Adventures With The Sage

Another way to make potpourri salts is to rinse the salt in water. I especially love this because it is fast to do and yet is very pretty.

The ingredients I will need for my project are:

32 oz of Jumbo Crystal Salt
Frosted Cupcake Fragrance Oil
Large Zipper Top Plastic Bags
Parchment Paper or paper plates (I like the plates the best)
Preference of Glass Dish or Bowls
Colander
Small Transfer Pipettes

16 ounces weight of Jumbo Salt seems to be the right amount for the first project. Put the 16 oz salt into the colander and rinse under cool water. Shake to remove excess water and transfer to zip bags.  Add 1 teaspoon of Frosted Cupcakes Fragrance Oil and mix salts to coat evenly. Transfer salts to paper plates to dry. These potpourri salts have a glass-like look. Groovy! Arrange in your desired glass container for display.

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Hi, my name is Betty. I am the guest editor for the day. I work in lots of areas here at MMS. I really like potpourri. So, today I am going to show you a different style of potpourri.

Moving from one home to another, I decided I wanted something different in potpourri. Something different in the smell, the beauty of colors and the container it was in. After finding what I needed in the MMS catalog, I decided to venture that direction.

The ingredients I need for my project are:

2-32 oz containers of Jumbo Crystal Salt
Aqua Mica
Dream Fragrance Oil
Large Zipper Top Plastic Bags
Parchment Paper or paper plates (I like the plates the best)
Preference of Glass Dish or Bowls
Small Transfer Pipettes
.15cc scoops

My project today is simple but beautiful and easy. Put 16 oz of salt crystals in large zipper style plastic bag. Add three 0.15cc scoops of Aqua Mica. Close bag and shake until all crystals are coated evenly. Add 1 teaspoon of Dream Fragrance Oil in bag and shake. Put on a plate to allow fragrance to penetrate all pockets and cracks of the salt crystal. Put in your desired glass container. Wow!

Always choose a glass container for displaying your salts. Fragrance oils are strong solvents and will break down plastics.

Making these potpourri salts has been so much fun and what great gifts to make. Try it and enjoy!

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On Friday, we made Foaming Fruity Layers with Juicy Grape Fragrance Oil. I made an interesting little mistake. I forgot that if the fragrance oil has a color to it, then the salt will be colored as well. I decided to go prowl the shelves and find a fragrance oil that would be suitable for keeping the salts white. I finally found the fragrance oil that would not color my salts. I’m going to be using Lavender Fleur Fragrance Oil.

Again, you will need Epsom Salt, Bath Salt Tubes, Purple Raspberry Color in the dropper bottle from the Jan 12 2009 blog post, Grape Color in the dropper bottle from the Jan 12 2009 blog post, a zipper bag, a funnel, and a fun fragrance oil.

Each bath salt tube will hold about 4.1 ounces of Epsom Salts. I am making 50 tubes so I need 12.9 lbs. I also need 3 Tablespoons Sodium Laurel Sulfoacetate. I have separated these amounts into three even sections, 8 1/2 cups, because we will have three distinct layers. Each amount of Epsom Salt will be scented and colored on its own.

Measure the salt. This is about 25 1/2 cups of Epsom Salt.

8 1/2 cups of salt go into our first bag. Add 1 Tablespoon of Sodium Lauryl Sulfoacetate to the salt. Add the fragrance oil and 12 drops Grape Color and 38 drops Purple Raspberry. Zip the bag closed and knead well. Make this color dark and vibrant.

8 1/2 cups of salt go into our second bag. Add 1 Tablespoon of Sodium Lauryl Sulfoacetate to the salt.
Add about 6 drops Grape Color and 26 drops Purple Raspberry color and add the fragrance oil. Zip the bag closed and knead well. Make this salt a bright raspberry color.

8 1/2 cups of salt into our third bag. Add 1 Tablespoon of Sodium Lauryl Sulfoacetate to the salt.
Add no color to this bag. We want white salts in the middle this time. Add the fragrance oil. Zip the bag closed and knead well.

Using a spoon, add 2 rounded tablespoons of the first bag (darkest colored salts) to the Bath Salt Tube.
Now add 2 rounded tablespoons from the third bag to the tube. Finally add 2 rounded tablespoons cups from the second bag to the tube.

