Tutorials on soapmaking, bath fizzies, lotions and more
This week the blog featured several Mother’s Day gift ideas, including the Heavenly Lilac Bath Truffles. They come with a free printable gift label. The truffles are colored with Party Pink Mica and Lavender Mica. The Lilac Fragrance Oil and rose petals complement the soft pink hue. The recipe also has cocoa butter and shea butter to help moisturize the skin.
Last year, I tried making an impression patterned soap for the first time. You can find that tutorial here. I was inspired by Auntie Clara’s gorgeous lace patterned soap. To achieve the pattern, first you need to create a silicone texture mat. Auntie Clara has a wonderful tutorial and plenty of tips on creating your own patterned mat here. Creating your own textured mat allows you to customize the look, but it is a tricky process. These new impression mats are ready to be placed in the bottom of your mold. Simply cut them down to size to fit your mold and pour your soap on top. Then, unmold and peel away the mat to reveal the pattern!
For this project, I used the Flowers and Spirals Impression Mat. This particular mat has a raised pattern, which leaves a stamp-like effect on the soap. To help the pattern pop, I filled the indented part of the mat with white soap and scraped it away from the flower and vine pattern. The Scraper/Cutter Tool worked great for this step. Then, I poured dark green soap on top. This way, the green soap touched the raised pattern of the mat, which resulted in a pronounced pattern.
The process shown in this tutorial an advanced technique. To simplify it, you can skip the multiple layers and colors. Simply pouring one color of soap onto the impression mat will still result in a beautiful soap! I have also found the impression mats that have a recessed pattern (such as the Cupcake Mat or the Butterflies and Feathers Mat) are a little bit easier to use. It’s easier to fill in a recessed pattern rather than a recessed negative space because the pattern is smaller.
The ability to manipulate the texture of cold process soap allows for a wide variety of techniques. For example, thick textured soap mimics the look of cupcake frosting in the Sparkling Champagne Soap Cupcakes. On the flip side, fluid soap batter is used to create complex swirls in the Clover & Aloe Spin Swirl Soap. Swirling cold process soap takes a little practice, but is well worth it. There is something about swirling soap that is satisfying and relaxing. And the final product is beautiful!
From spin swirls and drop swirls to hanger swirls and in-the-pot swirls, there are many different swirling techniques. While each technique involves a slightly different process, there are steps you can take to ensure your soap is successful. Below are five tips for creating gorgeous swirls in cold process soap.
Bath truffles are essentially bath bombs with extra skin-loving oils and butters. They add more hydrating properties to the tub than typical bath bombs while still producing fizz. These Heavenly Lilac Bath Truffles are made with cocoa butter and shea butter to moisturize skin. Lilacs are currently in bloom here in the Pacific Northwest, and the Lilac Fragrance Oil captures their romantic scent perfectly.
These bath truffles make a great Mother’s Day gift. Just make sure to handle them with care, as they are rather delicate. To give these truffles a finishing touch, download the free Heavenly Lilac Bath Truffle labels here. Then print them on Waterproof Label Paper to attach to jars, or on card stock to attach as a tag. I found I was able to fit three truffles in the Tall 8 oz. Bail Jar.
I used a combination of Party Pink Mica and Lavender Mica to give these truffles a light pinkish-purple color. In my tests, these bath bombs did not leave color on my tub. I have found that wiping down my tub prior to taking a bath reduces color from transferring. (AKA: keeping a clean tub) The trick to bath truffles or bath bombs that contain a large amount of solid butters is making sure the bath water is hot when placing the product in the tub. If the water is not hot enough to melt the butters, it will inhibit the fizz of the truffle. Do be careful when getting out of the tub, as the butters in this recipe can leave the bottom of the tub rather slippery.
Emily of Shieh Design Studio and Soap and Restless is well known in the soaping community for her gorgeous creations. Emily is a masterful soaper and has a keen eye for design. In fact, Emily is a designer at an architecture firm, and her skills show in every bar of soap. Emily’s product photography also sets her items apart – check out her beautiful photos to see what I mean! To learn more about Emily, including her photography tips and advice for starting a blog, in the interview below. -A.M.
