Otion Visit!

Thank you Renee for coming to visit Otion! She even sent us photos of her visit.

Renee said,

"It was fun to come to the store and see everything in real life and, of course, smell the fragrances. Fresh Baked Bread was awesome and so was Tomato Leaf! I had to really hold back the urge to splurge because I was trying to travel light so I just picked up a few little things. What a neat place. People who are close to that have no idea how lucky they are because there is no concept like this at all in my area...also, my area is very "chain" oriented so independently owned businesses are hard to find."

Thanks for visiting the store and for supporting our little locally owned retail operation.

Shipping Supply Scams

My friend Bob blogged about office supply scams a few months ago. Click here to read his take on them. I read his post and enjoyed his writing style but the subject matter wasn't interesting to me.

Until today when we got a bill for $1,014.95 for products that we didn't order. The 500 sheets of laser printer cleaner paper came yesterday. We were puzzled but figured that shipping mistakes happen all the time. We weren't suspicious and assumed it was someone's mistake and would be easily solved. And then we got the exorbitant invoice.

The bill is for roughly triple what the paper costs at a normal large office chain. According to the invoice, the returns need to all be received within 10 days and there is a non-negotiable 20% restocking fee.

The company in question is in Brooklyn. It will take 10 days (with the vacation day on Monday) for them to receive the product. Of course, now we have to ship the very heavy box back to them at our expense. They charged us $39 to ship it to us in the first place.

Their 1-866 line rings only to a recording and they haven't returned multiple phone calls.

There has got to be a better way to run a business. If they put half as much effort and energy into acquiring customers in an ethical manner, just think about what kind of a quality company they could build.

Kylie's Signature Cupcakes

my signature cupcakes
Originally uploaded by kylie lambert

Kylie Lambert, the cupcake artist behind these confectionary beauties, says: "I create cupcakes that are unique & original using the freshest of ingredients. I delight in creating things that are unusual, beautiful & gorgeous!"

Unusual, beautiful, gorgeous - those all describe these cupcakes.

There are no cupcakes at my house. I settled for leftovers from last night's book club - a Nanaimo Bar (a very poor subsitute) and highly fattening cheese and crackers for dinner.

Sophisticated 3 layered soap!

Magic Hands Workshops

This soap is appealing on many levels. I like the bright bold color. The black strip is the perfect foil for the lighter sunshine meringue top. Texture plays a role in making this soap memorable. The stamp is barely noticeable yet provides another unique point of differentiation. Finally, the shimmer on the top of the soap helps to make it look sophisticated and special.

Bravo for a lovely soap and a well done photograph!

Why crafty guys make better husbands

I think crafty guys make the best partners. Here's why:

1. Because it shows a dedication to the creative side of life
2. Because it shows an ability to focus on something other than themselves for longer than 10 minutes
3. Because it probably means they can match colors
4. Because they're okay with going shopping with you (see #3)
5. Because they might actually be helpful when going shopping with you (See #3 and #4)
6. Because you can do activities other than t.v. in the evening
7. Because you can make Christmas, Easter, Happy Bulgarian Rootgrower's Day, cards together
8. Because creativity as a family is fun
9. Because you want your husband to help nuture your child's craft projects
10. Because it's nice to have company at the scrapbooking/knitting/soaping/craft table
11. Because it means they can fix things

And, the best reason?

12. Because they don't complain about your crafting messes

Does anyone have anything else to add?

Otion Soap Evangelists - A Young Soap Bar User

We like to start 'em young at Otion.

Recovering Control Freak

I am a control freak. That's freak with a capital F. It is not a secret. I am currently almost incapable of relaxing. It's not a good thing.

My staff and my family are mildly tolerant of me, partially because I get so much done and partially because it's just how I'm wired so they quietly roll their eyes and try to work around me. I'm trying to calm down though. My goals this quarter include meditating three times a week, and doing yoga three times per week and generally trying to quiet my mind.

I've been focusing on silence, space and letting life flow. I'm trying not to direct daily life so much.

It's difficult.

So, I bought myself a $85 bauble to help myself remember to breathe, exhale and love the doing of nothing.