Cap and tie with ribbon.

I like these Foaming Bath Salts because the white layer between the color is fun!

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Epsom Salts are my favorite soak, the don’t leave petals in my belly button or leaves between my toes.  But what about the commercials of the last many decades which have said “lather means clean” through their pictures?  Maybe we need to making foaming bath salts!  Combine the benefits of a good soak with the fun of bubbles.

We are going to continue the Valentine’s Day theme  and expand on yesterday’s post.  We are making Layered FOAMING Bath Salts today.

You will need Epsom Salt, Bath Salt Tubes, Purple Raspberry Color in the dropper bottle from the Jan 12 2009 blog post, Grape Color in the dropper bottle from the Jan 12 2009  blog post, a zipper bag, a funnel, and a fun fragrance oil.

Because I am varying the colors in today’s post I am going to use Juicy Grape Fragrance.  The bottom color will be purple, the midway color will be raspberry, and the top will be white.

Each bath salt tube will hold about 4 ounces of Epsom Salts.  I am making 50 tubes so I need 12.5 lbs.  I also need 3 Tablespoons Sodium Laurel Sulfoacetate. I have separated these amounts into three even sections, 8 1/2 cups, because we will have three distinct layers.  Each amount of Epsom Salt will be scented and colored on its own.

Measure the salt.  This is about 25 1/2 cups of Epsom Salt.

8 1/2 cups of salt go into our first bag.  Add 1 Tablespoon of Sodium Lauryl Sulfoacetate to the salt.  Add the fragrance oil and 12 drops Grape Color and 38 drops Purple Raspberry.  Zip the bag closed and knead well.  Make this color dark and vibrant.

8 1/2 cups of salt go into our second bag.  Add 1 Tablespoon of Sodium Lauryl Sulfoacetate to the salt.
Add about 6 drops Grape Color and 26 drops Purple Raspberry color and add the fragrance oil.  Zip the bag closed and knead well.  Make this salt a bright raspberry color.

8 1/2 cups of salt into our third bag.  Add 1 Tablespoon of Sodium Lauryl Sulfoacetate to the salt.
Add no color to this bag.  We want white salts on top.  Add the fragrance oil. Zip the bag closed and knead well.

Using a spoon, add 2 rounded tablespoons of the first bag (darkest colored salts) to the Bath Salt Tube.
Now add 2 rounded tablespoons from the second bag to the tube.  Finally add 2 rounded tablespoons cups from the third bag to the tube.

Cap and tie with ribbon.

The salts don’t look different from yesterday.  But in the bath they will foam and add lots of bubbles.

I’m Treva, guest editor today. I work in the Graphics Department here at Majestic Mountain Sage.

Are you on your feet all day? I have a cream that will make your feet feel revived. Last night I got home from work and my feet were really tired and achy. Before I went to bed I grabbed my Minty Foot Cream. My daughter even offered to rub the cream on my feet. (I did return the favor.) The foot massage was wonderful!

Today I am going to show you how to make the best foot cream EVER! This cream will not only make your feet feel cool and tingly but it will also soften them. Who doesn’t need that this time of year?

You will need:

1 pail Head to Toe Cream Base
Bucket wrench
1 fl oz Peppermint Essential Oil
1 fl oz Spearmint Essential Oil
Collect the premixed colors we made on January 12, 2009
2 Small Transfer Pipettes (These have the markings on the side to help with measuring.)
Long Handled spoon or spatula
Zipper Bags
Wide mouth drinking cup
Scissors
30 of the 4 oz PET Low Profile Jars (or jars of your choice)
30 of the 70 mm Black Straight Lids (or lids of your choice)
Labels

Remove the tear tab from the lid, using the bucket wrench pull up on the tabs to loosen the lid from your bucket. Use a small pipette to measure 26 mL of the Peppermint Essential Oil, add to your cream; use a different pipette to measure 8 mL of the Spearmint Essential Oil, add to your cream. This fragrance usage rate is higher because this is intended to be a foot cream. Note: If you want to make a Minty Body Cream use 13 mL of Peppermint and 4 mL of Spearmint instead. The Fragrance Calculator can help if you have questions.

