Adventures With The Sage

Before I continue with the recipe, what is a meringue? A meringue is a dessert made from whipped egg whites and sugar. The majority of meringues are flavored with vanilla, almond, or coconut. Meringues are made in several different ways, depending on their final use, whether it is used in a main dish or a dessert.

Collect needed supplies:
Oil of your choice (I’m using Colorless Jojoba)
Extra Thick Shower Gel
Sugar
Fragrance Oil of your choice (I’m using Tahitian Vanilla Fragrance Oil)
Transfer Pipettes
Scale
Mixing Bowl
Mixing Spoon
Hand Mixer
Containers for the final product

Recipe in Percentages:
10% Colorless Jojoba
20% Extra Thick Shower Gel
70% sugar
Tahitian Vanilla Fragrance Oil, at preferred fragrance percentage.
Lemon Yellow Color, a few drops to color

Recipe in grams (Makes 200 grams or 7 ounces):
20 grams Colorless Jojoba
40 grams Extra Thick Shower Gel
140 grams sugar
1 mL Tahitian Vanilla Fragrance Oil
2 drops Lemon Yellow Color

Weigh the Colorless Jojoba and Extra Thick Shower Gel into a mixing bowl that can fit the beaters of the hand mixer. Beat the Colorless Jojoba and Extra Thick Shower Gel until you have a white foamy cream. Add the Tahitian Vanilla Fragrance Oil and Lemon Yellow Color and fold into the cream. Once everything in the bowl is completely mixed, stir in the sugar. After the sugar has been incorporated, fill your final product containers.

Allow to sit for 4 hours for the separation to occur. Once the separation has occurred, the scrub is ready to give away.

Instructions for use:
Open jar and gently mix layers together. Once layers have been mixed, apply to damp skin and scrub in a circular motion. Rinse off with warm water. Daily use is not recommended.

Enjoy!

Submit your photos and text for the guest written Embedded Melt & Pour Soap Challenge! Submissions will be accepted through October 18th at blog@thesage.com. The submissions will be released October 19th through October 23rd. Each guest writer will receive a $25 gift certificate.

Don’t forget to submit your blog or video posts to win the MMS Perfumer’s Kit. Remember, this kit is worth $280! Wow!

Collect needed supplies:

Brown Sugar
Oat Flour (I made this one myself in the food processor)
Liquid Glycerin
Colorless Jojoba Oil or Golden Jojoba Oil (I’m using Colorless Jojoba Oil)
Liquid Soap Base
Body Milk Base
Mokalata Fragrance Oil
Scale
2 Mixing Bowls or Heavy Zipper Style Bags
Jars for storing your finished product in
Transfer Pipettes

Recipe:

200 grams Brown Sugar
10 grams Oat Flour
2 grams Liquid Glycerin
21 grams Jojoba Oil
10 grams Liquid Soap Base
20 grams Body Milk Base
0.5 grams Mokalata Fragrance Oil

Use a blender or food processor to make the oat flour.

Weigh the Brown Sugar and Oat Flour into the mixing bowl or bag and mix until all lumps have been removed. Set aside. Weigh all liquid ingredients into the other bowl or bag. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the liquid ingredients and stir until completely blended. Now you can fill your containers with the scrub.

I want to use this scrub right now!

Submit your photos and text for the guest written Embedded Melt & Pour Soap Challenge! Submissions will be accepted through October 18th at blog@thesage.com. The submissions will be released October 19th through October 23rd. Each guest writer will receive a $25 gift certificate.

I sat down and made a list of products that would help me achieve the desired effect of clean hands! I decided to start with the Glycerin Scrub Base and the Fine Pumice. I made a small test batch and realized that there wasn’t enough texture to help scrub my hands. I decided to add Fine Dead Sea Salt to the batch and see if that worked. Once I had mixed in the salt, I found the coarse scrubbing texture to be just right, but I wanted more help removing grease from my hands. That was when I remembered the conversation I had had with Tina about the properties of clay that can be useful for helping to remove impurities from the skin, like oil. After that thought, I had to find my Red Morocco Clay to add to the scrub. I added the clay, but because the pumice and salt had already been added, the clay did not mix well into the scrub. I set that test batch aside and started over again.

