How I made Oat Milk.
I was so excited to see a fellow soap maker had used Oat Milk in one of her soaps. I immediately thought, here is a new ingredient that I can play with…YA! What I didn’t know was that Oat Milk was not an item that you can get at your local grocer. It is a product that I would have to render myself…I was not too thrilled after learning this. I said okay, another long process to add to my already hectic schedule, but my curiosity got the best of me.

I started doing some research. Of course I started with the fellow soaper, by asking how do you make it. She was so kind to share. I also used my best friend “Google” to see if anyone else had made Oat Milk. Sure enough my search turned up quite a few hits. With that being said, here is how I made my Oat Milk for my new Cherry Almond soap with oatmeal and Oat Milk.
1. Add one cup of oatmeal to a jug
2. Add four cups of hot water (not boiling water)
3. Allow mixture to sit overnight
4. Drain the water into another container
5. Add oatmeal to a blender and pulverize until oats are chopped nice and fine
6. Add chopped oats to a strainer and pour the water over the chopped oats
Easy peesy.

Here are a few helpful notes
1. Take a spatula and press against the oatmeal in the strainer to get as much liquid out as possible.
2. You will probably have to strain the mixture several times to ensure all the oatmeal is not in your liquid mixture.

I have not made the Cherry Almond soap yet (will post pics), I plan to in the next couple of days. My creamy Oat Milk is waiting patiently in the fridge.

EnJOY
Rochell

I know it has been a looooooooooong while since I last blogged. I thought when I started blogging that I would be able to keep it up, but life just took priority I suppose. So with that being said, I am back and hoping to make this work.
I have been in the mode lately to make some new soaps. I have also been toying with the idea in my head (for a very long time) to add a few glycerin bars to my product line. So that is what I did. I am using a very reputable, natural base that feels amazing on my skin. I have used a full size bar (4.5 oz) every day, twice a day, for nearly two weeks. And, I still have enough for at least 5 more showers. Therefore, a glycerin bar can last up to 3 weeks or more depending on how it is cared for between uses and how frequently it is used.
So take a look at the four bars that I have introduced to my product line, my favorite thus bar is the Calendula & Lemon

Thanks for stopping by. Be sure to come back next week, when we plan to show our new Oatmeal Soap made with real Oat Milk, NOT GOAT, but Oat.

This question deserved a special blog post,
“Why does your soap cost so much?”

My goodness, $5.25 for a bar of soap!? Why on earth does it cost so much?

Thanks for taking the time to inquiry about our soaps and noticing that the price is a little higher than most store brought soaps. As you can see each bar is a work of art. They are handmade by me and time intensive. All of our soaps are made with real vegetable oils and real ingredients. Store brought soaps are usually made with a synthetic detergent, like Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (a lathering agent) that is blended with synthetic hardeners to form a bar of soap.

Due to the synthetic ingredients, often times lotion is needed after bathing with store brought soaps. Karess Krafters soaps contain skin-loving oils like olive, coconut and palm to produce a lovely cleansing bar of soap that leaves your skin moist, clean and soft to the touch. And, our soaps last as long or longer than the commercial soap.

We also use quality essential and/or fragrance oils, herbs and aloe in our soaps and these ingredients cost a little more. All of our soaps are made in small batches to ensure quality so that we offer you the best product for your skin. Karess Krafters soaps are made in Holly Springs, NC which allows us to contribute more to our local economy because the dollars are spent in our community. In addition, our soaps help save the environment, this is not always true for the larger soap companies. Many of the big name “detergent bar” producers have their soaps made oversees and then shipped into the U.S…just imagine the environmental cost of shipping all of that soap.

We love what we do, would like one or five bars?

Be Blessed,
Ric and Ro

We are working hard in the Karess Krafters Workshop getting products made for the upcoming Christmas in July sale. We will offer our regularly rotated products as well as showcase our product line for the Fall.

We will offer a heavier discount to our newsletter subscribers one week before the actual sale week. If you have not done so, be sure to sign up on our Facebook fanpage. Once you like our page you will see the email sign up icon.

Make your own slideshow with music at Animoto.

Until next time be blessed
Rochell

We have finally finished our facial care products. We are not offering many facial products currently, but we plan to offer many more depending on the sales trend. Since these are new products to us as well as our customers, we thought it would be best to offer them in 1 oz size as limited editions. If the demand for our facial line is great, then we will be offering larger sizes. So what do we have?

Well our luscious lip balms have returned. We are not sure why we did away with them from the start as we have received a great response to them from the time we offered them back in 2006. We did do away with our vegan formula for now as the beeswax version out sold it 6 to 1. Chai Tea returned as well as Simply Herbal but it is now just called Herbal. We have 3 new flavors, Buttercream and two essential oils flavored, Licorice Anise and Grapefruit Mint.

Our Olive & Honey Botanical Facial Wash is our favorite. It is a surfactant based product that gave us some challenges during the creation part. A lot of eliminating, adding, etc. during the formulating phase. I believe this one is our favorite due to the challenges it gave us. It is has a silky, creamy texture that removes grime from the facial tissue and leaves your skin soft and clean.

Our Lavender & Chamomile Toner has been around before. This is not a brand new product for us, but it is a treat to use. It balances, tones and hydrates your skin. Here is a little secret, we sometimes skip the facial wash step and go straight to the toner. Disclaimer: We are not recommending that you skip the facial wash step as it is a very important step. We are just saying what has worked for us.

Our Blooming Flowers Botanical Facial Lotion is just that, blooming with flowers. It has some of the most marvelous extracts in it that really hydrates the facial tissue down to the deepest layers. Extracts such as Calendula, White Willow Bark and Red Clover to name just a few. It even has the anti-aging ingredient of Oat Beta Glucan. We love the creamy texture and off white hue. Our most favorite ingredient in this blooming facial lotion is the Olive emulsifier. It is very silky and emollient. It is so nice that we have plans to create an all over lotion with it. We LOVE IT.

Well there you have it, a limited facial line, but a line that is effective and can be appreciated by normal, dry, sensitive and mature skin types.

Until next time
Be blessed, happy and worry-FREE!

Whew! Where has the time gone? From doing a make over in our home to filling orders, promoting our business, keeping up with inventory and trying to get new products made, packaged and photographed – we have had little time to catch a breather. Oh, and let me not forget celebrating birthdays and graduations as well. Even though things have been chaotic, we did manage to get our new holiday scrubs made, packaged and photographed.

The recipe for the holiday scrubs is slightly different from our regular scrub. The holiday scrub has glycerin, coconut and castor oil added to the mix. We wanted to make sure we didn’t just offer a new fragrance but also a new formula as well. Here are photos of our Candy Cane, Hazelnut Mocha, Orange Clove, Lavender Bliss and Warm Vanilla Sugar scrubs: