Articles

In this Video Newsletter, we talk all about adding fruit and veggie powder to your recipes, farmer's market fragrances, fruit butters, new recipes, fun inspiration, a sneak peek into what's coming, and much more!

Proteins and amino acids are amongst my favorite ingredients because you get so much for using so little! There’s a reason I have a shelf devoted to hydrolyzed proteins like oat, wheat, soy, rice or quinoa, and amino acids like silk or pisum sativum: When used as low as 2% in your products, they can film form, hydrate and condition your hair and skin, in addition to increasing mildness or reducing irritation in cleansers and shampoos.

You may have seen pictures on Pinterest or Facebook of a turmeric face mask fail that turned someone’s skin orange. Why’d that happen? We can thank the tetraterpenoids in turmeric called carotenoids, specifically xanthophyll and carotene, for the color. We see these compounds in bright and orange yellow oils like rosehip, carrot tissue, and sea buckthorn. They’re pre-cursors to Vitamin A, which can help with the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles, and behave as anti-oxidants, scavenging free radicals and preventing lipid peroxidation. 

Now in its sixth year, Small Business Saturday (SBS) was created by American Express to boost consumer focus and spending at small businesses during the holiday shopping season. Based on this year’s results, November 28 was a stellar kickoff to the season as 95 million customers descended on retailers, restaurants and a variety of other small businesses. This was an 8% increase over last year and generated total sales of $16.2 billion, easily topping last year’s total of $14.3 billion.

Learn to make a sculpted melt and pour bar of soap! This elegant bar of soap uses Crafter's Choice Premium Goat Milk MP Soap Base, which contains nourishing vitamins and real goat milk. Goat milk is thought to be a natural moisturizer making this a popular soap. Customers will love the beautiful hydrangea aroma or you can gift this soap to friends or family.

The holiday season can be stressful, but here are a few ways in which you can capture holiday shoppers attention to your small business.

Summer festivals, apple picking, and the relaxing sounds of summer are calling your name. It’s time for a vacation, isn’t it? You work hard and you deserve time off, but sometimes it feels like there are too many demands and too little time. How can you manage a vacation on top of it all?Could it be as simple as using the word no?

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Feasting season is upon us as we celebrate holidays with fun, friends, family, and - most importantly - food. Make your post- party clean up so much easier by using my secret weapon against grease – d-Limonene! 

This article answers commonly asked questions on Flavor Oils, what they are and how they are used. 

This article addresses commonly asked questions with making melt and pour soap.

You've researched the safety of lye, tackled the task of using a soap calculator and made what appears to be a successful batch of CP soap...but is it successful? Testing the soap's pH is a critical part of soap making to ensure your soap is safe and within an acceptable pH range. Soap can range from a pH of 7 to 10 with most soap being 9 to 10. Soaps greater than 10 are considered lye-heavy and can irritate or burn the skin. Saponification, the chemical process in which lye and oils turn into soap, usually takes between 24-48 hours. After this time, the pH can be tested and it should be within the soap range of 7 to 10. Note that the pH can lower further during the 4-6 weeks of curing. Here are three ways to test a soap's pH.

Theobroma cacao, also known as cacao tree and cocoa tree, is a small evergreen native to deep tropical regions. Its seeds, called cocoa beans, are used to make cocoa powder and chocolate. Africa is the world's leading cocoa producing area with Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) and Ghana as top producers.[1]