This time I added the Red Morocco Clay to the Glycerin Scrub Base and stirred before I added any other ingredients. Once the clay had been stirred in completely, I added the Fine Pumice and Fine Dead Sea Salt. This time the scrub was just what I wanted!

Collect needed supplies:
Glycerin Scrub Base
Fine Pumice
Fine Dead Sea Salt
Red Morocco Clay (or clay of your choice)
Fragrance or Essential Oil of your choice (I’m using Eastern Amber Fragrance Oil)
Transfer Pipettes
Measuring spoons
Container for mixing
Scale
Mixing spoon
Containers and caps of your choice

Recipe: (In grams)
150 grams Glycerin Scrub Base
4 grams Red Morocco Clay
50 grams Fine Pumice
50 grams Fine Dead Sea Salt
1 gram Eastern Amber Fragrance Oil
Makes 255 grams

Recipe: (In ounces)
5.30 ounces Glycerin Scrub Base
0.15 ounces Red Morocco Clay
1.75 ounces Fine Pumice
1.75 ounces Fine Dead Sea Salt
0.05 ounces Eastern Amber Fragrance Oil
Makes 9 ounces

Weigh the Glycerin Scrub Base and clay into your container for mixing and blend thoroughly until there are no more clumps of clay. Once the clay has been incorporated into the scrub base, add the pumice and salt to the mixture. Stir until there are no more pockets of dry ingredients. Add the Eastern Amber Fragrance Oil and stir.

After all ingredients are completely mixed, fill the containers of your choice. This is a great scrub to put in the Grand Oval Bottles, especially if it for the grease monkey with really dirty paws! (Pun intended.)

Enjoy this scrub!

Supplies and Ingredients
White Granulated Sugar
Grapeseed Oil
Lemon Sugar Fragrance Oil
Lemon USA Essential Oil
Spearmint Essential Oil
Container for mixing
Scale
Spoon
Transfer Pipettes
Containers and caps

Since Jordan wanted a Mint Lemonade Fragrance, I needed to blend a fragrance to match her desired scent. Her first idea was Lemon Sugar with a little Spearmint Essential Oil for the mint note. I made a test with 20 drops of Lemon Sugar and 1 drop of Spearmint in a Clear Glass Dram. After I let the blend sit for an hour, I smelled it and decided that we needed to add a sharp Lemon note, because the Lemon Sugar didn’t have the tang we wanted. I added 5 drops of Lemon USA, which is our sharper Lemon Essential Oil. That fixed my Lemon notes, but there was only one person on staff who could pick up a faint mint tone to the blend. I added 1 more drop of Spearmint. I still couldn’t smell mint so I started with a new Clear Glass Dram and added 20 drops of Lemon Sugar, 5 drops of Lemon USA, and 4 drops of Spearmint. The mint note was stronger and I could finally smell the mint. This blend was very polite and I thought it was very good. I still had to go back to the drawing board to see if 8 drops of Spearmint would overpower the Lemon or not. I got a new Clear Glass Dram and tested again! I added 20 drops of Lemon Sugar, 5 drops of Lemon USA, and 8 drops of Spearmint to this dram bottle and let it sit. Wow! This blend I think was the best! There was a great balance between the mint and lemon. We didn’t want the mint to overpower the lemon, which it can do easily.

Now I have a small dilemma. I need to fragrance a batch of sugar scrub, but I don’t want to sit here all day and count out drops of fragrance oil. This is when we converted the the drops to percentages.

Fragrance Blend in Percentages
60% Lemon Sugar Fragrance Oil
15% Lemon Essential Oil, USA
25% Spearmint Essential Oil

I needed to make 1 oz of the fragrance blend for scrub testing, so I usedthe percentages to calculate how much I needed to blend enough for 1 oz.

