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Juicy Orange & Sweet Rose Cold Process

Filed Under: Cold Process Soap

I’m a huge fan of fancy swirled tops, but for this recipe I decided to switch things up. This orange-scented soap is piled high with orange peels and rose petals, and the rich orange color comes from paprika — yes, the same paprika that’s probably in your kitchen!

Herbs, botanicals and spices as colorants are some of the best kept secrets in soapmaking, and you can learn more about using them in cold process soaping here. Finally, be aware that although the orange and rose topping is beautiful, they are natural items that will wilt or even mold if left in the shower and in wet conditions long enough.

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Black, White and Gold All Over Cold Process

Filed Under: Cold Process Soap

We’re all about intricate swirls, lovely layers and exotic techniques, but sometimes you want something simple and elegant.

This two-layer soap features a classic black and white color scheme. The key to this technique is keeping the layers smooth and straight. The little something special in this recipe comes from the Bamboo Powder extract, which is a mild exfoliant added to the bottom white layer. This soap was finished with gold mica painting, which popped beautifully against a black background. Who says simple can’t be pretty?

Keep in mind that this soap does have a light grey lather, although it’s almost unnoticeable on your hands. If you’d like a white later, consider adding 1/2 tsp. or even 1/4 tsp. dispersed Black Oxide colorant (less than we used), but keep in mind you won’t end up with the same black color in the photos. Additionally, the gold topped mica won’t last for more than a wash or two, but we still think it’s worth it!

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Natural Colorant Taiwan Swirl

Filed Under: Cold Process Soap

This beautiful technique is called the ‘Taiwan Swirl’ because of the first YouTube video that showcased this style of soapmaking. The most difficult part of this recipe is keeping the batter at a light enough trace to get wispy lines. You can change the look of the design by changing the size of the dowel/chopstick/skewer or swirling tool. This recipe used a larger tool and a thin to medium trace to achieve the final product.

Bonus! The new Multi-Pour Sectioning Tool makes it a breeze to separate the 4 colors in this recipe that create the unique design. Scroll down to step 7 to see how to use the dividers.

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Soapy Math

Filed Under: Tips & Tricks

It’s been many years since I learned the ins and outs of percentages, ratios and parts. I get plenty of practice playing with them though since almost every day is a soap day around here (lucky me!). It is one of the more common questions that our stupendous team gets whenever soapers are trying to calculate parts (whozit? whatzit?!), resize batches or try to figure out if they have too much (or too little) coconut oil in their recipe.

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Facebook Photo of the Week (February 15th ~ 21st)

Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

It may be the middle of February, but I’m ready for spring to arrive. It’s exciting to watch the days get longer and feel the temperatures slowly rise. In the meantime, why not get a head start on your spring cleaning? This guest post from organization goddess Michele Connolly is the perfect place to begin. Michele has tons of great tips on when to sell, donate or throw away your clutter. This week I also shared a recipe for a Blueberry Kale Smoothie, which is a delicious way to “declutter” your breakfast. It’s full of body-loving ingredients such kale, chia seeds and blueberries. Yum!

The delicious Blueberry Kale Smoothie

While you wait for temperatures to rise outside, get crafty inside. The Soothing Baking Soda Oatmeal Bar is made using the double boiler method, and it’s a great natural recipe for sensitive skin. If you’d like to learn more about this technique, How to Make Rebatch Soap walks you through the process. Looking for more natural soap inspiration? Check out the interview with Janelle of Jangle Soapworks. Janelle makes all her soap with goat milk from her own farm, and prefers to use natural colorants and essential oils.

