Simple Soaps

This is a soap I got at the winter farmers market a few weeks ago. The brand is Simple Soaps and they are from a local lady who uses her own goats' milk in the soaps. I know goats milk soap is pretty popular, so I was curious to try some. They have a variety of scents to choose from, both based on essential oils and others using synthetic fragrances. The essential oil fragrances are very well constructed and very nice, not something all EO enthusiasts are able to pull off. Some people like synthetic fragrances, others avoid them, but you have to admit, they often smell a lot better. I think it just takes a keener scent sense to make an appealing EO blend.

At first I used this just as a hand soap, but lately I've been using it in the shower since I've been running low on my own soaps. It smells very nice, mine is a blend of peppermint, basil, and ??? I would say it is a bit too drying for me to continue to use on my skin, probably only because I'm so sensitive to fragrances. So I think I will return it next to the sink... It will last longer there anyway.

I visited the website for Simple Soaps today and it looks like they just opened a shop in Dover MN. I think that might be worth a visit once the roads shape up. For now, you can order them online, they even do custom batches of 15 bars or more... How nice would that be for wedding or birthday gifts? Check them out atsimplegostsoaps.com

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Ferndale Market

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

One of my favorite little grocery stores, even though they are way up in Cannon Falls. The shop is located on a turkey farm and it's primary focus is on local food and local products. It's a bit different than what co-ops carry because local goods take spotlight here.

This picture was take last week when I ran though, I bought a face scrub made of wheat and turmeric and a lip gloss.

For more information:
http://ferndalemarketonline.com/

Perfected lotion!

Sometimes the devil is in the details. Of all things, do you know what was wrong with my lotion? Why it was seperating? I was adding the water to the oil. Thats how I had read to do it, but in fact it works MUCH MUCH better to add the OIL to the WATER. Ah-hah! There we go, perfectly blended lotion without any beads of water. :)





So the new recipe is:

1 cup water
3/4 cup olive oil
3 Tbsp Bees wax

Melt the bees wax and oil in a water bath. Put you water in the blender, start blending and slowly add in the oil, no problemo!

One good thing about blogs is you can learn from other people's mistakes. You just got one handy tip above, now in the interest of full disclosure, I will tell you another. I hated my Cocoa Rose lotion. Yep, sad face all the way. It did smell nice, if a bit faint, but the thing is, when you get to adding ingredients that aren't assisting in the intended use for the product (smelling vs moisturizing), well, it's pretty much a crap shoot if those ingredients (fragrance) will go on to ruin the whole thing. I wouldn't say it ruined it, but I didn't like it as much. It smelled pretty... but must my lotion smell pretty? My regular lotion, without scent, doesn't smell bad- it doesn't smell much at all.

See my simple olive oil and bees wax lotion is a super good moiturizer, and all ingredients won't clog pores. Truly, you could open up a jar and eat it... if you wanted. It was soooo nice. I used to have terrible skin... I would buy every more expensive face lotions, and a seperate eye lotion, and a night cream, and a sperate (cheaper) body lotion, then a special lotion  for my feet.... you get the picture. My lotion is simple and can be slathered head to toe, around my eyes, on my face. It banished my acne and I came to realize it was responsible for my lashes growing super long (who knew?).

My scented lotion was not as moisturizing, but did fine for my face and body in general. I had to take great care not to get it near my eyes... when I did it hurt. Plus, the fragrance oils are the most expensive part. I wouldn't say I've sworn off scents, but for now, simpler is better.

Also, on the plus side, my Etsy account is live... er, sort of. So if you are interested in what I make, but don't want to do it yourself, you can check that out. Now that I have a lotion worth standing behind, I plan on putting that up too. Right now there is just one lowly chapstick on my account. My plan is to "purchase" it myself in order to findout just how the process works. I will post my Esty account once I truly have things for sale on it.





- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:7 St NE,Rochester,United States

Farmers Market December 17

I was looking back through my blog and realized I had stopped short on one the original focuses of my blog.... To post all the local niceties Minnesota snd the surrounding region has to offer. I miss writing about my day at the farmers market... Plus writing helps to keep track of who I bought from, who I would go back to, as well as give me ideas of farms or stands to visit.

Also, I would like to blog more often, so that the blog is more of a diary than a collection of reviews and "How Tos." I plan on still including those, but the truth is, if you want to be more self sufficient and a concious consumer, you give up a lot of the convenience of just running out and buying something you need when you need it. So, there is a rhythm to things. I think writing in more of a diary formate may convey that rhythm a bit better.

But I digress...