Fragrance Blend in Weight for 1 oz
0.60 ounces Lemon Sugar Fragrance Oil
0.15 ounces Lemon Essential Oil, USA
0.25 ounces Spearmint Essential Oil

During my testing several of the staff fell in love with this fragrance blend, so I was able to persuade the New Products team to come up with pricing for this yummy blend! I currently have a price of $4.50 for 1 fl oz of the Jordan’s Mint Lemonade blend. We will release this blend shortly, so if you can’t wait you can blend it yourself. If you want us to blend this for you, check our New Products section.

Now the fragrance has been blended, we can work on making the scrub. Jordan is planning on using Grapeseed Oil as the oil in her scrub, so we just need to mix a scrub that meets our requirements. We started with 8 ounces of Grapeseed Oil and then I started adding sugar and stirring until I had a very thick sugar scrub. I ended up using 16 ounces of sugar, which means that our sugar and oil ratio is 2:1. This ratio is one of the easiest ratios to work with on sugar scrubs.

The recipe and complete directions are below.

Scrub Recipe
8 oz Grapeseed Oil
16 oz White Granulated Sugar
.24 ounces of Mint Lemonade Blend (Using the fragrance oil at a 1% rate)

Weigh the oil into the mixing container. With recipes that you weigh like this, I like to add my fragrance oil to the fixed oils before I add the sugar. Now, add the sugar and stir thoroughly. Fill containers with mixed scrub. Stir the scrub mixture frequently while filling the jars to keep an evenly filled jar.

This recipe makes about 16 fluid ounces of sugar scrub. I used a 2 oz jar for my container and I filled 8 jars.

Next week is all about finishing up the Mother’s Day Gift Baskets!

I was playing around with the lip scrub idea and I thought why can’t I mix it just like frosting? After all, I make a chocolate frosting in my food processor occasionally and I love it on saltine crackers. My point is that the chocolate frosting still has a granular texture from the sugar and that is fairly close to what I want in a lip scrub. If you don’t know what I mean, imagine creaming butter and sugar together in the mixer for cookie until the butter is nearly white and the entire mixture is fluffy. That is the texture I’m looking for.

Back to the lip scrub. We have a food processor in our kitchen here at work, so I “borrowed” it for a while for testing purposes. I thought “If I can make candy in a plastic bowl and not have the flavor stick, I wonder if a cosmetic flavor would stick?”

I’m going to use the same recipe that I posted on February 20th. First things first, I weighed my ingredients into a beaker and then used a rubber scraper to scrape the ingredients into the food processor bowl. I put the lid on the bowl and pulsed the lip scrub until completely mixed. I did have to scrape the sides of the bowl twice to make sure everything was mixed.

Perfect! The mixing in the bowl meant I didn’t have to melt any ingredients and I love the fluffy look of the scrub. The best part in my opinion is that I washed the bowl and the flavor didn’t stay!

Collect needed items:
Macadamia Nut Butter
Macadamia Oil
Vitamin E Natural
Flavor of your choice, we are using Cucumber Melon Flavor Oil
Scale
Mixing container
Sugar
Containers for finished product

Recipe:

0.50 ounce Macadamia Nut Butter
0.25 ounce Macadamia Oil
0.10 ounce Vitamin E Natural
1.70 ounce Granulated Sugar
0.04-0.08 ounce Cucumber Melon Flavor (I used the most I could use2.25 mL in this example)

Notes:
If you have a smaller bowl that fits inside your food processor, I would highly recommend using that. If you would rather use a mixer, go ahead and use that. You are just wanting the sugar and oils to be beat together. The longer you beat them together, the smoother finish it will have. If you don’t like the feeling of a regular granulated sugar, you could use a ultra fine sugar (not powdered sugar).

Next week is our Cold Process Soap Follow Up Week! We are going to cover botanicals, milk soaps, curing, saving a batch, Lye Heavy Soap and Using the Lye Calculator.

