Category: bulletin

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Lotion Formulations – 01 Feb 2021

These are the formulations presently being tested:

Lotion No. 10a is made with meadowfoam, mineral, and jojoba oils, isopropyl myristate, stearic acid, BTMS, and allantoin. Scented with Litsea Cubeba. Litsea is a refreshing, rejuvenating essential oil with a lemony aroma.

Lotion No. 11a is made with macadamia nut, hempseed, and jojoba oils, stearic acid, BTMS, and allantoin. Scented with a blend we call Musk Rose.

Lotion No. 12a is made with fractionated coconut oil, monoi butter, isopropyl myristate, stearic acid, and BTMS. Scented with Monoi. Monoi oil is derived from the Tiare flower, also known as the Tahitian Gardenia.

Lotion No. 13a is made with fractionated coconut and tamanu oils, isopropyl myristate, olive squalane, stearic acid, BTMS, and allantoin. Scented with rosemary. The tamanu oil has a unique earthy smell of its own.

The Tamanu oil, used in No. 13a,  is reputed to have special healing qualities, as does olive squalane. That said, all of the oils we use are chosen for some skin friendly quality.

Lotion No. 14a is made with walnut, olive, and jojoba oils, isopropyl myristate, stearic acid, emulsifying wax, and allantoin. Scented with  Rockrose (Cistus ladanifer essential oil).

Lotion No. 15a is made with cocoa butter, fractionated coconut and jojoba oils, isopropyl myristate, stearic acid, emulsifying wax and BTMS, glycerin, sodium lactate, chamomile hydrosol, calendula extract, and allantoin. Scented with a blend of German and Roman chamomile and helichrysum essential oils.

Lotion No. 16a is made with shea butter, walnut and jojoba oils, isopropyl myristate, stearic acid, emulsifying wax and BTMS, glycerin, rose hydrosol (rose water), silk amino acids, and allantoin. Scented with sandalwood essential oil.

Lotion No. 17a (samples only at this time) is made with karanja, shorea, andirobab, and nigella seed oils, isopropyl myristate, stearic acid, emulsifying wax and BTMS, glycerin, rose hydrosol (rose water), and colloidal oatmeal. Scented with rose geranium essential oil.
(Note that although we are sending this out for testing I am concerned that some may not care for the unique smell of the karanja and nigella seed oils. It may only be that I smell them because I know they are there. I won’t sell this though until we get some feedback. If you like the smell of rose, which is evident in both the rose water and the lovely Bourbon variety geranium we use, you may really like the powdery feel of the colloidal oatmeal coupled with the skin-friendly glycerin. Nigella seed (aka black cumin seed) oil is supposedly very healing, by the way, and Karanja too. – John)

  • Vitamin E and a preservative/germicide is added to each lotion.
  • All (at this time) have a medium consistency, neither thick nor thin, although there is some variance between them. ANY lotion we make can be thickened if desired.
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Now Selling Essential Oils

Many of you have asked the last few years why we don’t sell essential oils. We buy them in bulk for the stuff we make here, and it only makes sense that we would sell them as well.

We are pleased to announce that we are about to do just that. At this time we are putting the finishing touches on labels. We will shortly have product listed for sale and will post an update at that time.

Here is the preliminary list of Essential Oils that will be offered. Most will come in a ½ ounce (15 mL) size. Some of the rarer oils may be offered only in a smaller size.

