Vox Publica

As you know, I've been really into soap-making with the girls lately. I've been also wanting to branch out into other "beauty" products, and I already made a foot and a face scrub. I also bought some Epsom salts (99c at the 99c only store) to make bath salts. But my next project is to make lotions. Mika and I already made some using lotion making kit, but in that case it only consisted of mixing a pre-made lotion base with color and fragrance - not too exciting.

Now I got a lotion making kit from Bran Berry Soap Making supplies, so I will try the real deal. The kit comes with:

8 oz. Sweet Almond Oil 8 oz. Avocado Oil 8 oz. Shea Butter 1 oz. Phenonip 1 lb. Stearic Acid 1 lb. Emulsifying Wax or Ceteryl Alcohol 12 - 4 oz. Clear Reverse Tapered Ovals w/White Caps 1 oz. Lavender 40/42 Essential Oil 1 oz. Cucumber Melon Fragrance Oil Lotion Making Booklet

After buying it, I thought I'd have been better off just buying the individual ingredients in larger quantities, so I could make products other than lotion, but c'est la vie. This kit will make 48 oz of lotion - which is not that much in comparison to another kit I was thinking of buying - but I can't imagine having a need for more. Indeed, I have so many store-bought (by my mother) lotions at home, that I don't really have a personal need to make my lotion myself. But I'm hoping it'll be fun for the girls :-) Now, thinking back, that other kit was probably a better value. Oh well.

Anyway, what I actually wanted to say on this post was that Branble Berry was a good company to buy from. Everything came well packaged, the recipe booklet came with general as well as specific lotion-making instructions, and, most importantly of all, the package arrived 5 days (which included a weekend), after I'd ordered it. I did pay over $11 in shipping - but the package was almost 8lbs.

I'd probably buy from them again - though this hobby is getting expensive (I bought the kit as a birthday present to myself), so I don't anticipate doing it soon.

Update. I was wrong when I said the Bramble Berry kit would only make 48oz of lotion. I calculated that based on the fact that the kit came with 12 4-oz bottles - I thought that there would be as much lotion as bottles. Well, I was wrong. I don't know exactly how much lotion you can make with this kit, but it's a LOT. The real problem is getting cheap bottles/jars where to put all the lotion you can make - and finding uses for said lotion.

I'll also report that I did order more stuff from Bramble Berry (hey, you only turn 40 once), and once again it arrived in less than a week from when I ordered it. The shipping charges are high - but I'm very happy with them.