bag from GoPlanetEarth.com

This is a GoPlanetEarth promo you don't want to miss. Receive this sweet mini PVC vinyl cosmetic bag for FREE (a $6.00 value) when ordering 15 or more Mold Market Molds. If you mention this post, we'll inlcude 2 FREE 1/2 ounce fragrance oil samples inside the bag (limited offer, so don't delay!) All this adds up to over a $9.60 value.

The bag measure 3 1/2 x 6 3/4 x 3 1/2". Perfect travel size. Look for a few of these bags as giveaways at the upcoming Soap Guild conference in Denver. They'll be packed with goodies from GoPlanet.

You can also purchase this bag on our website.

Fuzzy Wuzzy Was A Bear Soap

Does anyone remember this soap from the early 1960's? I had a customer email about it and promised to do a post. She is looking for information on what makes the fur. Is there a chemist out there that might help shed some light on what makes the fur appear?

Here is the YouTube link for the original ad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaRnYNzQp5Y

Bath Butter Scrub Recipe

It's time again for my annunal Holiday Soap Night with the Bunco gals. Tonight we are doing 3 projects. Soap crayons for the grandkids and 2 projects for us girls... a Bath Butter Scrub and Body Butter Lotion. When you get to be middle-aged, you need all the pampering you can get.


Below is the Bath Butter Scrub recipe that we are using for Soap Night. If you would like to purchase the entire kit, you can do so on the GoPlanetEarth web site. A limited number of kits are being offered until the end of the year. You will want to order early to ensure you get one. The kit includes labels, jars, and all the ingredients needed to make (4) body butter scrubs. The only thing not included is the sugar which is readily available from your pantry or a local grocer. There are two fragrance choices offered with the kit: Japanese Cherry Blossom (makes a pink color body scrub) and Olive Asian Tapenade (makes a yellow color body scrub as shown below).

The finished product is perfect for gift-giving. This type of scrub sells for up to $30 a jar. Make your own for a fraction of the cost!

RECIPE:

Fills two 8-ounce jars

• 16 ounces of bath butter
• 2 1/2 tablespoons of glycerin
• 8 drops of DWP colorant
  2 1/2 to 3 teaspoons of fragrance oil
• 3/4 cup sugar (we used standard white sugar that you bake with)
• 1 cup medium coarse sea salts
  

Whip the bath butter with electric mixer unitl it begins to get smooth. Then add the glycerin, color and sugar. Continue mixing until light and fluffy. Fold in the medium coarse sea salt and fragrance. Spoon mixture into jar.

NOTE: If you find it difficult to get the mixture into the jar, do the following:

Scoop all of the mixture from the mixing bowl into a 4-cup microwaveable dish. A glass measuring cup works well. Set microwave on medium heat and heat the mixture for 3 minutes, remove and stir gently. Place back in the microwave for another 1 to 2 minutes. DO NOT OVERHEAT. Every microwave heats differently, so keep your eye on the mixture. You just want the mixture soft enough to pour into the jar.

New Spa Fragrance Oil Added

Love it, love it, love it is all I can say about this newst addition to our fragrance line up. It's sure to be one of our all-time favorites (at least in my opinion). Cilantro-Wasabi-Guava is a perfect uni-sex blend with hints of citrus, fern and cucumber. It is currently featured as one of our web specials. The consensus of our staff is a Big Bravo!! We'd like your opinion.

Too Cool! Frogs That Go Fizz in the Tub

Now this takes bath bomb fizzies to the next level. How cute is this? Found these on Etsy at Howard's Home Shop. It's a melt and pour glycerin frog soap with a bath fizzy inside. When warm water reaches the middle, pink guts ooze out from the froggie. My grandkids would go nuts over these soaps. Hmmmm.... maybe this is a project for the Spring "Girls Night Out" (GNO) soap night.

I'm guessing some kind of silicone mold was used for the frog and that a miniature bath bomb ball was tucked inside (between soap pours). I can envision how it might have been done, but I'm not so sure how you keep the bath bomb from fizzing when soap is poured over it. If you've ever made a bath bomb, you know, it doesn't take much to set off the fizzing process. Once it starts, the bath bomb takes on a mind of its own! I'll have to try pouring soap over our bath bomb mixture to see what happens.

What do you think? How does Howard's Home make these little guys?

Plop-Plop, Fizz-Fizz Bath Bomb Fizzie How-To

Soooo.... what's a bath bomb? That's what my husband wanted to know when I told him I was doing an instructional video on how to make a bath bomb. He was clueless as many of you may be as well.

The best way to describe this fizzing bath joy is to think of Plop-Plop, Fizz-Fizz anti-acid. Yes, really!! Drop this little guy into your bath and that's what you get. It's a giant, frothing, fragrant, fizzing bath pill that you plop into your bath tub. It foams and fizzes like crazy. Fun, fun, fun!

Check out our how-to instructional and see for yourself how this bath aid packs a punch and takes your bath to a new level. Kids love it! GoPlanetEarth has printable instructions here.

