Trying out for the Brambleberry S.O.A.P Team

I have been watching the Brambleberry S.O.A.P team get chosen and followed them doing their testing for a couple of years, recently I started thinking that I would love to try and get on the team. Well they have just put out the feelers for the latest team, so here I am, trying to get picked for it. Not sure if they are into allowing international members, or more to the point are international members viable for such a team, but my theory is it doesn't hurt to try.

Although I use mostly essential oils in my soap, there are some fragrant oils that I just can't go past.

Fresh Snow has become a favourite of some of my customers, it has a fresh clean fragrance that has an "after scent" of baby powder, this one took a while for me to like.

Cranberry and Pomegranate however was instantly one I loved, but I love cranberries and pomegrantes any way, but  my customers generally don't like it, it is a very sweet smell, just like cranberry juice.

Rich Dark Chocolate is another standard in my oil stash, I always mix it with peppermint essential oil and cocoa to make choc peppermint, sorry I cant find any photos of that soap. Last time I sorted my oil stash, I thought I would make a jaffa soap with the chocolate fragrant oil and orange essential oil.

But my all time favoutite Brambleberry Fragrant oil would have to be Turkish Mocha, it smells just like a hot cup of spiced mocha, the soap is also a favourite of my customers, whether it be:

In a cupcake....

Or a Latte.....

Or another cupcake

Or just a plain cake of soap.


So to Anne-Marie and the rest of the Brambleberry team, thank you for a great site and all the teaching you give, and also for the great service, I am forever grateful for the extra work and personal service recently when I was having some difficulties with an order. Whether or not I am considered for the S.O.A.P team I have had fun doing this blog post.



Happy New Year

I have been so busy I can't believe how long it has been since I did a blog post, or even a facebook update. To add to the usual Christmas and New Year busyness we spent a week in Sydney, pre christmas, with our eldest and then she travelled home with us to spend the summer holidays, and then just after New Year a very dear friend of hers came to visit with her mother and 3 adorable kids, so that was a very busy week, showing them what life on a farm is like, we milked cows, rode horses, fed calves, saw chickens hatching, ate carrots straight out of the ground, and plums straight off the tree, patted the pig, swam in the creek, rode on the tractor and heaps of other things. They left on Wednesday and it was so sad to see them go, we had such a wonderful time with them. So in all the busyness of the past month soap making has taken a back seat. But I have managed to do some.

This is todays offering, Aussie Bush, an EO blend of Lemon Myrtle and Eucalyptus, coloured with Olive Leaf Powder, Chacoal and Tumeric

These ones look a bit "blah", but they are nicely going through their gel phase, so I took the photo and quickly covered them back up. Hopefully we'll get some photos of the cut soap in a few days.

This is one of the couple that I managed to sneak in during the busyness, no colour but scented with Orange and Cedarwood EO's.

Coffee cake, I have made this in cups and cupcakes before, but was feeling a bit lazy this day and although I did do some cupcakes as you can see at the bottom, I also poured the rest into a loaf tin and sliced it.

Below I poured it into the bee mould, not sure yet if I will cut it into 6 full sized bars or 9 guest size bars.

Did you know that the coffe grounds in the soap not only are a great exfoliator, but are also a great odour remover.

We'll be at the Upper Murray Farmers Market tomorrow, maybe I'll remember to take a camera.

I hope you all have a wonderful, happy and healthy new year.