Tutorials on soapmaking, bath fizzies, lotions and more
This week featured plenty of green and gold inspiration for St. Patrick’s Day. The Celtic Melt and Pour Soap is made with Evergreen Mica. The shimmery evergreen soap is piped into the details of the Celtic Combo Limited Edition Mold for a festive look. To go with the green theme, the soap is scented with Green Tea and Cucumber Fragrance Oil. It’s perfect for St. Patrick’s Day gifts or party favors.
Vivid hues can be achieved with all natural colorants. In fact, you can create just about every color in the rainbow! For this Natural Rainbow Cold Process Soap, I used six colorants in the Natural Colorants Sampler Pack to create layers of red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple. This soap is fragranced with a combination of lime and lemongrass essential oil for a scent that’s as bright as the layers.
For this project, I added the majority of the colorants directly to the soap batter. The one exception was annatto seed. I made an infusion with the seeds and used the infused oils to create the orange and yellow hues. To help the colors really pop, I recommend soaping at slightly higher temperatures (around 120-130° F) to help the soap go through a complete gel phase. I also recommend insulating the soap, and placing it on a heating pad if your room temperature is on the cooler side. Gel phase really helps natural colors pop! Click here to read more about gel phase, and when to insulate your soap.
The drawback of natural colorants is they do tend to fade with time. These photos were taken about one week after cutting. The colors have faded slightly since then, but are still quite vivid. To help prevent the colors from fading, be sure to keep your bars out of direct sunlight. If you’ve never used natural colorants before, check out the Sunday Night Spotlight on natural colorants here. My new book, Pure Soapmaking, is also full of information on natural colorants, including how to infuse them and what they look like after they fade.
UPDATE 7/6/2016: Below is a photo of the soap about 5 months after unmolding. As you can see, some of the colors have faded slightly. Specifically, the green shade has faded the most. This soap was stored in a dry, cool and dark place. Most of the colors still look quite vivid!
The most fundamental way that cold process soap can be customized is by using various combinations of soapmaking oils and butters. Each oil contributes something different to the final bar. For example, coconut oil is known for giving soap cleansing properties with a large fluffy lather. Olive oil, on the other hand, is not very cleansing, but is gentle on the skin. Using different combinations of oils at different usage rates will greatly affect the finished product. If you’d like to learn more about the properties of each soapmaking oil, check out this blog post.
Cold process soap can be made with only one oil, such as castile soap, which usually refers to soap made with 100% olive oil. Soap made with 100% olive oil is extremely gentle, but the lather is very minimal and it may initially be a softer bar. When soap is only made with one oil it may not be the most balanced bar. By adding coconut oil to the recipe, you give the bar cleansing properties. Each oil contributes something different to create a more balanced bar; this is why most cold process recipes are made with 3-6 different oils and butters. Check out the Formulating Cold Process Recipe post for more information on creating recipes, and the How to Substitute Oil in Cold Process Recipes post to learn how to swap them in existing recipes.
To take a closer look at how various oils and butters change the final bar, I created twelve bars made with 100% of one oil. Then, I let the soaps cure for a full six weeks. After they were done curing, I tested their lather. I also took note of how hard the bar was, how my skin felt after use and any other interesting characteristic.
Green is one of my favorite colors for decor and crafts. This might be evident by the number of green tutorials here on the blog. From the lime green shown in the Lime in the Coconut Cold Process, to the soft green in the Creamy Cucumber Lotion, there is a shade for every project. With St. Patrick’s Day just a few weeks away, now is the time to get crafting with green. These Celtic Melt and Pour Bars use Evergreen Mica to create beautiful Celtic-inspired designs. The Celtic Combo Limited Edition Mold used in this project creates four unique designs that are perfect for the holiday.
The first step of this project is filling the details in each cavity with highly pigmented soap using the Injector Tool. This process does take some patience and a steady hand. I highly recommend having a spray bottle of 99% isopropyl alcohol nearby. I like to spray the mold lightly with alcohol immediately before filling in the details. The alcohol helps the melted soap spread easily into the small cavities. Then spray with alcohol immediately after to help disperse any bubbles.
Temperature is also key in this project. After filling in the details, allow the green soap to fully cool and harden. Once you’re ready to pour the white soap on top, be careful that it’s not too hot. If the soap is much hotter than 130 ° F, it will melt the green pattern. Patience is key! To read more about temperature in melt and pour soap, check out the How to Avoid Burnt Melt & Pour blog post.
Preston and Tyler of Sudz by Studz create and sell gorgeous cold process soap, lotion and balms in Sacramento, California. I met Preston at the Central Soapers Workshop last year, where he gave an engaging talk on Instagram and business. I was impressed and inspired by his passion for the industry. Tyler and Preston recently started a clever monthly subscription box called “Soap of the Month,” where customers can receive a bar of limited edition cold process soap. Read the interview with Preston and Tyler below to learn more about their soaping journey and tips for those just starting out. -A.M.
Sudz by Studz’s beautiful Gingerlee soap.
How long have you been soaping for and how did you get started?
As of this month, we’ve been soaping for three years. Our journey as soapmakers started shortly after we took a course on cold process soap making. At the time, Stud Preston was getting ready to graduate with a degree in philosophy and Stud Tyler had just moved back to Sacramento after having been on NBC’s The Voice and living in LA. We found that making soap was an enigmatic process; it combined art and chemistry in the most cathartic way, so we knew it had to become a mainstay in our lives. Consequently, we ordered $200 worth of supplies to start and became super addicted. Our newfound hobby was overrunning our lives, and outgrowing our studio apartment, so we decided to turn it in to a business.
Preston and Tyler work together to create their beautiful products.
With St. Patrick’s Day less than a month away, it’s time to break out the green colorants and get crafting. It’s also a great time to get inspired by shades of gold and rainbow color schemes. If you’re looking for a little St. Patrick’s Day inspiration, look no further. We’ve got tons of fun green tutorials and projects for all levels of crafters.
The Luck of the Irish Hot Process Soap features a beautiful ombré effect.
One of my favorite green inspired projects is the Luck of the Irish Hot Process Soap. This tutorial uses the hot process method of soaping to create four layers of green soap. Each layer gets a little lighter to create an ombré effect. A thin layer of Gold Sparkle Mica is applied between each layer of green, and is also sprinkled on top. It’s scented with Kentish Rain Fragrance Oil for a fresh and clean smell. It’s a great option if you’d like to use your soap by St. Patrick’s Day, because the hot process method speeds up cure time. Looking for more green hot process projects? You can see the process in action in the Lemongrass and Lavender Hot Process video on Soap Queen TV below.
If you don’t mind your soap not being fully cured by St. Patrick’s Day, check out the Shamrock Cold Process project. It uses the Four Leaf Clover Stamp to accent the gold and green color scheme. It’s scented with Raspberry Porter Fragrance Oil, which is a crisp and fruity take on a traditional beer scent. To cut down on cure time, you could do a water discount. Learn more about water discounting cold process soap here.
The Shamrock Cold Process Soap uses a green and gold color combo and features a clover stamp.
If you love green but don’t want your soap to scream St. Patrick’s Day, the Exfoliating Green Tea Bars are super sophisticated. They are made with green tea instead of water, and also contain green tea extract. They are scented with Green Tea Fragrance Oil. If you want to give milk soap a try, the Lime in the Coconut Milk Cold Process Soaps uses coconut milk powder for extra moisture. Can’t get enough sparkle? The Emerald Swirl Cold Process Soap features a King’s Gold Mica painting and shimmery green embeds.
Top, clockwise: Exfoliating Green Tea Bars, Emerald Swirl Cold Process Soap, Lime in the Coconut Milk Cold Process Soaps
If you’d like your project to be ready to use and give to friends and family on St. Patrick’s Day, melt and pour is the way to go. In the Green Meadow Melt and Pour, shavings of green melt and pour soap are embedded to give the bars a confetti look. If you prefer something more natural, the Star Anise Melt and Pour Bars use spirulina powder and green zeolite clay for a soft mint tint. The same combination of natural colorants is also used in the Minty Clay Melt and Pour Bars to create contrasting layers. In the Reimagining Honey Ale Soap, honey melt and pour base is fragranced with Honey Ale Fragrance Oil to make a beer inspired soap that’s perfect for St. Patrick’s Day.
Top left, clockwise: Green Meadow Melt and Pour, Star Anise Melt and Pour Bars, Reimagining Honey Ale Soap, Minty Clay Melt and Pour Bars
If you’re looking for an easier green project, the Anti-Pinch Nail Polish is a great way to avoid any pinchy fingers. Nail polish is super fun and easy to make; learn how in this Soap Queen TV video. The Basic Lotion Base makes it easy to create and customize your own unique lotion. In the Creamy Cucumber Lotion DIY, a small amount of Emerald LabColor and Kermit Green Mica is added to the base to give a soft green hue.
Left to right: Anti-Pinch Nail Polish, Easy Creamy Cucumber Lotion DIY
What are you making for St. Patrick’s Day? If you’ve made a green inspired project, I would love to see it. You can upload a photo on the Bramble Berry Facebook Page, tweet the image @brambleberry or post a photo on Instagram with the tag #SoapShare! Can’t wait to see them. =)
Happy weekend everybody! The past few days have been fairly rainy and wet here in Bellingham, to nobody’s surprise. But the days are getting longer and the nights are warmer so signs of spring are popping up. Last weekend we had a few days of sun, so the family took advantage of the weather with an afternoon trip to a Bellingham beach. Below, Jamisen and Lily soak up some sun. Between Jamisen’s inquisitive pose and Lily lounging on the rocks, this photo just cracks me up. =)
Next week be on the lookout for a St. Patrick’s Day melt and pour project, along with another natural cold process soap. In the meantime, check out the soapy inspiration below from Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter.
Left to right, clockwise:
Instagram:
This week there was a lot of green projects. Below is a melt and pour project created with a Celtic Combination mold that will be available soon. The mold includes four cavities featuring different designs. I used an injector tool to fill the details with Evergreen Mica colored soap.
Evergreen Mica also works great in cold process soap. Below is a cold process spin swirl using Evergreen Mica, Kermit Green Mica, Titanium Dioxide and Black Oxide in the 9 Bar Birchwood Mold. We are planning on making this project into a Soap Queen TV video.
I hope you’re having an awesome weekend.To keep up with soapy social media throughout the week, you can follow me on Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, Pinterest, Vine and YouTube and Snapchat. I’m Bramble-Berry on Snapchat. Don’t forget to tag your soapy projects on Instagram with the hashtag #SoapShare and #PureSoapMaking so I can see what you’re making! =)
This week was all about new products and techniques. For instance, French green clay, nettle leaf and comfrey leaf were recently added to the Bramble Berry line. Natural colorants look great in soap and other products. If you’d like to give them a try, the Natural Colorants Sampler Pack is the perfect way to do so. There are also new mica sampler packs, including the Green Mica Sampler Pack, Purple Mica Sampler Pack, Blue Mica Sampler Pack and the Rainbow Mica Sampler Pack. Click through the New at Bramble Berry post to see all the recent additions. You can always find new Bramble Berry Products by clicking the “What’s New” button at the top of the homepage, or click here.
Of all the alternative liquids to make cold process soap with, beer may be one of the most popular. The natural sugars in beer add lather to the final bar, and are great from a marketing standpoint. If you’re a beer fan, who wouldn’t want to bathe with their favorite brew? For these Charcoal and Cedar Stout Bars, I teamed up with a local brewery, Wander Brewing. Wander is just a few blocks away from the Bramble Berry warehouse and is popular in the Bellingham community. I used their rich Correspondent Foreign Extra Stout for this project, and it served as the perfect base for these woodsy bars.
If you’ve never made cold process soap with beer before, it does require some extra prep. First, the alcohol and carbonation in beer needs to be boiled out for 10-15 minutes. Then, the beer needs to thoroughly cool before the lye can be added. Some soapers prefer to freeze the boiled beer and add the lye directly to the frozen beer to keep temperatures cool. If you’d like to read more about using alcoholic beverages in your cold process soap, check out this blog post.
For this project, activated charcoal and titanium dioxide are used to create a rich contrasting swirl. Due to the amount of charcoal, the lather of these bars is slightly gray, but I think they are worth it. You can always lessen the amount of charcoal to do away with the gray lather. =) The blend of cedarwood essential oil and fir needle essential oil is incredibly earthy and masculine. To help combat the acceleration that alcoholic beverages can cause in cold process soap, this recipe is palm oil free. To give the bars hardness, I added cocoa butter and coffee butter. Despite the butters, this is a soft recipe and will require extra time in the mold. I highly recommend using sodium lactate in this recipe to help the bars firm up in a timely manner.
If you can’t get your hands on some of Wander’s wonderful beer, any stout beer will work well. You can also use a lighter beer such as a pale ale. If you use a lighter beer for this project, the tan/creamy shade in the soap may be a bit lighter. Or, if you want to skip the beer all together you certainly can; simply use distilled water and soap as normal.
Photo by Lara Ferroni
To prepare sodium hydroxide lye for soapmaking, it needs to be dissolved in some type of liquid. The dissolved lye solution is then emulsified with oils to create soap. Distilled water is usually the liquid of choice for dissolving lye. But, some soapers prefer to use other liquids such as milk, tea or alcoholic beverages. Using alternative liquids (anything other than distilled water) in cold process soap is an intermediate to advanced soaping technique. It requires a few extra steps to prep and can affect other aspects of the soaping process.
One of the most popular types of alternative liquids for cold process soap is alcoholic beverages. This includes beer, wine and champagne. These liquids contain sugar, which give the soap a stable and fluffy lather. Alcoholic beverages can also give the soap color and are great from a marketing standpoint. Some alcoholic beverages do contain beneficial properties like antioxidants, but it is debatable whether these properties make it through the saponification process.
Making soap with alcoholic beverages poses a few challenges. They contain sugar that becomes very hot when mixed with sodium hydroxide lye. This turns the liquid a deep color due to the sugars scorching and can cause an unpleasant aroma. In addition to sugar, alcoholic beverages contain...you guessed it! Alcohol. Alcohol and the saponifcation process don’t mix very well. In addition, many alcoholic beverages such as beer and champagne are carbonated. Carbonation and the saponification process don’t mix very well either.
If you’ve ordered from Bramble Berry recently, you may have noticed that something looks a little different. Can’t put your finger on it? The Bramble Berry product labels have been redesigned! We had the previous labels for approximately 12 years, so it was definitely time for an update. The new labels have a modern and clean look. In addition to an updated aesthetic, the redesign also improves the function. Labels now include more information about the product to make crafting a little easier. =)
Bramble Berry has new labels on every product! The new labels include more product information and a clean design.
It’s still hard to believe that my new book, Pure Soapmaking, is finally here. The book has been such a labor of love for more than two years; to finally hold it in my hands is incredibly exciting. Even more exciting is seeing other soapers with the book! It’s been an affirmation (and, a relief!) to hear all the positive feedback. Thank you all so much for the support. =)
Now that the book has been out for several weeks, I have begun to reflect on the process of creating the book. If you’ve ever thought about writing a book, let me tell you…it’s a lot of work. Fun? Absolutely. It’s a fun and rewarding gift to share your passion and knowledge with others. But, creating a book requires an insane amount of time and resources. I was lucky to have access to both during the writing process. My Bramble Berry team and family helped me find time to work on the book. They also were invaluable in assisting me with recipes and other aspects of the testing process. It takes a village to create, photograph & lay-out 32, fully-tested, cold process projects!
