Focus on Essential Oils - part 1

When they first start out, soap makers have to decide if they are going to use fragrance oils, or essential oils? I suppose that it all depends on how "natural" you want your product to be.

It is true, that fragrance oils are cheaper than essential oils, but many essential oils are of a reasonable price, and you don't need to use a huge amount, so you can easily use them to fragrance your products. If, like me, you have horribly expensive taste, a blend using a combination of cheaper and more expensive oils is the perfect solution.

Essential oils are volatile oils obtained from various parts of plants and they have been used for healing and fragrancing for centuries. There are floral ones, woody ones, citrus ones, smokey ones the list goes on. Take a walk through a fragrant garden, a park, and orange grove and much of what you smell will have an essential oil.

Rose Otto: One of the most expensive, the oil is distilled from the petals. When I think of Rose, I think of the Mughal Gardens of Hyderabad, or the harems of the Royal Household where Attar of Roses was used to fragrance the air. The ultimate romantic fragrance it is used in many high end fragrances.  

Rosewater is a by-product of the production of essential oils and is  used in cooking, mainly of the Middle East, and can by used as a facial toner.

A suitable alternative to Rose essential oil, is Rose absolute which is a good deal cheaper.

Violet Leaf: One of my current favourites,and another expensive oil. Violet Leaf absolute (Viola Odorata) is a very complex essential oil with strong green notes and a beautiful, floral violet undertone. It is extracted from the leaves of the plant and the absolute has a dark green colour. It is absolutely beautiful on its own or in a blend.

Distractions and new things

What a day! I decided to dig out the sewing machine. Not difficult, I have used it before when I was in my clothes making phase, so what could go wrong? Well, plenty as it turns out.

A lady I know, Polly from Miss Polly Designs, has been making some beautiful tote bags recently, which made me think that it would be nice for me to do the same as a Mother's Day present. Simple, I thought. Well, no.

I popped into Mum's this morning to collect the sewing machine. I gathered all the bits together, all except the idiot guide, which appears to have gone astray, and came home to the two pretty bundles of fabric that were waiting for me. I cut out the bits I needed and started to sew. At least I would have done except that I could not get the blasted machine to work. I have spent all afternoon, and into this evening cursing the stupid white machine which I swear just sat there laughing at me. Finally it started to work (no, I have no idea what I did, but I am guessing that all the threats finally did their job) and now, I am almost out of thread.

I do not see how anyone could make a living making these bags. I think that it will be rather nice when it is finished. It is a quilted (yes, I know, make it complicated) and I think it will be quite roomy. It has different fabric front and back, in a tiny print design, with a floral lining. Or at least it will be, sometime.

Product Research

I am in the throes of developing new products. The problem with this is that there are so many options when it comes to ingredients it is hard to know when to stop looking.

Working out how oils will work together, or if indeed they will, is all part of a somewhat complicated process, and takes a certain amount of trial and error. Luckily, this also means a great deal of testing, a perk of the "job."

Products currently under development are bath oils (essential oil blends sorted, but a decision needs to be made about base oils); eye gel, again a decision about oils needs making; and face serum(s), ditto.

There is also the thorny question of packaging. I have found some fabulously gorgeous bottles for the bath oils, but they are not cheap, so I will have to think carefully about my pricing structure. These will be aimed at the luxury end of the market, so the packaging has to be perfect, and the bottles are absolutely drool worthy.

 

Teaching

I had a telephone call late last week asking me to go to a local girls Grammar School to assist in a Design Technology project. The girls will research Scent Trail and work at designing a soap, plus packaging and point of sale that would fit comfortably in the existing range. There will be two visits involved, starting with this Thursday and culminating with a soap-making day in May. The middle visit is to see how the ideas are developing and commenting on them.

I am really looking forward to it. As any soapmaker knows, packaging is a nightmare. If you can find what you want, it is too expensive, or out of stock, or not quite suitable and if these students can come up with some lovely, innovative ideas, who am I to say "no."

The Silk Route colleciton is coming along nicely. Indigo arrived this week for use as a colour in one of the soaps, and a decicision has been reached for colour in the last one. Hopefully, before long the full collection will be available, and assuming that I can get hold of someone at the company which sells the bottles I want (and so far they have not replied to me) the bath oils will follow shortly.










 

My new favourite blend

I have been playing with essential oils again, and I have come up with what I think is a gorgeous blend which will make not only a lovely soap, but a fabulous bath oil.

I do not find blending terribly easy and the successful blends I have manage to create to date have tended to be happy accidents.  Take my Geranium blend for example. This is something created by throwing everything I had into the pot, because when I made my very first batch of soap, I had not considered the weight of essential oils. It worked and is probably my best seller.

I am planning a new range of products including bath oils, and I need four blends. These blends need to be absolutely fabulous and make the bather feel like a film star so I am not rushing. I have had two of them for a while, but the second two have been somewhat elusive.

But.....drum roll please, I think that the third blend is in the bag with the fourth needing a slight tweak. This third blend, is actually the first in the series (not saying more than that at the moment) and I think it is gorgeous.

I have created a blend containing May Chang and Violet Leaf. May Chang is a lovely, light, lemon-sherbet fragrance which seems to float like gossamer on a breeze. Violet Leaf on the other hand, has its feet anchored firmly in the ground. Smelling it neat in the bottle, it is a little overwhelming and you miss its subtleties. It has an intense, dry, green note with, somewhere in the background, a fleeting tiny hint of violet. Use it in this blend and the green notes take a back seat, and you get nodding heads of violets combining beautifully with the soft lemon of the May Chang.

This has quickly become my favourite blend and I can't wait to send it out into the world. Watch this space!



 

New Soap Style

I have wanted to try a different style of soap, using only natural colours. This week, I have made two different layered soaps. The first one is a rosey blend of essential oils and the top layer is coloured with pink clay.

The second one has a blend of essential oils including Ylang Ylang, Lavender and Orange with the addition of some more smokey oils to add depth and mystery. The top layer is coloured with turmeric. The line on both is made with cocoa.

 

 

I really like the way these have turned out and will be two of a new range of four soaps made with Babassu and Silk forming the backbone of a new product range, including bath oils. I have to decide what to use as colour in the other two soaps and then off they go into the world - once I have decided on packaging. 

 

Christmas is coming!

It is the run-up to Christmas and the mad fair season. I have not done a large number of fairs this year but have three in pretty quick succession.

The fair last weekend was a great success with a decent footfall and people prepared to part with their cash. At the end of this month I have another fair at the same venue, and then one a little more local. With luck there will be plenty of people on the look out for Christmas presents.

Next year, I am determined that I will find more shops to take my products and try to grow the business. I am in the process of sorting out some packaging which will stand up to the rigours of being handled by customers. There is a potential plan in the pipeline which I am not going to reveal at the moment.

Presentation is incredibly important, and is what sells a product in the first instance. What brings customers back is the quality of the item they have bought, and whether it does the job. I think that some people underestimate the importance of packaging because it gets thrown away, but not only does it serve a purpose, it can catch the eye. If you have two products side by side on a shelf which do you go for, the one in the ugly packaging? I think not.

And on that note, I am off to redesign some lables.