Recipes & Tutorials
Coffee Candle… mmm Coffee!
I was browsing around the Salvation Army op shop last weekend, and came across this cute little coffee cup so I snapped it up for the grand old sum of $0.50.
Seriously, if you have any op shops in your area they are a treasure trove for cheap old cups and bowls which make perfect candle vessels! I try and stay away from thin glass, such as wine glasses, and pick the more solid looking items like tea cups or glass tumblers just to be on the safe side.
I also nabbed a set of tea cups and saucers for $2.00, bargain!
Not to be painfully predictable, but I decided that our fresh coffee fragrance would be the perfect scent for my newly acquired coffee cup.
You can use these instructions to make your own candle in the glassware that you have on hand. The biggest problem with using odd bits of crockery is trying to figure out how much wax you need to fill it. But if you use this formula it will make it simple.
How much wax do I need?
- Put your empty cup on the scales and tare the scale to zero.
- Fill the cup with water up to the point where you would make the candle to. I generally stop about 1cm from the top of the cup.
- Take note of the weight. In this instance, the weight of the water in the empty cup is 128 grams.
- Use a calculator (unless you’re a maths wizard) and multiply the water weight by 0.86. So for me, I would do 128 x 0.86 = 110
- That’s how much wax you’ll need to fill your cup! Easy peasy.
Once you’ve figured that out, tip the water away and dry your cup thoroughly… water and wax don’t play nice together!
Now onto the next big question…
What size wick do I need?
We have a handy little wick chart which has our wick sizing recommendations. You can find that here. Remember this is just a guide, and while it works most times, things like fragrance and colour load can alter the size wick you might need. The best thing to do before making a huge batch of candles only to find you needed a bigger wick, is to make a single test candle and burn it. That’s the only way to know for sure.
With that said, figuring out what size wick is generally pretty straight forward. All you need is a ruler.
Measure across the diameter of your cup and use our chart to pick the wick.
In our case, the diameter of my coffee cup is about 73mm which means I can use either a CDN-16 or an ECO-8 wick.
I went for the CDN-16 purely because that’s the container I found first. I use both brands of wicks all the time and they’re both excellent wicks.
Making the Candle
Now that you know how much wax you need (110 grams in my case.) Measure it out into a heat safe container. I use microwaveable plastic jugs which I picked up at the Warehouse for something like $2.00 each. I only use these for candle making. You don’t want to be putting these back in the cupboard to use when baking.
For the amount of wax that I needed, I microwaved first for 90 seconds, gave it a stir and checked the temp which was only around 50C, so it went back in the microwave for another 30 seconds, stir and temp check again, it’s up to 70C by now, so into the microwave for 15 seconds where it comes out bang on 83C – perfect!
Add your fragrance. I used our Fresh Coffee fragrance which I loooove. At a 5% ratio I used 5.5ml (110 x 5% = 5.5)
Once you’ve added the fragrance give it a gentle stir for a few minutes so that the fragrance fully incorporates into the wax. You’ll need to wait until the wax cools down to about 60-65C. If you pour when the wax is too hot you can get problems with a pitted top. You don’t need to watch the wax like a hawk during this time, just give it a stir every couple of minutes until you reach the right temperature.
In the meantime, you can stick the wick to the bottom of the cup. I use a wick sticker to make sure the wick doesn’t float up when you pour the wax, then use a wick holder to make sure the wick stays up straight and centred.
Once the wax is cooled, pour it into your wicked cup and wait for it to set. This usually takes a few hours, but for best results don’t burn the candle for at least 12 hours (overnight is best)
Trim the wick to 1cm
And there you have it. A super easy, and not to mention cheap, candle!
Recipes & Tutorials
Wild Musk Bath Salts
I’m not sure what the weather is like around the rest of the country, but here in Tauranga it’s horrible! It is definitely the kind of weather that is perfect for soaking in the tub.