If you’re looking for a project bursting with cuteness and color, our Rainbow Hearts Melt and Pour Tutorial is sure to fit the bill. Scented with Pink Grapefruit Fragrance Oil, this tutorial not only looks bright and spring-like, it smells equally cheery. Speaking of cuteness and color, our Facebook Photo of the week has plenty of both:

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Soothing Baking Soda Oatmeal Bar

Filed Under: Cold Process Soap

For the ultimate skin-soothing bar of soap, you can’t get much better than this Baking Soda Oatmeal Bar. Made with Castile Rebatch, Oat Extract, Colloidal Oatmeal and baking soda, it has some serious nourishing power. Baking soda provides gentle all-over exfoliation, and oatmeal is renowned for its ability to calm irritate skin. Some customers may prefer this bar unscented so they can enjoy the gentle exfoliation of the baking soda and soothing effect of the oatmeal, but you can certainly add Lavender or Chamomile Essential Oil to give it a mild scent.

Regular soap has a pH anywhere from 8.5 – 10, and this soap is definitely on the low end of the spectrum with a pH of 8. It’s gentle enough for sensitive skin but strong enough to provide plenty of exfoliating cleanliness.

This is also a great recipe for beginning cold process soapers. It uses a rebatch base, which means the soap arrives pre-made and pre-cured; no dealing with lye!  This tutorial uses the double-boiler method, but you can experiment with the plastic baggie technique too. For more on making rebatch soap, check out this Soap Queen TV video.

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All Olive Oils Are Not Created Equal

Filed Under: Tips & Tricks

Many soapmaking oils can be found in grocery store aisles, and after awhile it begins to beg the question — can you really use store bought oils in your soaps? While this may seem like an easy, convenient and inexpensive option, we did a little research to find out. What we found was sadly not surprising.

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Facebook Photo of the Week (January 18th ~ January 24th)

Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

Soaping is a hobby that requires practice and persistence, and when a project turns out beautifully it’s all worth it. But unfortunately mistakes happen, and sometimes soap doesn’t turn out as you’d expect. To help you diagnose any soapy issues, Soap Behaving Badly is a comprehensive overview of a wide variety of soaping mishaps caused by fragrance oils, including ricing, acceleration and seizing. It’s a must read for both beginners and advanced soapers! If you are interested in learning more about preventing soapy blunders, our Explaining and Preventing Soda Ash, Why Did My Soap Turn Brown? and How to Prevent Fading and Browning posts are there to help.

The aftermath of our soapy fragrance testing. Check out Soap Behaving Badly to see what happened to (and how to salvage) these poor bars.

But let’s focus on projects that were successful! This week we shared a super easy and refreshing Infused Aloe and Rose Water Toner recipe. If you’re looking for more of a challenge, we also shared our Striped Berry Champagne Cold Process Tutorial featuring ombre layers separated by thin lines of mica for definition. If you’re a fan of ombre, check out these other DIY projects:

Tired and hungry after all that ombre crafting? This Ombre Layered Cake Recipe is sure to pick you up! Speaking of sugary treats, this week we also shared this Brown Butter and Basil Shortbread Recipe, which is a fun spin on the traditional cookie. As for the the Facebook Photo of the Week, the whipped soapy frosting on top certainly looks good enough to eat!

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Soap Behaving Badly

Filed Under: Tips & Tricks

I started my soaping adventures when I was young (ah, sweet 16), and have learned that not everything turns out perfectly the first time. Sometimes despite your best efforts during a soaping session, you’ll get batches that just don’t quite turn out right. It’s just an inherent (and disappointing!) part of soaping. I’m a firm believer in ‘practice makes perfect,’ and being persistent in mastering your technique will help you achieve what you want in your soap, consistently. While there are hundreds of soaping variables that can cause problems, one huge factor that can determine the success of your soaping session is the fragrance or essential oil you use.

All Bramble Berry Fragrance and Essential oils go through a thorough testing process to ensure they perform well in cold process soap.

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Make it Month: #BrambleTart

Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

We’re continuing our Make It Month Feature using the Sample of the Month, Cranberry Chutney Fragrance Oil. With every order you place at Bramble Berry throughout November, you’ll receive a complimentary .5 oz. sample of this wonderful holiday fragrance.

