When you’re new to making products and everything is all sparkly (and expensive), you tend to make a few mistakes along the way, learning which suppliers you want to stick with, as you go.

This is a list of some of the suppliers I use, a few on a fairly regular basis:

New Zealand

Zen Designs - www.zendesigns.co.nz

PureNature - www.purenature.co.nz

Candle Creations - www.candlecreations.co.nz

Lotus Oils - www.lotusoils.co.nz

Arthur Holmes - www.arthurholmes.co.nz

Go Native - www.gonative.co.nz

Rest of the World

Bramble Berry - www.brambleberry.com

Mad Micas - www.madmicas.com

Aussie Soap Supplies - www.aussiesoapsupplies.com.au

Companies I’ve Been Told Are Great, I Just Haven’t Used Them

Nature’s Garden - www.naturesgardencandles.com

Nurture Soap - www.nurturesoap.com

I hope that guides you to some beautiful ingredients.

In the world of product development, the range of ingredients is just mind-boggling. And, every week, something new has been discovered. With magical powers (to match mystical price tag). Remember when Argan Oil became a thing? Or even further back, Rosehip? What did we all do with our hair and skin before those hit the market?

It's never-ending. The other day, Bramble Berry asked me if I'd tried Moringa Seed Oil yet. No, Bramble Berry, but I appreciate the research you put into your products. I've definitely read up on it now, because I can't resist a link to a thing. And thank you very much for the additional link to Lemongrass Mojito FO, you evil enablers.

While I would LOVE to be a purchaser of all the new things (caffeine powder is currently calling my name), I probably wouldn't still be in business if I did. I've spent my 'play money' on Mad Micas recently (insert heart emote), but usually that goes on things I actually need to play with. I was weak, they were sparkly. A truly purchase-affecting combo.

So, with all of that in mind, I'm never going to be first on a bandwagon in this industry. I wait until the demand has risen and the price has dropped. One of the rare times in my life when I'm actually patient about something. And, even when it becomes affordable, I might not bother. Kokum Butter was something I wanted to try, and I've fallen quite hard for that (and probably mispronounce it on purpose) but Kiwifruit Seed Oil and Sea Buckthorn etc.? I haven't even gone there, despite having been given samples.

There is absolutely nothing wrong (especially if you’re new to product development and don't want to throw cash at a new project) in having a few carefully selected oils as your base, and watching everyone else go crazy for Nimrod Oil (I made that up, don’t Google it), and then maybe trying it a few years later, when it’s not a brazillion dollars a bottle. Nothing at all.

You know those projects you have ticking along in the background. The ones which are ALWAYS on the white board, because we all know they're year plus things and even though we hope and wish for that moment when you can wipe it off the board, it's just always there. Those ones?

This week, we wiped. We wiped three letters off our board and those letters had been there forEVER. 'APP'

I almost say it in a reverent whisper... App... *spooky wind sounds* ^

Over in my world of Health and Safety, we have finally (FINALLY) launched in both the Apple and Google stores and this is such a significant moment in my little life that I could cry. Tears of pixels. Happy tears of green and blue, to match our logo.

So, head on over to the eSafety website and be amazed at how you never need to actually write anything down with a pen which is health and safety-related. Ever again. You can even voice record and time things on there. And take photos and write clever notes on them, like 'Shane did this dumb thing' with an arrow pointing to the dumb thing.

Be free with your expressiveness in the world of Health and Safetyness. As Free as the App. Which is very much Free and makes the life of your average Health and Safety Consultant much simpler and right there in their phone or tablet.

^ Note that spooky wind sounds can be made using a bottle of Sambuca and making certain poses with your mouth, but that's another post for another day.

That always leads on to me singing this - Dammit Janet and I'm hoping that from this moment on, you do the same. The world would be a better place with random humming of Rocky Horror Picture Show songs.

