ORDER LEAD TIMES:

All orders placed before 2PM on a business day will be shipping within 2 business days.

This change has been put in place to ensure that our orders are going out accurately and efficiently. As we enter our busiest season of the year, we very much appreciate your continued business and look forward to growing with you and your Soap Making efforts!

- The Cibaria Soap Supply Team

Other Posts You May Find Helpful:

• Soap Making and The Holidays
• Handcrafted Soap Makers Guild Conference Growing Closer!
• 7 Lb Quantities Have Changed to 1 Gal
• Survey Time! What Do you Want us To Stock?

I wanted to post a quick announcement regarding our 7 lb product quantities on Cibaria Soap Supply.

IMPORTANT:

As of today, we are now selling 1 Gal product quantities instead of 7 lb product quantities. This will make it a bit easier to measure out, since now it is in a liquid measurement form. Also, you’ll get a bit extra product tossed in there… which never hurts!

We’re also still taking votes on our Soap Making Oil survey – What Addition Soap Making Oils would you like us to stock? Vote here!

Thank you,

-Cibaria Soap Supply

Other Posts You May Find Helpful:

• Survey Time! What Do you Want us To Stock?
• When Is It Time to Turn Soap Making Into a Business?
• Jojoba Oil – Best. Oil. Ever.
• Handcrafted Soap Makers Guild Conference Growing Closer!

This is your chance to voice your needs! Below, you will find a very important survey.  Cibaria Soap Supply invites you to voice your Soap Making Oil needs! Please select up to 20 items that you are currently buying or needing to buy, but haven’t been able to find on our store. We are especially calling upon our existing customers, as well as those who need to buy from us, but currently don’t because we don’t carry all of your preferred products.

If you are not planning on purchasing in the near future, or are out of our shipping proximity, we kindly ask that you refrain from voting in this survey, so we can keep the data as accurate as possible for our valued Cibaria Soap Supply clients.

Make Your voice heard! Your VOTES COUNT, as they WILL directly affect what products we add to our store!

Select up to 20 products that you’d like us to stock:

Other Posts You May Find Helpful:

• When Is It Time to Turn Soap Making Into a Business?
• A New Year for Soap Making Oils, Base Oils, and Carrier Oils
• 7 Lb Quantities Have Changed to 1 Gal
• Jojoba Oil – Best. Oil. Ever.

Ultimately, this decision can’t be taken lightly, and it’s one that generally imparts a huge impact on our lives, as well as on our immediate family’s lives. Many Soap Makers that we’ve spoken with have gone from hobby soap makers to making soap as a full-time or even a part-time business. We reached out to our Soap Making friends and colleagues on Twitter and Facebook to find out what made them turn their hobby of Soap Making into a full-fledged money-making machine! While we know that most don’t bring in the big bucks as soon as they start out, we’ve found that quite a few figured they’d charge people for what they were already doing for free. A little extra income never hurt anyone, right?

Out of the bad economic chaos, many Soap Makers found themselves looking for work and when they couldn’t find any, they created their own. That’s exactly what @dreamingtreesw of Dreaming Trees Soap Works did.”We lost our jobs, and there was still no jobs out there, so we made our own and we haven’t turned back since”.

Other stories that we’ve heard are equally as admirable. Tami Thornton of Beehive Soap and Body Care says

“After helping my husband in his business for 30 years, I decided it was time to start a new challenge! So, after the children were basically out of the house, and Bachelors Degree was finally completed, it was time! Been in business about a year and a half now… and loving it!”

And a good amount of other Soap Makers were just happy that someone was willing to pay them to do what they loved, just as a few of our Twitter friends who shared similar stores.

Belonger Botanicals began “as soon as someone offered to pay for the product”.

It’s definitely a joyful experience when you realize that someone finds value in the things that you create. We talk to hundreds of Soap Makers per month, and we find that the joy and care that go into their products really do make the difference. Many people say that once you go “handmade” with your soap, you never go back! (to the store-bought stuff, that is!)

Day Three is another great example of a Soap Maker making the easy decision to turn their passion into a business. They expressed that they started their hobby became a business “when we realized that people actually wanted to give us MONEY for doing something we’d do for FREE!”

Now that’s passion!

We’d LOVE to hear your story and your thoughts! Are you considering turning your Soap Making hobby into a business? Did you already take the plunge!? Tell us about it below!