  • Allspice Leaf
  • Amyris
  • Angelica Root
  • Anise Star
  • Aniseed
  • Basil
  • Bay Laurel – Laurus nobilis
  • Bay Rum – Pimenta racemosa (West Indian Bay Leaf)
  • Benzoin (resinoid)
  • Bergamot
  • Bergamot – Bergaptene Free
  • Bitter Almond
  • Black Pepper
  • Cade – Juniperus oxycedrus
  • Calamus Root
  • Camphor
  • Carrot Seed
  • Cassia
  • Cedarwood – Atlas (Cedrus atlantica)
  • Cedarwood – Chinese (Cupressus funebris)
  • Cedarwood – Himalayan (Cedrus deodora)
  • Cedarwood – Texas (Juniperus mexicana)
  • Cedarwood – Virginiana (Juniperus virginiana)
  • Celery Seed
  • Chamomile – German
  • Cinnamon Bark
  • Cinnamon Leaf
  • Cistus
  • Citronella – Ceylon
  • Citronella – Java
  • Clary Sage
  • Clove Bud
  • Clove Leaf
  • Coffee – Green
  • Coffee – Roasted
  • Copaiba Balsam
  • Coriander Seed
  • Cypress
  • Cypriol – aka Nagarmotha
  • Dill Seed
  • Elemi
  • Eucalyptus – Blue Mallee
  • Eucalyptus – Citriodora
  • Eucalyptus – Dives
  • Eucalyptus – Globulus
  • Eucalyptus – Radiata
  • Frankincense
  • Garlic
  • Geranium – Bourbon
  • Geranium – Egyptian
  • Ginger Grass
  • Ginger Root
  • Grapefruit – Pink
  • Grapefruit – White
  • Ho Wood
  • Jamarosa Root – Cymbopogon nardus
  • Juniper Berry
  • Labdanum
  • Lavandin
  • Lavender – Bulgarian, organic
  • Lemongrass
  • Lemon
  • Lime – (Key Lime)
  • Litsea Cubeba
  • Mandarin
  • Myrrh
  • Myrtle
  • Niaouli – Melaleuca quinquenervia
  • Orange Bitter
  • Orange – Blood Orange
  • Orange Sweet
  • Palmarosa
  • Parsley Seed
  • Patchouli – Dark
  • Patchouli – Light
  • Pennyroyal
  • Peppermint – Japanese (Mentha arvensis)
  • Peppermint – Supreme (Mentha piperita)
  • Petitgrain
  • Pine Scotch
  • Ravensara
  • Rosemary
  • Rosewood
  • Sage (Dalmatian)
  • Sandalwood
  • Siberian Fir Needle
  • Spearmint
  • Spinach Leaf
  • Sugandh Kokila
  • Tangerine
  • Tea Tree
  • Tea Tree – Cajeput
  • Tea Tree – Lemon (Leptospermum petersonii)
  • Thyme – Red
  • Tuberose – (nature identical)
  • Turmeric
  • Vanilla – (10 fold oleoresin)
  • Vetiver
  • Wintergreen
  • Ylang

This is a preliminary list and may be modified as we proceed.
2021-01-29 — 03:20

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Lotion Update – 18 Nov 2020

Now available for sale is Lotion No. 10a which is made with meadowfoam, mineral, and jojoba oils, isopropyl myristate, stearic acid, BTMS, and allantoin (see link below). We add vitamin E and a minimal amount of preservative to all our lotions.

This batch is lightly scented with litsea cubeba, which is a refreshing, rejuvenating essential oil with a lemony aroma. We will have unscented lotions available as well.

No. 10a is a moderately thick* lotion. It absorbs moderately quick and leaves a soft powdery feel. Hands stay comfortable even after washing.

*Update – 29 Nov 2020: I would no longer classify this lotion as thick. Like all of the lotions we have made recently this one is about right in the middle, neither thick nor thin. – John

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Ongoing Testing of Lotion Formulations

I want to take a moment to explain why, after numerous formulations, we continue to test lotion recipes and have not yet settled on a single one or two. The simple answer is that we want to make the best lotion there is, using natural ingredients as much as possible, and feel like there is still room for improvement.

Since we formulate everything here it is easy to make changes, send product out for review, and compare the feedback to previous results. We will continue doing this into the next few months.

We really appreciate the enthusiastic response we get from our testers. Thank you always for your support.