Note: The following contains acronyms that you probably know, but just in case:

FO - Fragrance Oil (as in "I'm a FO Ho")

CP - Cold Process soap (made with oils, butters, lye, love, chemistry and witchcraft)

MP - Melt and Pour soap, or Glycerin soap (a pre-made soap base for creativity purposes and for tricking people into thinking soap is food. Please send pics of faces after they realise their terrible mistake)

In the world of products and all of the wonderful ingredients that we get to use, there are some issues in pleasing all of the people all of the time. When we consider some of the implications involving some of these ingredients (think deforestation, for starters) we get into an area where some people are just unwilling to use things like Palm oil. The trouble for people like me, is that those people are often the same people unwilling to use 'chemicals' (don't get me started on the use of that word in a negative way, just don't) and so the SLS-free soap base suits the 'natural' side of them but it contains Palm Oil, and the Palm-free version has SLS in it.

My regretful answer to those people is not to use my glycerin soap, because I don't have any plans to make my own bases at this stage and I've recently found a truly fantastic base which is low-sweat and is really lovely to use as soap, yet has an ingredients list full of things with only three syllables. I haven't got the time to come up with and make my own Palm-free, SLS-free base, unfortunately. Particularly when I take into account how many kilos I go through in class sessions.

That's why I make cold process as well. Because I also enjoy using the stuff that truly is all natural and made from scratch with my chandler hands.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandlery just in case you're thinking about Matthew Perry at this stage.

The reason I am writing this is that I have recently decided to focus the business on Glycerin Soap. Because, quite frankly, I love it. I love everything about it. I love working with it, cleaning up after it, FO blending in it, teaching it, adding glitter to it, everything. I also love CP, but I have a loyal customer base which seems to cover about the number of loaves I make each year. I don't need to do any more of that, but I WANT to work with MP.

Teaching an MP class is more fun than a fridge full of wine. Everyone enjoys the process and if the occasional student wants to learn CP, then we can go from there. But shining, colourful, scented soap being popped out of a mold by someone who has never done it before? Magic.

For clarity (which MP soap can definitely have!):

Ingredients: Coconut Oil, Palm Oil, Safflower Oil, Glycerine (kosher, of vegetable origin), Purified Water, Sodium Hydroxide (saponifying agent), Sorbitol (moisturizer), Sorbitan oleate (emulsifier), Oat protein (conditioner)

Notes: Hypo-Allergenic, Non-Comedogenic, Biodegradable, No Animal Testing, No Animal Products, Vegan, Gluten-Free, Soy-Free, Non-GMO

TL;DR - Should you be a person who has an issue with Palm Oil, let me know and I will use the Palm-free version for you.

I recently finally got around to casting a mold of a new soap a friend had found me, and I was telling someone how much like having a baby it is.

You're told there's THE perfect crystal for soap (a very rare thing, for many reasons), you wait patiently to purchase it and then realise you'll need a good $100 worth of silicone to cast it. You finally allow for that in the budget, after ensuring your mica and FO addictions are being catered for, and then it sits on the bench for the next six months because you know if you mess it up you've just wasted $100.

And then, one day, you woman up and get your lab coat and goggles and mask on, and you just do it. And pushing out the original crystal can only be compared to the birthing process; painful, lengthy and nerve-wracking. With the possibility of stretch marks.

I thought I'd better put up a pic of the other side of the shelf room. And not even slightly admit to myself that these were taken a few years ago, and I've probably doubled the number of things now. If I don't admit it to me, then you don't need to worry about it either. What's worse, if that my favourite mica ever was being discontinued and so I had to buy quite a lot of it and have it sent from overseas. Budget for soap cutter blown, but then hand cut is so much more rustic, isn't it? (No, it's not).

On the day you find yourself writing out an SOP and obtaining an SDS for using sodium hydroxide, you realise your Health & Safety life has collided with your Science life and all blended together with your Product Development life. You're a Health & Safety Sciencey Product Developer, that's what you are. Who is currently in her ugg boots and thinking less about SOPs and more about what to make for dinner. Which is a whole post on its own. When, no matter what you cook, someone says 'I don't like that' how do you deal with it? Gagging them isn't legal, I don't think. If it's a marginal thing, can someone please let me know.

Someone called me a FO Ho, recently. Not that I mind, in my line of work it's actually an advantage.

Maybe not for the shelf space issue, but definitely for the students. Who wants a choice of 30 fragrances when we can have 80? No one, that's who. In case you are wondering, FO stands for Fragrance Oil. The rest is hopefully self-explanatory, because I'm not explaining it. Welcome to our new website.