Search Results for: colorants

UFO Soap Project – Day One

August 18, 2008 Filed Under: Melt & Pour Soap

This project was pioneered by one Ms Debbie Chialtas from SoapyLove. Check out her SoapyLove blog here and her ultra creative project, The Soap Lab here. Debbie was one of the teachers at the Soap Intensive Weekend and she was gracious enough to share this fun soap technique that she designed herself. Thanks Debbie!

Click here for Day One
Click here for Day Two
Click here for Day Three
Click here for Day Four
Click here for Day Five

Supplies for UFO Soap:

• Clear soap base (4 ounces per UFO)
• Fragrance oil, any kind (1/8 teaspoon per bar)
• Non-bleeding colored mica or non-bleeding colorant plus pearl mica
• Soap glitter
• Milky Way Spaceships soap mold
• Rubbing alcohol in spray bottle
• Melon baller, round metal measuring spoon, or round teaspoon
• Martian toys
• 2 cup Pyrex measuring cup
• Small cup to mix mica in
• Spoon or craft sticks to stir with
• Knife and cutting board

Or you can get the kit for the entire project here.

Instructions:

1) Cut clear soap into small chunks, at least 3 ounces per UFO you’re making. Put into Pyrex cup and melt in microwave, about 15 seconds per ounce. Stir until all chunks are melted. If there are chunks that are unmelted, stirring a bit will help mix them in. If you accidentally boil your soap in the microwave, it can small bad and cause the soap to be more brittle.

2) In a small cup, spray a few squirts of rubbing alcohol. Add 1/8 teaspoon of mica (or a drop of non-bleed colorant plus 1/8 teaspoon pearl mica). Stir until smooth. Add mica to clear soap and stir thoroughly. Add more colorant mixture if needed to get your desired color. Stir in a small pinch of soap glitter. Stir in your fragrance oil. Make sure to stir until your fragrance is fully incorporated into the soap. This usually takes around 30 seconds.

3) Pour into soap mold, filling to 1/8″ of mold top. Allow to set at room temperature until hardened. But, if you’re impatient, put in freezer for 10 minutes until solid. Don’t leave it in too long or you may get glycerin des on your soap. Save any extra soap to re-melt for future projects.

Check back tomorrow for more instructions on making the UFO Soaps.

Bleeding Colors? What’s That Halo!?

August 16, 2008 Filed Under: Melt & Pour Soap

After Debbie’s Guest Post on using Oxides in Melt and Pour soap, I received some emails requesting more information about bleeding colorants. Thank you for the feedback – please, keep it coming.

Melt and Pour soap is an extremely versatile art form. The options for making exceedingly clean, precise and gorgeous designs are literally endless … that is, if you have the right colors.

What is bleeding? Bleeding is when a color from an embedded object or layer leaches out into the surrounding soap base (see example photo above and below). It is often a sad surprise when a beautiful design turns into a mushy, unrecognizable color blob. It’s still soap but it’s not quite the look originally intended.

Why do colors bleed? Melt and Pour base is a water soluble product. FD&C (Food, Drug & Cosmetic) colorants (like food coloring or Labcolors) are usually also water soluble as well. When there is no barrier or medium to form a protective line, the water soluble color will start to migrate (or swim) through the water soluble melt and pour.

What is the right color? If you would like to make a soap that looks like the glamorous Silhouette Soap on the right, with clean, crisp lines, it is important that you use a “Non-Bleeding” color. The right color is a generally colorant that is oil based or one that colors through dispersion. This means that the color doesn’t mix into the soap so much as it suspends little micro-particles throughout the soap, giving the illusion of constant color.

The “right” colors for non bleeding colors are:

Oxides (without exception)
Most Micas (some oil based lip colors do bleed)
Pigments & Oxides in liquid

Click here for a list of all of the Bramble Berry colorants that do not bleed in Melt & Pour soap.