Cranberry Chutney Fragrance Oil is one of our go-to fragrances oils because of its diverse fruity notes grounded by subtle spice. There are hint of apple, raisin and concord grape, and of course the robust scent of tart cranberries. It performs well in cold process soap, but note that it does discolor to a warm tan. In terms of other bath and body products, we like this scent so much that we use it (along with Santa’s Spruce!) in our Givember 2013 projects.

The guidelines for this Make It Month are the same as our Make It Month: Chai Tea Cybilla, but here is a quick refresher on how it all works:

  • Your project needs to utilize the Cranberry Chutney Fragrance Oil. Cold process, melt and pour, lotions, scrubs, home crafts and all other bath & body projects are all welcome.
  • Post photos of your creations on Bramble Berry’s Facebook page between now (November 4th) and Wednesday, November 27. Entries submitted after November 27 will not appear in the Facebook album.
  • Your entry must include the hashtag “#BrambleTart” in the photo caption. Without the hashtag #BrambleTart, your photo will not appear in our Facebook album (the hashtag makes it possible for us to search for just those photos for the Make It Month).
  • You can make multiple projects, but we will only consider three photos per person.
  • We will post a collage of staff favorite projects on Friday, November 29th. We’ll base our choices on how unique and creative the item is.
  • We encourage everyone to participate, from veterans to newbies! All photos submitted before the deadline that include the hashtag #BrambleTart will appear in a Facebook album on the Bramble Berry Page.

Ready, set, create! We can’t wait to see what kinds of projects you’ll create this month =)

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Back and Better than Ever: LabColors

Filed Under: Bramble Berry News

After a brief hiatus, Bramble Berry LabColors are back and better than ever!

LabColors will be easier to use (see the first picture in this post for an example of spots from clumpy color), and you’ll have vibrant colorants that will show up beautifully in your products. We’re also changing the preservative to Optiphen ND, so don’t forget to update your product ingredient lists!

To keep things simple, the sizes of our LabColors will also change. Our new recommended dilution rates for LabColor use in both cold process and melt and pour soap are below:

Small dilutes into 4 to 8 ounces of water

Large dilutes into 8 to 16 ounces of water

Jumbo dilutes into 50 to 100 ounces of water

Despite the changes, the way you dilute LabColors is still the same. For a complete guide to diluting LabColor, refer to this blog post.

You may notice a large variation in how much water we recommend adding for each size. This is because if you plan on using the LabColors in cold process soaps, you’ll want to dilute the color on the lower end of the recommended spectrum to produce a more concentrated color. In our experience, we’ve found that diluting the small sized bottle in 4 oz. of water produces the best result. It produces a strong, vibrant color without affecting the texture of the soap. That being said, you can experiment with the dilution rates we’ve listed above to achieve a specific shade of color.

Note: Remember to pour your LabColor into a heat-safe container or glass bowl to warm it up, as the plastic bottle can melt in the microwave. If you’re using a plastic bottle, you can warm your color up in a hot water bath.

Now that we’ve filled you in on the LabColor news, read on for a quick primer on everything LabColor related!

What are LabColors?

LabColors are super concentrated liquid dyes. Keep in mind that because LabColors are FD&C dyes, they will bleed in soap. However, LabColors can give you such bright, intense hues that you will want to use them in every batch! Click here to learn more about LabColors and for a quick start guide.

First Row: Azure Blue, Canary, Cimmeron

Middle Row: Grape, Flamingo, Citrus Green

Bottom Row: Gulf Stream, Hyacinth, Java Beans

What is the best usage rate for LabColors?

We have conducted extensive testing to give you precise usage rates for using LabColors in your projects. These usage rates give your soap a vibrant color without producing a colored lather, which can stain.

For 10 of the 12 basic high pH LabColors, we recommend diluting the small size of LabColor in 4 oz. of water, and then following a usage rate of 8 mL of diluted color per pound of soap (this is the total amount of soap you are making, not just the amount of oil in the recipe). These 10 colors are:

For the remaining two colors, Lime and Royal Purple, the usage rate is 4 mL per pound of soap. These colors are more likely to produce a colored lather in finished soaps, and so it’s particularly important to not over-color your products with these two colors.

In melt & pour, LabColors are a what-you-see-is-what-you-get colorant, and we typically recommend using 1/2 teaspoon (about 2.5 mL) of diluted LabColor (the small-sized bottle in 8 oz. of water) per pound of melt and pour soap. To achieve specific colors in melt and pour through blending LabColors, see our Color Mixing Guide, which are available as a hard copy or in digital format.

As an added bonus, we’re providing a helpful chart so you’ll know exactly which LabColor size to purchase based on how much soap you plan to make:

LabColor Size Amount of Diluted LabColor (for CP) Amount of Soap – Light Tint Amount of Soap – Deep Tint
small 4 ounces 59 pounds 15 pounds
large 8 ounces 118 pounds 30 pounds
jumbo 50 ounces 737 pounds 184 pounds

Blending Colors

The high pH colors are specially formulated for cold process soap, but they can also be used in melt and pour projects. Keep in mind, the same LabColor may look completely different when used in cold process soap and melt and pour, which is why it is particularly important to only use high pH colors — that won’t morph or discolor — in cold process recipes. We’re giving you the usage rate for the basic 12 colors because you can blend them into hundreds — if not thousands — of other colors by following the ratios listed on our Color Mixing Guide Sheets (you can also buy a digital version of this guide here).

Top Row: Green Wreath, Purple Mist, Berry Red

Middle Row: Vibrant Orange, Lime, Seafoam

Bottom Row: Ivy Mist, Watermelon, Sage

When can I use LabColors?

If you are making cold process soap, take a look at our high pH LabColors that are specifically formulated for all those fun from scratch soapy products. If you aren’t into making cold process soap quite yet, we also have a set of low pH LabColors that can be used in your M&P soaps and pre-made liquid soaps.

First Row: Lemon, Mauve, Green Apple

Middle Row: Eucalyptus, Soft Orange, Impatien Pink

Bottom Row: Tulip, Royal Blue, Periwinkle

For some fun projects using LabColors (including bath salts, soaps and more), check out the mosaic below. You can use the LabColors in so many different ways and we can’t wait to see what you come with. If you have used our LabColors, be sure to share photos of your creations with us on Bramble Berry’s Facebook page.

Top Row:  Holiday Soap Cubes, All’s Wool That Ends Wool & Green Machine Melt and Pour Tutorial

Bottom Row:  How To Make Solid Bubble Bath, Ombre Rebatch Layers & Peace, Love and Soap

We’d love to know what your favorite LabColors are! If you have a tint or shade of color you’d like to see, let us know in the comments below. For a complete list of Bramble Berry LabColors by hue, check out this comprehensive list:

Reds & Pinks: Berry Red, Black Cherry, Brick, Bright Cherry, Countryside Pink, Flamingo Pink, Fuchsia, Magenta, Melon Red, Impatien Pink, Pinkberry Sherbert, Razzberry, Red, Red Velvet, Rio Rose, Santa Red, Tropical Hot Pink, Tropical Red, Tulip, Watermelon, Wineberry Mist, Pinked Mauve, Countryside Amethyst, Pinked Grape, Countryside Mauve

Oranges: Apricot, Countryside Orange, Peach, Orange Sherbert, Orange, Soft Orange, Tangerine, Tropical Orange, Vibrant Orange, Winter Orange,, Mango Sherbert, Cimmeron,

Yellows: Canary, Countryside Sunny Yellow, Countryside Wheat, Lemon, Lemon Sherbert, Sunflower, Tropical Yellow, Marigold 

