Body melts in progress

Beside natural soaps for face and body, there will be at least one body melt in my product portfolio.

For a few weeks I have been working on this project now, researching possible ingredients and finding my way of “body melt creation”. 🙂

Finally, I can summarize my results as follows:

• I keep on using 100% vegan ingredients in my products- this rule applies to each and every product line and thus also to body melt.
• I have made a decision on NOT using any essential oils in this product – why? You will find the answer below.
• I am very picky once it comes to the origin of the ingredients. I aim at using the best quality ingredients.

 

My cocoa baby

Number one among the body butters: My cocoa baby is pictured in the middle of this photo in two sizes and two top decorations – both of them inlcude cocoa powder on the top that I poured with a different technique.

The main ingredients I am working with are organic cocoa butter, organic virgin coconut oil, sunflower oil and vitamin E.

In contraty to soaps, this is a leave-on cosmetic product, that you can use after a regular body wash. It gently melts on body temperature so all you need to do is dry your skin with a soft towel and massage the bar on your skin.

In a few minutes it is soaking into your skin – which process you can fasten up with a gentle massage. There is no need to rinse and basically, it is like a body lotion with the benefits that it contains no chemicals at all, no water, therefore no preservatives, no parfumes, silicones, mineral oils.

It is a perfect treat for even sensitive skin.

And here is the point why I decided not to use essential oils. Those with sensitive skin should not use cosmetic products containing fragrances or essential oils at all. Cocoa butter and virgin coconut oil have a very nice orginal scent. I believe it would be only ruined with any other scent added to them.

I recommend this body melt to you if:

• you are looking for a natural and environmentally friendly alternative to body lotions – it contains only pure vegetable oils and butters, and is coming in a paper wrap without any plastic packaging.
• you are dedicated to use only vegan cosmetics! As all my recipes the body melt is also 100% vegan
• you have sensitive skin: treat your skin without preservatives, parfum, essential oils
• you are expecting a baby: a natural treatment with plenty of cocoa butter, which has firming properties and helps the skin to keep its elasticity. It is recommended also to prevent or lighten pregnancy stretch marks
• you look for a natural skin care product for you baby. It is just too bad that a large number of baby lotions and oils include fragrances and paraffin oil! The body melt is a great way to protect and soften your baby’s skin in a natural way. Since it is free of mineral oils, preservatives, shea butter, synthethic ingredients, fragrances and essential oils, it has no allergenic ingredients.

I continue the testing to find the best ratio between cocoa butter and coconut oil. And as you can see on the picture there are plenty of possibilities in creating body melts.

By the beginning of July you will be able to have a look at this product in

my online store! 😉

 

Soap name for Choco-Coffee soap

What I like about soapmaking

There are so many things I like about soapmaking!

I enjoy the creation of a new formula.

This is the most important part of the work: to find the best oil-combination which will result in a creamy, lathery and gentle bar of soap. My soaps are made using organic virgin olive oil, organic coconut oil, organic cocoa butter among others. These are definitely the key players in a formulation. I do not need to add any synthetic chemicals. Olive oil is gentle on the skin, coconut oil works for lots of foam and cocoa butter is the protective angel in the soap bar.

I also like creating a fabulous essential oil blend

This is probably the most important and also a very critical part of a cosmetics formulation. Just look at yourself shopping for a shower gel. What is the first or second thing you will look into? Of course the scent. I do of course the same- so it’s nothing wrong with you. 🙂

Creating a fabulous scent for a product is a great challenge. I learned to work with different essential oils and found out how they work with one another to create a very attractive scent. I love to mix the ingredients to make a high-quality and tender soap bar: the different oils, clays, salt, coffee, essential oils. They are swirling in the pot smelling amazingly good. For me, this is one of the best things to do on Earth. :))

Natural soap for body wash

I believe there is no better way to wash your body other than using a natural vegan soap.

In my product range, you will find two great body cleanser soaps:

• Choco-Coffee
• Salt-Lavender

And yes, at this point I would like to open a round for suggestions with the goal of finding a great name for this soap bar.

So you, out there reading this post: let me know if you have a good idea! 🙂

About the choco-coffee soap

This body cleanser soap is made using organic plant oils. It is full of olive oil and cocoa butter and has a great, creamy lather.

A handmade soap bar made according to a gentle but still effective formulation. Using this soap bar will not only leave you with glowing healthy skin but it helps you also to get rid of the old skin particles. Ground coffee is scrubbing gently your skin, it stimulates the circulation and helps to improve skin breathing.

The very first step to make this choco-coffee soap is to make a strong coffee decotion. I use a similar way you do when you make a fresh morning coffee. To make the decotion I use aromatic whole coffee beans that I grind using a hand mill.