I have to say, I haven't been to a Rochester farmers market in a while 1) because I assumed wrongly there would be much there 2) because it isn't every weekend and I was falling victim to poor planning and 3) I didn't know where it was.

I'm glad I went, the picture above shows a small fraction of the vendors. I used the token exchange system for my card because I forgot cash. I definitely wasn't prepared. I didn't go in with a list and honestly the fridge was pretty much stocked up. This is never a good idea at a farmers market. You end up circling the place about 12 times (though it's way more fun that wandering around the grocery store) and always end up getting fun, but not practical things. And that's just what happened to me today, but I couldn't be more pleased :). Life doesn't always have to be organized to yield desired results.

Early on I saw one stand that sells milk (including chocolate) and they had eggnog today. While I'm not the biggest fan, this stuff was way way better than the grocery store stuff. But it was spendy, $6 a gallon and with a $3 bottle return fee (you get this back when you return the bottle). So I passed at first. I went back later and they were out. You snooze you lose at the farmers market! But the lady did direct me to their small on-farm store, and so I may try sneak out there for a bottle today. Bonus: it is cheaper on the farm. And anyway, I would like to do more "farm trips," they are fun, and they help you learn more about producers and keep the products they make more salient in your mind.


So there is the haul I ended up with. And I forgot eggs... Eggs of all things! Oh well. Above you see a bag of honey crisp apples (yay!!!!), carrots (really really good... If grocery food tasted like this we'd all eat our veggies), 1 lbs whole wheat flour, canned tomatoes in an awesome square jar, a bag of popcorn, and a handmade soap. I will make another post about the soap soon.

I went in wanting the apples and carrots. The popcorn and flour were more impulse buys, but are significant because I am trying to expand the scope of what I buy locally. I think I may try making some bread with the flour, even if that requires adding non-local flour to it to meet recipe requirements. The popcorn should be a healthy snack and I found a way to pop it in a brown paper bag on Pinterest. I bought the soap, because obviously I love handmade soaps and it's fun to see what other people are doing, this one is made with goats milk the woman milks herself, nice!

The pop corn came in red or white bags. Apparently the white corns have less shell when you pop them, but I had to go for a mixed bag ... Too pretty to pass up. It fit perfectly in the mason jar below.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:5th St NE,Rochester,United States

Flaxseed Styling Gel

Ok, this one is easy.

3 Tablespoons flaxseeds
1 cup water

Combine and simmer on the stove until the liquid reduces by half. Then strain. I used a nutmilk bag, next time I will use a fine mesh strainer, it was a little hard to squeeze all of it out, but it was the best thing I had at the time. It will thicken more as it cools.

I've read to keep it in the fridge, but I haven't had a problem with it spoiling. Just make it in small batches. In any case, it costs pennies to make, so if it does spoil, I would just make a new batch. This makes a nice light gel that also nourishes your hair.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:5th St NE,Rochester,United States

Cocoa Rose Lotion

I'm on a roll this week. Over the weekend I made another batch of soap, now I'm at it again tonight with two projects: lotion and styling gel.

I love my lotion, but I will admit I'm still not getting consistent results. This is the first scented lotion I've tried, which just boils down to adding essential oils to my basic olive oil recipe. I used essential oil of cocoa and rose (mixed with jojoba). I tried to find real, true, pure rose Otto oil, but it isn't sold anywhere in Rochester. I do know that the Wedge in Minneapolis used to carry it. This is where making your own bath products get fun, because rose oil is supposed to be great for the skin, but at a whopping average of $1 a drop (yes, a DROP), commercial products containging it tend to be 1) rare 2) fakes or 3) extremely expensive... We're talking the $100 4-ounce bottles here. Adding it yourself isn't gunna be cheap... Add 10 drops and now you have a lotion that costs over $10 to make. Still, walk up to a Clinique counter and you can easily find an inferior product for more money.

Note, my rose oil is not pure.... It is a mix, so it was far cheaper than that... But isn't it nice to know you can choose to treat yourself to some of life's niceties every once and a while?


Start filling you double boiler with .5 oz of beeswax (I have also use a tin can for this)...


Add 1/2 cup of olive oil...


Heat until the beeswax dissolves. Then, remove from heat and add essential oils. For this batch I did 10 drops rose oil (in jojoba) and 5 drops cocoa.


While the mixture of oil and wax is heating, be sure to fill your blender with very hot water. This prevents the oil and wax mixture (what does that make class? Oh yeh, lip balm!) from solidifying when it hits the cool glass.