Other Posts You May Find Helpful:

• Survey Time! What Do you Want us To Stock?
• 7 Lb Quantities Have Changed to 1 Gal
• Jojoba Oil – Best. Oil. Ever.
• A New Year for Soap Making Oils, Base Oils, and Carrier Oils

I love jojoba oil! The benefits of this oil never seem to stop. We call it an oil, but it’s really a type of wax, called a “wax ester.” This results from fatty acids and fatty alcohol joining together. It’s all very scientific and delightful.

But I don’t care about the science, really. I care about the performance. What can jojoba oil do in your different products?

1. 1. It can add to the moisturizing benefits of handmade soap. Jojoba oil adds a quality to soap that is difficult to describe, but one word I can think of is “awesome.” The lather gets a rich, creamy feel to it, and the skin feels softer and smoother afterwards. I don’t recommend you use jojoba oil at more than about 10% in any soap recipe, as it will accelerate trace and make things difficult. This is where knowing that it is really a wax ester comes in handy—those molecules speed up trace, and can make the soap seize if you use too much. 10% is enough to see the benefits.
2. 2. It can enhance the performance of any lotion. Lotions will sink in deeper, as jojoba oil mimics our skin’s natural sebum. The oil sinks into skin quickly, but because of this, it does not feel very “glide-y.” Using jojoba oil in combination with a slicker oil, like avocado or apricot kernel oil, creates a synergy for the lotion: gliding on smoothly, and sinking in quickly. Fabulous.
3. 3. It can be used directly on the skin. Once again, because of its composition and our skin’s readiness to accept it, jojoba oil is a great choice for a facial cleansing oil. Some folks don’t want to use soap on their faces, opting instead for a cleansing oil. Combining a cleansing, astringent oil like castor or hazelnut with jojoba means the oil will clean the pores and then sink in to moisturize at the same time.  These cleansing oil formulas work with a hot, steamy face cloth. Massage the oil blend into the face, while running hot, hot water on a washcloth. Wring out the cloth, and slap in on the face. Steam the face until the cloth starts to go colder, then dip it in the hot water and steam the face one more time. After that, dip the cloth one more time, wipe off the excess oil, and rejoice.
4. 4. When used on the skin, the effect is near-immediate. This is just observational and not scientific at all. When I apply jojoba oil to my skin, I can see and feel a difference immediately. Because of this effect, I have chosen to use jojoba oil in my lip balm formulation. I want my lip balm to work right away, and I attribute its effectiveness in part, to jojoba oil.
5. 5. It is great for the hair, too. I use jojoba oil in a deep-conditioning hair treatment I make. Again, I don’t have science here, just experience, but when I put just a couple of drops on my hair when it’s wet, and allow it to dry, it makes the hair shiny but also adds to the body and curl. Try it. You’ll see.

What other uses do you see for jojoba oil?

Amy Kalinchuk makes and sells handmade soap in Denver, Colorado. She has written and published three books on soap making, including Making Soap in Your Own Kitchen, available at Craft e-Revolution.

Other Posts You May Find Helpful:

• A New Year for Soap Making Oils, Base Oils, and Carrier Oils
• 7 Lb Quantities Have Changed to 1 Gal
• Survey Time! What Do you Want us To Stock?
• When Is It Time to Turn Soap Making Into a Business?

To celebrate Thanksgiving, Cibaria Store Supply will be closed on the following days:

Thursday November 25th

Friday, November 26th

We will resume business as usual (opening at 7:30AM) on Monday, November 29th and will be closed at NOON on November 30th for our Annual Luncheon. The rest of the week will be regular business hours at Cibaria.

To Celebrate Christmas, Cibaria Soap Supply will be closed on the following days:

Thursday, December 23rd (We will close at NOON)

Friday, December 24th

Monday, December 27th

To Celebrate New Years, Cibaria Soap Supply will be closed on the following days:

Friday, December 31st

Monday, January 3rd

Our website will of course, still be accepting orders throughout the Holiday, and any orders placed during this time will be shipped the following Monday and/or Tuesday.

Happy Thanksgiving From the Cibaria Soap Supply team!

We thank you for your continued business and are looking forward to helping you make it an amazing Christmas as well!

Other Posts You May Find Helpful:

• Winter 2011-2012 Soap Making Showcase Series
• Christmas Holiday Soap Making Showcase
• Soap Making and The Holidays
• Gorgeous Summer Soap Making to Inspire!

2010 Handmade Soap Making Trends

We’ve already seen some amazing Christmas and Holiday Handmade soaps popping up, and we are very much looking forward to featuring them right here! We love supporting our Soap Making community, and we definitely wish that Apple Computers would hurry up and invent the “smell scents though a computer” function! We’re sure it’s coming soon!