View the pictorial How-To video below. Many of the supplies for this project can be purchased at your local grocery store or pharmacy. The rest can be ordered online from GoPlanetEarth.com.

Monster-Be-Gone Room Spray

With 3 small grandkids, bedtime MONSTERS have become an issue. Recently, my 5 year-old grand son and I made some awesome "Monster-Be-Gone" spray to keep those bed time monsters at bay. We spray the "Monster Spray" every time the grandkids stay the night.

This is a fun and easy project to do with young children and GoPlanetarth offers all the necessary supplies. Our brief pictorial instructional will show you how to make a fragrant spray that will fight all those under the bed and closet monsters.

Watch the instructional:

Click here to buy a "MONSTERS BE GONE" kit. Includes everything you need to make (4) two ounce spray bottles.

About the FDA Globalization Act of 2008

The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce released a Discussion Draft of the "Food and Drug Administration Globalization Act of 2008." The “Discussion Draft is meant to stimulate discussion about how to provide adequate funding and authority for FDA to ensure safety of . . . food, drug, medical device, and cosmetic” products.

While the bulk of the document addresses the safety of foods and drugs, there is a section on cosmetics that, if enacted as it is currently stated, will have an adverse effect on any cosmetic manufacturer - and that includes all of us who make any products that fall under the FDA definition of "cosmetic".

This video gives more insight about how this act will affect small businesses and why it's important to take a proactive stand against this proposed Draft Legislation. As it stands, the act would require small cosmetics companies to pay thousands of dollars a year in registration fees and comply with burdensome paperwork that would serve only to put them out of business.

Marie Gale, President of the Handcrafted Soapmakers Guild, has commited to making it a primary mission of the The Guild is to "give a voice to the handcrafted soapmaker". She states, "You can count on my making our voice heard on this matter in those hallowed halls of Congress!"

What can you do? Copy and paste the following Petition text and send it to Virgil Miller at virgil.miller@mail.house.gov. Mr. Miller is a Professional Staff Member with the House Energy & Commerce Committee. Make your voice count!

Petition Text:

We are the owners of small cosmetics companies, and the customers who love their products.
We understand that laws must be in place to protect everyone from unsafe products, but we are outraged by the Draft Legislation that would require small cosmetics companies to pay thousands of dollars a year in registration fees and comply with burdensome paperwork that would serve only to put them out of business.

If passed the legislation would deny thousands of families the ability to earn an honest living, and also deprive consumers of the variety of cosmetics and personal care products available to choose from.

We oppose this law and condemn any companies that support it as being interested only in creating an unlevel playing field where small and family owned businesses will be forced from the marketplace before they even get a chance to start out.

We urge you, as our representatives in Congress, to stop this law which would serve only to make it even harder for families to support themselves. We call instead for a real and meaningful discussion about how Congressional goals can be accomplished without enacting unfair laws that make it impossible for small businesses to survive.

In signing this Petition, we formally request that the Discussion Draft of the FDA Globalization Act of 2008 be marked up so that the legitimate concerns of small businesses and the consumers they serve can be translated into reasonable laws that protect consumers without also killing small businesses by making them pay unfair fees and comply with burdensome paperwork.

We sincerely thank you for your time.

Fun Cupcake Bath Set

Happy Birthday Chocolate Spa Cupcake $29.99

A whimsical Happy Birthday Chocolate Spa Cupcake filled with indulgent chocolate-scented treats, including bath gel, body lotion, foot scrub, a candle and more.

Consider using a chocolate theme for your own bath and body products. GoPlanetEarth's fudge brownie, chocolate cherry and chocolate fragrance oils are ideal for "chocolate" themed products.

Package your "themed" bath products in a large paper bucket available here. Decorate the unprinted bucket with cut-out shapes from up-scale wrapping paper. Adhere the cut out shapes with craft glue. Fill the bucket with colorful paper shred, arrange your product in the bucket and you're good to go. When marketing themed product, you want all of the product, including the bucket, to have the same color scheme.


The gift set pictured is availabe at Costco and includes the following:

16 oz. White Chocolate Bubble Bath
8.4 oz. Cocoa Chocolate Bath Gel
8.4 oz. Milk Chocolate Body Lotion
7.5 oz Chocolate Scented Candle in glass jar
4.4 oz. Chocolate Peppermint Foot Scrub
2.2 oz. Cocoa Chocolate Bath Salts
Plastic Pumps 2-pieces
White Poof Sponge

Instructional Video: How to Color Sea Salts

Looking for an easy way to color your bath sea salts? This short video may help. The "Sea Salt Dyes" from GoPlanetEarth.com are exceptional. They are a special blend of glycerine and FDA approved lake colors and come in a concentrated form. A 50/50 ratio of water to salt dye can be added to thin it down.

It's OK to use regular tap water. The water will make the product less intense, and easier to blend into the salts. Because glycerine is a natural preservative, you may dilute the product in advance and keep it on your shelf with no fears of it going bad as long as you dilute the salt dye with no more than half water.