— John

18 Nov 2020

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New News on Lotions – Allantoin

We recently made our first batch of lotion using an ingredient called allantoin. I wanted to post a little information about it so you would know what it was. The following description is from one of our suppliers…

Allantoin is a synthetic, free-flowing hygroscopic powder widely used in cosmetic, dermatological and pharmaceutical formulations for its soothing and anti-irritating properties. Allantoin has a moisturizing and keratolytic effect, increasing the water content of the extracellular matrix and enhancing the desquamation of upper layers of dead skin cells, increasing the smoothness of the skin; promoting cell proliferation and wound healing; and a soothing, anti-irritant, and skin protectant effect by forming complexes with irritants and sensitizing agents. Allantoin stimulates healthy, normal tissue formation even at low concentrations.

While allantoin is present in botanical extracts of the comfrey plant, it is generally chemically synthesized to meet worldwide demand. Our Allantoin is a nature-identical, synthesized product made to USP specifications. It is non-toxic, non-irritating, and non-allergenic.

Allantoin has been classified by the FDA as an Over-The-Counter (OTC) Category I (safe and effective) active ingredient skin protectant. It is FDA approved for this use at 0.5% to 2.0% in formulations. If you include it in your formulations and on your ingredient labels, but make no drug claims for it, it remains a cosmetic ingredient and need not be declared as an “active ingredient.”

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Now Testing Liquid Lip Balms

We are now testing a series of liquid lip balms. This bulletin is posted for those doing blind testing who did not receive a printout of what may be in any of the numbered samples you received.

Any of them may contain: Lanolin oil, Macadamia Nut oil, Mineral oil, Squalane (derived from olive oil), Arnica oil, or Mixed Tocopherols T50 (natural vitamin e). All of them are blends.

A friend commented recently that he loved the Balm No.3, but that he had to apply it relatively often. I said I would get him a little baby dropper bottle of what I used on my own lips, and that is how this began.

I myself use the Balm No.3 mainly on my hands. The single largest ingredient in No.3 is Shea Butter, followed by Macadamia Nut oil, Beeswax, and Jojoba, with T50 (vitamin e). It absorbs well, at least on my skin, and is non-greasy. It is because it absorbs well that regular application becomes necessary.

Every test pack also included a small dropper of Organic Unrefined Hempseed oil. It will not have a long shelf-life and should be used up within 6-8 weeks. Apply to cuts, scrapes, or dry skin and see if it lives up to its hype or not. It has a beautiful dark green smell and color.

– John

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New Labels and New Packing Material

First off, we have pretty much done away with our old paper labels that we once banded the soaps with. We have transitioned to a much smarter looking glassine (wax paper) bag that is individually labeled for each soap. These are good for multiple reasons and have been very well received.

Also, in December of this year we began packing all of our orders with shredded cardboard instead of packing peanuts. I may have missed one, but I don’t think so.

For those who don’t know, I have been huge into composting the last few years, turning just about every shred of paper or cardboard I can into dirt — even requesting material from others. The amount of trash and recycle I create in a month is incredibly low, especially since I try to buy whole foods in bulk, make most of what I eat from scratch, have access each year to two bountiful gardens, drink a lot of plain water (from a well), and try to reuse glass jars as much as I can. Okay, so I’m into all this.

What was exciting though was to hear one of our customers say that they LOVED the new packing material. She said that it was going straight to her flower garden. Yes!

The simple things that excite…. love it.
❤️

John

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Balm No.3 Now Available!

I am not calling it a night until I finally get our Balm No.3 listed on the website. We purposely chose to not just call it Lip Balm because even though it is great on lips it is simply an all around great balm for anywhere.

It is made with shea butter, macadamia nut oil, beeswax, and jojoba with a few drops of vitamin E. As I have said here before, I usually put a few drops of essential oil in each batch too. Last time I used Lemon and Bergamot. I always say I am probably not going to add the essential oils again in the next batch, and then each time at least one or two people tell me they like that I scent or “flavor” them.

A young friend of mine called me a couple days ago to say that she had received one of our Balms in her Christmas stocking. She is a lip balm aficionada, she said, and this balm was fabulous. The best ever. Her favorite lip balm before this had been an expensive one made by some company in New York, and she was almost out. I love hearing stuff like this, that people really can tell the difference when choice ingredients are used.

