Click here to be taken to Part A of these instructions.

1. Pull out a piece of saran wrap long enough to hold all of your citrus slices. Carefully position your “rind” soap on the saran wrap. Pull the wrap tight to make sure there are no wrinkles under the “rind”. Do the best you can – the wrap never quite gets straightened or perfect.

2. Spritz the “rind” and inside of the rind (onto the plastic wrap) with rubbing alcohol. Pour a thin layer of clear soap into the rind.

3. Spritz the thin layer of clear soap with rubbing alcohol. Place the “slices” into the clear layer of soap, before it hardens. Wiggle them into the perfect positioning. Have your paring knife handy just in case you need to slice off a too-large slice piece to ensure evenly spaced out soap.

4. Spray the entire set up with alcohol. Alcohol is your friend in this case. It helps with adhesion of the soap pieces.

5. Allow this clear layer to harden up prior to the next step. This usually takes 3 to 5 minutes at the most. If you do not allow your clear layer to harden up, the Lemon Slice below is a good example of what happens – the white soap will leak out the sides of the slice.

6. Melt White melt and pour soap in the microwave, double boiler or whatever method you prefer. Make sure the white soap is not steaming or else it will melt your slices. For the Bramble Berry House Bases, 120 to 130 degrees is the best option for the overpour.

7. Spritz with alcohol. Using either a steady hand, you can pour directly into the middle of the soap slices from your heat safe container. The Melt & Pour Injector Tool is fabulous for this because it allows precision targeting with the white soap base. Using the Injector is my preferred method for this soap. It has less mess and trimming to work with after the soap hardens.

8. Give one final spritz and you’re all done. Allow the soap to harden. Peel the soap off the plastic, cut into slices or wrap whole.

Voila – you’re done! Realistic Citrus Slices that are easy and fun to make.

Citrus Soap – The (more) Realistic Way

What You’ll Need:

clear melt and pour
white melt and pour
non-bleeding liquids, Labcolors or Micas (Exact colors used for this project are Apricot Blush Mica mixed with Orange Mica)
Fragrance oil (Good ones are Yuzu, Tangerine EO, Synergy EO blend, Energy and Creamsickle)
Droppers or PJ Tool Kit
Silicone Brownie Tray (a must-have for soap crafting)
Pyrex container
Biscuit Cutters or a Round Cookie Cutter
Spoons
Rubbing Alcohol in a spritzer bottle
Saran Wrap
Paring Knife (or small cheese knife)

1. Melt 16 ounces of soap in the microwave. Color and fragrance based on your color preference. Place your silicone mold on a flat surface and wipe it out with an alcohol-dampened paper towel. This is to ensure your mold is clean and dust free.

2. Pour the soap into the mold and wait for it to fully harden. Once it is hardened, peel the soap out of the mold.

3. Most biscuit cutters will come with three to four sizes of cutters. Choose a large, medium and small sized cutter. Ideally, you want one cutter size in between the two sizes you choose. The larger cutter will be the “rind” size and the smallest cutter makes the “slices”.

Push down firmly with the larger of the cutters until the entire flat piece of soap looks like a pockmarked slice of cheese.

4. Take the medium cutter cutter and cut out holes inside the larger circles. Save the medium circle cut outs and the round circle rinds.

5. Now, take the medium inside cutout circle and cut into it with the smallest slice. Save the round that comes from this for other fun projects to do with melt and pour. For the remainder of this Citrus Slice Soap Project, you will only use the large rind (step #3) and the small circular cut out (step #5).

6. Cut each small circle into definable citrus slices.

7. To make a realistic citrus soap, having a center adds to the effect. Carefully shave off a little snip of the tip with a small paring knife.

Check back tomorrow for the full completion of this project tabbed, day-by-day link to each of the projects.

This is what happens if you don’t do a clear pour first. It’s difficult to push the citrus slices firmly through to the bottom of the white soap, causing sloppy looking citrus slices.

If you do the full steps, with a clear soap pour first, this is what your soap will turn out to look like:

Starting tomorrow, I’ll be finishing up the Citrus Slice Tutorial with the way I stumbled upon to create realistic looking citrus soaps.

Click here for Day One of this tutorial.

Part Two

1. Cut the soap slices into six to eight pieces. Cut the sides off of a few pieces to ensure proper spacing between the citrus slices.

2. Cutting the tips off of each slice helps with a realistic look.

3. Before laying down the citrus slices in the soap, arrange them on the table first to make sure you don’t have any last minute chopping and slicing to do.

4. Spray the top layer of the clear soap with rubbing alcohol to help surface adhesion. Place each soap citrus slice gently and carefully. A level table is essential. The alcohol makes the soap slippery and an uneven table will cause the citrus slices to slide and drive you slightly crazy trying to place the slices evenly.

5. Prepare your white soap base. Melt approximately 8 ounces in the microwave. Stir until it is 120-130 degrees or until it is no longer steaming. Steaming soap melts delicate embedded pieces, like your citrus slices. Fragrance the white soap.

6. Spray your embedded soap slices with rubbing alcohol. Pour the white soap, use a dropper or PJ’s cool soap injector to fill in the white soap.

7 . Wait four to six hours for soap to fully harden before popping the soap out of your mold.

This is the most fun of the entire project, the reveal! This is when you see what all of your planning, preparation and soap placing hath wrought.

Tip: When using a plastic juice can, be sure to cut the bottom off before you fill it with soap. They’re much harder to saw through with a dull kitchen knife otherwise.

Use both hands, gently push the chilled soap out. The shorter the tube, the easier it is to push the soap out. Some of the sewer pipes I used were multiple feet and they were misery in a tube.

Cut the soap and gasp in horror (or awe if you’re not cutting and placement challenged) at the abstract citrus soap art. Here, I used Bramble Berry’s straight cutter (commonly used by pastry chefs to clean up flour and goo in commercial kitchens). You can also use a sharp knife or crinkle cutter.If you needed a reminder about why to use a funnel to pour your seal layer, the photo above should scare you straight. Hands are shaky, faulty things and a funnel helps to ensure a straight soap pour that doesn’t get rivulets of sealing soap down the sides of your tube. There’s another picture on yesterday’s tutorial showing a lovely streak of blue going down the side of the slice soap insert.

Look for the beautiful photograph later today proving that yes, good photography really does hide a multitude of sins. If you missed yesterday’s tutorial, you can find it here.