If you’ve been hesitatant to try using Oxides or Pigments in Melt & Pour soap, now is the time to do it. Debbie did an amazing tutorial about using Oxides and Pigments in Melt and Pour. Following her instructions will significantly cut down your learning curve and allow you to acheive clean, crisp designs without stress about your colorants.

I’ll be headed to the Pacific Northwest Soapers Gathering bright and early on Sunday morning. I won’t be doing a blog post tomorrow but I will be Twittering about the gathering and TwitPic’ing photographs all day. You can follow my Twitter feed here, look at the TwitPics on the right hand side of this blog or by going directly to my TwitPic feed here. I’ll (hopefully!) have a round up post about the gathering posted late tomorrow night or Monday morning.

Happy Soaping!

Tutorial: Birthday Cake Loaf Soap

August 11, 2008 Filed Under: Melt & Pour Soap

Nothing says “Happy Birthday” like rainbow sprinkles, and these colorful jojoba beads are a perfect stand-in. For a soap design this sweet, Bramble Berry’s new “Hello Sweet Thang” or Cream Cheese Frosting fragrance oil makes every day a party!

What you’ll need:

3 lbs. White Melt & Pour Soap Base
Hydrated Chrome Green Oxide
Pink Oxide
Hello Sweet Thang fragrance oil
Jojoba Beads in Red, Purple, and Blue
Loaf Mold
Small mixing cup
Metal 1/2 t. measuring spoon or small melon baller
Optional: Vanilla Color Stabilizer

In a small cup, combine 1/4 teaspoon of each color Jojoba Beads. Set aside.

In a 2 cup Pyrex, melt 12 ounces of white soap base. Using a small cup, spray a few squirts of rubbing alcohol and stir in 1/8 teaspoon pink oxide. Stir until all lumps are gone and add to the soap base. Add 1/2 teaspoon of fragrance oil and pour into soap mold. If you are using Vanilla Color Stabilizer to decrease the natural browning effect of the Vanilla in the fragrance, combine it with the fragrance every time fragrance is called for at a 1:1 ratio. Allow to set until surface is solid but still warm and you can push a dent into the soap with your finger.

Take your teaspoon and scoop 3 long grooves out of the soap, like you’re scooping ice cream. Make them about 1/4″ deep, then use your finger to round off any hard edges (you want smooth curves when you slice into the soap).

Melt 8 ounces of white soap. Let cool to 120 degrees. Spray surface of pink soap with rubbing alcohol and pour soap into mold. When soap is set but scoopable, make 3 more grooves like you did in the last step.

Melt 12 ounces of white soap. Dilute 1/8 teaspoon of hydrated green oxide in a few sprays of rubbing alcohol and add to soap. Stir in 1/2 teaspoon of fragrance oil. Let cool to 120 degrees, spray white soap layer with alcohol, and pour green soap into mold. Let cool until solid.

Melt 10 ounces of white soap. Let cool to 120 degrees and stir in 1/8 teaspoon of Jojoba Beads. Stir until soap is thick and beads stop floating. Spray green soap with alcohol and pour soap into mold.

To create a frosting effect, use a spoon to push melted soap back and forth. Keep pushing as it starts solidifying, creating a frosting texture. Push and push until you like the texture or it’s too thick to move anymore. Sprinkle more J ojoba Beads on top.

Let soap completely solidify. You can let it sit overnight or put in the freezer for 20 minutes. Unmold and slice with an unserrated knife.

These soaps would make excellent favors for your next birthday party!

For more information and tips on how to use oxide colorants, come back on Thursday for a full post about these great skin safe and colorfast pigments!

Tutorial: Cupcakes with a Cherry on Top!

August 4, 2008 Filed Under: Melt & Pour Soap

Hi! I’m Debbie Chialtas, owner and designer for Soapylove. I recently taught how to make UFO Soaps and Cameo Soaps at Otion’s Soapmaking Weekend Intensive. I’m truly obsessed with M&P soap crafting and am so excited to be a guest blogger for The Soap Queen! Every week I’ll bring you new projects and soap making tips. So without further ado, I present this first tutorial made just for you!