Anyway, the point of all this is that I am done testing these. They are poured in a ‘large’ tube that is 3-4 times the size of a regular lip balm. It holds about one half ounce. You may look for them on the site anytime after tonight. At $4.99 each they are a bargain… even if the labels still look kind of homemade.

John

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Alma-Clean in Square Bottles – Wow!

Square Bottles – Wow! – Yes, that’s meant to be humor.

We had such good sales of Alma-Clean this season that we ran through all one hundred of our 8 fluid ounce round bottles. Admittedly, that is a good problem to have. We had another hundred square bottles however, so we modified our labels to work on them until we get more round bottles in-stock. Same stuff, same size, just a different bottle. I can’t imagine anyone really cares one way or the other, but if you do have a preference I would be curious to know.

We did take the opportunity to note on the side of the “new” label that Alma-Clean is great for freshening scarves and knit caps – just a capful in a sink of cool water is all it takes. Soak, rinse, and hang to dry.

I love winter because I get to wear all the nice scarves I have, but they inevitably need a good freshening, even for a soapman.

Thank you all for your business this year!

John, still in Minnesota

Oh, and yes, I take all the photos here, including the bad staging. You are all kind to never make fun of it… although you can if you want! I make fun of everything!

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Alma-Clean Now Offered in Thieves Blend!

When doing our original formulating and testing of Alma-Clean in 2018, our own Thieves blend (formula #4) was one of the original scents that went out. It tested well, but in the interest of keeping things simple I chose to offer Alma-Clean initially in two choices: Original Tea Tree, and Basil & Thyme. Both are about equally popular, even if most customers have a definite preference for one or the other.

While taking orders this season however I had some unexpected queries of, “What happened to the Thieves?” In truth I had some on the shelf that I had held back for special requests, and we had all the oils necessary to make more. So we generated a “Thieves Blend” label, got some bottled, and were pleased to fill these orders.

Alma-Clean Thieves Blend – has now officially been listed for sale as well. Ho ho ho!

Thank you for your business, and Merry Christmas!

John

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Holiday Update – 7 December 2019

Another Facebook post from last week…

I have a friend who stays constantly angry at me that I don’t keep my posts here up-to-date. And for good reason. It’s really bad manners!

I poured soaps again all day today. I continue to update the online store, post new inventory, and new images. Will start getting some backed up orders out next week too.

I have a new Peppermint soap with bentonite clay that is really cool. It’s gorgeous, and it smells great!

I got the scent worked out on the Hemp soap, so those bars are good to go. They really look cool, and they’re good soap.

Many of our bars are larger this year, and/or the prices have come down. I have kind of been going against the grain of what some believe is the trend and have actually been working on lowering our prices – not raising them.

I added a new bar to the line-up, Playful Plum. I hope you will like it. It’s a pretty bar. It’s colored with ground madder root, something that has been used for millennia to achieve a gorgeous burgundy color in fabrics. I try to mostly use natural colorants.

I worked on a special bar for an old friend to go along with his product line and the pour turned out to be a disaster – laugh! Will have to revisit that one.

We have continued to add regular customers for the Alma-Clean, our highly effective laundry booster and all natural disinfectant, and I am really thankful for that. We have plenty labeled and ready to go.

Oh, I made like 40-50 lbs of lavender bath salts too, although I haven’t gotten them posted to the site yet. I have been making them forever but thought there wasn’t any interest in them until recently. Almost no one bathes anymore!

Running late to be somewhere… as usual!
❤️

John

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Random Thoughts on a Weekend

This was posted to Facebook on 11/24 – I have been terrible about keeping our own actual blog updated… and I have no shortage of things to say!

We took part in a great show yesterday and I was very pleased to be invited. I hope to see again many of the friends I made there. I give special thanks to our great hostess Shelly who is so much fun to be around, and to my close friend and sister Jennifer who was essential in making all this happen.

