Guest post by Kat from Otion
What better way to celebrate the end of the week than to see some of our newest fragrances arrive at Otion!
Blue Man is Bramble Berry’s strongly inspired version of of the popular men’s cologne, Aquolina Blue Sugar. The base note of Black Patchouli blends perfectly with Orange Peel, Sparkling Mandarin, Coriander Leaves, Star Anise and Venezuela Tonka. It’s surprisingly sweet and majorly masculine. Discolors to a light brown and does great in cold process.
I made a little melt-and-pour project for our display at Otion by cutting out little guys out of opaque soap with an exacto knife and embedding them in clear base with brilliant blue labcolor. The man in the middle sitting down worked the best because he’s actually blue from pouring a blue layer down first before setting him in there.
When the heat from the clear base hit the man cut-out, it created this really whimsical swirl in the soap while it set up!
Below are the little guys waiting to get blue. Even after chopping a bit off his legs, I still couldn’t get the little hat on the third one to fit in my mold.
This was really fun and opens the door to all sorts of cut-out ideas. Have fun and remember that you can easily cut any design you’d like with an exacto knife, a thin layer of soap and some patience. Oh, and some cardboard underneath to protect your table.
these are awesome!!
You DID?! Congratulations!!! That is soooooooo exciting. I am starting month 7 tomorrow so getting much closer *yay*. We just shot SoapQueen.TV today and I am about **done** on my feet – lower back hates me right now. LOL!
Keep me posted on the soap and the fragrance and the clouding. I totally will test anything/everything/any combo you have if it’s a BB combo and I have it on hand. Clouding is not a normal thing in my experience so anything I can do to help, just let me know.
And congrats on your new little one =)
A-M
Shame on me, I hadn’t thought about the base I’m using. It very well could be that. I’ll try out some different ones, and see what happens. I’ll let you know what I find out when I do. Might be a while though, I just had a baby 3 weeks ago 🙂
P.S. You are looking great so far!
Agreed. I bet a chocolate chilling tray like they use in large chocolate operations would do the trick …
I wish there was some way to flash freeze that swirl phase…very very cool looking!
Which fragrance and what type of base are you using? I’ll see if I can re create the problem and trouble shoot. :))
Happy Soaping!
Anne-Marie
http://www.brambleberry.com
Blog: http://www.soapqueen.com
I use the VCS in a 1 to 1 ratio, like in the Soap queen video. Those are the directions I have been following. It keeps the soap from turning brown, but because it gets cloudy, or semi-opaque, I can not use it for any designs that use a clear layer or embeds. Is there some little trick I’m missing?
Ha! Good one!
You can always “trace” using a piece of paper too – so literally put the
piece of paper on top of the soap and trace around the shape you want.
That’s the easy way to do it =)
It turned out pretty cute, huh? =)
Thanks =) It’s a fun fragrance to play with.
Very cool!
Oh!! really cool! :)))
If only I had your exacto skills 🙂
I’ve never noticed that VCS makes anything cloudy. Tell me more? Like usage rates or experiences with it?
If this fragrance oil discolors to a brown, how do you keep it blue and not cloudy. I have used vanilla stabilizer from Bramble Berry, but it always makes clear soap cloudy. Is there any way around this problem?
Cool (or should I say…smokin’?)!