ProudMarineMom

Yes I have, just haven't had time to take and post pics. Last week was one of the weeks at my day job. We had some problems in a couple of our applications that took quite a bit of time to fix. I'd start at 0700 and wouldn't stop sometimes until around 2300. Every so often I would take a break and do a quick look through here. Unfortunately, when you write and support applications, it can mean some long hours when the wheels fall off.

I have been admiring all the pretty soapies everyone has made lately. And, definitely watching your ABS thread. Will work on getting some pics today. Need to clean my house...

I generally use the 1oz clear oval. But, I can use black if that is the consensus. Count me in on the co-op. Lorelei, send one of us your email address and we will keep in contact. Thanks, Judy, for talking to the manufacturer.

Pretty blue color. The white kinda looks like clouds.

Very nice soap. Good luck with the show!!

The swirl turned out beautifully.

Interesting combination. And, the Amber Musk doesn't overpower the Blue Skies? Cuz, SAM is pretty darn strong. I love it, but it usually takes over in a blend. Going to have to soap it, see what it does.

Say it ain't so!!! These are great little containers for melts. And, for inexpensive samples. Guess I'll have to go with the 2 oz, bummer. I'm with you Paul and Lorelei, haven't found a label yet that sticks very well to them either on the lid or on the side. Haven't tried a waterproof label yet. I have a hard time getting those off the sheet. Maybe they would stay better.

Thank you everyone!! I'm excited to see how the cut bars turn out as well. Everything went smoothly and I mentally prepared for all the things that go wrong with using beer as the liquid. Didn't really plan anything complicated with color because it can move fast because of the sugars. But, it behaved very nicely for me. And, I finally stopped stick blending at just the right time so I had time to play with swirlies.

jeanie, the copper color is Bronze d'Or mica from the Conservatorie. I mixed up a little in case I had some time to do an ITPS. Also did a little pearl mica to put a little on top before I textured. Hopefully, the soap will stay a nice ivory or light tan color and the swirls in the soap will be visible. Soap is in the fridge doing it's thing. Going to leave it there until tomorrow to make sure it is good and set.

In honor of St. Florian's Feast Day, I made my first beer soap. Used a local beer called Sweetwater Blue. It's a pale ale that is made with blueberries. Used an EO blend of Lime, Cedar and a little dark patch. Behaved very well for me and I finally stopped with the SB at just the right time. Was planning on doing a textured top but decided to practice the top swirl since it was still so fluid. Thanks for looking.

Have you had a chance to cut this yet? The swirls on top turned out great.

Oh wow, the cut soap looks georgeous. Have been wondering how it was going to turn out for you.

I hope they are able to fix your wrist problems.

I think it turned out great.

Your soapies turned out wonderfully. I could never get the hang of suspending in my M&P. Think I just go too impatient.

ooooh, going to have to give that a try. I do like the feel of the yogurt but have been trying to coax more bubbles and lather out of the bars.

I have used yogurt in several of my soaps and I really like it. Found a Greek style from Cabot that is not low-fat or no-fat. The top of the container says 10% milkfat. I have made batches using two different methods.

The first I mixed the yogurt about 50:50 with water and froze. I used a silicone muffin pan to freeze and probably should have tried to chunk them up before putting in my lye pot. I put the frozen yogurt in my lye pot and then poured the lye over them. The heat from the lye melts the yogurt and stir to dissolve the lye. Since the yogurt is white it's hard to tell if all the lye crystals are dissolved. So, I did what I read somewhere, stir until you think they are dissolved then stir some more. It behaved pretty good for me when I mixed with the oils.

The second method I like better. Think I read about the method on the Soap Queen blog. And, probably wouldn't work if you use a high lye concentration (but I could be wrong ). I've been soaping these at 30% lye concentration so I have enough water to dissolve the lye. Instead of freezing the yogurt it is added after the lye is added to the oils. The method basically splits the water content of your batch in half. Half of the water is used to dissolve the lye and the other half is made up of yogurt combined with enough water to make it smooth and pourable. I use a bit more than half the water for the lye portion because I'm still new to lye and I want to be darn sure it dissolves. So, you make your lye solution like you normally do then add the yogurt solution after you incorporate the lye into the oils.