A few quick thoughts…
Those of you who know me well know that reflect on things a lot. One of the things I know is that I fail to toot our own horn very loud or even very often, generally leaving that to others. It’s certainly not bragging to say so (laugh) – and it is not particularly conducive to growing a thriving business. I do however recognize it as one of my own deficits. In past businesses in past years I compensated by hiring people who made up for this.

A decision to grow a business is based on many things. Does one who performs accounting work, for example, choose to rent an office and hire a secretary, or just work from home and stay small, but still be able to take vacations when they want?

Alma Soap, started on a Wisconsin farm for something to get through the long winters, has kind of been in this predicament. We (mostly me) love making soap, combining scents, making salves, lip balms, lotions, laundry boosters, bath salts, and even candles on occasion – and have actually spent quite a lot of money on all the stuff with which to do this. Still the question lingers: Do we get serious, or just kind of stay where we are?

Well, I am running late to be somewhere tonight, and am sorry to leave this hanging. I wanted however to post something here to let you all know that we are still alive and trying to finish getting soaps poured like crazy for the holidays (yes, I know, we do this every year). I will update you more soon, as well as trying to finish my previous thoughts!

❤️

Love to all…
John

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Thoughts on Secure Passwords

This is taken from our original Account creation page which we updated today…

Please note that you are not required to create an account to purchase from this site. You will always be able to do so as a guest. Creating an account does allow you to save your billing and/or shipping address(es), review past purchases online, and leave comments or reviews.

19 February 2019 update…
We have changed the account creation process to automatically use your email address as your username and to automatically generate a password. This should not affect existing accounts, but should simplify things for new ones.

I want to interject a personal note here that when the site was first setup I grappled with whether I should allow passwords like “abc123” or not (which is essentially no password at all). In all reality who wants to hack into your soap account? I chose to enforce good practices here even if it seemed a little overkill.

I have now deleted the following from the My Account page, but post it here because I had fun writing it originally, and still believe it is good food for thought.

— John

Some ideas for creating a strong password (don’t worry, you will always be able to change it later)…

  • a favorite place, perhaps with the zip code
  • a special phone number, with a name added
  • a child’s name with a birthday
  • street address of a place you once lived, with city and state
  • your maternal grandmother’s full name
  • a phrase that you really like and will remember
  • words in a foreign language

Hints: The more letters or numbers the better, use spaces; special characters get extra points, misspelled words rank high. Think more in terms of passphrase than password… and, be sure to record it somewhere!

Here is a fun site for checking the strength of your password: How Secure Is My Password?

Creating a strong password/passphrase makes the site more secure for everyone (for real). Thank you for your help!

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Last Day of 2018

Well, it’s now almost 4:00 in the morning on the last day of the year, and I am wondering, where did the year go?

The website is finally up-to-date. It doesn’t mean there is not still plenty to do, but at least it is functional again and has most of our current soaps listed with updated pictures. Now it’s time to get busy pouring more soap! But then that’s kind of the fun part.

Please take a look around. We are low on many soaps after the Christmas holidays, but there are still good soaps to choose from. Also please take a look at the Alma-Clean. We have lots of that ready to go, and it is good stuff!

This page is open for questions and comments although I think you have to register first, which only takes a minute. I will always try to respond within a few hours.

Happy New Year’s Eve!
John

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A Holiday Collection

I was going through a bunch of soap pictures I had taken while trying to get a decent “group” photo. There was one in the middle which was plainly taken by accident, and this is it. It was the only one that didn’t look staged.

We’ve got a Soothing Sandalwood, surrounded by Heavenly Hemp, Ancient Ocean, some pink thing I haven’t named yet, a Kashmir Goat Milk, Leinie for your Heinie, Black Cashmere with Charcoal, a Lemony Lemongrass, and some Awesome Orange.

Holiday Collection “oops” photo

Wish you could smell it all.
— John

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Only the Lowest Quality Ingredients!