Emily’s gorgeous Honey Moon Soap, watch her make it here!
How long have you been soaping for and how did you get started?
I started soaping in the summer of 2010, it would be 6 years in a few months. I don’t have a fancy story of how I started making my own soap from scratch, just simply not satisfied with the feel and scent commercial wash left on my skin. What really caught my interest in making my own soap and other bath & body products is that the OCD me loves the idea of having total control. I love how I can personalize every aspect of my bath & body products from the way it looks to the way it smells and feels.
What sort of advice would you give to those soapers just starting their businesses?
To be honest, selling bath & body products is never my main source of income, it’s more of an obsession and hobby than anything. I’m not really good at running profitable business, I’m afraid to give any business advice. However, I’ve always told myself to keep an open mind. There is so much to learn in making bath & body products, even the most experienced senior soap makers can learn a thing or 2 every so often. The science and art of making soap, or any bath & body products in the matter of fact, is endless. With an open mind, your possibility is limitless.
Left to right, clockwise: Viva la Juicy (type) Soap, Melon Mojito Soap, Opium Poppy Soap
Glycerin is a thick, clear fluid that is used in a wide variety of bath and beauty products. It is a humectant, which means it has the ability to attract moisture in the air to the skin. This ability makes it great for lotions, soaps and other products. In addition to the bath and beauty industry, glycerin is used in the food industry as a sweetener. Outside the United States, it is commonly referred to as glycerol.
Glycerin is a major ingredient in melt and pour soap bases. In fact, some refer to melt and pour soap as “glycerin soap.” The large amount of glycerin is one of the reasons why melt and pour soap feels great on the skin. Adding extra glycerin to the soap softens the base. This is great if you want a bendable texture. For example, in the Melt & Pour Soap Ribbon Tutorial, additional glycerin gives soap the flexibility to create ribbons. The moldable texture also comes in handy in the Candy Cane Soap Tutorial, and the Embedded Melt & Pour Jellyroll Soap.
Left to right: Melt and Pour Soap Ribbons, Candy Cane Soap
Because glycerin attracts moisture from the air, it can cause melt and pour soap to “sweat.” This sweat is known as glycerin dew. Learn more about glycerin dew and how to prevent it in this post. In cold process soap, glycerin is a naturally occurring by-product of the saponification process. If the soap gets too hot, the glycerin can congeal which leads to glycerin rivers (shown below). Glycerin rivers are not harmful in any way, but they are a cosmetic issue. Click here to learn more about glycerin rivers and how to prevent them.
When cold process soap gets hot, the glycerin can congeal into “glycerin rivers.”
Happy weekend! Today the family and I are spending as much time outside as possible before it starts to rain tomorrow. This should be easy because Jamisen is five this weekend which means, birthday party and so much fun (!). A few weeks ago the family and I walked into town and then took the bus into the heart of downtown. The kiddos loved riding the bus and were super excited every time we stopped to let someone new on. They fought over pulling the cord once we reached our destination. =)
I’m super excited about our upcoming creative projects. Be on the lookout next week for a bath truffle tutorial, as well as a cold process soap made with one of the new impression mats. =)
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I have started making my own kombucha, so of course I had to make soap with it. =) If you’d like to see how I made these Kombucha Cold Process Bars, check out the tutorial here.
Did you catch my newest video on Soap Queen TV? Check it out here. It’s a spin swirl cold process soap, made with the new Clover and Aloe Fragrance Oil.
I hope you’re having an awesome weekend so far. To keep up with soapy social media throughout the week, you can follow me on Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, Pinterest, Vine, Katch, YouTube and Snapchat. I’m Bramble-Berry on Snapchat. Don’t forget to tag your soapy projects on Instagram with the hashtag #SoapShare and #PureSoapmaking so I can see what you’re making! =)
Happy Earth Day! To celebrate, the blog featured several ideas on how to reuse items around the house. If you have almost empty fragrance or essential oil bottles around your house, you can use them to create bath salts, scrubs or bath bombs. To do so, pour salt directly into the bottle. The salt will absorb the last few drops of scent. Then, you can pour the salts in your tub or package them for later use. Learn more in the How to Use Every Last Drop of Fragrance Oil post.
