Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Camera is broken!

I'm working hard on getting my camera fixed - what good is a soap blog without the pretty pictures?

In the meantime, I discovered something weird about soap. I first read about it while browsing Snopes, one of my favourite time-wasting-while-still-learning-something websites. Now, clicking the link will take you straight to the article, and it is worthy to note that the status of this urban legend is "undetermined". So what I am about to relate is purely anecdotal, and as we all know - say with me out loud, kids - the plural of anecdote is NOT DATA! With that in mind, this totally worked for me.

I have had problems with my legs cramping up at night - I just barely wake up, get in a good, long stretch - only to wake in sudden, horrible pain as I feel a muscle pull out of place. It takes every ounce of my strength not to scream loudly and startle my peacefully sleeping husband! And over the years, I've tried everything. Everything! My father told me to eat a banana before bed (potassium solution). Nope. I exercise regularly, and stretch before bedtime. ARGH! Still no. I increased my water intake. Nope, but I have to get up to pee more. Sometimes with a throbbing leg. And then, one day, I read the Snopes article.

I have lots of extra soap laying around - some failed experiments, some mutant shapes, some funky scents gone wrong, some layers not properly adhered and fallen apart. I have a huge basket full of these next to the bathroom door. My husband happily uses these - we've obviously never had to purchase soap for the past couple of years! It was from this basket that I decided to try an experiment.

I took a bar and put it at the end of the bed, down by my feet. Somewhere I wouldn't kick it too much. However, when I slipped into bed that first night, I kind of kicked for it, making sure it was still there. How was this supposed to work, anyway? Did I need to make contact with it? Should it be between my knees or something? Maybe I'm just supposed to ignore it? Eventually, I quit fussing over it and went to sleep. I woke up the first morning with no leg cramps and toes that smelled like sugared walnuts. A good start.

Now, usually, I get these cramps once or twice a week. It's terrible. But since I started sleeping with soap in my bedsheets, I haven't had a single cramp. I still kick around quite a bit (my husband thinks I've got restless leg syndrome, and I think it's just a fancy name for restless, period), but I no longer cramp up. It could be a placebo. A placebo stronger than a banana before bed.

But I like it. It works for me. My sheets smell nice.

But keep in mind, Vick's Vapo Rub on the bottom of my feet has eliminated my nighttime cough last time I had a cold, too. Perhaps my brain is easily placated. :)

Saturday, June 6, 2009

Bath Therapy Oil "Beads"

As promised, here is how to make the Tubbles Bubbles Bath Therapy Oil Beads - whew! That's a mouthful.

Don't eat them. They'd taste gross.

Here is our cast of characters:



Pictured here is a double 00 capsule-filler tray (make sure your capsule size matches your tray size!), double 00 gelatin caps (looking faded, I just re-ordered some fresh new bags from a shop on Amazon, put a rush on it, and it was due to arrive five days ago - that's what I get for paying extra, I suppose), Grapeseed Oil (this is not my usual brand, this is my cooking brand, but the type I normally use is all beat up and the label is faded), Sweet Almond Oil, a pipette, toothpicks for adding the colourant, and - my secret weapon - Wilton's Candy Melt OIL BASED colourant!



All the other colours I have in my arsenal are glycerin or straight up water based. They don't mix with oil. Since Wilton's stuff is safe to consume (it's for candy!), and you only use the most teensy of droplets to colour a whole batch, this has been the perfect solution. I had a vision when I first started making these of brightly-coloured, pill-shaped bath oil beads. Of course, I had at first wanted to make those kind you see in every bath gift basket at the drug store, or the kind you buy that are all pearly and spherical. Looking into it, it seemed an expensive investment. Still, I didn't think that should leave those of us who love to handcraft our goodies out of the loop. The double 00 caplets are quite inexpensive, and you get a lot. The capsule filler tray can make 50 caps at a time, and it's very easy to use!

First off, grab yourself a handful of about 50 gel caps, uncap them, and set the longer half into the capsule filler tray. This device is so ridiculously simple to use - but I've still screwed up using it by placing the tray upside down. Heh. Still, I didn't lose anything, as upon removing the top tray, they all stood obediently at attention - I just had to watch that my butterfingers didn't move them around too much while I capped them off the hard way. Also, and this is IMPORTANT: Make sure there is no water in or around your capsule filler! If you washed it recently, let it dry FULLY before adding the gel caps. The tiniest driplet of water will give you little mutant gel caps - or they will just outright dissolve or be mushy and unstable. I've had little wee dewdrops on my filler before, and came out with really warty oil beads. They were kind of hilarious. My husband happily used them. An occasional one or two mixed in with a regular batch won't offend anyone, I'm sure, but still. You'd mostly end up with unusable beads.

Using a small plastic bowl, I throw in approximately 2 tbsp of grapeseed oil, and 1 tbsp of sweet almond oil. Add the fragrance of your choice. I like to add a colour that corresponds with the fragrance I've used, but do your own thing. Go ahead and weird people out with that bright lime green that smells like a strawberry if you feel like it. [Bob Ross]It's your own world.[/Bob]

To add the colourant - this is oil based, it is strong. I use a toothpick to dip into the colourant, then slowly and carefully add to my little puddle of oil mix. You might even find the drop on the end is too much as you stir - keep a handful of toothpicks so you can pull out the colour-soaked one if you have to. Keep some folded-up paper towel handy and land your used toothpicks on them. This stuff tints up very quickly! Look at these:



Note the two shades of pink - one light, one dark. The dark one was the same colourant used to make the lighter pink - it was closer to two toothpick drips instead of one. The lighter shade was obtained by just barely letting a full drip get into the oil mix. (The blue, for your reference, is just one drip).

Now, once you've got your oil, fragrance, and colour mixed into your container, use a pipette to load up and squirt into the individual capsules in the capsule filler. You'll be able to see how much is needed, and you'll get a feel for it as you go. Don't worry if you spill any - you'll need to wipe everything up at the end, anyway.

After you've filled them all, drop down the top level of the filler, exposing the top rims of the gel caps just filled. Cap them all off with the caps you removed earlier; you'll feel and/or hear the little click that means the cap is on nice and tight.

I lay the finished ones on a clean, dry towel, and when I'm done removing them all from the capsule filler, I give them a very gentle rub down to make sure they're not too greasy on the outside. They will still be a little bit, but you can minimize it greatly by taking this extra step.

Package them up and you're ready to go! I like to combine two to three different scent/colour combos for prettiness and aromatherapy. Go ahead! Try it out! It's great fun, and they make great gifts!