Needed Items:
Macadamia Nut Butter
Macadamia Oil
Vitamin E Natural
Flavor of your choice, we are using Cucumber Melon Flavor Oil
Scale
Mixing container
Sugar
Containers for finished product

Recipe:

0.50 ounce Macadamia Nut Butter
0.25 ounce Macadamia Oil
0.10 ounce Vitamin E Natural
1.70 ounce Granulated Sugar
0.04-0.08 ounce Cucumber Melon Flavor (2.25 mL in this example)

Weigh the Macadamia Nut Butter and Macadamia Nut Oil together and heat until melted, about 30-45 seconds in the microwave. Mix well. Weigh and add the Vitamin E. Weigh sugar and add sugar to oils, mixing well until all sugar is incorporated. This scrub will be thicker than a typical sugar scrub, you want it to have a putty-like texture. Lastly, measure and add your chosen flavor oil. I used Cucumber Melon. The sweet smell from the sugar, combined with this flavor, created a tutti-frutti type aroma. I used the higher rate for my flavor which is equivalent to 3% flavor. I would recommend the lower rate for really strong flavors such as Peppermint or Tea Tree. Check our Flavor Oil catalog section for recommended usage rates. Store in small jars.

Exfoliating the lips is not a daily routine event. Exfoliating should take place periodically. After this scrub treatment you should apply your favorite lip balm. Exfoliation and lip balm, means smoother kissing in your future!

Next week we are going to work on cold process soap. Don’t forget the supplies you will need!

Needed items:

Scale
Mixing Bucket
Fine Dead Sea Salt or other salt of your choice
Sweet Almond Oil
Glycerin
Jojoba Oil
Avocado Oil
Sunflower Oil
Fragrance or Essential Oil, if desired
Containers to fill with finished product

Recipe:
1 cup Fine Dead Sea Salt
1 oz Sweet Almond Oil
1 oz Glycerin
1 oz Jojoba Oil
1 oz Avocado Oil
1 oz Sunflower Oil
Lime Essential Oil (as used for our blog tests)

Weigh liquids into mixing bucket. Add salt and mix thoroughly. Once mixed, the salt scrub can be put in the containers.

Notes:
I think this scrub would be a great foot scrub, but that could simply be because it reminds me of the scrub my aesthetician uses on my feet when I get a pedicure. The glycerin doesn’t blend with the oils, so don’t worry about the separation because you won’t even notice once the salt has been added. When using, mix well before removing the desired amount of scrub. When taking pictures, I made a mistake and weighed out too much Avocado Oil. Therefore, I had to double my recipe.

Next week we are going to work on cold process soap. Don’t forget the supplies you will need!

Items that we will need:

Sugar, or Salt if you prefer
Glycerin Scrub Base
Spoon
Fragrance Oil (We are using Red Clover Tea)
Scale
Mixing Bowl
Containers
Purple Raspberry Color in the dropper bottle from the Jan 12 2009 blog post

Add fragrance oil and color to the gallon of Glycerin Scrub Base. Recap the gallon jug and shake. You are going to need to shake the jug like you are a crazy maniac. If you can’t shake the jug like crazy, then find someone else in your house or the neighbor boy. You could make cookies like Andrea’s Valentine Sugar Cookies as payment!

After the Glycerin Scrub Base is mixed, add to the sugar and mix thoroughly. I like to add the sugar to the scrub base just because that way some of the sugar doesn’t get forgotten at the bottom of my mixing bowl. Stir until completely mixed. Once the scrub is mixed, go ahead and spoon into containers and cap. Yippee! We now have adorable scrubs to give out as gifts.

Notes:

I’m at the bottom of my bag of sugar and the bottom of the bag always has more sugar dust. This dust is easily dissolved by the scrub base and can make a syrupy layer at the bottom of the jar. To remedy that problem, I added 3 tablespoons of salt to the 8 pounds of sugar I used for the scrub. If you are using larger sugar crystals in this recipe then the salt can be omitted.

Next week we are going to work on cold process soap. Don’t forget the supplies you will need!

