Search Results for: alcohol

Embedded Ducky Soap – Project Instructions

January 20, 2008 Filed Under: Melt & Pour Soap

Big thanks to Nicole in Customer Service for coming up with this swell idea. Isn’t she creative?

Embedded Ducky Soap

What you’ll need:

Microwave safe glass, like a Pyrex container

Bramble Berry Ducky Soap Mold (S.W., in MA wrote us to say: “I wanted to tell you how happy I am with my Duck Molds. They made the perfect children’s soap, and the Pearberry the perfect scent. I work with CP soap, the molds were beautiful but not too detailed so that I would worry about air bubbles (no tapping). Made them yesterday and woke up to beautiful pearberry ducks. Everybody wants them.”)

Saran Wrap

Spritzer bottle filled w/ rubbing alcohol

Colorant (optional – we recommend water-based Labcolors)

Fragrance oil (check to make sure it’s not a yellowing fragrance)

Mini Ribber Ducky (or really, any small toy will work!)

Cut melt and pour soap into 1” cubes and put into microwave safe container (about 5oz should be enough for one bar). Cover with saran wrap and microwave for 30 second intervals until soap is melted. Be careful not to boil the soap – boiled soap smells bad and is more prone to glycerin dew.
Stir in the fragrance oil (remember to test for yellowing; the goal is to get a fragrance that stays water-white clear)
Pour the still clear soap into your mold until the cavity is about 2/3 of the way full
Spritz with alcohol to pop any bubbles in the soap
Get your rubber ducky (or other toy) spray it with alcohol on all sides and place into the melted soap
1. If your toy is floating to the top of the bar you can wait a minute until the soap thickens and then gently press it into the soap

6. Let the soap sit for a few minutes until there is a skin on top that is semi-stiff when touched

Take the rest of the melt and pour soap (pop back in the microwave if needed) and add color. Stir until color is mixed through
Spritz the top of hardened 2/3 full bar of soap with your alcohol
Make sure that your colored melt and pour is not too hot (it is not steaming and you can comfortably press and hold your hand against the bottom of the container)
Pour the colored melt and pour over the bar of soap, filling the mold up the rest of the way
Give the bar one final spray to pop any bubbles
Let your bar sit and harden for a few hours before removing (the longer you wait the easier it will be to remove from the mold)
Voila! You have a nice bar of soap with a fun toy waiting inside!

More Celebration Soap Options

January 14, 2008 Filed Under: Personal Ramblings

If you missed the Celebration Soap, click here to recap this easy project.

The photo below shows a common issue when embedding objects in melt and pour. Sometimes air bubbles will catch under the wide, flat surface of the embedding soap. If the air bubbles are trapped between the mold and the soap, a bubble will form. The soap isn’t ruined. It’s just not … perfect.

To escape this not-perfect look, first spritz your embedding object with alcohol. Next, add your embedded goodies at a slant. This allows the air bubbles to slide up the side of the hardened soap, leaving your surface smooth and unpocked.

Another pesky issue with the Celebration Soap sinking glitter. Unless the soap is very viscous, it will not support the weight of the glitter. This leaves a very top-loaded glitter star. A solution for this is to pour the soap in the mold, wait 30 seconds and then sprinkle glitter on the backs of all of the bars. The slight surface tension in the soap will support the glitter, leaving both the tops and bottom of the soap densely glittered and shiny.

The soap on the left utilizes the same method as the clear Celebration Soap but uses a white overpour instead. One of the features that makes melt and pour soap so artistic and creative is the ease of design options. Just by changing one color, there’s an entirely new design of soap!

Look for more soap combinations and final photos later this week.

Celebration Soap Project – Instructions

January 11, 2008 Filed Under: Bath & Body Tutorials, Melt & Pour Soap

As promised in the KVOS post, here are instructions for making Celebration Soap. I’ll post photos and a description of the final Vocation Vacation day (including the amazing exploding microwave mess) tomorrow.

This is a simple project, suitable for children and soapmakers of all skill levels. You’ll need the following supplies to make Celebration Soap:

clear melt and pour
white melt and pour
(non-bleeding) blue liquid pigment
Champagne fragrance oil
Milky Way Oval Mold
Silver Glitter
Rubber Star Mold
Pyrex container
Spoons
Rubbing Alcohol in a spritzer bottle

Part One – Make the Stars

1. Melt 4 ounces white melt and pour soap in the microwave
2. Add 2 drops of non-bleeding blue color
3. Stir well.
4. Pour into Molds
5. Spritz with alcohol (to break up bubbles)
6. Wait 45 minutes before popping out stars

Part Two – Overpour

1. Melt 14 ounces of clear melt and pour soap in the microwave
2. Add 1/2 teaspoon of silver glitter
3. Stir Well
4. Keep stirring.
5. Stop stirring for 30 seconds. Observe the glitter. If it is sinking to the bottom of your glass, keep stirring. The goal is to suspend the glitter. This requires the soap to be of a medium viscosity, dense enough to support the large particles of sparkle.
6. Add .3-.5 ounces of Champagne fragrance
7. Carefully lay the stars down on the bottom of the mold.
8. Pour in clear silver glitter soap, over the stars.
9. Spray a finishing spritz of rubbing alcohol on the soap to ensure that all bubbles are dissipated.

I’ll cover some variations on the Celebration Soap over the next few days so you can use your new soap molds with different (and easy!) color combinations.

Final Photos & Instructions for Jelly Roll Soaps

December 16, 2007 Filed Under: Melt & Pour Soap

Click here for Day One, Day Two, Day Three, Day Three-point-Five Rolling Video, Day Four instructions for more information on the abbreviated instructions below.

Instructions for Jelly Rolls

1. Melt 5 ounces of melt and pour soap in the microwave. Bramble Berry soap takes one 35 second melt & stir, plus another 20 second melt & stir for 5 ounces of soap to melt.

2. Add fragrance and color and stir well. Add .5 ounces of Liquid Glycerin to this mixture. Stir well.

3. Pour mixture into the 9 x 9 silicone baking pan. Spritz layer with Rubbing Alcohol to get rid of excess bubbles.

4. Allow to harden for approximately 10 minutes or until a very thick skin, capable of supporting another layer, has formed.

Repeat 1 – 4 until there are 4 or 5 layers.

Pop out the entire block of soap. With a firm grip, quickly start to roll the soap up. Massage the soap into a tighter roll. Let the soap sit for three to five minutes and cut gently with a sharp knife.

Let the soap sit overnight before wrapping. This allows the layers to fully adhere to each other and excess moisture to evaporate from the soap.

That’s it! You’re done. You’ll make 18 (or so) adorable, cute, oh-so-complicated-looking soaps in 30 minutes or less.

Jelly Rolls! Jelly Rolls! Day Two (Video)

December 11, 2007 Filed Under: Melt & Pour Soap

Below is the first layer for our Jelly Roll Soap. It is colored with Lavender Mica and Liquid Violet Colorant in clear melt and pour soap. It reminds me of a delicious vat of molten blueberry taffy.

The secret to successful Jelly Rolls is 2-fold – timing and 10% liquid glycerin addition to melted soap. Add 10% liquid glycerin to your melted soap base along with the fragrance and color for each layer.

There is approximately 3/4 of a teaspoon of Super Pearly White Mica in 8 ounces of melted soap. It is overkill to use this much mica. The same density of color could have been achieved with half of that amount.
Note: The Sparkle Violet Mica previously used in this recipe will be discontinued when supplies run out. You can use Super Pearly White Mica instead.

Alcohol is essential for mixing in the mica. The mica tends to ball up on the surface of the soap, similar to how hot chocolate clumps when you’re making hot chocolate. As you can see in the photo below, there’s a large mica bubble that is stubbornly refusing the mix in.

The video below shows the magic of Isopropyl Rubbing) Alcohol to break up mica bubbles by breaking the surface tension of the soap. The video quality is poor but it should get the point across (sorry, I was stirring while trying to hold the camera and spritz with mica at the same time).

Check back tomorrow for more on how to make Jelly Roll Soap!

Jelly Rolls! Jelly Rolls! Day One

December 10, 2007 Filed Under: Melt & Pour Soap

Making Jelly Rolls with melt and pour soap is easy, fast and fun! The Jelly Rolls are the soap on the far left and far right (bottom). This tutorial will focus on how to make Jelly Rolls out of melt and pour soap. The project takes about 30 minutes to complete and requires singular purpose (no multitasking) to ensure success.

The set up is simple:

White Melt and Pour
Clear Melt and Pour
Non-Bleeding Colorant
Fragrance or Essential Oil
Flexible 9 x 9 pan
Rubbing Alcohol
Liquid Glycerin

This is a silicone baking pan, commonly used for making cakes. It has a higher purpose – soap. You can buy one from Bramble Berry here or try and find one at a local high end cooking store. Glass pans are virtually impossible to get the soap out of.

Once all the ingredients are prepared, cut the first layer’s worth of soap into smallish blocks – the size of a domino or so.The smaller surface area of the soap allows for a more smooth even melt. In my microwave, eight ounces of the Bramble Berry soap brand of base melts perfectly in one 45 second melt, stir a few times, and then an additional 30 seconds.

Shorter microwave spurts are better than one long melt. Boiled soap smells badly and will not roll when needed.

Check back tomorrow for coloring and layering timing tricks.

Recipe for Oatmeal Melt and Pour Soap

October 28, 2007 Filed Under: Melt & Pour Soap

honey, nut, oatmeal soap

Oatmeal Melt and Pour Soap Recipe

(1) Melt 8 oz. of white/opaque base

(2) Melt 8 oz. of clear base

(3) Optional: Grind up 1/2 oz. of Oatmeal in coffee grinder for a smoother, lighter exfoliation. Also, the smaller the particle, the easier to suspend in the soap.

(4) Combine the two bases

(5) Add your fragrance oil – approximately 1/2 oz. (Oatmeal, Milk and Honey is a good one!) and stir in well

(6) Optional: Add colorant

(7) Add the oatmeal and stir. Wait 20 or 30 seconds – is the oatmeal sinking to the bottom of your bowl/Pyrex or is it staying suspended. If it is staying suspended, skip to step 8

(8) If the oatmeal is sinking, this simply means that your base is not thick enough to support the oatmeal. Either cover the bowl/Pyrex with saran wrap and wait for the base to cool, or stir the melted base until it is becomes thick enough to suspend the oatmeal.

(9) Pour your oatmeal soap into molds

(10) Spritz with alcohol to finish the soap and break up any bubbles on the top of the soap

(11) Wait 2 to 3 hours (or even better, overnight!) to pop the soap out of the molds. Wrap with saran wrap and you’re done!

Making Skin Firming Cream

October 13, 2007 Filed Under: Lotion

Crothix has skin firming properties (at least according to the hype). We have a recipe submitted by a reader at TeachSoap.com. It’s meant to help firm skin because of the addition of Crothix. Bramble Berry customer, Jo H. wrote because she was having some problems with the recipe. Since we couldn’t diagnose the problem via email, we decided to make the recipe ourselves.

Here’s all the items set out, ready to make some skin firming lotion!

The recipe that Teach Soap has posted:

Distilled Water 13 oz.
Glycerin .5 oz.
Emulsifying Wax or Ceteryl Alcohol 1 oz.
CroThix .7 oz.
Jojoba Oil .6 oz.
Germaben II or Phenonip .16 oz.
Fragrance or Essential Oil .16 – .50 oz.

I modified it and used only 10 oz. of water since Jo said her recipe was turning out watery and runny.
Directions: Put the oils and waxes in one container and melt thoroughly. Heat the glycerin and water in another container. The ideal temperature is about 170 degrees.

Once the products are completely melted, add the oils and waxes to the heated water and glycerin. The product will start to emulsify immediately and turn white.
In my experiment, the waxes started to harden up far too quickly. The waxes got clumpy and started being difficult. The waters and oils started separating. Maybe this is what happened to Jo H. as well(?). I tossed the entire recipe into the microwave for 30 seconds and then straight into the blender. Notice the water at the bottom and the waxes and oils at the top.

A quick blend of the blender solved that problem! The creme thickened up immediately! There is a lot of water is in the batch. The emulsification system of Crothix and E-W ax is powerful to gel all of that water into a lotion.

I added German Blue Chamomile Essential Oil to the recipe for its skin calming properties. It turned the lotion a lovely blue.

The recipe ended up producing 4 nice bottles of lotion and the original recipe cost less than $2 in materials to make.

From start to finish, it took less than 30 minutes to assemble the ingredients, make the lotion and clean up. If you’re interested in trying to make lotions, we have two kits at Bramble Berry located here.