There are certain steps I never get a picture of just because I am involved in actually doing them. The next step is to dump out the hot water, then add the hot oil and wax mixture to the blender. Cover the blender, but leave the small opening open to add water in. Add in a thin stream of 1 cup warm water. Stop every once in a while to scrape down the sides.... Blend blend blend! Until it is finally mixed.

So, if you really think about it, lotion is basically a lip balm with water added to it. The beeswax acts as an emulsifier. In fact, there was a little bit of oil mixture left to cool in the double boiler, and it makes a great lip balm.


I have to admit, this is still a trial and error process for me. I always end up with a great product, but every single time I get little bits of water that stay in my lotion... I haven't quite perfected the technique yet. I looked it up online and it sounds like I either need more wax or I need to add in the water much slower. It's still a work in progress at this point. I would like to try sell some on Etsy, but I don't think I can do that until I've perfected how to get the emulsion perfected as each would be made to order. Here's to learning as you go!

A note about the essential oils... They turned out a bit light, I may even try doubling them next time. Also, just a side note that they will act as a preservative (woohoo for good preservatives!) for you lotions, so this one should last longer.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:5th St NE,Rochester,United States

New lip balm recipe

Lip balm is very easy to make. That said, this is my first large-batch attempt at it. I'm going to attempt to make 50 tubes today. Each tube is .15 liquid oz, so in total I need to make 7.5 liquid oz of lip balm.

To get the balm stiff enough for a tube you need a 3:1 to 4:1 oil to wax ratio. I am shooting more for around 3:1, since with the addition of the flavored coconut oil I am not sure how the result will be affected. So I need about 5.6 oz of olive oil, and 1.9 oz of bees wax. I am starting with the addition of 2% of flavoring (stevia coconut oil) so that would be .15 oz. Mind you lip balms are NOT exact and even if you just winged a recipe you would likely get a decent lip balm. And if you didn't, you simply melt it down and add more of what ever you need. Other products like soap and lotion are not so forgiving.

Sweet Balm #1 Recipe:
(In liquid ounces)

5.6 oz olive oil
1.9 oz bees wax
.15 oz Stevia flavored coconut oil.

So here you can see my 50 tube filled coming into action. The tubes just snap in.


Ready to be filled!


Ingredients and equipment. Olive oil (this I just got from the the bulk section at the local co-op), bees wax, stevia flavored coconut oil (not pitctured). To heat the oil and wax, I just use an old tin can (this one is BPA free). I pinch the end so it make pouring easier. A pirex measuring cup would be great, the only thing to note is that lip balm is a bit annoying, though not impossible, to wash out.


Haha.... You know how I said lip balm recipes are forgiving? Well here you are: after specifying liquid ounces ( the recipe portion of this post was written first and that is what I followed) I went and measured out weight ounces! ...but you will see later everything turned out fine. Here I am weighing out the ingredients. I forgot to mention, you can note above my olive oil is pretty light in color. Save the good olive oils for salad, the later pressings work great for balms and aren't so strong in flavor or smell.


You could try and heat the oils directly, but you run a greater risk of them degrading and scorching. I use a double boiler method using the tin can. You just want to heat it long enough to melt in the beeswax. Then I added in the stevia coconut oil... That was actually kind of tricky. The bottle it came in was not easy to get it out of (at room temp coconut oil is solid). I ended up heating it in the water a little and then just guessed at how much to add.


A note on filling the tray: the balm set up pretty fast and it was a little tricky not to get a layer of extra balm on the tray vs filling the tubes at the other end. I ended up using s Spatula to coerce the balm down. You can see four unfilled tubes, and there is a fifth that is partially filled. In total the recipe... With all it's mistakes... Was fairly close. I got 45 full tubes. I chilled the tube in the fridge to set them, but this isn't necessary.


Next was to remove the tubes and cap them. Minor gripe here was that as I pulled the tubes from the mold it flawed the tops on 90% of them.


There you are, 45 finished lip balm tubes, hopefully destined for Etsy. The sweet flavor is really light, but I like that. The texture turned out nice as well.

- Posted using BlogPress from iPhone

Location:260th St NE,Newfolden,United States

Repurposed shower puff

So my shower puff exploded; this aggravated me because I'd had it only a week. So I cut it into long strips and Crocheted it into a kitchen scrubby. I actually meant to make a soap sack, but I wasn't following a pattern and it was far too wide for that purpose. Because of the ruff ends of the mesh, it is actually quite abrasive. Equah now wants to buy a new puff just so I can demolish it and make another.... Maybe she missed the point o my shenanigans?


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone