Happy (nearly) Halloween! Have you inserted pumpkin into your product lines? Are you ingesting pumpkin, spices, and all things orange for the season? Are you layering chai lip balm over your pumpkin seed oil-based sugar scrub and pumpkin body butter? How about registering for the 2015 HSCG conference? [cue record scratch and music coming to a screeching halt] Just like carved pumpkins are being thrown out post-Halloween festivities, early-early bird discounts fly out the window October 31st at 1pm Pacific and 4pm Eastern time.
With that out of the way, we wanted to let you in on some of the soap-related sessions in store for you at the 2015 annual Handcrafted Soap and Cosmetic Guild conference. This is, after all, a soap and cosmetic guild, so we couldn’t leave soap classes off the menu.
Arianne Arsenault, owner of La Fille de la Mer , will show you how to take it to the next level in Melt and Pour Like a Pro. Master layering and embedding in large batches as well as prepping all that soap for retail.
Erica Pence, founder and CEO of Bath Alchemy Lab, will be teaching all the basic soap swirls in Swirling Made Easy and building on it with a discussion of tools, soap consistency, and techniques like the hidden feathers, nonpareils, peacocks, butterflies, and zebra stripes in Advanced Swirling Made Easy.
Sharon Czekala, founder and owner of The Great Lakes Natural Soap Company, will help you understand why combining soap methods can take your soap to the next level – and help you overcome process limitations in Hybrid Soaps: The Best of Both Worlds.
In Soaping for the Specialized Customer, Soaping101.com’s Catherine McGinnis will teach you how to tap into new markets by serving customers with allergies and ingredient sensitivities, as well as those who are socially and economically conscious.
Topic not yet announced, but Guild soap whisperer and Hampden-Sydney College Elliott Professor of Chemistry Dr. Kevin Dunn never disappoints. Past topics include investigations on milk and silk in soap, dreaded orange spots, gelling, partial saponification, water discounts, and effects of time and temperature on soapmaking.
Check out the newly released schedule as well as all of the speakers and topics planned for this conference from the embedded links or from the 2015 conference pages on the HSCG website.
Can’t wait to get our soap on with you next year in Indy! Calling all soapers, did you learn something new about soapmaking this year?
One Comment on “2015 Conference: Soap Highlights”
I’m new to soap making