I’m usually a bubble bath kinda girl, but lately I’ve been using bath salts instead. The benefits of epsom salts are many. They can help to relieve muscle pain and inflammation, and can improve circulation. Himalayan salts are also excellent for aches and pains so adding both salts to your bath is like having a super charged soak! The addition of baking soda helps to soften and detoxify your skin. The macadamia oil adds a little luxurious moisturisation and the Wild Musk fragrance oil has a lovely “clean and soapy” aroma that I think is perfect for bath products. Feel free to substitute the Wild Musk fragrance for any of our other skin safe fragrance oils.
Bath salts are probably one of the easiest things to make.
Ingredients
(makes 5 stand up silver pouches)
2 cups of Epsom Salts
1 cup of Himalayan salt (finely ground – you can do this by whizzing them up in a food processor)
1/2 cup of Baking Soda
1Tbsp Macadamia Oil
7ml Wild Musk Fragrance Oil
Step One
Combine all dry ingredients into a mixing bowl. Mix with your hands to work out any clumps.
Step Two
Add the macadamia oil and fragrance. Mix well.
Step Three
Spoon into our stand up silver pouches, or container of your choice. Add about half a cup to your bath, then relax and enjoy!
Recipes & Tutorials
Avocado Lip Shine
This lip shine not only gives your lips a nice shimmer, it also provides some beneficial moisturising which can be sorely needed during these winter months.
Avocado oil contains a lot of Vitamin B which can help with skin damage, skin protection, and cell generation. It also contains Vitamin A and Vitamin E which are both great for your skin too!
This recipe doesn’t contain enough mica to make a lip tint, but you can definitely add more if you want a lip colour as well as lip shine.
Ingredients
(makes eight (8) lip balm tubes)
8 Lip Balm Tubes
7 grams Beeswax
10 grams Cocoa Butter
20 grams Avocado Oil
5 grams Castor Oil
2 mini scoops Mauve Mica
1 mini scoop Bronze Mica
2ml Chocolate Flavour Oil (or any flavour of your choice)
Step One
Weigh out the beeswax, cocoa butter, avocado oil and castor oil into a heat safe container. I’m using one of our 100ml glass beakers (they’re awesome for this kind of thing!) I always chop my beeswax into smaller pieces, that way they melt a little easier.
Step Two
Place in the microwave and melt using 30-60 second bursts. Beeswax has a high melting point, and can take a long time to melt. Be careful – because of the high melting point, the heat-safe container can melt or explode in the microwave if it gets too hot.
Step Three
Add the flavour and mica and mix well to combine. If you want to make a lip colour I suggest using approximately a total of 1Tbsp of mica.
Step Four
Carefully pour into lip balm tubes. Fill to the top then wait a couple of hours for them to harden. You will notice that they will sink and get a hole in the centre. This is caused by the mixture cooling. To level off the tops you can gently go over them with a heat gun to melt the tops to make them nice and smooth.
These aren’t a rock hard lip balm so we suggest keeping them out of the sun so you don’t end up with a puddle of lip balm in the tube.
Recipes & Tutorials
Rebatching Soap Scraps
I’m sure this is a familiar sight for any cold process soap maker – the container (or boxes in my case) of soap shavings and off cuts which are left over when you cut and tidy your soaps.
All of our bathrooms at work have my soap off cuts for hand washing, and you’ll more likely than not, find lumps of squished together soap scraps in most of my family’s homes – we haven’t bought soap in a loooong time! But after you’ve been making soap for any length of time, you’ll come to realise it is virtually impossible for you to use all the scraps up! Every time I make a new batch of soap the pile grows. I haven’t weighed all my scraps, but at a guess I’d say I have roughly 5kg of off cuts at the moment!
A small fraction of my soap scraps!
I can’t stand the thought of wasting, so that’s where the re-batching method comes in. Sometimes this is called triple milled or French milled soap. Re-batching is the process of taking pre-made cold process soap and “melting” it down to create a new bar of soap. Keep in mind that re-batched soap tends to look pretty rustic so don’t plan on doing any fancy designs or swirls as it just won’t happen!
How to Rebatch Cold Process Soap
I picked out about 600 grams of light coloured scraps and grated them. You could do more or less depending on how many scraps you have, or how long you want to grate soap for! I’m lucky enough that I have an old food processor that I use solely for my soaping projects so I didn’t have to go through the nightmare of hand grating all the little scraps.
Once you’ve grated all your soap, put into your slow cooker, or double boiler. I’m using my slow cooker this time because I have lots of things to do today and don’t want to stand around monitoring the soap cooking. The beauty of the slow cooker is you can walk away and not have to worry about a pot burning dry. The trade-off is that it’s a slower method than using a double boiler. If you want to use a double boiler that’s totally fine. The method is the same, you just need to keep an eye on your soap and stir more often.
Once you have your grated soap in your cooker, add water. The amount of water depends on how old the soap scraps are. If you’re rebatching relatively fresh soap (less than two weeks old) you may only need a couple of tablespoons of water. However, many of my soaps are at least two years old, so I’m using half a cup of water. Don’t worry too much about over watering, it just means your soap might take a little longer to un-mould, but the quality will be the same.
Give the soap and water a quick stir, pop the lid on the crock pot and walk away. I came back about 30 minutes later and gave the mix a stir. After about 45 minutes, I added some extra soap that I had cut up into chunks. This isn’t necessary, but I wanted to add some interest to the soap so it wasn’t just a plain brown bar. After stirring the chunks through, I left the soap to melt again. All up I had the soap cooking for around one and a half hours.
The soap is ready to be spooned into the mould.
You can see the consistency of the soap is very thick. The original soap that was grated has melted down, and the chunks that I added half way through are left pretty much in tact.
If you want to add fragrance, add it in right before you’re ready to mould. Stir in well. I used 20ml of Kumquat fragrance in this batch as there wasn’t much smell left in the soap scraps.
Spoon the soap into your mould. Make sure you tamp the mould down hard to get rid of air pockets. Depending on how much water you used, you will be able to un-mould the soap after about three hours. There’s no need to wait to use the soap, as all the scraps are old and fully cured a long time ago!
Recipes & Tutorials
Swirly Melt & Pour Clamshell Soap
Melt and pour soap is a fun and easy way to make your own soap. You don’t have to worry about wearing safety gear or using caustic soda like you do with cold process soap. It can be a fun project to do with kids or adults alike.
These little soaps are poured straight into our round clamshell moulds, so once they’re set you can just close them up and they’re all ready to sell or give away. There’s also the added bonus of not having to wash a soap mould!
The round clamshells are easy to make guest size soaps. If pink isn’t your thing, try any of our other micas in your favourite shade. You can see the difference in colour between the clear and white soap bases. Even though it’s the same mica, it looks different. So combining both soap bases is a nice effect.
What you’ll need
(makes one clamshell – 2 x 50 gram soaps)
50 grams Clear Melt & Pour Soap Base
50 grams White Melt & Pour Soap Base
3 mini scoops Pink Honeysuckle Mica
5ml Forbidden Fantasy Fragrance Oil
1 x Round Clamshell Mould
2 x Heat safe containers
Isopropyl Alcohol
Step One
Chop and melt the Clear Melt and Pour Base in a small heat safe container. Because you are melting such a small amount of soap, you can microwave for about 20 seconds at first, then stir and use 10 second bursts stirring in between to slowly melt without burning. Make sure you don’t heat above 60 degrees C, anything higher than that can cause the soap to burn. Once the melt and pour is melted, add 1 mini scoop of Pink Honeysuckle mica and stir to combine.
Add 2.5ml of the fragrance oil. If the soap begins to harden, pop it back into the microwave for 10 seconds.
Step Two
Chop and melt the White Melt and Pour Base in a small heat safe container. Because you are melting such a small amount of soap, you can microwave for about 20 seconds at first, then stir and use 10 second bursts stirring in between to slowly melt without burning. Make sure you don’t heat above 60 degrees C, anything higher than that can cause the soap to burn. Once the melt and pour is melted, add 2 mini scoops of Pink Honeysuckle mica and stir to combine.
