These soaps are all made using the cold process technique and colored with natural colorants (think Activated Charcoal, Alkanet, Annatto Seed, Calendula, Maddar Root, Paprika, Spirulina, etc). Can you believe some of these designs? I was totally blown away with the quality of entries in this particular Make it Monday contest. To see the name behind the soaps and some of the natural colorants used, check out the Make It Monday Facebook Album. And be sure to check out the winners of the contest here. Of course, everyone is a winner in my book! So cliche to say, I know, but it’s true! Some of these soaps are seriously jaw dropping.
Search Results for: colorants
Make it Monday: Cold Process #UniqueTops
Last week’s Make It Monday challenge was such a blast, and we had over 100 soaps submitted in the #natural colorants theme of the week. We saw everything from Calendula to Activated Charcoal to amazing homemade blends of different herbs and spices! Take a look at our Facebook album to see all the soapy goodness. Check back later today to see the winners of last week’s challenge.
Are you ready for this week’s challenge? Drum roll please…
A Palm Free In-The-Pot Swirl
Despite our recent weeks of summer fun, fall is definitely in the air in the Pacific Northwest. I’m ready to leap into fall with this seasonal color palette and in-the-pot swirl soap. Check this out if you’ve been on the hunt for a great palm-free recipe, and check out another palm free recipe here and here. This recipe turns out super hard and the bubbles are medium in size with an easy rinse-off.
20.0 oz Coconut Oil
40.0 oz Rice Bran Oil
8.3 oz Sodium Hydroxide (Lye)
19.8 oz Distilled Water
3.5 oz Earl Grey Lemon Fragrance Oil
3 teaspoons Merlot Mica
2 teaspoons Super Pearly White
1 teaspoon Cellini Blue Mica
1 teaspoon Cellini Yellow Mica
1 teaspoon Cappuccino Mica
2 tablespoons Sweet Almond Oil
5 Pound Wood Mold with Sliding Bottom
Buy everything you need for this project with the click of a button!
For more tactile learners, this tutorial is available in our Etsy shop! Get your hands on printed instructions and a bar of soap and learn to make this palm-free soap here. [Read more…]
Color Block Rainbow Soap Tutorial
This fun and whimsical soap is perfect for anyone a little unsure of working with powder colorants because it uses Color Blocks! Color Blocks are pre-mixed, intensely colored little nuggets of soap. You just shave off a bit to get the color you want and mix it into your melted soap. There’s no pre-mixing with oils or glycerin and the colors work well every time. For this project, we went rainbows mixed with books; the colorful stacked blocks embedded in white soap kind of remind me of a perfectly disheveled book shelf. Stacks of read and well-loved books are one of my favorite sights ever (and you can always see what I’m currently reading here).
Recipe:
72 oz Clear Melt and Pour Base
22 oz White Melt and Pour Base
Electric Bubblegum Color Block
Shimmer Amethyst Purple Color Block
1.8 oz Pikake Flower Fragrance Oil
5 Pound Slide Bottom Wood Log Mold
Get everything you need for this project with the click of a button!
Circle Swirled Soap in Column Mold
Today we’re launching our latest mold (drum roll), the Heavy Duty Column mold! To celebrate it’s debut, I’ve got a fun and fabulous tutorial that is a twist on the Faux Funnel Pour technique. This is a great recipe for an alternative to Olive Oil, for those late night soaping adventures where you realize you’re just short of an ingredient and it’s too late to hit up the store (anyone else been there? anyone?). Using contrasting colors in unexpected hues and a bright and fresh fragrance oil blend, I’m hoping you like this recipe as much as I do.
Palm Free Vertical Twist Tutorial
Have you ever had one of those moments where you felt like testing your (soaping) boundaries to see how far you could take something but feared you would ruin an entire batch of soap? We’ve done a vertical twist project before, and it turned out awesome. But I wondered, what if we just kept on twisting the divider…? Ahem. It was new levels of soap happiness. If you’re a tactile learner and you’d like to see/hold/touch/smell this soap and experience it in person, we’ve put it in our etsy shop here so you can learn to make this palm-free soap.
Dipped Ombre Candles
The other day I happened upon a random assortment of unscented candles that I had been saving for…something. Today was the day for that something! Using our wax dye blocks and fragrance from our NEW Candle and Soap fragrance line, I spruced up these otherwise basic candles and was even able to add a little bit of scent.
Impressionist Soap Tutorial
This pretty and unique soap is inspired by impressionist paintings. It utilizes a unique “swirl” technique created with…of all things…squirt bottles! Don’t forget to bring a little bit of patience along. Squirting the soap can take up to 10 minutes, but it is SO worth it. Get ready to fall in love.
Rainbow Mold and Island Style (Tutorial)
I’m addicted to the SoapyLove line of products! The adorable Rainbow Mold and the super cute colors of the Island Style kit work so well together, so I’ve made up a quick tutorial to show you an easy way of using both products. Because the Island Style kit comes with both colorants and a brand new fragrance oil (Guava Shaved Ice – delish!) all you’ll need is some Melt and Pour Base and the kit and you’re good to go!
Double Feature SoapyLove Ice Pop Soap!
Here’s Debbie with another super adorable SoapyLove project! When you’re done oohing and aahing over this tutorial, check out the totally rad soaps she taught at Soap Weekend Intensive 2012 using Bramble Berry’s neon colorants. -Anne-Marie
Talk It Out Tuesday: Lip Balm
Guess what day it is? Yep! It’s Talk It Out Tuesday (you can check out previous TIOT’s on melt and pour, preservatives, colorants, bath bombs and our most recent one on lotions)! This is a fun topic because lip balm are a blast to make and use. Read on to find the answers to many of Bramble Berry’s frequently asked questions. If there is anything I didn’t cover, feel free to ask your questions in the comment section. Or if you want to get started right this very second, check out our Lip Balm Quick Start Guide on the Bramble Berry Website.
What is lip balm?
Lip gloss, lip shimmers, lip conditioners, lip sheers, lip balms and lip butters are all very easy and inexpensive to make. Generally, they are a mixture of oils and waxes combined to heal and soothe dry or chapped lips (and sometimes, they provide a bit of color as well). You can create an all-natural mixture using edible essential oils and nourishing vegetable butters or you can get wild and make them sparkly and decadent with micas and flavors. But a word of warning – once you start making your own beautifully hand crafted lip balms, you won’t be able to buy another mediocre, manufactured, tube of low quality oil and wax again. We’re all addicted to our homemade creations here and, it’s a good thing! [Read more…]
Fourth of July Melt and Pour Soap
Happy weekend! I was inspired by this awesome 4th of July Fudge (pinned onto my 100 Days of Summer Pinterest page, naturally) to create a tutorial using our brand spankin’ new 4-sphere silicone mold, along with the 9-cube silicone mold that I’m still obsessing over. I built sand bottle-like layers in the cubes by manipulating the melt and pour as it dried. In the spheres, I used some of the ideas from this Soap Queen TV episode to create marbled swirls. The color scheme is as American as apple pie, so what better to use than Bramble Berry’s Red Apple Fragrance Oil? Either of these intermediate techniques can easily be modified for a beginner by creating basic layers in the cubes and spheres, and can be varied by using different thicknesses in the layers. If you don’t have these molds, it’s okay, this technique works for all kinds of molds (the thicker the mold, the better).
Talk It Out Tuesday: All Things Lotion
Woohoo! Here we are again with another installment of Talk It Out Tuesday (check out our previous TIOT’s on bath bombs, colorants, melt and pour and our latest on preservatives). I am delighted about the topic this week because I know many of you have questions about water-based lotions. I can’t wait to help you answer them. So read on and find out everything you wanted to know about lotions! And, if I didn’t answer it, feel free to ask me in the Comments section.
What is lotion?
Lotion is a basic skin-care product that is used to soothe dry skin and often has ingredients that are intended to give extra added benefits to your skin. Body butters, balms, salves, lotion bars, creams, and massage candles can all be considered a lotion. Generally, a traditional lotion will have water + oils + emulsifiers + preservative.
How do I make lotion?
While there are hundreds of recipes for lotions, body butters and salves out there, a basic lotion recipe would consist of your oils/butters, preservative, fragrance, an emulsifier and distilled water. To create your own lotion from scratch, you can go by the following guidelines: [Read more…]
SWI Recap Day 2 – MP, Lotions, Scrubs and Cupcakes
Day 2 of SWI brought all of our wonderful guest instructors together! We invited Debbie Chialtas of Soapylove to teach us some fun melt and pour projects, Erin Pikor of Naiad Soap Arts taught her awesome array of scrubs, and Jill Heuser gave us the low-down on lotions. Get ready for lots of photos! First, we started of with a little bit of this guy.
SO in love.
A perfect pick-me-up first thing in the morning, Debbie’s projects incorporated Bramble Berry’s neon pigments for a super cool, 1980’s vibe. She used the SoapyLove Checkered Heart Mold with two variations, a psychedelic splatter soap and a neon checkered soap! Then, the SoapyLove I Heart Soap Mold done in super bright neons put a fun twist on a classic sentiment.
Radical!