I know that the lye is going to do it's thing to the fats in the yogurt no matter when you add it. But, I like begin able to see if my water is clear and no lye crystals. Plus, I use silk and I'm comfortable adding that when I can see how it's doing in the lye water as well. I also do RTCP and both my lye and oils are at room temp. So, I'm not putting the yogurt through that initial heat when the lye is dissolving. I also put the soap in the fridge for at least 24 and usually up to 48 hours to prevent gel. Has worked pretty good for me so far.

So, the short answer is yes, you can use yogurt!

That is just wrong....

Thank you!!

May I ask what colorant you used for the green and even the yellow? I had a nice pretty green mica that morphed to tan on me. Thanks!

Well, even if I could meet 1,2 & 3, I think 4-8 would do me in. I don't have the square footage to reserve samples of finished products to be tested again at a later date.... & I don't have a "second person" to verify the weights of everything. & I don't have room to keep mountains of records and documentation of every little thing. & I don't have a drain in the middle of my freaking kitchen floor, so not sure if that would pass the "adequate floor drainage" issue.

What a major PITA. If small business/home business has to follow the same rules as major facilities, I'm done before I get started..

Exactly! And, that is why they either need to make provisions or exclusions for small businesses and home-crafters or specifically state that a home facility will not meet the guidelines. I think they are trying to put more regulations on the big boys but for some reason they don't realize or don't care the impact this bill will have on the small crafters. Unfortunately for us, we don't have the resources to pay for an advocate. So, we need to send letters and do what we can to support the efforts of WSP, Indie, Brambleberry and others who are trying to speak on our behalf. Maybe it won't be enough but at least we know we tried.

Ok, stepping down off the soapbox.... sorry about that

FDA Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) Guidelines/Inspection Checklist

This might give you an idea of what is considered a "facility"

http://www.fda.gov/Cosmetics/GuidanceComplianceRegulatoryInformation/GoodManufacturingPracticeGMPGuidelinesInspectionChecklist/default.htm

I found the guidelines later and read through them, thank you for the link.

Not trying to be argumentative, but I guess I'm not sure that a facility at home would be disallowed based on how the guidelines are written. Granted, they are slanted toward a large production facility with the expectation of multiple emplyees. But, the first statement says the building used must be of sufficient size, design and construction to allow equipment, storage, sanitary operations and proper cleaning and maintenance. Why could that not be my soap room or kitchen? It meets my needs, I'm a homecrafter, not Proctor and Gamble.

Ok, I just called the FDA to get their definition of a Building or Facility. To them, it is any structure that engages in the preparation or manufacuter of food or cosmetics. That includes what we do out of our homes. And, that is as far as the FDA can commit. Since this bill has not been made into law, they don't have any specifics on how this will change the guidlelines. At the moment, I don't really see anything in the bill that will specifically eliminate the ability to make products at home. But, I'm not a lawyer either and good grief they make these things difficult to read without one.

As far as the Fee, yes it is $500 for 2013. But then it went on to say the following...

( for fiscal year 2014 and each subsequent fiscal year, the fee for fiscal year 2013 as adjusted under subsection ©.

And, this is subsection ©:

(c) INFLATION ADJUSTMENT.—For fiscal year 2014 and subsequentfiscal years, the revenues established in subsection ( shall be adjusted bythe Secretary by notice, published in the Federal Register, for a fiscal year to reflectthe sum of one plus—

(1) the average annual change in the cost, per full-time equivalent position of the Food and Drug Administration, of all personnel compensation and benefits paid with respect to such positions for the first 3years of the preceding 4 fiscal years multiplied by the proportion of personnel compensation and benefits costs to total costs of cosmetic safety activities forthe first 3 years of the preceding years; and

(2) the average annual change that occurred in the Consumer PriceIndex for urban consumers (Washington-Baltimore, DC–MD–VA–WV; Not Seasonally Adjusted; All items; Annual Index) for the first 3 years of the preceding 4 years of available data multiplied by the proportion of all costs other than personnel compensation and benefits costs tototal costs of cosmetic safety activities for the first 3 years of the preceding 4 fiscal years. The adjustment made each fiscal year under this subsection will be added on a compounded basis to the sum of all adjustments made each fiscal year after fiscal year 2013 under this subsection.

All of that could just be saying Cost of Living Allowance, don't know.