I think I will use a mint green color. We want to start off with a subtle color because we can always add, but we can’t take it away. I started with 6 drops of blue and 3 drops of yellow. After stirring it for a couple of minutes, the color was too blue so I added 2 more drops of yellow. Stir, stir, stir. Make sure you stir to the bottom of the bucket to get the color and essential oil evenly distributed throughout the pail. We don’t want to get to the bottom of the bucket and find white cream. This would mean we did a terrible job at mixing!

Once you have the color you want, get your zip bags and a wide mouth drinking cup. Open the bag and insert it into the cup. Fold down the top to keep the zipper area clean. The cup will support the bag while you fill it. Zip the bag closed, cut about 1/2″ off the corner to make a pastry style bag, twist the bag from the top, now you are ready to start filling your jars. The easiest way to fill is to insert the cut corner all the way down into the jar. Squeeze firmly and consistently. Slowly raise the bag as the jar fills. You will get a perfectly filled jar with practice. Wipe any excess cream off the jar and put on the lid.

Using a paper towel polish the manufacturing wax off the lid. This is most obvious on a black lid. Apply the labels and now you are ready to give your feet a nice treat.

These make great gifts for your family and friends. Enjoy!

Have you ever wondered how we choose the fragrances that go into our catalog? There are several tests each prospective fragrance goes through to be possibly added to the catalog.

The cold process soap test is the hardest test and one that most fragrances fail for one reason or another. A fragrance could seize a batch, fade quickly after curing, or alter and not smell appealing anymore. We start with a basic soap recipe that we keep the same for the testing purposes. Each batch has 1 pound of fats. We usually make between 8 and 16 batches in a testing session. We start with a basic soap recipe that we keep the same for the testing purposes.

Our test recipe is:

4 oz Coconut Oil or Palm Kernel Oil. We use either one of these oils since they have similar saponification values. We will just use what we have available in the lab at the time.

4 oz Olive Oil

8 oz Hydrogenated Soybean Oil

2.2 oz Sodium Hydroxide, also known as NaOH or Caustic Soda

6 fl oz water

We test under extreme risks and follow our noses to the end. Extreme risks include high temperatures, speed of mixing, length of mixing time and more.

As you can see from these photos, some soaps look great, others look bad. Several failed, and some with no obvious reasons. 12 soaps of the 35 here failed and that equals a failure rate of 34%. Some of the failed fragrances we reformulate and retest, but some don’t move us enough to reformulate.

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We are always looking for feedback about our products. I recently received this great feedback about our Christmas Tree Fragrance Oil from Terry.

You were asking for feedback about your Christmas Tree Fragrance

FABULOUS!!! We have a place in the mountains of So. Calif. and I would not be able to tell the difference between your scent and the real thing. I am renaming it for my soaps to Mountain Pine.

Terry

PS, I ran out of your Baby Powder Fragrance and got some elsewhere, not half as nice.

Thanks Terry! I’m glad to hear you like it. There is a reason it was featured in our Top 10 Fragrance Oils in October of 2008.

Our Baby Powder Fragrance Oil is also great. It may not be in that same list, but we do sell quite a bit of it. I hope everyone who tries it will enjoy it as much as Terry does.

I entered our front office after lunch today and I saw that someone had changed the diffuser reed bottles on the counter. Some of our staff obviously had fun decorating these with a little bit of ribbon. I think these are adorable.

I was excited to discover the new scent is just like a spiced wassail. That smell always brings the feeling of the holidays home to me. I asked around to find who made this scent blend.  I finally got it and I can now share it with you!

HOT SPICED WASSAIL (For your room)

2 parts Cinnamon Essential Oil
1 part Clove Essential Oil
16 parts Orange, Valencia Essential Oil
6 parts Lemon, USA Essential Oil
3 parts Natural Vanilla Oil

I also had to pull out a wassail recipe for those of you who want to have the actual drink!

HOT SPICED WASSAIL (For you to drink)

1 gal. apple cider
1 qt. cranberry juice
3/4 c. sugar
2 c. orange juice
16 whole cloves
1 tsp. whole allspice
1 (6 inch) stick of cinnamon

Tie spices in cheese bag and simmer over low heat for 10 minutes. For a party or a carry-in, heat in a crock pot on low temperature. This hits the spot for any wintery evening!

Enjoy!

Andee

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