Brambleberry’s new Cupcake Mold is so adorable I just had to make a soapy rendition of a classic: Chocolate Cupcakes with Pink Frosting. These cupcakes are almost better than the real thing because they have a sprinkle of glitter, too! This project is fun because you build your cupcake, layer by layer, and when you unmold your soap you get a very sweet reward!

You’ll need:

Cupcake Mold
3 oz clear soap base
8 oz white soap base
Non-bleeding liquid red colorant
Rose Pearl Mica
Iridescent Soap Glitter
Brown Oxide
Dark, Rich Chocolate fragrance oil
Vanilla Color Stabilizer
Melt and Pour Tool Kit
3 small cups and a mug
Spray bottle with rubbing alcohol

1. Melt 4 oz clear soap base. Pour about 1 tablespoon of soap into a small cup and add a few drops of red colorant. Put some hot water in the mug. Using the injector from the tool kit, fill each cherry with red soap. Clean your injector with the hot water. Put extra red soap aside.

2. Pour another tablespoon of clear soap into a different small cup. Stir in a pinch of pink mica and a tiny pinch of glitter. Use injector tool to fill frosting area. This will take 2 turns to adequately fill the outer details of the frosting, as you can see in my photo. If you have overflow into the cup area, use the pointy tool to scrape it out when it’s cool. Clean injector tool in hot water. Put extra soap aside.

3. In your last small cup, spray a few squirts of rubbing alcohol. Add a large “pinch” (or about 1/16 teaspoon) of brown oxide and stir well until dissolved. Add 1 tablespoon of melted clear soap and stir until smooth. Tilt mold so 2 of the cup portions of the mold are level. Inject brown soap into cup area carefully and let cool. Do this in 2 layers again so it’s nice and opaque. This time you can use the flat scraper tool to remove any brown soap that spilled over onto your frosting. Repeat for other 2 cavities.

4. Melt 8 oz of white soap. Stir in the extra pink and red soap to make a nice pink color (you might not need it all). Add 1/4 teaspoon each of Chocolate fragrance oil and Vanilla Stabilizer. Let cool to 120 degrees, or until it’s not too hot to touch with your finger. Spray molds with alcohol and slowly pour in pink soap (don’t pour directly onto your cupcake design). Allow to cool overnight and unmold!

When planning other color combinations, make sure to refer to Bramble Berry’s list of non-bleeding colorants. It’s a life saver! See you Thursday!

Aliens, Cupcakes & Seizing Soap

July 20, 2008 Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

The second day of the Soap Intensive Weekend is over and we are all leaving tired but enriched. Some of the comments after the weekend were, “I learned so much, my head is spinning. And, that’s in a good way” and “I would recommend that anyone interested in soap and starting a business come here first.“

We started day two of the Soapmaking Weekend Intensive with Cold Process Soap Basics. Alicia Grosso, author of The Everything Soapmaking Book, covered things like fragrance oils, using colorants and mold options before guiding the class through a by-the-books cold process recipe. After a short break, she got right back into it by deliberately trying to seize, rice and otherwise ruin three perfectly good batches of soap. The entire class cheered when she achieved “soap on a stick (blender)”. The goal with Alicia’s Advanced Cold Process class was to push the soap batches to their very extreme limits. It was freeing to try to ruin the soap and a sense of wild abandon accomponied these experimental batches.

Check out the unmolded soaps from Paula’s (PJ’s Soaps) Melt and Pour classes yesterday. These nuggets of artist expression were made by students that had little or no experience in making soap.

They are astouding in their detail. She achieves all of this through her tool kit. It makes teensy little precision work much easier.

After a delightful lunch break, Debb ie from SoapyLove taught two soap techniques – Sillouette and Alien SpaceShip Soap. It is a testament to the expertly designed projects that every single student made perfect Sillouettes and Alien Soaps. Debbie’s style is very fresh, modern and fun. She posts her creative musings on her blog here.