Instructions for Aloha Surf Shorts

August 7, 2007 Filed Under: Melt & Pour Soap

Instructions for making Aloha Surf Shorts:

1. Melt 1 ounce of white melt and pour in the microwave
2. Using a dropper, draw up some non-colored, white soap. Carefully dropper/color in the details on the Surf Shorts.
3. Wait for 5 minutes
4. Melt the remaining soap from step 1 and an additional 8 ounces of soap in the microwave. Prior to turning on heat, add 1/4 tsp Cellini Blue Mica.
5. Stir the melted soap to ensure that there are no unmelted Cellini Blue Mica bubbles. Spritz the top of the soap with Rubbing Alcohol to help break up mica bubbles. Cellini Blue is an oil soluble, lip safe colorant. It requires extra stirring to get it fully mixed in.
6. Add your fragrance (we used Ocean Rain)
6. Pour slowly and evenly into the Surf Short Mold.
7. Spritz the top of the soap with alcohol to ensure a smooth and even finish on the soap.
8. Allow to harden for a minimum of 4 hours. Gently pull away the sides of the mold from the soap. Do not force the soap out. The little strips of white color will not come with the soap if you push the soap out too quickly or harshly.
9. Wrap with Saran Wrap or some other breathable method. Label and you’re all done!

In the soap above, since Cellini Blue is an FD&C based color, the blue is morphing into the white lines making a sophisticated similar-hued accent stripe.

If you make the project, I want to see your photos. You can email them to me at info (at) brambleberry (dot) com.

Using 3-D Molds – Layering & Color Details

July 30, 2007 Filed Under: Melt & Pour Soap

Here are the final photos of our 3-D molded soap project. More advanced techniques include layering and detailing the cut outs in the soap.

Instructions for coloring in the dragonfly: You will need a dropper, a glass of very hot water, alcohol spritzer and melted soap in a contrasting color.

Draw up the melted soap into your dropper. If it is too cool, it will clog your dropper. If it is too warm, it will melt your dropper. I just make sure that my soap is not steaming before I pull it up into the dropper.

With your dropper tip situated comfortably in the crevice of the design, push gently down on the bulb until the soap streams out in an even manner. Slowly fill in the crevices and use the alcohol to smooth out the surface of your design.

I use the hot water to clean out the dropper in between squirts and also in case the soap starts to harden up inside the dropper before I am able to use it.

Doing multiple layers requires nothing more than patience. My tip is to use the same brand of soap base for all the layers. I always use the Bramble Berry House brand for layering. It seems to stick better in my opinion. Pour your first layer and wait thirty minutes. Melt your second layer, pour the soap and wait for thirty minutes. Continue to do this until you are satisfied with your coloring combinations. The secret to getting the soap to stick together is to use the same brand of base and pour fairly quickly in between layers.

I hope you have enjoyed your tutorial and that you feel inspired to try these fun, unique soaps on your own now! Expect the contest winners to be announced later today!

Using 3-D Molds – Pouring & Fill Line

July 24, 2007 Filed Under: Melt & Pour Soap

Making 3-D Soap-On-A-Rope is easy and produces a specialty bar that will retail for $7 – $10, depending on your local market and your unique differentiation.After you have your entire set up laid out, it’s easy to do melt and pour soap. Put your soap in a heat safe glass (I used a mug in the photo below) and microwave your soap on bursts of 30 seconds. You do not want your soap to boil. If it does, the soap is more prone to glycerin dew and takes on a more brittle texture.

Once your soap is melted, add your color (1 drop Labcolor per bar) and your fragrance (3 – 6 ml of fragrance per bar). Remember to only use utensils and glassware that you are happy to donate to the soaping craft. Fragrance generally sticks with your utensils and glasses long after the soap is made. Pour your soap slowly and evenly through the slot in the 3-D molds.

The molds have a natural fill level line. You’ll want to fill your soap just a little over the top of the soap and into the spigot. This is because soap naturally shrinks as it cools. If the soap is filled “perfectly” and not overfilled a little bit, the end result is a shrunken bar of soap that does not look entirely spherical. The bubbles at the top of the soap can be spritzed away with isopropyl“rubbing” alcohol.

Once your soap is poured, take the soap rope and slowly push it down into the mold, making sure to push down far enough that the soap rope is fully into the mold and not just in the spout. Using clear soap allows the soap rope to be seen inside the soap. While this is an okay look, using opaque soap produces a more professional bar.Check back tomorrow to learn about unmolding your soap rope creation. Posts to any of the entries for this week are automatically entered into the contest to win 5 3-D molds & a soapmaking DVD.