Greens: Citrus Green, Countryside Mint Leaf, Emerald, Eucalyptus Mist, Forest Mist, Green Apple, Lime Sherbert, Ivy Mist, Gulf Stream, Green Wreath, Sage Mist, Seafoam, Soft Jade, Tropical Green, Lime, Java Beans

Blues: Azure Blue, Aqua, Blue Green, Blue Mix, Brilliant Blue, , Countryside Blue Dust, Countryside Blue, Countryside Peacock, Countryside Slate Blue, Countryside Oceana, Pool Blue, Navy, Royal Blue, Sapphire, Sky At Dusk, Sky Blue, Countryside Teal, Teal

Purples: Countryside Plum, Countryside Purple, Easter Purple, Dark Purple, Grape, Lavender High, Lilac, Hyacinth Low, Hyacinth High, Periwinkle, Purple Mist, Purple Passion, Royal Purple, Tropical Purple, Mauve Mist

Browns & Blacks: Vanilla, True Black, Oyster Mist

Defying the Rules of Soapmaking: 100% Coconut Oil Soap with Aloe Vera and a Mantra Swirl

Filed Under: Cold Process Soap

Today’s tutorials comes to you from one of my favorite soapmakers, Kenna from Modern Soapmaking. Her soaps always have unique designs, ingredients and colors. She is consistently pushing the soaping envelope. This recipe is particularly intriguing because it breaks a few conventional soaping “rules.”

There are a lot of “rules” of soap making that get spread around like wildfire, and for the most part, they are true…

But not always! 100% coconut oil soap defies not one, not two, but THREE of the soapmaking rules I’ve heard from other soap makers in the past:

  1. Single oil soaps do not perform as well as synergistic formulas with multiple oils.
  2. Using over 30-40% coconut oil in a soap recipe is too drying for the skin.
  3. Superfatting above 10% will leave too many free oils and cause the soap to spoil or develop DOS.

What’s the magic soap recipe?

I hit the workshop to make a 100% coconut oil soap with a 20% superfat, an amazingly luxurious formula that is one of my all time favorites. Plus, I power-packed it with goodies, too, like coconut flour and aloe vera juice, and pulled out a mantra swirl with an embed.

Coconut oil has great shelf life and stability, so it’s the perfect oil for extreme superfatting. This coconut oil soap formula results in a rock hard bar, with luscious lather, without drying the skin out. Ready to give it a shot? Let’s do this thing.

Recipe

36 oz Coconut Oil
5.18 oz  Lye (Sodium Hydroxide)
10.53 oz chilled Aloe Vera Liquid
1.5 oz Fragrance Oil (optional)
2 tsp Coconut Flour (optional)
Soap balls for embeds (optional)
2 teaspoons of Mica (optional)
Silicone Loaf Mold
a 5 quart bucket
a 2-cup measuring cup with spout
three 4-cup measuring cups with spouts
a piece of cardboard cut to fit in the mold
Bamboo Skewer
Spatula
Stick Blender

Get Down to Business:

This tutorial assumes you are an experienced soap maker. If you’ve never made Cold Process soap before, stop here! I highly recommend checking out our FREE four part SoapQueen.tv series on Cold Process Soapmaking, especially the episode on lye safety. And if you’d rather do some reading, Bramble Berry carries a wide range of books on the topic, including my newest book, Soap Crafting. You can also checkout the digital downloads for that instant gratification factor.

ONE: Prepare your mold by lining it, if necessary. Cut out a piece of cardboard that fits length and height-wise into your mold snugly. Place the piece of cardboard down the center of the mold to divide the mold in half lengthwise.

TWO: Prepare your lye solution by slowly pouring the sodium hydroxide into the chilled aloe vera juice, stirring until the lye has dissolved. The aloe vera will turn a mustard yellow color, like pictured to the right. Allow to cool.

THREE: Heat your coconut oil to about 120° to 130° F. You want to soap this formula hot (I usually soap at room temperature), soaping coconut oil at too low of a temperature will increase your chances of false trace. I add my fragrance to my oils before my lye solution so I don’t forget it later on.

