Indigo Bee was recently featured in Gift Shop Magazine's cover story on Bath & Body trends.  There was a great quote and picture of our soaps.  Consequently, we've had many, many requests for samples & info on our soaps from retailers across the US.  Lucky us!  However, filling these orders has seriously depleted our stock of current and spring soaps.  As of today's date, we are completely out of stock on the Indigo Signature and extremely low on Tea Tree Peppermint and Lavender Rosemary.  New batches have been made, but it will be a few weeks before they are cured and packaged.   Our Spring Collection took a hit as well with Apple Freesia, Cherry Almond and Yuzu Cucumber almost completely gone.  We are planning on more batches but this will also take time!

On the positive side, this means that the Bee is growing by leaps and bounds!  We've been chosen to participate in a Celebrity Swag Bag for Tom Cruise & family through our membership with The Artisan Group (@theartisangroup).  We are excited and humbled by this opportunity and we will keep you posted as this progresses.  We just hope they like SOAP.  

Upcoming soaps - Vetiver Tweed, Japanese Tea and Pomegranate Plum. We might even throw in Pink Pixie too! As usual, we'll post pictures on our Facebook page:  www.facebook.com/indigobee

Have fun & rock it out!!

Sadly, this does happen.  Who knows why?  Perfectly good soap can go bad overnight.  It doesn't mean that the soap maker didn't love it, take care of it and give it a good home.  It just goes....bad.  The only thing you can do is get rid of it. Unlike a family member, you can just throw it away.  

Sometimes you get a soap that doesn't lather well. It could be because the soap maker's formula has excess fats in it, resulting in a soap that doesn't have enough "soap" in it to lather.  Most soaps have a percentage of oils that are left in the soap after the raw ingredients do that magical chemistry thing that turns it into soap.  This is usually a good thing, it makes the soap more luxurious and gentle on your skin.  However, too much leftover oil and the soaps can go rancid or turn soft.  Other times, it just won't lather.  Or it leaves that sticky feeling on your skin.  

Another problem is soap that leaves you too dry.  Everyone's skin is different and what works for one person, may not work on another.  The biggest complaint I've heard over the years from my customers is that their skin is "so dry".  Some body washes and soaps can exacerbate this condition.  We use coconut oil in our soaps - a wonderful oil that gives our soap that fabulous, fluffy lather.  However, too much coconut oil in soap can cause the soap to be drying to the skin.  It's a very fine line that soap makers dance, between lather & drying, with coconut oil.  

At Indigo Bee, if you ever have a soap whose scent smells "off" or has any other weird things happen (unlikely - but hey, anything can happen, right?) be sure to contact us right away and we'll diagnose the problem and make it right.  We want you to be happy and have good soap!

Being the Chief Soap Artist means that I'm responsible for designing new soaps.  Sometimes, making the same soaps over and over gets...tedious.  I like new challenges and new things.  I especially like crashing together a few crazy fragrances and coming up with something different.  My goal is to make my customers scratch their heads and say.."huh? What was she thinking, putting anise essential oil together with Sugar Cookie and calling it..Anise Gumdrop?"  Thus, new soaps are born.

Once I figure out which few "flavors" (for lack of a better word) meld together in perfect harmony, I have to decide on what colors to use that will evoke the new scent.  I will spend quite a bit of time sniffing the new blend to "see" the colors that erupt in my mind.  Sometimes it comes together very quickly and other times I struggle to make good decisions.  Because not only must the colors match the scent, it must be appealing to the eye and SELL.  Case in point:  I made a soap for a wholesale customer who requested a natural beige and brick red color.  I made the soap to her specs but upon cutting the soap, realized that the brick red looked like....deli meat.  It bled (no pun intended) into the natural beige and caused the entire soap to look like head cheese.  NOT sellable, even though it smelled divine.  Those of you who follow me on Facebook probably saw the pictures about six months ago. 

The scents are chosen, the colors are picked, now I have to "design" the soap.  Swirls? Layers? One color? Two colors?  Gradations? Contrasts?  There are so many techniques that soapmakers use to design their soaps.  I tend to swirl (God, I love a good swirl!) but layers have been on my radar lately.  I'm also exploring some kind of embedding of shapes but haven't had the time to play around with that. 

Regardless, you never know what you'll get with the soap - sometimes the soap reacts strangely to the fragrance or essential oil and the end result is NOTHING like you planned.  I made a Cabernet soap for a client that was supposed to be a gorgeous dark purple wine color.  The fragrance turned the soap baby poop yellow-brown and it cured to a DARK brown.  Smelled great, couldn't convince anyone that it was a wine scent.  Best laid plans and all.

I digress....

New soap! That's right.  I've planned out eight or so new soaps to add to the collection.  I'm discontinuing a few of the soaps I have in stock and redesigning others.  Among the new soaps:  Yuzu Cucumber, Guava Pineapple, Minty Rose and Lemon Basil.  Gone from the lineup will be Sugar Baby, Wasabi Orange (scent will stay, soap will be renamed & redesigned), Oatmeal & Honey (redesigned & renamed), and Pink Rose.  I'm also going to add Water, Anise Gumdrop, Apple Freesia, Cherry Almond and a few new ocean/sand ones too. 

Thanks for reading, have an interesting day!