The artist says:

The pendant is 1"x1" in size. It is hand stamped in my lower case font with the message "let life happen". The edge has a hammered finished and there is a pierced drawing of a bird on a branch. The piercing was drawn freehand directly onto the metal and then cut out using a saw.

The necklace is made entirely of sterling silver and has been given an overall patina. The pendant has a shiny, brushed finish to it. It is 16" in length and fastens by a lobster clasp. I have signed the necklace on a small tag near the clasp. As always, the connections have been soldered closed for durability.

Click here to view her Etsy store. Kathryn also does custom words and designs. So, if you have work to do and want to be reminded of it every time you look in the mirror, just email Kathyrn and invest in your own personal $85 visual reminder.

Best Low Carb Fruits

In case you were wondering, some fruits are better for blood-sugar-spiking than others. Mark's blog here has the round-up. But here's a hint: no melons for snack food. Sorry.

Otion Press Kits

We have spent the last few months preparing to do a local media blitz with Otion press kits. My sister in law, Cheriss, worked for Deutch LA for the last few years. She has a degree in Marketing, is creative and saavy with press. She was quite generous to help out with our press kit blitz.


Each of the press kits contains a letter from the founder, an Otion FAQ sheet, 1 bar of soap, and a full color/full bleed 8 page glossy about Otion. The special feature with the glossy is a perfume vials on each page. The vials are filled to the brim with our best or most unique fragrance oils. Shew Design did the initial design work for the glossy insert, including the genius idea of including the fragrance vials.


All the labels for the soap were done on full-sheet labels. The labels were cut out by hand and painstakingly peeled apart (thanks Cheriss!)

The final kits shipped out yesterday. Next week, I will focus on calling each of the 24 news outlets and ask if they received the press kit. When they respond enthusiastically (fingers crossed), I'll explore story ideas with them. For example, a family vacation publication would be interested in our soapmaking bar but a magazine focusing primarily on singles would want to focus on fun, exciting date nights. And really, what's more fun and exciting than making soap?

As the founder of 1-800-GOT-JUNK says, the way to get press is just to pick up the phone. The magic phrase, according to Brian Scudamore, is "Hey! I've got a great story for you!"

The phrase has been instrumental in getting 1-800-GOT-JUNK lots of free press. Let's hope that it's magic for Otion too.

Wrap Your Car in Ads

The New York Times has an interesting article about advertising on cars. Click here to read it.

An excerpt from the article:

Brian Morris, the owner of We Fix Ugly Pools, a pool repair and construction company in Phoenix, wrapped more than 30 vehicles in his fleet in ads for his company. He monitors how customers find him, and attributes more than $1 million in revenue over the last year to people seeing one of his trucks in a driveway.

Day 7 Coco Balm - Final recipe

After testing the chocolate balms all week and overdosing on chocolate this weekend, there is a clear winner. The Brambleberrians in the office (Nicole, Amber, Jen and Anne) agree with my choice of chocolate winner.

I was surprised when we all chose the Bittersweet Baking Chocolate as the best texture and taste. The Bittersweet Baking Chocolate beat out all the other expensive, organic, fair-trade chocolates. Of course, there's not much marketing cachet with regular Bittersweet Baking Chocolate so keep that in mind when formulating your product for sale.

Our favorite recipe is easy and simple.

1.5 oz. Bittersweet Baking Chocolate
1 oz. Beeswax
1 oz. Jojoba Oil

Here is an easy variation to make your ingredient label more exotic and your marketing pop!

Marketing Genius 101 Variation
1.0 oz. Bittersweet Baking Chocolate
.5 oz. Organic, Fair-Trade Certified Chocolate (like Seattle-based Theo)
1 oz. Beeswax
.3 oz. Sweet Almond Oil
.3 oz. Jojoba Oil
.3 oz. Avocado Oil
.1 oz. Vitamin E Oil

Marketing Points: Contains Organic, Fair-Trade Certified Chocolate! Vitamin E oil promotes supple lips! Avocado Oil is high in essential fatty acids for moisture! Jojoba oil closely mimics the skin's natural lipid profile!

The basic proportions for our winning recipe is:

42% chocolate
29% beeswax
29% liquid oil

You can take these proportions to create your own recipe. The math looks something like this:

3 oz. total recipe

3.0 x .42 = 1.26 oz.
3.0 x .29 = .87 oz.
3.0 x .29 = .87 oz.