FOUR: Prepare two containers with mica for coloring the soap halves. I use 1 tsp of mica and 1 tsp of coconut flour per container, with 2 tsp of base oils for each container from my main soaping pot. Using a frother, I thoroughly mix the mica and coconut flour with the oils.

FIVE: Combine half of your lye solution with your coconut oil, and stick blend thoroughly. Add the remaining half of your lye solution, and stick blend only until emulsified. I always refrain from over-mixing – bringing your soap to an emulsion first, and then adding anything extra allows you more time to focus on what is happening with the soap.

SIX: Split the batch of coconut oil soap between your two containers and thoroughly mix with a spatula. If you are still at a barely emulsified or very light trace, bring the coconut oil soap in each container to a medium trace using your stick blender. A medium trace is my favorite pour viscosity for a mantra.

SEVEN: When your mica and coconut flour are thoroughly mixed into each part, begin your pour. I pour both halves at the same time so that there is equal force and weight on each side of the cardboard divider. You can also use two more pieces of cardboard on the ends of your mold with notches cutout to hold the divider in place.

EIGHT: Once both halves are poured, carefully and slowly pull your cardboard divider straight up out of the mold. If you are embedding soap balls, use a bamboo skewer to push them down into the soap. Or place them mid-way through pouring.

NINE: Using a bamboo skewer (or chopstick, or your personal weapon of choice!), swirl the mantra. Pushing the skewer down into the mold all the way to the bottom will swirl both sides of your soap. If you only put the end of the skewer into the soap, you can swirl just the top, leaving a crisp line between the two halves in the bars.

TEN: Put the pretty soap to sleep. I do not insulate coconut oil soap, but you can if you want to (same with CPOPing.) Unmold and cut the coconut oil soap as soon as it has hardened up. It sets up real hard, and real quick! You’ll want to clean up the bars of coconut oil soap straight out of the mold, such as beveling or planing – this soap will be a brick in 24 hours flat. The lather is really creamy and luscious straight out of the mold, and just gets better and better as it ages.

All photos courtesy of Amathia Soapworks.

Strawberries & Cream Soap: A cold process tutorial

Filed Under: Cold Process Soap

In celebration of the release of Soap Crafting, we’re continuing our special series of cold process tutorials inspired by the book. If you missed it, check out yesterday’s awesome beer soap (yes, we said beer) and then get ready for today’s recipe filled with another fun additive.

Sweet, juicy and perfect for a picnic, strawberries are one fantastic fruit to eat. They also happen to be wonderful in soap as well. This recipe includes fresh strawberry puree, real cream and strawberry seeds. If you haven’t experimented with additives in cold process soap yet, this is an excellent place to start. One thing to keep in mind: because this soap has so many natural additives, it has a shelf life of about 6 months.

What You’ll Need:

1. 05 oz. Cocoa Butter

8.75 oz. Coconut Oil

17.5 oz. Olive Oil

3.5 oz. Palm Oil

1.75 oz. Palm Kernel Flakes

 2.45 oz. Sweet Almond Oil

4.9 oz. Sodium Hydroxide

10.4 oz. distilled water

1 tablespoon Strawberry Seeds

Fired Up Fuchsia

Titanium Dioxide

1.2 oz. cream

3 oz. strawberry puree

10″ Silicone Loaf Mold

Fragrance blend of:

.8 oz. Strawberry Fragrance Oil

.8 oz. Sun Ripened Raspberry Fragrance Oil

.5 oz. Summer Fling Fragrance Oil

Click here to add everything you need for this project to your Bramble Berry shopping cart!

If you have never made cold process soap before, I highly recommend you get a couple of basic recipes under your belt. This is not a recipe to make on your first try at soapmaking. Check out this (free!) 4-part series on cold process soap making, especially the episode on lye safety. Bramble Berry carries quite a few books on the topic as well, including this downloadable book on making cold process soap.