We finished the day with a short graduation party, complete with four types of cupcakes and graduation certificates. The Tiramisu Cupcakes went the fastest. I was left with six Chocolate Chocolate cupcakes to take home. The hardship duty didn’t feel very … difficult.

Thank you for sharing the weekend with us in blog and twit-pic history. In the upcoming weeks, I’ll cover each of these projects in more detail, giving you an opprortunity to follow along to create wonderful soapy works of art in your own home.

Iron SoapMaker

July 15, 2008 Filed Under: Business Musings

The ISOCAN Iron Soapmakers Challenge:
Brought to you by the Illinois Soap and Candle Conference

If you have a competitive spirit and are up for a challenge, the ISOCAN Iron Soapmakers Challenge is for you. All competitors will receive the same box of ingredients including oils, butters, colorants, fragrances, lye, molds, etc. With only five minutes of preparation time, the soapers are off to create the best bar of soap they can in hopes of bringing home first prize!

Participant’s soaps will then be pictured on the ISOCAN.org website where the public will cast their votes and pick their favorite. And yes, the winner will be rewarded with a prize!

But wait, there are more perks to this competition! Participants can pay just $10 and receive a bar of soap from every one of their competitors or just participate for free! I want to pay money to get all of the soaps too! Is there any way that I can do that?
On your mark…Get set…Start soaping! Can you handle the pressure? Get more information and the official rules here.

Making Play Dough Soap

July 14, 2008 Filed Under: Melt & Pour Soap

Play Dough Soap Project

Adding cornstarch to Melt and Pour soap turns your soap into a play dough fantasy land! Let your kids sculpt soap into any shape and let it air dry. These hardened shapes can be used in the bath or embedded for a unique soap look.

Clear Melt and Pour soap base
Corn Starch
Soap Mold (optional, if embedding)
Microwave safe container
Saran Wrap [plastic cling wrap]
Spritzer bottle filled w/ rubbing alcohol
Liquid Pigment soap colorant
Fragrance oil

1. Cut melt and pour into 1” cubes and put into microwave safe container (6oz of soap should be plenty), cover with saran wrap and microwave for 30 second intervals until soap is melted. Add your fragrance oil to the soap and stir.

2. Add the Corn starch to the soap, about 4 tablespoons for 6oz of soap and stir, stir, stir! The cornstarch may not be very willing to mix in, just keep stirring and it will eventually mix in for you. You can scoop out any floating clumps with a spoon if they just refuse to cooperate.

3. Decide how many colors you want and pour the cornstarched soap into individual containers, one per color then add your colorants.

4. Let the soap cool, it is easiest to work with if it is still soft and warm. We have found that pouring a thin layer of the soap out into a mold (not the one you plan on using), or even on your counter is the quickest and easiest way to do this. Once the soap has stiffened it will peel off easily. (For this example we poured little pools of soap onto the counter)

5. Knead the soap in your hand, depending on how cold it is it may take a minute to be moldable – then do this with all of your colors.

6. Start sculpting! Let your sculpted soap sit for about an hour to fully harden

You can use your soap as it is just like this – or you can embed your masterpiece in clear soap to make it last a little longer.

To Embed:

1. Follow step 1 and use clear soap. then pour a thin layer of the soap into the mold and spray with alcohol to pop any bubbles.

2. Let this layer sit until there is a stiff skin on top, spray with alcohol – this helps the next layer stick

3. Get your sculpted soap and spray it on all sides with alcohol then set onto the first layer of soap

4. Fill the mold the rest of the way full with the clear soap and spray with alcohol

5. Let this sit for a few hours before removing (the longer you wait the easier it will be to remove from the mold)

Voila! A crafty, handmade soap with your own molded creation inside!

We originally authored this article for crafty blog, Whip Up.