If you want to make a larger recipe, just substitute the "3" for whatever total weight you want your recipe to be and multiply out the math.

Questions? Comments? Just post and I'll get back to you in a timely manner.

Now, go forth and choc-i-fy!

Creative Photos

Click here to see more photography by Chema Madoz.

They love us! They love us!

We are totally feelin' the love out there for Otion, soap and all things Soap-Queen related.

Big thanks to Joanna at The Soap Bar Blog for writing about our own little homegrown soap bar - Otion and reviewing our Soap-Queen blog. Read her take on Otion and the blog here.

Michelle, a frequent reader at The Soap Queen won our box o' goodies two weeks ago. Read what she has to say about her faves in the box here.



Renee in Texas visited Otion. Click here to see her photos. I love the one with Mark wearing his Otion apron.

Thank You to Renee, Jo and Michelle for the support!

Photos from Alicia's Class

Here are some photos from Alicia Grosso's Soapmaking Class! A big shout out and thank you to Alicia and her sweet husband for staying overnight in Bellingham to teach. They even hung out to do dinner with the whole class. Alicia was the sweetest (!!!) person and I am frantically trying to get here up to Bellingham next year for a full weekend of classes.

Thank you Alicia!

Alicia and Katy Kate

View from Instructional Lab Upstairs

Alicia Signing Books

Life is Good!

red velvet (not day forty)
Originally uploaded by bryiarrose

I finally had a cupcake! After a four week dry spell, our friends Jennifer & Scott had Cupcake Royale cupcakes at their wedding reception tonight. Bless them.

I devoured a Red Velvet cupcake as soon as it was polite to do so. I made sure I wasn't the first one to take a cupcake from the giant stack of fluffy goodness.

I was the third.

Cupcake Overload

cupcakes 001
Originally uploaded by robyn w

The Red Velvet cupcake was so good that um, I had another.

I snuck up on the cupcake table in stealth mode. I didn't go straight over. I talked to one group, talked to another group, did a side samba over to the table and quick as a jackrabbit, made my move!

I grabbed the Barbie Cupcake, did a graceful pirouette away and scurried off to the corner where I hid my face from the crowd and savored my ill-gotten gains.

I barely made it through the second cupcake. I felt a little green. But, I persisted (insert clapping and crowd cheers here). And, it was good.

My diet starts tomorrow.

Day 6 - Cocoa Balm

Day One, Set-Up
Day Two, Double Boilers
Day Three, Hershey's Trouble
Day Four, Bittersweet Recipe
Day Five, Spillage Disaster

Taking the basic chocolate recipe one step further, I tried White Sparkle Shimmer mica in the recipe to add texture and color. The mica mixed in easily. The recipe took a full 10% mica to show any color difference. With a dash of red, the color would be wearable on my washed out pale skin. On the lips, the brown color isn't very deep or shocking, despite how the photograph looks.

The top kiss is a 2:1:1 ratio (2 parts chocolate:1 part beeswax:1 part jojoba).

The bottom kiss has 10% White Mica added to it.

This is a photo of the chocolate lip balm wiped off. It leaves just a tint of color.

Tomorrow's post will have the final day including recipes for the winning Choco Balm!

Pink Sugar Cupcake Soap

azure68 - Pink Sugar Cupcake Soap
Originally uploaded by azure68

Peg's shop on Etsy is: aromaticessence.etsy.com/

Happy Saturday! It's a rainy, overcast day in Bellingham but since that's an every day event here, Chris and I are going about the day like it's warm, sunny and beautiful.

We're headed to a local park for a picnic (cooking the pasta salad right now). We're also dragging kayaks along. I suspect that we'll be the fools in the middle of the rainy lake, fighting the winds, all in the spirit of "Having Fun" and "Fully Enjoying The Summer."

I'm excited to finish my posts on the Choco Balm so look for a few more of those over the weekend. That is, if my frozen hands can type after our rainy day kayaking foray.

Happy Soaping!