COLOR PREP: Disperse 1 teaspoon of the Fired Up Fuchsia into 1 tablespoon of Sunflower or Sweet Almond Oil (or any other liquid oil) and 2 teaspoons Titanium Dioxide into 2 tablespoon of liquid oil. Use a mini mixer to get clumps worked out smoothly.

ADDITIVE PREP: Using a food processor, grind up about a dozen fresh strawberries to yield 3 oz of puree. Then, portion out 1.2 oz. cream into a second container. Set both containers aside.

FRAGRANCE PREP: Create the fragrance blend by combining the Strawberry, Sun Ripened Raspberry and Summer Fling Fragrance Oils in a glass bowl. Mix well and then set aside.

SAFETY FIRST: Suit up for safe handling practices! That means goggles, gloves and long sleeves. Make sure kids, pets, and other distractions and tripping hazards are out of the house or don’t have access to your soaping space. Always soap in a well-ventilated area.

ONE: Once the oils and lye water mixture are under 120 degrees F (and ideally within 10 degrees of each other), slowly and carefully add the lye water mixture to the oils and stick blend to light trace. Set aside to cool. If you’d like a harder bar of soap that lasts longer in the shower and releases faster from the mold, you can add Sodium Lactate to the cooled lye water. Use 1 teaspoon of Sodium Lactate per pound of oils in the recipe.

TWO: After the lye and oils have been thoroughly stick blended together (think thin trace – not thick), split the batter into two cups: one with about 1.5 cups of batter and the second with about 2 cups of batter.

THREE: In the original container, add the strawberry puree and 1 tsp. of the dispersed Fired Up Fuchsia Colorant.

FOUR: In the second 2-cup container, add 2 teaspoons of dispersed Fired Up Fuchsia.

FIVE: In the remaining 1.5 cup container, add the Strawberry Seeds.

SIX: Add 1 tablespoon of Titanium Dioxide to the cup with the Strawberry Seed batter. Add another tablespoon of Titanium Dioxide to the cup with the strawberry puree to lighten this color up. It’s quite a dark, almost brown color, without it. Using a wire whisk, thoroughly mix the colorants and additives into each cup of soap batter.

SEVEN: When the batter has reached a thin trace, pour about half the container of cream (.6 oz.) in the container with the Strawberry Seeds. Pour the remaining half (.6 oz.) into the container with the strawberry puree. Using a wire whisk or a stick blender, mix the cream into the batters.

EIGHT: Split the fragrance blend in thirds, pouring approximately .7 oz. of the oil into each cup of batter.

NINE: Pour approximately one-third of the strawberry puree batter into the silicone mold.

TEN: Starting at one end of the mold, pour about half of the pink-colored batter in a wave pattern until you reach the other end of the mold. Do the same with half of the white-colored batter.

ELEVEN: Pour almost all of the remaining puree soap into the mold. Save about a half cup to complete the final top design.

TWELVE: While pouring over a spatula, pour two-thirds of the remaining pink soap over the top of puree soap. Tamp the mold on the table to release bubbles and smooth out the surface, and then use the same spatula technique to pour two-thirds of the remaining white soap. Tamp the mold again to release bubbles.

THIRTEEN: Pour the remaining puree soap on top of the mold in a loop-de-loop pattern, from one end of the mold to the other (far right). Then, pour the remaining white soap over it, making a stretched out, horizontal zig-zag from right to left (center). Finally, pour the pink soap in an opposite zig-zag to fill in the space left by the white soap (far right).

FOURTEEN: Insert a chopstick of dowel about 1/4 of an inch into the soap. Start in the bottom left-hand corner and drag the tool up and down through the soap, slowly making your way to the far end of the mold.

 

Spray the entire top with 91% – 99% Isopropyl Alcohol to reduce soda ash. Cover and insulate for 24 hours and unmold after 3-4 days. Allow to cure for 4-6 weeks and enjoy!