I’m fascinated by how diet and exercise affects our lives, sleep patterns, energy levels and basically, everything. Because of this, I’m always game to try the newest health food craze. Choffy? Sign me up. Bulletproof coffee? Yep. Probiotics? On it. Recently, I have been on a fermented food kick. This includes eating lots of sauerkraut, kimchi and making my own kombucha. If you’re unfamiliar with kombucha, it is fermented and sweetened tea (usually black tea or green tea). It’s a bit of a polarizing beverage as it has a strong vinegar taste. Personally, I love it as do the kiddos. =)
To create kombucha, a “Symbiotic Colony Of Bacteria and Yeast,” also known as a SCOBY, is placed in the tea to ferment the beverage. As the tea ferments, the SCOBY separates and duplicates. The science is pretty amazing! If you’ve ever made kombucha before, you know how quickly your SCOBY duplicates. Soon, you’ll have more kombucha and SCOBY than you know what to do with. After giving away as much SCOBY to friends and family as I could, I thought (as any soapmaker does), “I need to make soap with this!”
Using kombucha and SCOBY in cold process soap is the same as using other alternative liquids and additives such as purees (click here to learn more about purees in soap). Essentially, the kombucha and SCOBY add sugar to the soap batter, which increases the temperature. I was concerned that replacing 100% of the distilled water in this recipe with kombucha and adding SCOBY would be too much extra sugar. Instead, I chose to puree the SCOBY with a few ounces of kombucha and add the puree at trace.
If you’re curious about how I calculated the water amounts in this recipe with the SCOBY and kombucha, here is how I broke it down:
To go from 18.15 ounces of water to 10.5 ounces of water looks like a huge water discount. But, keep in mind you are adding 3.3 ounces of kombucha at trace and 5 ounces of SCOBY at trace, which has a large amount of water (approx. 2.5 ounces). Technically, you can safely mix lye and water at a 1:2 ratio. To read more about water discounting your soap, click here.
I did experience some heat-related issues in this batch. You can read about them at the bottom of this post. Keep in mind the sugar and water content in my kombucha might be a little bit different than yours because each brew will be unique. Because kombucha naturally contains vinegar, I was curious how this would affect the pH of my bars. I tested the pH of these bars and it was 8, which is on the lower side of normal for CP soap. This may vary depending on how “strong” your kombucha is. Click here to read more about the pH of cold process soap.
Do you have bottles of fragrance oil that are nearly empty, but you just can’t bring yourself to throw them away? Maybe the bottle contains just a few milliliters, or even just a few drops of oil. Even an “empty” bottle still has a little bit of fragrance oil on the inside. To use up every last bit of oil, I like to pour dry ingredients directly into the bottles to create scented bath salts, scrubs or bath bombs.
Salts and bath fizzies have a low fragrance oil usage rate because you usually don’t wash off after taking a bath. For 16 ounces of salts, you can use 0.2-0.3 ounces of fragrance oil for a light to medium scent. To check how much of your fragrance oil should be used, check out the Bramble Berry Fragrance Calculator. For this trick, I don’t measure exactly how much fragrance oil is leftover in the bottle. Just by eyeballing it, I know when there are only a few milliliters left in the bottle. If you think the amount might be over .48 ounces (which is the largest recommended usage rate for most fragrance oils in 16 ounces of salts), then I would recommend measuring out the fragrance oil to be safe.
You can use essential oils as well. The usage rates for the essential oils will be slightly different, so make sure to use the Fragrance Calculator to find out the maximum usage rate for the one you choose.
If you feel the amount of fragrance oil is small enough, add your salts directly into the bottle. I like to use a funnel for this process to avoid spills. You can measure your salts prior to pouring, or place the bottle on a tared scale and weigh the salts as you pour. Once full, place the cap back on the fragrance oil bottle and start shaking! The salts will absorb the last bits of fragrance oil in the bottle.
Pour the salt directly into the bottle to absorb the last few drops of oil.
Lard and tallow are popular soapmaking ingredients. Tallow is the rendered fat of animals, and usually refers to fat from cows and sheep. Lard refers to pig fat. Lard and tallow give soap firmness and contribute to a stable lather. Because of these properties, both tallow and lard are common substitutes for palm oil.
