Today, Erica Pence of Bath Alchemy Lab is taking over the blog with an awesome cold process tutorial. This Minty Turkish Mocha Mantra Marble Cold Process Soap is made using Erica’s newest technique, Mantra Marbles. This technique was introduced by Erica in The Artisan Soapmaker Issue 2 eZine –Soaper’s Toolbox, a publication for cold process and melt and pour soapmakers. I love how this technique turns out, and can’t wait to try it myself! Erica is an accomplished teacher; to find more of her tutorials and techniques, check out her classes including the Gourmet Autumn Cold Process Soap Class, and the Spring Fling Cold Process Soap Class! -A.M.

Hi, I’m Erica from Bath Alchemy Lab. Today I’m going to show you how to create cold process soap using the Mantra Marbles technique. There are multiple varieties and three are demonstrated in the ezine. This is one version using Bramble Berry products. A mantra swirl is an advanced design made in a log mold in which a divider and three colors are used to create a beautiful swirl. Our brand new design, Mantra Marbles, takes this concept a few steps further, incorporating a marble technique into a mantra swirl but using a slab mold instead of a log mold.

In the original mantra swirl, after the soap is divided into two colors and the divider is removed, a third color is added. Then, a figure-eight style design is swirled using a thin tool. In order to actually see the mantra on the front of a bar of soap, you must first cut the log of soap 1 inch deep horizontally, then slice the soap about every 3 or so inches vertically into bars. Only one third to one half of the bars have the mantra swirl – just the top few bars. The rest of the soaps will simply be two-toned.

So, how does one get all of the soap bars to have a true mantra swirl? The answer is simple. Use a slab mold with more dividers. Take that a step further and create a marble on one side of each set of dividers, and you have a Mantra Marble. Use a recipe and scent that will allow you to fully control your trace and at least 3 colors as shown below. Your trace and your manipulation tool will dictate the final design.
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