More color testing

June 3, 2008 Filed Under: Tips & Tricks

We’re still on the hunt for some great non bleeding liquid red colors. As you can see, when mixed with opaque soap, this color did not stay red but in clear soap, it’s a more brick red.I made these soaps by first pouring a full Basic Rectangle Mold of colored soap, letting it harden and then cutting it into strips. Then, I poured a thin layer of over pour soap, spritzed the colored strips with alcohol and pushed the strips into the thin soapy layer. I filled in the rest of the mold, spritzed with a finishing layer of alcohol and then waited for the soap to harden.I’m disappointed with how the soaps came out. If I had cut symmetrically or been more deliberate with the strip placement, the soaps would have looked much better.Next time … next time.

Chicks, Cows & Bunnies! Oh My!

May 31, 2008 Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

Leave it to Erik at Otion to immediately take a liking to one of our latest molds and design an entire retail display for the store around it. When I arrived today, Erik and his talented crew had already made one adorable batch of soap and started on their second.

Thanks to the well-thought out design skills of mold designer Catherine Failor, the crevices and design details are deep enough for even a beginning soap artist to add accent colors.

You can find the mold here, the clear Melt and Pour base here and mica colorants here.

American Flag Soap – Set Up & First Steps

May 30, 2008 Filed Under: Melt & Pour Soap

To make patriotic American Flag Soaps, you’ll need:

White Melt and Pour Base
Clear Melt and Pour Base
Non-Bleeding Colorant
Fragrance or Essential Oil
American Flag Mold
Rubbing Alcohol
spoon
Droppers

Step One: Melt a small amount (3 ounces will be more than enough) of clear or white soap. If you want pastel colors, use white soap. If you want bright vibrant colors, use clear soap. Tip: use a small dish to melt the soap. If you use a large Pyrex container with such a small amount of soap, it takes longer to melt and may shatter your glass.

Step Two: Color your melted soap base with any color your heart desires, so long as it is nonbleeding. In the photos below, we used non-bleeding blue and non-bleeding red color. A list of all of Bramble Berry’s non-bleeding colorants is here.

Step Three: Use a dropper or the soap injector to slowly color in the detail striping in the flag. Spritz with alcohol liberally to help the soap fill in all the crevices.

Step Four: Melt a small amount of White Melt & Pour (if not already melted) and pour melted white soap base into the stars portion of the mold.

Check back this week to see the final steps and tips on how to make the stars stand out!

Candy Swirl Soap – Part One

May 24, 2008 Filed Under: Melt & Pour Soap

Over on the TeachSoap Forum, Erin asked for a tutorial on making the exciting Peppermint Candy Soaps that I made at Christmas.

Here is a tutorial on making Peppermint Candy Soaps – but redone for Spring with happy pastel colors.

The set up is simple:

White Melt and Pour
Clear Melt and Pour
Non-Bleeding Colorant
Fragrance or Essential Oil
Milky Way Round Mold
Rubbing Alcohol
Knife (a little paring knife)

Directions for Making Candy Swirl Soaps

Step 1: Cut soap into small squares

Step 2: Melt soap in a coffee cup or Pyrex container (or whatever you have that is heat safe in the microwave).

Step 3: Add scent to melted soap base. I used .25 ounces of fragrance per pound of soap. Pour soap base into the round mold and spritz with a finishing touch of alcohol. If you are incredibly impatient (like me), put mold into the freezer for roughly 25 minutes. If you want to do things the “right” way to ensure no condensation is formed, wait 2 hours and pop the soap out of the molds.

FeedBlitz Subscribers

April 9, 2008 Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

Just a reminder for all of our marvelous crafty readers – would you like a chance to win all of the tools I used in the Springtime Cutout project?Just sign up for the FeedBlitz emails on the right hand side of the Soap Queen web site. What is FeedBlitz you ask? It’s a daily email with my latest blog posts so you won’t miss a thing! I will be doing a random drawing tomorrow, Thursday, for the lucky winner. Did I mention the prize is a value of $75? It includes the colorants, the fabulous jelly roll baking pan, Melt & Pour and fragrances.