“We use only the lowest quality ingredients!” — Alma Soap Co.

In marketing today it sounds so cliché to talk about using only the “highest quality ingredients” that I try my best to avoid saying it. It’s meaningless. I mean, really, would anyone tell you if they didn’t? They may not even know themselves. The proof is in the product, whatever it is.

I was asked recently about the quality of the ingredients we use, and was able to respond with pride, ‘We don’t know, and we don’t care!’ — John, Alma Soap

Sometimes I think it would be fun to say that we use the highest quality ingredients so long as it is convenient and cost effective to do so, and use rather low quality ingredients the rest of the time. The fun is for the customer to figure out which is which!

Okay, so my sense of humor has often gotten me in a lot of trouble. The truth is that we have never used higher quality ingredients in our soap than we do right now, and at this point it is not even cost-effective for us to use anything less.

Most of what becomes handmade soap starts out as oil, and the quality of the oil truly does affect the quality of the final soap. It takes good oil to make good soap.

It is a fact that today we purchase all of our oils in bulk from one of the largest suppliers in the country. This guarantees that they are as fresh as possible, and are supplied by someone who truly knows oils. Everything else we use: essential oils, fragrances, clays, colorants, et cetera, are purchased only from premium suppliers. Experience has been a good teacher, and is backed up by the fact that I don’t like being second-best at anything.

So rest assured that in everything we do we are striving to make the absolute best products we can, while at the same time providing you with good value. Although we may occasionally make jokes about it, we actually do take this very very seriously.

— John, lost in trying to not take life too seriously…

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Deactivated the ‘Contact Us’ Form

The site started crawling again Tuesday night (May 2nd), and I sat here astonished, realizing that after all this [website maintenance] if I had to sit through these page load times as a customer (much less my impatient self) I would flat out go somewhere else to buy soap, or salt, or scent, or anything! And for good reason! Okay, so I’m having some fun here, but I’m also serious.

I have been monitoring the web server in real-time and watching, with some interest, the processes that accumulate at different times and under different loads, including the work that I do on the backend.

I finally rebooted the server last night and took some other actions in an attempt to get the site running spry again. These actions were only semi-effective, and I ended up spending a good part of today learning yet more about caching web pages and running a lean site . It’s highly interesting, if it’s what you really like. Unfortunately, I don’t.

So, in what can only be described as the ultimate irony, it appears that the Contact form, in unison with Google’s own anti-spam technology (reCAPTCHA), is the very thing that forced the website back to a crawl. I have instituted a line of JavaScript instead in order to provide you with an email address, while hopefully hiding it from spam robots.

Many may ask, “Why don’t you just post your email address to the website and make it easy?” Well, from personal experience, that’s a disaster. Evil robots harvest it, and no spam filter can adequately deal with it. I am not doing that again.

So, that’s the story with the form on the Contact Us page that has now been decommissioned… at least for now.

Thanks for your time,

John

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We have added a Surprise! bar

I have added a Surprise! bar to the line-up. I did this originally so that I could run some Shopping Cart and Checkout processes on the website without skewing our inventory. Technically, this SKU (product) is not an inventory item, so there is no inventory to mess up by running transactions against it. After setting it up I decided to make it a part of our official offering.

It is not unusual to hear a friend say, “Just send me ten of your best soaps, and let me know what I owe you.” This is that item — the item to purchase if you simply want a quantity of great soaps at the best price. These are all first-rate soaps, not seconds or duds. We want you to come back and buy again!

We do lots of test pours — trying some new scent, process, or ingredient. These are often great soaps, just that for whatever reason we don’t immediately list them for sale here to the online store. We may be waiting to hear what our testers say, or how well a scent holds… something like that. These are regularly added to orders that leave here, in hopes of receiving feedback, and these are soaps that may be included here.

In short, these may be any size bar, in any base formula.
More to come!