The first step in writing this book was creating a book proposal for the publishing company, Storey Publishing. This is essentially an overview of what information the book will contain. Below, you can see a few pages of the original 2013 proposal, including the cover page and an overview of some of the chapters. After sending in the proposal to the editors, we began to work on the framework of the book and what information it should contain. A lot of the proposed topics made it into the book, while some did not. This is another reason why having input during the writing process is important. Talking about these topics and how they should be organized with soapers and non-soapers helped to lay out the book in the most cohesive way.
There are lots of new things at Bramble Berry right now. The website received an update, along with the product labels (look for a post on those soon!) We also have plenty of new soapy products. Of course one of my new favorite products right now is my new book, Pure Soapmaking. There is still time to post a selfie with the book on Instagram or Twitter for a chance to win ten $25 Bramble Berry gift certificates. Tomorrow is the last day to enter, so don’t wait. I love seeing all the entries so far, see some of them here. Then, pick up your copy of the book here.
The Pure Soapmaking book uses natural colorants, such as rose clay, spirulina powder and indigo power. If you have never worked with natural colorants before, the new Natural Colorants Sampler Pack is a great way to give them a try. The pack includes .2 ounces of nine natural colorants. The pack was specifically designed so you can create a natural rainbow effect in your cold process soap, as shown below on the right. Look for that tutorial soon.
The Natural Colorant Sampler Pack includes nine natural colorants that can be used to make the rainbow soap shown on the right.
Happy weekend everyone! Yesterday I had a Pure Soapmaking book signing at Village Books, and it was so fun to meet fellow soapers. Thanks to everybody who came. If you have your copy of the book, there is still time to enter to win one of ten $25 Bramble Berry gift certificates. Simply post a selfie with the book on Twitter or Instagram and use the tag #PureSoapmaking. The contest ends on February 15th, so don’t wait.
It’s kind of hard to believe that tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. Time has been flying this year. The good news is there is still time to bid on the items in the Lovin’ Soap Project Auction. All proceeds go to the Lovin’ Soap Project, which helps improve the lives of women and girls through health, education, soapmaking, etc. This year we donated a signed copy of Pure Soapmaking and the Annatto and Yarrow Cold Process Kit. I highly recommend checking the auction out – it benefits an amazing organization. If you’re looking for some love inspired projects, check out my favorite pins below. There are some great last minute gift ideas.
Top left to right, clockwise:
Instagram:
I will be shooting several Soap Queen TV videos in the beginning of March. To make sure the projects work perfectly, they are tested a few times. Below is a blue ombré cold process project that’s in the works. It’s scented with Bonsai Fragrance Oil for a crisp and unisex scent.
In addition to Soap Queen TV projects, I’ve also started working on projects for spring. Below are cold process sunflowers, made in this cute Sunflower Mold. It’s scented with a new fragrance oil that will be released soon! Hint: it smells sunny. =)
Katch:
Katch is a website that allows you to save Periscope videos. Check out my channel here, and find me on Periscope (username: brambleberry) to see the videos live. Earlier this week, I tested a spin swirl cold process project for Soap Queen TV. The spin swirl is a tricky technique, because the texture of the soap needs to be absolutely perfect. I’m so happy with how it turned out. What do you think, would you like to see this project on Soap Queen TV?
To keep up with the latest soapy social media throughout the week, you can follow me on Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, Pinterest, Vine and YouTube and Snapchat. To watch my ‘stories’, which include sneak peeks into future projects, add me. I’m Bramble-Berry on Snapchat. Don’t forget to tag your soapy projects on Instagram with the hashtag #SoapShare so I can see what you’re making! =)