Specialty of this soap is also a sensational delicious essential oil blend. You will enjoy the aromatic combination of blood orange, cinnamon, cocoa and coffee in one.

It is a great soap to start the day with. But I also recommend it after a long working day to help you get really fresh and relaxed!

Do you have a fresh, cool, interesting name that would match to this soap? 🙂

xoxo

Márti

 

 

News and lipstick tests!

The time is passing very quickly, and soon is coming the day to  get the formalities done and start the business. I will make the necessary announcement toward the Hungarian authorities in June!!!

So keep yourself updated. I will be informing you here about the opening of my webshop and a lot of insider information as well. 🙂

What am I up to?

I engaged myself toward the production of high-quality all-natural cosmetic products.

Nowadays , there is already a great number of bigger and smaller brands offering natural alternatives for body care. I love to check on these products and happy to see that there are numerous newcomers with very interesting product lines and solutions.

Even though these brands mean to me on the one hand direct competition, I am also very proud to present my products and solutions within this wonderfully expanding and demanding market very soon….! 🙂

One person = 10 departments

You know, lately, I have been smiling at the fact that in one person I am doing the job of 10 different departments. I can only imagine that big cosmetics manufacturers have employees dedicated to:

• source the ingredients
• develop and test new formulas
• arrange an attractive and practical product packaging
• make the communication part
• handle legal permissions
• do the inventory plans and management
• production
• packaging
• and so on… 🙂

In some way it is funny to say that I am doing it all alone. And I also enjoy it. 😛 🙂

During the past months I have been testing a great number of soap recipes.

Finally, I am very happy to be able to say that I am happy with the result. You can have a look at one of the finalist soaps here: https://lineamarti.wordpress.com/2016/03/25/verdana-facial-cleanser-soap/

Today, I have been planning to show you what I have been working on the last days.

Beside the facial-cleanser and great body wash soaps there is one product I want to include in my product range very much:

LIPBALMS!!

For years, my family and friends have been using my homemade lipbalms and they loved them. My mother just can’t stop talking about it, how much she wants me to include some lipstick balms in my final product portfolio. First, I didn’t want to listen to hear because I was too busy and too concentrated on developing the best soap recipes, but now…. the soap recipes are done and I have no more excuse! I have started testing

Already in the beginning I had to face a great challenge: how can I replace beeswax in my formulas?!
Long time ago when I first started to play with the idea of starting a cosmetics manufacturer business, I wanted to define my main values. These are:

• 100% vegan recipes
• best quality, natural ingredients
• handmade products
• Instead of conventional oils I work with organic plant oils
• Biodegradable packaging
• No animal testing

So far, it has been not a big deal to use only vegan ingredients in my products but once it comes to lip care, it is really challenging.

In my experience beeswax has a high melting point and it gives a hard consistence to the product. It works also as a natural emulsifier and helps to avoid crystallisation of other vegetable butters. Besides being creamy it is protecting and softening the lips. And last but not least, it has a lovely honey-like smell.

What are the alternatives to beeswax?

There are certain vegetable waxes which could (…!) :S 🙂 work as a good substitute to beeswax:

carnauba wax, candelilla wax, sunflower wax, coconut wax, berry wax etc.

Here is some carnauba wax in action 🙂

The most commonly used beeswax subtitutes are candelilla and carnauba.

After several product tests with carnauba and candelilla I need to say that I have a problem with their original, strong fatty scent and they also tend to crytsallise in the final product. If I had to choose between both of them maybe I would go for candelilla because it has a creamier consistence.

But! Beside the strong original scent of candelilla there is something else I discovered!

To have a good understanding of the market and about what choice the customers have –  I looked into the offer of natural cosmetic brands. I found out that most of them use candelilla wax in their formulas.

Did you know that candelilla is officially listed as an endangered plant and that it’s export is strongly controlled? —> http://www.candelilla.org/?page_id=1321

It is interesting to see what we are doing to our nature…! We try to offer a natural alternative in body care products and some brands seem to be happy to say that they are vegan because it is now very fancy to say so.

In case we are really interested in nature and we do care for our plants and animals then please, we need to have a  closer look into these topics. I like plant diversity and care also for candelilla even though I have never seen a real plant in my life. 🙂

For sure, I am not going to use candelilla wax in my products. Maybe it will last longer to find an ideal alternative to beeswax but I am 100% sure that it’s worth it!

What is your experience regarding this topic?