Lard and tallow can be purchased from the store, or you can render your own at home. Rendering your own tallow is a great way to reduce, reuse and recycle. In the spirit of Earth Day this Friday, I saved bacon grease from an epic Bramble Berry staff lunch cooking extravaganza to use in this palm-free recipe. First, the bacon grease needed to be cleaned up to reduce the smell and remove any bacon bits. Click here to see the process. I also used leftover yogurt containers as the molds in this recipe. I love the cute little shape! Click here for more ideas on using recyclables for soap molds.
Once the bacon grease was cleaned up, I used it at 30% of my total recipe. I generally recommend using lard and tallow at 50% or less in your cold process recipes. If you’re looking for more tallow recipes, check out this guest post by Eric Vought for tallow laundry soap. I added shredded loofah to the bottom layer of these bars for exfoliation. The top layer contains carrot puree, which gives the soap a soft yellow color and additional creaminess. For more information on using purees in cold process soap, click here.
Hypothetically, you can make cold process soap with just about any oil or fat. This includes animal fats. The most common animal fats are lard and tallow. Lard is rendered pig fat, while tallow is rendered fat from meat other than pork such as cow, lamb or goat. Tallow and lard are excellent for soapmaking. Both contribute to the firmness of the bar and a stable lather. Lard and tallow are commonly used as palm oil substitutes. If you’re interested in learning more about the benefits of tallow in soapmaking, check out the Understanding Tallow for Soaping guest post.
Lard and tallow can be purchased at the store ready to use. Or, you can render your own at home. The basic idea of rendering lard and tallow involves “cooking” the fat along with water. Then, the entire mixture is placed into a container to cool. The fat will rise to the top of the container, while the water will fall to the bottom. This process helps remove any particles within the oil. The process may vary slightly depending on what form the fat is in. For example. if you got your tallow from a butcher, you most likely have chunks of fat and meat that will need to be strained. Our local sister store, Otion, rendered tallow from a local butcher in the Crock-Pot (shown below); click here to see how they did it. They used the rendered tallow to make Mahogany Tallow Soap. This is a topic we’ve touched on before here and here.
Otion Soap Bar recently rendered chunks of tallow in the Crock-Pot for soapmaking, click here to see the process.
A few of the amazing Creative Live team members, the live studio audience and Courtney of Handmade Beauty Box. Such an amazing group!
On Thursday, I taught a class on Creative Live. It was such an amazing experience; I’m still on cloud nine! If you’re unfamiliar with Creative Live, it’s a website with high-quality workshops on a wide variety of topics including design, music, crafts and photography. My class focused on bath and beauty projects, including cold process soap, scrubs lotion and more. Click here to purchase the class and see all 25 lessons. I demonstrated lots of projects. You can find all the kits for the recipes here.
My A-Team: Courtney (far left), myself and Haley. These girls really rocked the entire setup!
Happy Saturday! Earlier this week I taught a class on Creative Live. It was a great experience. I’m working on a blog post about my experience, so be on the lookout for that tomorrow. Below is a shot of the lavender cold process soap that I made during the class. Isn’t it pretty? Sometimes simple soap is the best. The recipe for this soap is available in my Creative Live class. =)
Next week on the blog we are celebrating Earth Day with several recipes and ideas on how to reuse and recycle. In the meantime, check out my favorite pins, tweets and grams from the week below.
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This Blueberry Jam Sugar Scrub is made with two different colors of jojoba beads to create the beautiful blue shade. It’s scented with the new Blueberry Jam Fragrance Oil, which is sweet and fruity.
What do you think of the yellow layer in this hanger swirled soap? I was unsure about it, but most people on Instagram seemed to like it! This project is scented with Crisp Cotton Fragrance Oil and may become a video on Soap Queen TV soon.
To keep up with soapy social media throughout the week, you can follow me on Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, Pinterest, Vine, Katch, YouTube and Snapchat. I’m Bramble-Berry on Snapchat. Don’t forget to tag your soapy projects on Instagram with the hashtag #SoapShare and #PureSoapmaking so I can see what you’re making! =)