So far, we’ve seen a few prominent Soap making trends for the 2010 Holiday season.

1. Lots of Chocolate-scented Products (which we’re pretty sure there can’t ever be enough of)

2. Warm tones and colors for the fall – lots of spices and pumpkin scents! (which we LOVE)

3. Creative wrapping and packaging (we’ve seen 40% more of this so far!)

4. More molds and food-esque looking handmade soaps.

We’re hoping to be able to pull all of these trends together in one blog post, with photos of course!

Cibaria Soap Supply’s Big Fall Contest!

Have you nominated your favorite Soap Maker yet? You can nominate yourself, or someone whose work you’ve admired from afar. We’re pretty sure they’ll appreciate the sentiment. At the end, we’ll tally all of the results, and let you vote on the people with the most nominations!

So what are you waiting for! Click here for details on how to nominate the BEST SOAP MAKER ever!

Soap Making Oils

And of course, what we’re really known for is supplying high-quality Soap Making Oils (Carrier Oils / Base Oils / Fixed Oils ) to the Handmade Soap Making and Body Care industry. We made sure to stock up on all of this Winter”s Essentials for Soap Making!

Now In stock for your Winter Soap Making:

Coconut Oil 76 Degrees

Organic Virgin Coconut Oil

Shea Butter, Refined

Organic Shea Butter

And much more! Check us out at www.CibariaSoapSupply.com for ordering and pricing

Other Posts You May Find Helpful:

• Shipping Lead Times Have Changed
• Winter 2011-2012 Soap Making Showcase Series
• Holiday Office Schedule
• Christmas Holiday Soap Making Showcase

We know a lot of work goes into soap, but I’ve noticed that this time of year seems to be the most hectic for many of our Soap Making customers. All of the custom orders just beginning to trickle in, and the many questions about “can you make this scent”, and “my friend has this kind of skin, what should she use?” In the end, we know it all wraps neatly into one pumpkin-spice scented blur as Christmas soon dominates our schedules.

We’ve been looking to soap makers to find out what ingredients they are finding most needed during the fall months… and that is our question of the week!

What Soap Making Ingredients do you find essential over the fall months? (as far as Carrier Oils, Scents, and Molds?)

This gorgeous soap is made by Suds N Such

Other Posts You May Find Helpful:

• Survey Time! What Do you Want us To Stock?
• Winter 2011-2012 Soap Making Showcase Series
• Fall and Winter at Cibaria Soap Supply
• When Is It Time to Turn Soap Making Into a Business?

1st Prize:

Congratulations to Carrie Holtz, you’ve won our grand prize! A Free Consultation w/ a Veteran Web Designer and Internet Marketer on how to spice up your website (or start one), track your website visitors, and how to market your brand online!  Get Ideas, suggestions, and build a powerful brand!

2nd Prize

goes to Annette Rudolph, you’ve won 35 Lbs of Pomace Olive Oil for all of your handmade Soap Making needs!

3rd Prize

goes to Michelle Latham, you’ve won a $5 off of any Cibaria Soap Supply.com order!

We will be contacting the winners via email.

Again, thank you to everyone who participated, and to our amazing customers!

Other Posts You May Find Helpful:

• 7 Lb Quantities Have Changed to 1 Gal
• Handcrafted Soap Makers Guild Conference Growing Closer!
• Shipping Lead Times Have Changed
• Sunflower Oil Price Update

I got a great question from an awesome customer of ours that I wanted to clarify with everyone in case you were curious.

Pre-Orders that Are Picked Up at HSMG

I hadn’t read or heard anything about this, but a customer notified us that somewhere it had a list of HSMG vendors who would be offering to bring orders over to Denver for pick up if you pre-order before the show. While we’d love to do this, we’ll be flying to Denver,with no room to bring our products from Southern California, so we won’t be participating in this feature. We actually never even knew of it until someone asked, and are still awaiting a response from HSMG as to what it exactly is.

I definitely understand it’s strong point, because if you are driving to HSMG, it is a great opportunity to save on shipping costs (and we all know how much we want those to go DOWN!).

Can you guys believe it’s spring already! We’re gearing up for all kinds of fun promos and chances to participate!

What is your favorite part of Spring Soap Making??

Other Posts You May Find Helpful:

• Shipping Lead Times Have Changed
• 7 Lb Quantities Have Changed to 1 Gal
• A New Year for Soap Making Oils, Base Oils, and Carrier Oils
• Survey Time! What Do you Want us To Stock?