• Do you like beeswax products?
• What vegan lipbalm did you try that you liked a lot?

xoxo Márti 🙂

The kitchen – 1,5 months to go

I spent the last days in Hungary. This is my home country and also, the place where my company is going to be located. With the time passing, I am becoming every day more excited.

There are still so many things to do and finalize.

In this post, I am aiming at summarizing the most important points that have to be clarified to start the business.

Production place

This was the first question I faced once I decided on starting my own cosmetic business. Within the European Union there are clear rules that need to be respected if someone is producing and selling cosmetic products.

There need to be a dedicated production place other than the own kitchen, where the production can take place.

Although I live in Berlin for the sixth year now, I chose to locate my kitchen in Hungary, in a building on my grandmother’s property.

I am happy with this choice, since I wanted to start my business in my home country that I love and this way I can also spend more time with my relatives.

The cosmetic kitchen – to call it that way- is located in a separate building which stands next to the two-storied family house of my grandmother. She has this building built to be able to store some staff and also, she has been using it as summer kitchen to make marmalade and other delicious things. 🙂

To be able to start the production here, there were some changes that had to be made:

• Water and electricity needed to be installed in the building
• Isolation of the roof was made
• The floor needed to be evened, tiles were laid
• Tailor-made kitchen came in with a double-sink and a separate small sink for handwashing only
• The entrance door together with the windows got a mosquito-net.

These have been all important steps to ensure a properly safe production process in line with the EU regulations. I am pleased to start the work here soon…..!!! 😀

Ingredients

Well yesss, I believe so far this part of the job has been the most challenging! I enjoy the research of suppliers, products and every kind of information on the web and I think I am pretty good at finding things, but this has been hard work!!

It is not easy at all to find a company which has

• good quality
• can supply with the quantity you want
• and offers a reasonable price

After long months of searching, requesting samples and negotiation, today I have:

• the supplier of organic plant oils and butters: coconut, virgin olive oil, cocoa butter, castor oil
• a Hungarian supplier of cold-pressed plant oils
• three essential oil distilleries I will work with. Some essential oils I can buy from a Hungarian distillery. They plant, grow, harvest and process their own plants. The most I love their lavender and peppermint oils! 🙂
• I have found a Hungarian company, which is processing dried herbs and vegetables

Still to discover is a good and reliable supplier of French cosmetic clays. I have found a great company in France, but the minimum order quantity is 60 kgs at a price that is not convincing at all. I keep searching…

Kitchen Equipment

Beside the ingredients there is certain equipment, which I need to make the my products:

• Balance scales
• Thermometer
• Protection cloth, goggles, gloves
• Pots of different size
• Soap molds
• Soap cutter
• Shelves to store the soaps during the curing period
• Soap stamp
• Blender and
• other small kitchen equipment to process some ingredients: hand mill and juice press

With the appropriate equipment and the ingredients there I will produce high-quality, natural and handmade products. 🙂

 

 

 

All things samples

Today I have been finally wrapping the first product samples of my soaps.

Although, this packaging is still pretty far away from the one I am planning to use for my final products, I found it quite practical.

It is covering the whole soap bar protecting it from outside contamination like dust, etc. Besides, I believe it is also helping to prevent the fleeting of essential ois.

Four body soaps and three different facial soaps are going to be tested by friends, family members and some super helpful testers from around the world. 🙂

I am really looking forward to the feedbacks yupppiiiijeeee 🙂

Wishing you a great afternoon….!

Grapeseed body cleanser soap

Today I am showing you a body cleanser soap, which in contrary to the round-shaped facial cleansing bars is going to be rectangular. This should also help to distinguish my soap bars according to their area of application.

What is so special in the body cleanser formulas?

• These soap bars have lots of creamy lather
• gentle but still thouroughly cleansing
• unique and attractive essential oil blends for each and every taste
• entirely vegan formulas
• of course no animal testing, tests only on humans. 🙂

Grapeseed  body cleanser soap

This soap is made using high quality plant oils including olive, coconut oil, grapeseed oil and cocoa butter. I am using in this formula cold-pressed grapeseed oil made in Hungary, which is just amazingly rich! This oil has got a deep green color and a strong, almost vine-like scent. Simply perfect.

As you see, I have been testing here not only the scent but also the visual appearance of the soap. I decided on using French red clay to round up the looks: left hand side on the picture.h

I am a fan of juicy-flowerish scents. These are also the perfumes I have been always looking for and using for ages. Well, this essential oil blend is so natural and so divine. For me, it is love at first sniff. 🙂

Palmarosa: a great essential oil to treat dry skin

The essential oil of palmarosa is the main component in this blend. Palmarosa is a type of tropical grass native to India with a high content on volatile oils. It’s essential oil is extracted from the plant through steam distillation. Palmarosa has similar notes as rose essential oil. In the past, Turks had been blending palmarosa with the more expensive rose essential oil and some wholesalers intended to market this precious oil as rose essential oil – this led to a bad reputation of palmarosa.

