Mary's Essentials
  • Store
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Upcoming Events
  • FAQs
  • Store
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Upcoming Events
  • FAQs
Search

Blog

Indulge yourself in Chocolate Mocha Mint Soap

3/9/2016

9 Comments

 
The comfort of a hot cup of coffee and rich chocolate is always a welcomed treat. Those that are chocoholics what could be better than bathing in the rich, silky chocolate? The ingredients in this soap are not only decadent but also very beneficial for your skin! See it's a win-win!
I have to admit the first few batches of "chocolate mint" soap I made was okay but not one of my favorites. I used the chocolate mint fragrance oil and the scent was spot on but deep down I knew that the recipe could be improved. So out went the fragrance oil and in came the fresh ingredients, cocoa, freshly ground coffee beans and peppermint essential oil.
Picture
Hopefully I captured the 3 layers in the picture I took. If you look closely, you can see that there are two layers of brown and a layer of pinkish brown. The first layer is quit substantial and takes up about 2/3 of the loaf. This first layer has several tablespoons of cocoa that I added to the soap batter before pouring. OMGosh, it turned the prettiest shade of brown, looked just like melted milk chocolate! It was lovely indeed.
The second layer holds the grounded coffee, again I went overboard and put about a cup full into the soap batter. I love coffee in soap, it exfoliates the skin beautifully.
The last layer I added peppermint essential oil which has a wonderful mental and physical stimulation effect.it.
All of these ingredients mixed together smells wonderful. The peppermint is noticed first however the chocolate scent quickly catches up. The coffee produces a subtle undertone that makes you hold the bar to your nose and inhale deeply.

Benefits of Chocolate

Dark chocolate is a skin-friendly ingredient that helps keeping your skin healthy, glowing and just flawless. Dark chocolate hosts a range of potent antioxidants. These antioxidants protect your skin from free radical damage; keeping it soft and supple.

Picture
With great sun protection properties, it shields your skin against detrimental UV rays and thus helps preventing conditions like sunburns and skin cancer. Dark chocolate makes an excellent skin-detoxifier in combination with caffeine. It sloughs off the dead skin cells and allows the newly exposed, fresh skin to breathe freely. Stress is a huge beauty bummer. If not checked, it can ruin your entire personality. Dark chocolate boasts wonderful stress-relieving qualities and work wonders in getting you a glowing skin by reducing elevated stress hormones.

Benefits of Coffee

No matter how much we work out—or even how naturally thin we are!—cellulite is something we all struggle with. A coffee scrub, in this case coffee soap, can be immensely helpful in minimizing the appearance of cellulite, as the exfoliation and massage work together to help stimulate blood flow and tighten the skin.
     No surprise here: coffee grounds are the perfect consistency for a great exfoliator. In addition, coffee beans contain caffeic acid, which boosts collagen production. The caffeine in coffee stimulates circulation, which leads to a more radiant, glowing complexion.

Picture

I just hit the highlights on the skin benefits that chocolate and coffee have for your skin.  The cocoa I used for this soap was pure, unsweetened cocoa.  Thank you all for taking the time to read and please enjoy the slide presentation of our newest soap. Comments and questions are welcomed. 
9 Comments

Spring Collection Sneak Peek and Winner of the Soap Basket!

2/15/2016

1 Comment

 
As I'm writing this it is bitter cold and snowing like crazy outside, all the more reason to daydream about warmer weather, birds chirping and sunlight after 5:30 PM! Unfortunately we are a few months away from Springtime and it's so easy for me to get caught up in the winter blahs. That is until I walk into my soaping workshop, that is my little haven of creativeness. When I walk into the door my senses are overwhelmed with wonderful floral scents and beautiful colors of pink, yellow, mint green and turquoise blue. Why all the sensory overload you ask? I'm happy to tell you that I'm working on our Spring Collection and it's coming along beautifully. I can't wait to share with you what I'm working on! But first, I need to send out a very special thank you to everyone that responded to the "Name you favorite spring fragrance" soap basket giveaway. I was overwhelmed by the number of responses! I took to heart each idea that was presented. If you don't see your fragrance in the Spring Collection please look for it in our upcoming Summer Collection.
Picture
Spearmint & Eucalyptus soap with Pink Himalayan. Salt is the ultimate soap to give you a spa experience each time you bathe.

Jasmine

Picture
Jasmine is a delicate flowering plant with many varieties. It has been described variously as heavenly smelling, exotic, exquisite, tenacious, sensuously rich, supremely sensual, intense, slightly heady, narcotic, intoxicating, warm with oily leafy-green fruity undertones, illusive, sweet and warm. This one was one of the top choices on the "Name your favorite spring fragrance" contest so I will also make body butter and bath salts with this fragrance!

Honeysuckle

This is the scent of honeysuckle in June on a warm, sunny day, experienced while walking by a honeysuckle vine. It gets no better than this. It reminds me of warm spring days leading into summer. Remember taking a honeysuckle bloom and gently pulling the bottom off of it to taste the drop of nectar?

Picture

Peony & Rose

Picture
Ahhhhh the ultimate in feminine fragrance of peony and rose mixed together to form a fragrant floral bouquet.
The fragrance of these fresh cut flowers fill your room just as the fragrance of the soap fills the workshop.
This smells so exquisite that I will also be making the body butter and bath salts with this fragrance!

Lavender

Lavender is one of my most requested soaps so I always keep it in stock. I have two varieties to choose from, one with lavender buds and a smooth soap without the lavender buds. Both are made with 100% lavender essential oil not fragrance oil. These soaps are designed to be therapeutic. Lavender not only calms and relaxes you mentally it is also wonderful for your skin. Lavender is known for its properties to improve blemishes.
Picture

Heather & Hyacinth

Picture
Another popular spring floral blend that is sure to please your senses . This soap will have an array purple hues that will be as pleasing to your eyes as it is to your nose. Clean, light and fragrant, I can't wait to try this soap. Who am I kidding, I'm looking forward to trying them all!

Spearmint & Eucalyptus with Pink Himalayan Salt

And last but not least is a very special new soap that is my version of the perfect spa bar. It has the refreshing scent of Spearmint and Eucalyptus with finely ground pink Himalayan salt! I'm super excited about this soap! Pink Himalayan salt was many benefits for your health and skin. It's naturally healing and leaves your skin very soft. Pink Himalayan salt comes in a variety of textures from powder to extra course. I'm using the fine ground salt so that it offers gentle exfoliation. This bar also is made with mango butter and goats milk, it the ultimate spa bar in my opinion, exfoliating, healing, moisturizing and nourishing.
Picture

Picture
Peek of our Honeysuckle Soap!

And the winner of the Name You Favorite Spring Fragrance is...........

Congratulations to Teresa Burnett! Teresa will receive a basket of soap and samples. Look for future goodie giveaways. Thank you for taking the time to read our blog, please feel free to comment or ask question below. If you are interested in upcoming events where you can find our products please select the link below.
Upcoming Events

1 Comment

Stamping of the Soap

2/2/2016

4 Comments

 
Ever wonder how I get those cute little butterflies on our soaps? That's easy, by way of a soap stamp! I'll explain how I do this and why I chose a butterfly stamp of all things. Pictured above is a new batch of Peppermint soap that has been recently sliced two days ago. Soap is soft when you cut so I like to let it sit for a day or two to give it time to firm up a bit. By giving the soap time to get a little more firm you will get a cleaner and more defined characteristics of the imprint.

Why I use a butterfly stamp

Picture
Nearly everything I make has a personal meaning behind it and has a distinct purpose. If you look closely you will see butterflies on many of our products. From our logo to the designs in our soap, the image of a butterfly inspires me. Why? Because butterflies start out ordinary and develop into something beautiful, completely changed from its origin. For example think about soap, the ingredients in my favorite recipe are olive oil, coconut oil, palm oil, lye, water or milk, shea butter, caster oil, oatmeal and the fragrance. Well when I melt the oils down and combine all of these things together it doesn't look like much. I pour the soap batter in its mold where it stays all nice and warm for awhile, just like a cocoon. Then when I take it out of its mold the soap batter has transformed into something that is completely different than where it started. It still looks a bit odd because you can only see the outside and it's usually in a form of a big loaf. But then, I begin to slice the soap and each and every slice is different from the one before. Sorry to sound sappy here but it's like it takes on a life of its own and just develops into something beautiful. It never fails, the colors and designs blend together just as they should and I'm usually amazed at the results. The inside is beautiful! But enough of the sappy talk lets get back to stamping.
Picture
Picture

This is my butterfly stamp!

Picture
Soap stamps are usually made from glass or acrylic, a hard composite that can effectively stamp the soap. As with everything there is a happy medium for when the stamping needs to occur. If you wait too long and the soap becomes completely hard, a mallet will need to be used to apply enough pressure to stamp for it to embed into the soap, this could lead to cracking the soap if your not careful. If stamping occurs when the soap is too soft, part of the soap could lift away with the stamp. A good rule of thumb that I go by is to wait 1-2 days altering cutting the soap.
Picture
Now it's time to place the soap on a even, hard surface so that there is no wiggling when you apply pressure to the stamp. I place the stamp where I think it would look best on the soap. I tend to stamp in the lower right hand corner for consistency. Enough pressure will need to be applied to produce the image without going to too deep that the stamp base touches the soap. If too much pressure is applied the stamp base (square part) will also imprint into the soap.
Picture
From the picture above you can see all the details of the stamp clearly in the soap. I really like it when the colors in the soap are also part of the stamping, see the little butterfly and how the red is part of the wing? This just adds to the definition of the design. Each slice of soap is stamped by hand with love 😊
Picture
Here are the finished slices of the peppermint soap, this batch yielded 14 bars which is just about average for the molds I use. The embellishment on top was created by chopping up a red bar of soap that I had made previously and placed them on top of the soap batter immediately after pouring into the mold.
Picture
Feel free to comment or ask questions. Thank you for taking the time to read our blog. Like us on Facebook to see more of our soaps and other products.
Mary
4 Comments

    Author
    Mary New
    MSN, RN

    Let's use this blog to talk about different health topics.

    Archives

    March 2018
    March 2016
    February 2016
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014

    Categories

    All
    Essential Oil Info
    Life
    Soap
    Your Health

    RSS Feed

  • Store
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Upcoming Events
  • FAQs