Add 2.5ml of the fragrance oil. If the soap begins to harden, pop it back into the microwave for 10 seconds.
Step Three
Once both soap bases reach 50 degrees (approximately, a few degrees out either way won’t matter too much), pour both soaps into the clamshell at the same time, start at opposite ends of the circle and slowly move the jugs around while you’re pouring – kind of like how a barista makes fancy coffee. The trick is to make sure your soap isn’t too hot otherwise the clear and white soaps will just blend together.
Repeat for the second soap in the clamshell. If you’ve found the soap has started to harden just pop back in the microwave for 5 seconds.
Step Four
Once your moulds are full, spritz with isopropyl to get rid of any bubbles and leave to harden. This normally takes a few hours. You can speed things up by putting the soap in the fridge. Don’t close the clamshell up yet though as you don’t want to trap any steam as the soap cools.
Once your soap has cooled completely. Close up the clamshell and you’re ready to go! To use simply press down on the back of the clamshell and the soap will pop right out.
Recipes & Tutorials
How to Make Hydrosol
When essential oils are made through steam distillation it involves a process of steaming the plant material, cooling the steam, then eventually extracting the oil from the condensed steam. Hydrosol is the left over steam (distilled water).
Hydrosols are like essential oils but in far less of a concentration. Hydrosols can be used externally in skin care products, taken as a tonic or combined in a drink. They also make lovely additions to food such as Rose water.
What’s the difference between a hydrosol and infused water?
Hydrosol is produced from the steam that forms when distilling plant materials such as flowers and herbs. Hydrosols are not as concentrated as essential oils, so they tend to be more gentle on the skin. Infused water is simply soaking leaves, fruit, or flowers of a plant or herb in water. It becomes more tea-like if you boil the material in water.
How to make Rose Water (Hydrosol)
What you’ll need:
Roses from the yard are preferable, but since it’s winter and I don’t know anyone with winter roses, I bought mine from Flora & Flames
Distilled water
A pot with a lid
A bowl
Ice
Step One:
Make sure your roses are nice and clean. Add them to the pot and cover with distilled water. I used approximately 100 grams of rose petals (around 30 roses) and 1 litre of water. These measurements don’t have to be exact, just make sure you have enough water to cover the roses.
Step Two:
Clear a space in the middle of the pot and place your bowl inside, this will catch all the hydrosol as it condenses.
Step Three:
Place the lid on the pot upside down and turn the heat on medium to low. You don’t want to boil the roses, just get a gentle simmer.
Step Four:
As the water starts to warm up, you will begin to see steam on the lid. Once you see steam, place a sealed bag about half full of ice onto the lid. This will cool the steam as it hits the pot lid making the hydrosol drip into the bowl below. The ice will begin to melt in the bag, so you will need to replace the ice periodically. A steady production of condensation should be collecting on the lid and dripping into the bowl in the pot. However long you decide to allow it to distill, will determine how much hydrosol you’ll collect. I allowed my batch to cook for about an hour, draining melted ice and replacing with new, as needed. You’ll know you’re done when the hydrosol no longer smells strongly of roses. If you continue collecting steam after this point you’re just diluting your existing hydrosol with plain water.
Step Five:
Pour the hydrosol into a bottle and keep in the fridge. It will last up to three months if kept properly in the fridge.
I used my rose water in a face mist. Just pour it into a bottle with a mister cap and spritz onto your face for a nice refreshing pick me up!
Recipes & Tutorials
Foaming Bath Truffles
Well it seems winter has well and truly arrived this week! Luckily here in Tauranga we usually don’t get hit with the worst of the weather, but I really feel for those of you in more southerly areas. My Mum lives in Christchurch and she sent a picture of the first snow fall this morning, brrr!
It’s the perfect time of year for a nice warm relaxing soak in the tub. Crumble one of these foaming bath truffles under the water when running the bath and enjoy a lovely fragrant and moisturising bath. These are different to regular “bath bombs” as they don’t contain any citric acid to give it a fizz, but they will foam and bubble giving you a more luxurious feeling.
Foaming Bath Truffles
(makes 8)
What you’ll need
75 grams Baking Soda
45 grams SLSa
15 grams Cream of Tartar
8 grams Cocoa Butter
5 grams Glycerin
3 grams Cocomidopropyl Betaine
4 mini scoops Roussillion Mica
3ml Ylang & Amber Fragrance
Mixing bowls
Scales
Step One:
Add Baking Soda, SLSa, Cream of Tartar and Mica to the mixing bowl. Mix well, making sure to get rid of all the tiny lumps. I like to use my hands to rub the mixture together so it’s a nice fine texture with no lumps.
Step Two
Add the Cocoa Butter to a separate mixing bowl and heat in the microwave in 30 second bursts until melted. Be careful not to overheat the butter. Once melted add the Glycerin, Cocomidopropyl Betaine and Fragrance. The add the wet ingredients to the dry.
Step Three
Mix the ingredients together until completely combined (I use my hands to mix) and the mixture holds together when squeezed. If your mixture seems a little crumbly, spritz with a little witch hazel or add more glycerin until you get the right texture.
Step Four
Spoon the mixture into the mould and press firmly so it’s tightly packed. Set aside to harden. I left mine for about four hours, but you may need longer depending on the weather conditions.
Step Five
Once the truffles have hardened, gently press the back of each cavity. The truffles should slide right out easily. If they don’t come out easily they may not be hard enough yet.
Set aside to continue drying for about 24 hours then package up. I’ve used a cute bail jar to keep mine nice and dry when storing in the bathroom.
Remember these aren’t bath fizzies, so you need to crumble them under the running water to ensure they melt completely releasing all the skin softening ingredients.
Recipes & Tutorials
Caffeinated Body Cream
Following on from my post about why Caffeine is so wonderful I thought I’d share the recipe for my very first attempt at incorporating powdered caffeine into a cream. I have to say it’s turned out A-MA-ZING! I’m not sure if it’s because of the caffeine powder, or because of the oils and butters, but either way it’s my new favourite body cream. It’s left my skin feeling nice and soft and smooth and best of all it’s non greasy!
If you’ve never made lotion before I’d recommend you read this post first to get a general idea of lotion making.
What you’ll need:
(makes 200 grams)
Water Phase
124 grams Distilled Water
4 grams Glycerine
8 grams Caffeine Powder
Oil Phase
16 grams Cocoa Butter
14 grams Organic Coconut Oil
20 grams Apricot Kernel Oil
10 grams Emulsifying Wax
Cool down Phase
1 gram Germaben II
2 grams Vanilla Creme & Cocoa Butter Fragrance
Tools & Equipment:
Double boiler
Thermometer
Two heat proof mixing jugs
Stick blender (or LOTS of elbow grease)
Scales
3 Cosmetic jars
Step One:
Weigh all your water phase ingredients into a heat proof container and place in the double boiler.
Step Two:
Weigh all your oil phase ingredients into a second heat proof container and place in the double boiler.
Step Three:
Heat the oil and water until they reach a temperature of 70C and hold for 20 minutes. This ensures any bacteria and other badies will be heated out of your mixture. During this time the caffeine powder will dissolve into the water so it becomes clear.
Step Four:
After 20 minutes of “heat and hold” combine the oil and water phases and mix with the stick blender, pulsing gently on low for 2-3 minutes. This is the stage that your lotion is emulsifying. The lotion will be a white watery texture. This is completely normal and it will turn into a creamy lotion consistency as it cools. Once your lotion has emulsified set aside for 10 minutes or so to cool, mix with the stick blender every few minutes.
Step Five:
Once the temperature reaches below 45C add your cool down phase ingredients and mix well.
Step Six:
Once the cream has cooled to room temperature spoon or pipe into jars then enjoy!