But in case we look into the numerous benefits of palmarosa essential oil, we will see that it has more to offer than an attractive scent. Palmarosa is used to treat skin problems like eczema, boils and even acne. It is frequently used in skin care because of its moisturizing properties. This is one of my favourites to work with.

Essential oil blends

As always, I am searching for the best combination of skin benefits-color-and scent in each and every  product I am making.

In the case of cold-processed soaps finding the right essential oil blend is one of the main challenges! Too many of the most-loved natural scents like orange, lavender, lemon are evaporating very quickly. I have been trying out really a loooooot of essential oil blends until I found the ones that work in my soaps the best!

I think there are way too many natural products out there with just terrible scents. Each essential oil is of course very unique and we have to look into it, what we are blending together. I could run out of the world but would not buy a too grassy-scented natural cosmetic product! :S

A body lotion can be made out of first grade vegetable ingredients coming from organic farming but in case the scent is not finding it’s way to our heart, the product has no chance!

Luckily, a natural scent based exclusively on essential oils does not have to be too grassy and strange to wear!

I am very happy that I could develop some natural blends that remind me of real fragrances. We should not deny that the scent of a cosmetic product is really one of the most important decision making criteria.

Especially in the case of cold-processed soaps it is rather difficult to find a scent that is attractive and very importantly, which is not fleeting.

To me, these have been the main learnings in creating  a scent for a natural soap:

• citrus essential oils  are very fleeting in soap bars. The only way to have a lemon-like or orange soap is to combine these essential oils with others which fix this citrus scent in the soaps. I combine lemon or orange with lemongrass, litsea cubeba, bitter orange and/or geranium!
• lavender oil is not as badly fleeting as citrus oils but it vanishes also quite qucikly. In this case patchouli turned out to be a good fixative essential oil
• Interesting is also to blend essential oils according to the 30% 50% 20% “rule”: this should help you mixing pleasant scents that last long.
  • 30% top note like orange, lavender, lemon, spearmint, peppermint, citrus oils
  • 50% middle note: geranium, palmarosa, pepper, cinnamon, clove, ylang-ylang, tea-tree etc.
  • 20% base note: cedarwood, patchouli, vanilla, vetiver, sandalwood, myrrh, oakmoss etc.
• Base note essential oils take the longest to evaporate and turned out to be great fixatives in cold-processed soaps. I really very much like working with patchouli and cedarwood. I love them. ❤
• There is only one essential oil I definitely do not like working with: ylang-ylang. I am just no friend of it’s nauseously sweet tone. Pfff such is life

Especially, in case we would like to treat a specific skin condition, we have to look into the therapeutic benefits of essential oils.

Here are my favourite essential oils to treat different skin types:

• normal, sensitive skin: lavender, geranium, palmarosa, patchouli
• oily, combination skin: lavender, rosemary, bergamott, cedarwood, peppermint, patchouli, geranium, cypress
• problematic skin with akne: lavender, rosemary, cedarwood, patchouli, chamomile

 

 

 

 

 

How do you know… The skin type test

I think the most of us – at least us women 🙂 – know which skin type we have.

Nevertheless, it is always helpful to get a confirmation.

Now, I would like to give you a short summary of the most important characteristics that will help you identify the needs of your skin. Since I am no cosmetician I have collected relevant information out of the well-known Hungarian “Cosmetics Handbook” edited by dr. Imre Hajdú and written by acknowledged Hungarian chemical engineers and dermatologists.

To be able to identify your skin type I recommend cleaning your face as you usually do, let it regenarate it’s normal codition for 1-2 hours and then start a simple observation in front of the mirror.

Normal Skin

How do you know you have normal skin:

• your skin feels absolutely comfortable
• NO itching, no irritations, no dry patches
• NO greasy spots
• your skin has a soft shine & silky touch
• skin looks fresh – good circulation and elasticity
• clean pores, thanks to the ideal tallow-production

For the daily routine it is important to avoid too drying or greasy cosmetics. A light texture daily cream is ideal.

Dry skin

How do you know you have dry skin:

• pale skin tone
• rough touch
• dry, uncomfortable, tight feeling
• NO grease
• Skin particles are peeling off
• itching sensation
• turns red by cold weather

Your goal for the daily treatment should be to reduce irritation and refill your skin with fatty acids. Try to avoid cleansing your face too often with warm/hot water and cleansing agents. If you have dry skin you may have realized that using compact powder is not ideal since it can be very drying so go for a liquid cream-base make-up instead!