Mother Day’s Lip Balm – Passionfruit Rose

March 27, 2008 Filed Under: Lip Products

Making a matching lip balm for Mom with Passionfruit Rose is easy. Ingredients like Mango Butter and Shea Butter are nourishing to the skin and help provide a barrier against environmental irritations.

This recipe uses:

1 oz. Mango Butter
1 oz. Shea Butter
.7 oz. Beeswax
.5 oz. Castor Oil
.5 oz. Sweet Almond Oil
Passionfruit Rose Flavor

Merlot Mica
Rose Pearl

Measure out, by weight, the individual items. Melt the beeswax with the liquid oils in a double boiler. The beeswax takes significant time and energy to melt. Melting the beeswax in the microwave may take up to 10 minutes and is not recommended due to the extreme heat needed to melt the wax.
Add the Shea Butter and Mango Butter to the melted wax and oils. Allow the heat of the wax and oil to melt the butters. Stir well.

By weight, use 1 – 3% flavor. Start with the small amount (1%) and flavor to taste. Freeze some knives ahead of time and dip the frozen knife into your lip balm. The lip balm will harden instantly, allowing you to taste and try the product prior to pouring into containers.

Add color to preference. The list of Bramble Berry lip safe colorants is here.

Once the color and flavor is fully mixed in, pour mixture into lip balm containers, label and you’re all done.

Easter Soap Project

March 22, 2008 Filed Under: Bath & Body Tutorials, Melt & Pour Soap

Tomorrow is the earliest Easter in 95 years. You can buy the scrapbook page on the left from CiaDesigns here. If you are casting about for some soap ideas to hide for the kiddies, or have on display to amaze and delight your guests, Soap Queen has just the thing for you.

This project will take about 30 minutes of total soaping time, broken up into two sessions.

First, gather your supplies. For this project, I used:

White Melt and Pour
Non-Bleeding (Pink & Blue) Colorant
Clear Soap
Lilac Fragrance
Labcolor Aqua
Milky Way Square mold

You’ll need the following equipment:

Spoon
Pyrex or heat safe melting glass
Cheese Grater
Plastic Dropper

Step One: Make the Shreds

Melt 4 ounces of white melt and pour in the microwave. Carefully drop in 1 to 3 drops of non bleeding color. I used Non-Bleeding Pink but you can use any color, so long as it is non-bleeding. Scent this 4 ounces of shred base heavily with fragrance. A “heavy” dose of fragrance is .2 ounces in 4 ounces of soap.

Step Two: Wait & Shred

Once the Shred Soap has set up fully, using the small end of the cheese grater, grate the soap into small, little shreds.

Step Three: Anchor the happy chick or plastic egg or Easter Themed item

World Market carries the little chick I used. They have a World Market in almost every state so you can rush out and buy some little cheep cheeps for your soap project. If you don’t have a cute little furry animal, it’s okay. A nicely decorated plastic egg would look equally fetching in your mound of soapy shreds.

Melt clear soap in the microwave, scent it and color it. I used Labcolor Aqua in the back soap and Non-Bleeding Blue in the front soap. Pour the mold half full. Anchor your item in the melted soap.

Step Four: Shower Object with Soap Shreds

Carefully sprinkle shredded soap around your object. The curls will soften and sink. Continue piling the soapy curls until you’re happy with the height of curls.

If you get too carried away building the mound of curls, take a dropperfull of clear, melted soap and make trails of clear soap into and on top of your curls. This will help glue the curls down into the soap.

One small obvious safety note, when you are showering with your Easter soap, consider pulling the plastic, sharp-edged objects out of your soap. The little feet in the bird will scratch you and your loved ones in a rather unattractive manner.

This entire project is very simple and could easily be done with children above the age of 4 with adult supervision.