Recipes & Tutorials
Nourishing Lip Balm
Lip balm is something that I’m never without. I have two lip balms in my hand bag (I have two so that it’s quicker for me to find lip balm in amongst the rest of the junk in there!) , one on my desk, one on my coffee table and one on my night stand. I literally have five lip balms on the go at once, not to mention all my lip glosses. I really, really hate having dry lips!
Luckily for me lip balm is super easy to make so I never have to run out!
Nourishing Lip Balm Recipe
What you’ll need:
10 grams Beeswax, finely chopped
15 grams Cocoa butter
10 grams Organic coconut oil
15 grams Castor oil
5 grams Sweet almond oil
4 mini scoops of Merlot mica
3 grams Vanilla flavour oil (I chose vanilla because it’s my favourite, but feel free to substitute for yours!)
Step One: Add the beeswax to a heat safe container and melt in the microwave for two minutes. Check to see if it beeswax has melted, if not put in the microwave for a further 30 seconds. Keep melting in 30 seconds bursts if needed.
Step Two: Add the cocoa butter and organic coconut oil. Melt in microwave in 30 second bursts until liquid.
Step Three: Add the castor and sweet almond oils and mix well. Melt in microwave in 15 second bursts if the base starts to solidify.
Step Four: Add mica and flavour oil. Mix well
{ Sorry no photo for this step, it was too blurry! }
Step Five: Pour into lip balm pots or slider tins, wait to set then smear liberally all over your lips!
Note: I personally wanted a lip balm with just the natural flavours from the coconut oil and cocoa butter, so I poured the base into one slider tin before adding the mica and flavour to the rest of the recipe.
Recipes & Tutorials
Mother’s Day Candied Nuts
(Nuts in a Mason Jar!)
My Mum doesn’t like us spending money on her. Especially for Mother’s Day. But it’s always nice to do something, even if it’s something small. It’s the thought that counts after all.
Mum loves nuts; who doesn’t right!? So I figured it would be nice to give her something that doesn’t cost a lot, but that shows I went to a little effort. Plus hand making gifts has to score brownie points over my other two sisters (the sibling rivalry never seems to diminish even now we’re all in our 30’s!)
Our mason jars are a great container to store these delicious nuts, and they make a nice looking gift too.
Ingredients:
500 grams of mixed nuts – I used cashew, peanut, almond, walnut and pecan
25 grams butter
1Tbsp honey
1Tbsp sugar
1/4tsp cinnamon
1/4tsp salt
Step One:
Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Add all your nuts to a greaseproof tray.
Step Two:
Add the butter and honey to a pan and cook on a medium heat until fully melted.
Step Three:
Pour the buttery honey over the nuts and toss until all the nuts are covered.
Buttery honey glazed nuts after baking
Step Four:
Bake the nuts in the oven for 10 – 15 minutes or until the nuts have browned, stirring every 2 – 3 minutes. You’ll want to keep a fairly close eye on the oven as the nuts can burn in an instant!
Step Five:
Remove nuts from the oven and stir making sure the nuts don’t stick together. Once they’ve cooled slightly sprinkle over the salt, sugar and cinnamon. You can add more or less depending on your personal preference. Put the try of nuts in the freezer, this helps them keep them loose instead of sticking together.
Once the nuts have completely cooled scoop them into your jar and enjoy!
This recipe makes enough to fill one and a half 8oz mason jars which means Mum gets the mason jar and I get all the leftovers… purely for quality control purposes of course!
Add some pretty ribbon to the jar and they’re ready to send!
P.S – Mum received these today, and when she called to thank me she asked if I had actually made them myself! She thought I’d just repackaged some bought nuts and tried to pass them off as home made – the cheek of it! She tried a few when she first opened the jar and said there definitely wouldn’t be any left by Mother’s Day! So that’s a big tick for success!
Dad’s complaining now that he didn’t get to try any before I sent them away so I’m sure I’ll be making more again… looks like I’ve got Father’s Day already sorted.
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