Ingredients that we will need are:

Sugar, or Salt if you prefer
Red Morocco Clay
Hemp Oil (Natural or Refined)
Sweet Almond Oil
Shower Gel & Liquid Hand Soap in One
Cranberry Fragrance Oil
Lime Essential Oil

Equipment that we will need:

Scale
Large Mixing Bowl or Bucket
Separate container for oils
Transfer Pipettes
Container to package finished product

Weigh dry ingredients into large mixing bowl and mix together thoroughly. Set the bowl aside. Weigh oils, liquid soap and fragrance oil into the oil container. After all the fluid items have been weighed, stir until blended. Add oil mixture to the dry ingredients and stir. Spoon into containers and cap. Tada! We now have a beautiful finished product.

Notes:

When I made my first test batch, I wasn’t sure how the Shower Gel & Liquid Hand Soap in One would work. I thought that the Body Polish would be really bubbly, but I was surprised when the the finished Body Polish gave slight suds when scrubbing. The original recipe makes approximately 10 fluid ounces. Now you can make just a jar for yourself, or a dozen jars for friends and family.

Next week we are going to work on cold process soap. Don’t forget the supplies you will need!

When making a sugar scrub, you need to choose the oil you want to use. Wait a minute! How do make a choice with so many different options out there? Our technical support staff helped me determine the three weight categories of fixed oils. The categories are as follows, light, mid-weight and heavy. How do we determine the weight of an oil? We figure the weight of a oil by the texture and feeling as the oil is rubbed into the skin.

Our personal evaluations gave us Coconut Oil Fractions, Colorless Jojoba, and Macadamia Nut Oils as our light oils and leading into the mid-weight were Rice Bran and Sesame Oils. The mid-weight oils are Almond, Apricot Kernel, Grapeseed, and Sunflower. The oils between the mid-weight and heavy are Golden Jojoba, Olive and Wheat Germ. That leaves the heavy oils which we determined were Aloe Extract, Avocado, Hemp, or Shea Oils.

Each oil you test will vary. I like to test new oils on the inside of my arm when I receive them. I write down in my notebook the feel of the oil. Did the oil feel light, velvety, or oily? What did the oil smell like? What date did I test the oil? The last question is important because an oil that I find nice and soothing in February will probably feel too heavy in August, the most humid month for us.

I’ve chosen Colorless Jojoba and Olive Oil for my comparison project. Now what about the sugar? You can use any sugar that you want. We usually recommend using a white granulated sugar. You can use either brown sugar or white sugar.

If you use brown sugar, I highly recommend that you use a fragrance oil that will work with the molasses scent of the brown sugar. Whoa! Did I just say something that didn’t make sense? Ok, try this. Imagine the nice warm smell of brown sugar and then someone adds a fragrance like Cool Water or Lilac. These fragrances simply do not mix with the molasses scent of the brown sugar.

Fragrances that work with the molasses scent would be some with spice notes like Apple Jack, Gingerbread & Spice, and Welcome Home. You could also use fragrances with vanilla notes like Warm Vanilla Sugar or Vanilla Cream.

Lastly, you could use fragrances with a simple citrusy note and create a wonderful baked dessert smell. For example, Raspberry would make a great raspberry oatmeal bar with a crumbly top or Cranberry for a cranberries and brown sugar glaze. I should stop because I’m making myself hungry.

Just try not to combine brown sugar with blue/marine scents or green/herbal scents.

You will need:

Granulated sugar of your choice (I’m using white)
Fixed Oil of your choice (I’m using Colorless Jojoba and Olive Oil)
Fragrance oil (I’m using Oatmeal, Milk & Honey)
Mixing Bucket or Heavy Zipper Style Bag
Spoon if you use a bucket
Transfer Pipettes
Containers to fill with finished product

Set out your mixing bucket. Measure 2 cups of sugar into the mixing bucket. Now we can add 1 cup of oil. Stir or knead the sugar and oil together. Once the oil and sugar have been mixed, you can add the fragrance oil. I added 2 mL of Oatmeal, Milk & Honey. After the fragrance oil has been thoroughly mixed into the scrub, you can now fill your containers.

See! I told you it was easy!

FAQ and Interesting Tidbits

Did you know sugar is a humectant? Now before you think I’m using some weird foreign language, a humectant is simply a substance that promotes the retention of moisture.

Next week we are going to work on cold process soap. Don’t forget any supplies!