10th ave. soapworks

This fall, Bramble Berry contacted me and told me that they enjoyed my blog. (Aww--thanks!) I was then asked if I would like to do a soapy project using some Bramble Berry products and then write about it on my blog. Hmmm. After pondering such a silly question for approximately 1.5 seconds, I began contemplating my project. The possibilities were nearly overwhelming, but didn't take me long to choose a project, however--it just jumped out at me.  And what was my chosen project, you ask?  I'll show you tomorrow and the three days after that. the arrival of the Bramble Berry project box But in the meantime, I will share this with you so you can get a jump start on your ordering.  (It takes me forever to make an order for soap supplies.  I start off with my list of absolute needs, then I browse, add "maybes" to the list, daydream, watch the "maybes" become needs, check my budget, which leads to editing, ...

I'm completely out of my herbal balms and I miss them!  Right now I'm infusing oils for more batches.  Arnica is the most recent herbal infusion I have brewing.  I know it's fabulously good for bruises and such, but the dried herb is rather expensive so I've never tried it before.  But recently I was wandering around my local Mexican grocery store to get one of the staples of life, corn tortillas (the real ones), and a little bag of dried arnica caught my eye.  I had never noticed the shop carried it before, probably because I'm so focused on my beloved tortillas, but it got me pretty excited.  (Really, I ask you, who else goes to a Mexican market and comes out with bath and body ingredients?) I am using the slow method of infusion, letting time and sunlight do its thing on the arnica.  I've heated infusions up on occasion, but it often leads to deep-fried calendula petals...

So what have I been up to lately?  Besides ignoring my blog, that is?  Ahem, about that....I can tend to throw all my attention to one or a few things to the neglect of everything else.  But in this case, my primary focus has been madly soaping and oh, have I been busy!  (Taking pictures as I go obviously has not been a focus!) Here are just a couple of the batches that I did get around to taking pictures of, however....  I'm a literalist when it comes to coloring soaps, but I've been making a conscious effort to avoid some of the expected colors for a change.  So for the first time, I made a batch of Energy (Bramble Berry's citrus blend) that wasn't in citrus-y colors like yellow, green, orange, and pink.  I am in love with this mustard/lavender combo!  The lavender as the main color didn't come out as strongly as I'd hoped and turned gray in this batch of Black Raspberry-Vanilla.  But I'm ...