Thanks for the link Annie. Unfortunately, I have a hard time following one of the basic principals, keeping it to one page. I'm not good at saying something in 3 words when I can use 20. Running joke at work.

Anyway, I have a start to a letter template but it's a little over a page. If everyone would please review and give me your comments or suggestions we can get this into shape. Heck, I may not even make the right points...

The second paragraph I don't particularly like the last sentence, so that could use some help. I also flip back and forth with the 'I' and 'We'. Not sure of the best way to handle this. The letter is from 'me' but I want to convey that 'We' as a community will be affected. Obviously the addessee will be the name of your state official or whoever. Just used him to format the letter.

Anyway, let me know what you think. Thanks.

I have the document in Word format but can only attach a PDF, which is too large. So, I put it in Google Docs. Here is the link:

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B3TSeQ-5rgseeUltSERDWFVRWE9BZVpiVGFBY2tGUQ

I keep saying I'm going to create one in excel and printing it out. It's a pain having to always get online and pull up the calculators. lol Or shoot, if I would just print out the ones I put in the calculator that would work too.... Ok, that's been added to my weekend to do list! ha

Or I can just send you mine....

This is the one I have and it's programmable. I think it's a great scale. Bought it from Amazon for the price. And, bought the power cord and additional covers from Old Will Knots. Now, it does only do whole gram measurements, so if you need more precision for that you will probably want to find another one. I bought a little gram scale for that.

http://www.amazon.com/My-Weigh-KD-8000-Weighing-Tabletop/dp/B001NE0FU2

http://www.oldwillknottscales.com/my-weigh-kd8000.html?gclid=CM3Zp76_m68CFQ1U7AodMlspaA

Me again. I would also be happy to try and draft a generic letter that everyone can use to send, if you want. It would be helpful if we could identify the issues or concerns with each of the key points and the effect it will have on our business. For some of the points it would be effective to provide an alternative, like the fees. We don't want the letter to read as just complaining, that we do support the intent of the bill (I'm assuming we do, for the most part I do), but that it could have a devastating effect on small business if implemented as written.

Would this be helpful?

Ok, at the risk of sounding dumb, (I'm going to blame my meds and the vertigo right now ), this 2012 version of the bill replaces the 2011 version? It's not an addendum or supplement to the 2011 version? Reason I ask is there was a lot more legal-eez type of stuff in the 2011, such as employees, maintaining MSDS, animal testing, etc. Hard to imagine they would come up with a bill with less verbiage... Not that I'm complaining.

So, for this new version of the bill the key points from the bill and as outlined in the Indie blog are:

1. Registration of Facilities and Products
   
2. Fees
   
3. Good Manufacturing Practices
   
4. Serious Adverse Events Reporting
   
5. Safety Substantiation
   
6. Mandatory Recall
   

For the first point, registration of a facility would not be too cumbersome, but what could be is what is considered a Product. Does that mean every formulation with different fragrance oils used in a sugar scrub? Or, if I decide to use more cetyl alcohol in the summer for a body butter? Or, any tweak we do to make a better, more cost-effective or safe product?

Fees are obvious and will be difficult for just about any new small business starting out. Probably even for those that are established. Between buying supplies, testing, insurance, licensing, taxes, I currently don't make enough in sales to cover my expenses. Granted, I have a day job that consumes most of my time. So, I am growing my business slowly and making sure my products are stable and safe. But, to add another $500 on top of that? Maybe implement a fee on a sliding scale or better yet, add back in the exemption if sales are below a certain level.

And, can anyone explain to me exactly how that fee calculation works for 2014 on? Don't know about you, but that section confused the heck out of me.

My concern with the Good Manufacturing Practices, since no standards have yet to be defined (at least that I see), is if it will disallow the use of our home as a facility.

It would also be nice if there were some additional guidelines on what is acceptable documentation for studies, tests and data. And, I can see some fun times with the serious adverse events section. I understand the need for this, but how do we determine that the reaction was caused by our product and not because they ate a Snickers bar and happen to be allergic to nuts.

Ok, I apologize that this is so long, but I want to make sure I'm reading the bill correctly. I do want to send letters again, as I did last year. I know that I asked Scented last year if I had a grasp of the concepts. I have not had an opportunity to review the hearings that Talltayl provided, need to do that.

eta: Also sorry if all of this has been talked about in previous posts. Just want to make sure I understand....