John

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Lavender in Soap

Let us talk a little bit about lavender, specifically lavender essential oil. Lavender is one of the most versatile of all essential oils, and one of the most well-loved. It is calming, and balancing. The word itself is derived from the Latin lavare: to wash. The plant is a member of the mint family. It’s botanical name is Lavandula angustifolia.

I was surprised how much there was to know about the essential oil. There are many different grades and varieties.

There is a standardized version, referred to in the industry as 40/42, which specifies the required levels of linalool and linalyl acetate that must be present. These are the main constituents in lavender essential oil, and are what make up much of its scent. Standardizing keeps it consistent, but also commercializes it, depriving it of any real character.

Like the grapes used in wine, lavender derives much of its character from where it is grown. There is French lavender, Spanish, South African, and more, each having a distinct scent. The highest quality lavender essential oil comes from Bulgaria, and that is the oil we use. It is also the most expensive, especially when buying organic.

Besides the essential oils there are also lavender fragrances. We use plenty of fragrance oils, to be sure, but most of the lavender ones smell noticeably fake to me. I certainly have no plans to use lavender fragrance oil in our soap.

All this to give you a little insight into what makes our lavender soap smell so wonderful, and why it costs just a little more. One of my great pleasures is to watch someone pick up a bar of soap, draw in its scent, and close their eyes in quiet satisfaction. If you like the smell of lavender, you will love the smell of our lavender soaps.

Thank you for your business!

John

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Soap Notes — 22 April, 2017

Some recent soap notes for anyone who is interested. I place them here in an effort to keep the product pages themselves clean and simple.

Coconut Lily – No.09
We have not poured this one in a while, and it is scheduled for the next round of pours. The inclusion of calendula petals requires that we pour these as slabs and hand-cut the bars. I will list the size on the product page as soon as that is done, but it should approximate the size of our regular bar. I will also update the image at that time.

As a fun note, I poured a large batch of this “Lily” fragrance for last Christmas in base No.35 (a mild base that I have since retired). They all sold immediately (except for 2 that I hid). No one cares what the base is if they really love the scent. (Is there a lesson here?)

Coconut Coconut
I played with calling this “Coconut Squared,” but then wondered whether I would be the only one to find any fun in that.

I always enjoy pointing out that testers who agree to know nothing about the soaps before they test them are often surprised to learn that this soap is made only from coconut oil and coconut milk. It has often tested at or near the top in every category. If pouring soaps solely in coconut oil did not present its own set of challenges I might wonder why we poured anything else.

These bars were originally poured in a coconut fragrance that probably would have sold better on the beach than in the Midwest (plainly we are not near a traditional beach).  I will update this product page as soon as one or more fragrances have been decided on, but wanted to leave this here for you to know about… and also as a reminder to me.

Peppermint!
Bars available in No.28, and No.88 for now… and probably No.10 in the future.

It appears that all of the peppermint bars we have in No.28 were made with coconut milk, and probably that will become standard. A number of the bars have macadamia nut oil as well, but this addition did not really seem to improve the formula, so coming pours will not incorporate it.

Future batches will be in Base Nos. 10 and 28, with perhaps the No.88 shampoo bar if it sells well. No.28 bars will continue to be made with coconut milk, while No.10 bars (still to be poured) will not, although they will probably include some clay.

The No.88 bars presently available are regular size, with a few “Tub” size. The tub size are hefty and average 6-7 oz. each. The regular bars were made with green tea, while the Tub bars were not. Sorry for the confusion, we were still experimenting.

Peppermint Silk No.170 with Coconut Milk
I have really gone back and forth on whether to keep pouring No.170. It is a great formula and utilizes high quality oils in good proportion, but it has not tested better than the original No.08 which is what it was designed to do. Even at 170 batches poured there was still a lot to learn (and there always will be).

I will probably retire this formula, or tweak it some in the weeks and months ahead when I get anxious to experiment again. I already know where I would change it. The thing is that we already have so many great bars that we really don’t need another formula, and no one’s complaining. So maybe it’s time to just sit back and enjoy life for awhile.