Pepsi is run by a woman

May 28, 2007 Filed Under: Business Musings

Full disclosure: I own stock in Pepsi

The big business news on Friday was that Coca-Cola purchased Glaceau brands. You probably know Glaceau as the makers of Vitamin Water, the ultra yummy, vitamin and flavor infused gulp of goodness that started showing up on shelves a few years back. I was introduced to VitaminWater at the local dollar store when their lessor favored flavors showed up for $.19, a bargain for bottled water.

According to press reports, Glaceau has 35% of the water market in the US. That’s an impressive percentage for a company that was founded in 1996. They did $350 or $700 million last year (depending on which “unidentified source” you believe) in gross sales with no mention of what net profits are (that’s the nice thing about being a private company – you don’t have to report your earnings to anyone but the IRS). Their growth in 2006, supposedly, was 103%, an exceedingly aggressive trajectory which speaks to the strength of the non-carbonated drink category.

Coca-Cola purchased their company for a cool $4.1 billion dollars. That’s right, 11.7 (or 6, depending on which source you believe for revenue dollars) times gross earnings. Coca-Cola runs a much larger company than I do, with light years more of management experience so while I criticize this deal, just picture a little 2 year old kicking an 8 foot tall basketball player.

Coca-Cola’s net income was 21.09% last year. That is one impressively high number! Pepsi’s, by comparison, is only 5.24%. Hm, maybe I own stock in the wrong company!? If the average corporation makes 14.2% net profit, Cocoa-Cola is knocking it out of the park and Pepsi is lagging badly. Averaging out these three numbers (5.24 + 14.2 + 21.09= 40.53/3 = 13.51%), gets 13.51%. Glaceau is in a similar industry to both Coca-Cola and Pepsi but not exactly the same, which is why I tossed average corporate profits into the mix. Taking this speculation through to its logical conclusion, if Glaceau’s net profit ranges from 47 to 94 million, Coca-Cola paid 87 to 174 times net profit for Glaceau – an insane overpayment by any measure.

$4.1 billion collars for a company that did ($350 million or) $700 million in sales, which values the company at 10 to 11 times the trailing 12 month revenue. That’s a huge premium, massive by any of the buyout offer calculations I learned in business school. The normal median multiple for a public nonalcoholic drink company is 1.2 times, so not even a measly $1 billion dollars.

One theory is that they had to pay that much because of their late entry into the enhanced water market. Pepsi’s Propel is the number one in the enhanced water market. The enhanced water market is rapidly becoming a major force for profits, sales and acquiring new customers. Coca-Cola had no such operation and with Glaceau’s cult-like status, celebrity fans and wide distribution unit, Glaceau probably looks uniquely position for Coca-Cola and an antidote to Pepsi’s star, Propel.

An interesting side note is that Pepsi just purchased IZZE beverages for 3.8 times revenues – again, a far cry from what Coca-Cola paid for Glaceau.

Tata Tea/Group’s 30% shares in Glaceau are also being acquired. Supposedly, they are being paid $1.2 billion their shares; those same shares that Tata Tea bought for $677 million just last year. Last August, when Tata acquired their 30%, they valued Glaceau at $2billion. Hm, over 100% growth in value in just a year? They must be selling a lot of water!

“We see the deal as a question mark for Coke,” said J.P. Morgan analyst John
Faucher in a research note. “We think Coke will need to prove it is beneficial
to shareholders to spend $4 billion for the latest “hot” beverage brand.”

This deal brings to mind the massive overpayment for Snapple. Snapple was purchased by Quaker Oats for $1.7billion in 1994 and then sold a quick 3 years later for just $300million. At the time, Snapple was the popular brand du jour with the “big guys” chasing the new, hot market then as well. One can only hope that Coca-Cola manages their new hot brand with better adroitness than Quaker Oats did.

Tips for layering melt and pour

February 26, 2007 Filed Under: Melt & Pour Soap

Someone recently asked me about troubles with layering melt and pour soap. Here are my tricks for helping to adhere layers of melt and pour soap.

Layering solid melt and pour colors is difficult but not impossible. There are a few tricks that I use when making fun loaves.

(1) Pour the soap base for the second layer as soon as the first layer has hardened enough (or formed a thick enough skin) to hold the weight of the second layer. The key is to pour fresh soap and pour it quickly.

(2) Optional step: Score the soap on the first layer to help the second layer adhere even better

(3) Spritz the first layer lightly with alcohol. This gets rid of grease and random particles of dust that might cause problems with the layering.

(4) Super cold environments make it difficult to cut soap and have the layers stick together so if you’re in a cold house and your layers are cracking, your soap might do just fine in a warmer environment.