Please someone, give me a cupcake!

coconut jewel cupcakes 1
Originally uploaded by chotda

The baker of these Coconut Jewel Cupcakes says:

"From the Barefoot Contessa's recipe. The only modification is the type of coconut (Dessicated Baker's Coconut, not the moist angel flake-type), and the fruit jelly marshmallow on top."

I'm drooling.

Day 5, Cleaning

My husband is an engineer. He successfully lived 32 years without me. He keeps a mostly tidy house, can do all of his own laundry and likes order. Living with me is not orderly. When I craft, he usually hides in the garage. It's better for our marriage and his stress levels. I craft like a 2-year-old with markers and a white wall. Me crafting is the opposite of order.

In my sugar induced high, I got sloppy. I picked up the boiling hot molten chocolate directly from the microwave. Ouch! It burned. I flung the scorching bowl. The aftermath was not pretty.

Shocked silence filled the kitchen. I turned, wide eyed, to my patient, loving husband.

He shook his head sadly, "Why can't you have a more clean job?"

Chris immediately wet a rag with scalding water and got to work cleaning up the mess. I was rooted to the floor in horror. Plus, my finger hurt.

When this photo was taken, he was muttering, "How did you get chocolate all up in the microwave door latch? That's never going to come out. And, how am I going to clean all of the underside of the microwave? Hey! The chocolate is seeping into the grout!"

I thought quickly. I've been cleaning the white grout in the bathroom for months with my nail polish remover. It has done an effective job. Our bathroom tile grout is sparkling and white. Nail polish remover would make this entire situation all better!

I sprang into action. I ran to the bathroom and fervently rooted through the cabinet, coming back to the kitchen in triumph. I silently got to work, scrubbing the chocolate grout. I felt elated! Finally, here was a way to redeem myself. If Chris saw how clean the grout was, perhaps he might even talk to me within the hour!

Within a minute, the grout was looking whiter. I set to work on the next patch. Chris sniffed the air and wrinkled his nose, "Do I smell chemicals?" He was genuinely puzzled. I tripped over my words as I explained that Acetone really seemed to do the grout cleaning trick.

Silence. A puzzled expression crept over Chris's face. Slowly, as though talking to a small child, he explained, "Honey, grout is fragile. It needs special cleaners." With that, he dumped a bowl of soapy water over the entire mess, handed me a toothbrush and commanded, "Scrub."

Ohhhhhhhh... It didn't seem the appropriate time to mention the bathroom grout and my pride in the Acetone-cleaned bathroom floor. So um, honey, if you're reading this now? You might want to go check the grout in the bathroom.

The Day The Grout Died

Chocolate Lip Balm, Day 4

Day One, Set Up

Day Two, Double Boiler Set Up
Day Three, Hershey's Trouble
Bittersweet Baking Chocolate comes in handy 1 ounce squares. You can use just a bit without ruining the entire bar of chocolate. Commercially purchased chocolate, such as the Green & Black and Vivian line, end up going bad if exposed to the open air too long. Be prepared to sacrifice for your Choco Balm by eating any remaining chocolate when using anything but Baking Chocolate. Traumatizing, I know. We suffer for our craft.

Making Choco Balm can be messy. Too much of the suffering (um, eating) of leftover chocolate causes sugar shakes. After one too many shaky mishaps, I tried a dropper. The opening was too small. The chocolate kept congealing in the teensy spout. More shaking and spilling ensued. Hint: Take a 3 ml plastic dropper, cut it off at the widest point and use this to draw up your melted, thick chocolate mixture. The opening is wide enough to take even the thickest chocolate balm. Rinse the dropper hose out with super hot water in between batches.

It's advisable to have plenty of paper towels on hand. Oil and chocolate is difficult to get out of cloth washcloths.

This is a photo of the warm even look of the Green & Black Organic chocolate. It's lip smackin' good and provides moisture and protection on my lips.

The recipe is:

1 part Jojoba Oil
1 part Beeswax
1 part Green & Black Organic Chocolate

Check back later for pictures of the Big Spill and hints on cleaning up melted chocolate, wax and oil from white grout.

Mommy Calling Cards

The hip gals over at Style Bakery turned me onto this fun idea - Mommy Calling Cards.

Fruition Designs sells 50 cards for easy playground swapping and sharing of numbers. When you're balancing a baby on one hip and trying to hold onto a toddler with your other arm, reaching into your deep diaper bag to extract the one pen shoved into the deep abyss isn't very practical.

Instead, whip out a handy card with your name, children's names and contact information. Easy, cute, and colorful and you don't have to worry about the looming mess in your cavernous bag.

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Choco Balm, Day 3

Click here for Day 1 set-up instructions
Click here for Day 2 double boiler notes

After the Double Boiler did not melt Hershey's Chocolate successfully, I got impatient. I put 1 Tablespoon of Hersheys, 1 Tablespoon of Jojoba Oil and 1 Tablespoon of Beeswax (pre-melted) into a microwave safe bowl.

I shoved the bowl into the microwave for 60 seconds. My haste was not rewarded.

The stinking lumpy mass of goo that ensued was disappointing. My house smelled of burnt chocolate. I was stymied but regrouped and tried again with shorter microwave bursts.

It was with much excitement that I tried the melt process a second time. I stared intently at the chocolate goo whirring around in the microwave, stopping the process to stir every 10 seconds.

After 1 minute and 20 seconds, the batch with the Hershey's had melted but was not incorporating. I stirred with more vigor. It held together better.

I triumphantly pulled out my frozen knife from the freezer. I plunged the cooled implement into the piping hot mixture. The chocolate, waxes and oils instantly solidified on the frozen knife. The insta-cooled balm was easy to spread on my lips, tasted delicious and the proximity to sugar made me euphoric.

I carefully poured the balm into the clear twist up tubes. There was some cackling with glee and delight as the chocolate started to cool.

The cackling turned to dismay as the Hershey's concoction started layering, with the heavier waxes dropping out and the milk solids rising to the surface.

Undeterred, I started on the Bittersweet Baking Chocolate. The Bittersweet Baking Chocolate batch was successful. The photo below is poor but the Bittersweet Chocolate did not layer, scorch or turn into a stinking lump of disappointment.

The Bittersweet Chocolate Recipe that held together was:

1 part Bittersweet Baking Chocolate
1 part Jojoba
1 part (pre-melted) Beeswax

Check back tomorrow for more recipe trials, spills and outright disasters.

Do Entrepreneurs Walk More?

I had the privilege of participating in an experiment Entrepreneur Magazine undertook. They had four entrepreneurs wear pedometers (which, for future reference, are not fashion friendly) and log average daily steps. The magazine also made us keep a diet journal but that part didn't make it into the article. Click here to read the full article and see which entrepreneur walked the most per day.

Chocolate Balm Trials - Day 2

Click here to read about set-up and supplies for your Choco-Lip Balm if you missed the start up post.

After all the supplies were assembled, I made a make-shift double boiler for the beeswax and the chocolate. In the past, I have exploded one Pyrex container and a microwave glass trying to melt beeswax in the microwave. I decided to play it safe and make a double boiler with an old mug.

Chocolate contains a large amount of cocoa butter. Traditionally chocolate needs tempering in order to make sure it does not crystallize. When chocolate crystallizes, it looks white and cracked. It's fine to eat but not the look that we are going for with our Choco-Balms. I made a tempering bowl for the chocolate.

The chocolate tempering bowl was a disappointment. The chocolate just sat and sat and sat. It got slightly mushy but never fully melted. In hindsight, I think this is because Hershey's Chocolate doesn't contain much chocolate. In fact, "chocolate" is fourth on the ingredient list. It comes after sugar, milk, and cocoa butter. For comparison, the two foodie chocolate brands I used had organic cacao, organic cane sugar and and organic cacao butter for their first 3 ingredients. Neither Green & Black or Vivians have milk solids in their ingredients listing. As it turns out, Hershey's Milk Chocolate is not a friendly product to craft with because of the milk.

After attempting to melt the chocolate for over 30 minutes on the stove, I gave up. Here is a chunk of chocolate, with jojoba oil and beeswax. It is sitting in a heat safe bowl, all ready to be put into the microwave.

Check back tomorrow for Hershey's Lip Butter Disaster and the method I picked to melt all the ensuing 9 batches.

Fun with Food

Given our Chocolate Lip Balm theme for this week, the above photo seems appropriate. For more fun food art, head to Splutch's site. The egg one is my fave.