Sandalwood Chamomile
A little history… This bar was first poured in base No.10, adding green tea and ground chamomile. The ground chamomile turned out to be kind of scratchy, and we worried that it would cause this bar to be designated hand soap only. As it turned out however, most people were not only fine with the slight abrasiveness of the bar, but found it desirable, along with the highly appealing sandalwood fragrance. This has turned out to be one of our all around best sellers.

Yogurt Lavender Calendula
This bar is presently out of stock, but will be available again next month (May). The bar size will probably change a little bit, and I will post new images at that time.

Now to share something that I thought was interesting (I think lots of stuff is interesting). During testing last year I poured many trial batches with yogurt, and many with cream. I was curious to see how they would compare. Although I didn’t care one way or the other, I assumed that the cream would be the winner. Surprisingly, it turned out to be the opposite. And this is totally why we do blind testing!

That’s it! Thanks for visiting Alma Soap Co. today.

John

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Pre-Holiday Update

We are pouring bunches of great new soaps, and it’s a good thing too — If you have visited the website recently it looks like we are out of almost everything! Let me tell you a little of what’s going on…

We are making a bunch of new coffee soap in our shea butter recipe (No.10), and lots of different mint soaps that are almost to die for.

We have updated our “Ginger” soap to formula No.10, have made a few loaves so far of Almond-Oatmeal, and are pouring a new scent that we haven’t even given a name to yet. We’ve got Tuberose in a new Q formula, and of course are pouring lots and lots of both Sandalwood and Goat Milk soaps, two of our best sellers. Oh, and lots of Lemongrass!

We are trying to offer a choice of bar size in more soaps, so that you can make your own decision on that, and will be simplifying the number of offerings on the website, working on that while soaps cure.

We were thrilled this summer to receive the last of Claire Hall’s calendula petals, grown right here in Wabasha, Minnesota. They are so much more vibrant and alive than the ones we would normally use, and look like petals of orange gold in each bar of No.08 with Calendula, of which we are pouring many slabs in the next few days.

I have personally been hiding a few pounds of expensive lavender essential oil for a special occasion, large glass bottles of Bulgarian and French oils, some organic… and you have never truly smelled lavender until you smell these. I think that all the lavender No.08s and No.170s we are about to pour will use these oils, just in time for Christmas. I think we will use it in the No.11s with yogurt that will be poured too.

That’s just some of what we are working on, and we will be posting new pictures to the website as soaps get cured and prepped. We also happen to make outstanding lotions, by the way, and bath salts too. We simply have not gotten to marketing those yet. They have certainly been tested. (smile)

Sorry for this long post. I started to write just a few sentences, and the more I wrote the more excited I got!

Thanks to all of you who have been so supportive this year, and helped us prosper. Our soaps really do continue to get better and better, with your help, and it is a fact that we would not exist without you. Thank you especially for your patience when it takes an extra day or so to get orders out, or when the website doesn’t seem to be working right, or when one of us fails to respond promptly to your comments or suggestions. You are much appreciated, and you have blessed us with your kindness.

Have a great weekend!
John

Posted on by

Regarding a Choice of Free Shipping

A quick note…
After a recent software upgrade to the website, “Free Shipping” is now offered as an option when you go to Checkout, instead of just applying it automatically like it used to (assuming of course that you have met the dollar requirement). Naturally, there would be no reason to not choose free shipping when it is offered, but the fact that there is a choice at all is admittedly confusing. Some customers have chosen to still pay the $4.95 for shipping, either out of confusion or generosity, and they received a free bar of soap with their order.

The software that we use indicates that this is not a bug, but a feature, and offers a convoluted way to resolve the issue by rewriting some code. In anticipation of a patch being made available I have not yet invested the time to fix this myself, and continue to ask for your patience while we work through this glitch.

If Free Shipping is offered, then by all means choose it. Anyone who chooses to pay for shipping, accidentally or otherwise, will receive a free bar of one of our bestselling soaps — one that we want you to try.

As always, thanks for your business!
John