Oily Skin

How do you know you have oily skin?

• greasy surface
• shiny look all over the face
• several blackheads
• inflamed parts
• you have oily skin in case you need to rinse your face several times a day to avoid the excessive grease and you have to use compact powder to reduce shiny appearance

It might have several reasons that your skin is oily. It might be a hereditary condition. It might point out that your body is over-producing androgens. Or it is “simply” too much stress, bad eating habits, digestive problems or the use of harmful cosmetics.

Anyways, for your daily routine you will definitely need a good peeling and an adequate cleansing agent. Cleansing is the most important step in treating oily skin! Use cleansers that are antiseptic and astringent. After cleansing, it is also important to clean up the blackheads and inflamed comedos. Before doing so, a 10 minutes steaming is needed to soften up the skin. It is highly recommendable to visit a cosmetician at a regular basis to have your skin cleansed in a professional way.

Combination skin

How do you know you have combination skin?

• T-zone oilyness: forehead, nose, cheeks, chin
• big pores and blackheads in the T-Zone
• back of the cheeks is balanced, no greasy sensation
• oily and dry parts are mixed

For your daily routine it is important to clean your face regularly. Get rid off your make-up as soon as possible. Use a gentle peeling and a cleanser that is not too drying out nor too greasy. Use a light day cream to protect your skin.

For a successful treatment you need to aim at a balanced life: healthy eating, enough water, fitness.

I hope this helped. So I am off now doing a bit for my balanced daily routine = sport! 🙂

 

Verdana facial cleanser soap

In this blog I would like to share with you my experiences on creating cosmetic formulas.

This summer, I am starting my very first own business – yes, I believe there could be more to come, since I really enjoy the feeling of beeing FREE and responsible for every little piece of decision.

Today I am showing you a facial cleanser soap I am working on. In total,  I decided on developing three different facial cleansing soaps for the skin types:

• normal, dry and sensitive skins
• oily and combinations skin
• problematic akne skin

My formulas include three basic organic oils: olive oil, coconut oil and cocoa butter in different proportions. Depending on the effect I would like to reach, I am adding some additional vegetable oils in order to maximize the benefits.

The soap I am showing you today is made with French green montmorillonite clay. This fine green clay has skin strengthening properities. It has a high (over 40%) content on silica. It is great for treating oily and problematic skin.

I created this formula optimizing the effects of the different oils (olive, coconut, grapeseed and cocoa) so that the soap cleans gently without leaving the skin dry. I also have combination skin with some imperfections sometimes and I realised that many soap-base cleansers are rather harsh. They reduce the oily shining of the skin but leave it afterwards very dry. In my experience this leads to further irritation.

So that is why this soap includes lots of creamy cocoa butter and olive oil and should leave your skin clean and fresh without drying it fully out.

These are the most important aspects I aimed at during developing this facial soap:

• creamy lather
• gentle cleansing
• calming effect
• ideal oils combination for oily skin
• clean individual natural scent
• 100% vegan ingredients

These vegan ingredients are included in the recipe helping to treat oily skin:

• French montmorillonite clay (God, I really needed time to memorize how to write this word :))
• lots of olive oil
• cold-pressed grapeseed oil from Hungary
• bergamott essential oil

Here is a picture of the soap log I shot right at cutting:

I very-very much like the scent of this soap bar! First of all, I have been looking for essential oils with positive therapeutic effects for oily skin.

The result is a wonderful, almost perfume-like fresh and greeny scent. If you know the products of L’Occitane I would say, this scent could be really one of their perfumes. I am even more proud of this scent since I made it using exclusively 100% clean essential oils. Fragrance oils are really a NO GO in my products.

Would you like to test this soap with me?

I am making plenty of product tests nowadays. My goal is to offer the best possible product in terms of skin benefit, consistence, shape and scent.

In case you would like to join me and would like to test this soap, leave me a comment here. I still have 1-2 pieces available. The rest of the bars are going on carefully pre-nominated testing professionals like my fiancé, sister, family members and friends. 🙂

 

Let’s start it!

Hello there! Come and follow me on my journey, where we can make together lovely soaps, think about packaging, develop new formulas and learn a bit about the background of running a business.

My name is Márti. I am sharing here my experiences on starting an own business. I would like to share with you my passion for natural cosmetics, beautiful scents, the benefits of vegan cosmetic ingredients and a lot more.

I believe there are a lot of us out there, who are interested in going on our own way and making a difference in the world.

Well, we must dare the first step! Take a deep breath, evaluate your situation and JUMP!!!

Thank you for joining me.