Cold Process Soap Archives - Page 6 of 8

Violet Confetti Cold Process Soap Tutorial

August 4, 2016 Filed Under: Bath & Body Tutorials, Cold Process Soap

“Confetti soap” refers to bars that contain shreds of previously made batches. The soap shreds look like pieces of confetti or sprinkles in the final bar. I love the playful look it creates. The technique is a great way to use up extra soap or a batch that didn’t turn out quite right. I have used both fully cured soap shreds and fresh soap shreds with good results.

For this Violet Confetti Tutorial, soap colored with Queen’s Purple Mica and Titanium Dioxide are layered to create contrast. Shreds of soap made with Queen’s Purple Mica and Orchid Mica are added to the white layer for interest. If you don’t have leftover purple soap, other colors would look great as well. In particular, shreds of green, yellow or pink soap would look beautiful. Violet Fragrance Oil mimics the purple colors. This fragrance accelerates slightly, which aids in creating a textured top. Lavender Mica is sprinkled on top for sparkle.

I can’t believe this is the last tutorial for the #SoaptheRainbow series! Six weeks went by so quickly. If you haven’t participated in the series yet, there is still time. Share your purple projects on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook with the tag #SoaptheRainbow for a chance to win a $10 Bramble Berry gift certificate. There is also still time to enter to win the GRAND PRIZE of over $250 worth of colorants, fragrances, molds and more.

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Blue Rimmed Cold Process Soap Tutorial

July 28, 2016 Filed Under: Bath & Body Tutorials, Cold Process Soap

The rimmed soap technique is a project I have been meaning to try for months. It was made popular earlier this year when Amy Warden and Tatsiana Serko hosted a Rimmed Soap Challenge for the Soap Challenge Club. Typically, the technique is made in a column mold for a round shape. For this tutorial, I used the Heavy Duty Column Mold with Reusable Liner. Rimmed soap is an advanced technique that involves several steps. First, a thin layer of swirled soap is created in a loaf or slab mold. After the soap has hardened but is still soft (about one day), the soap is sliced horizontally into thin strips and carefully molded on the rim of the Heavy Duty Column Mold. Finally, soap is poured in the center.

To create the soap for the rim, I poured a small amount of soap into the 10″ Silicone Loaf Mold. Then, I sliced the soap into thin strips using the Wire Soap Slicer. The Wire Soap Slicer is specifically designed to slice soap horizontally. It’s fantastic for cutting designs like the Taiwan Swirl, and really came in handy for this technique. The wire can be moved up or down to adjust the thickness of the soap layers. I found the thinner the soap layers, the easier they are to bend into a circular shape. Thicker slices of soap are more likely to crack. If you don’t have a slicer, Alaiyana B. Bath and Body has a great tutorial for rimmed soap that demonstrates creating a very thin layer in a large slab mold. Alaiyna B. Bath and Body is a master of the rimmed soap technique – check out some of her beautiful creations here.

I decided on a blue color palette for this project to coincide with blue week of #SoaptheRainbow. I have been loving all your gorgeous blue photos; keep ’em coming! If you’re unfamiliar with #SoaptheRainbow, I’m choosing my favorite photos tagged with #SoaptheRainbow on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. The winners will be featured on Instagram and win a $10 Bramble Berry Gift Certificate.

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How to Make Refreshing Lemongrass Soap

July 21, 2016 Filed Under: Bath & Body Tutorials, Cold Process Soap

This Refreshing Lemongrass Soap was created from the Natural Soap Kit for Beginners. It’s a project that’s specifically designed for beginners, but is perfect for the advanced soaper as well. It’s made with natural lemongrass essential oil, and gets its vibrant color from Green Chrome Oxide Pigment. Poppy seeds are added on top for texture and interest. If you’d like to create a scrubby bar, you could add the poppy seeds at trace!

The Natural Soap Kit for Beginners includes everything you need to create this soap. All you need to provide is distilled water, a mixing bowl, stick blender and thermometer. In addition to the ingredients, the kit includes cute labels and a printed booklet with instructions and cold process soap information. Another bonus? The kit ships free to the lower 48 United States!

In the video above, you can see just how easy it is to make this project. If working with lye makes you a little nervous, knowledge is power! This Lye Safety Guide will teach you everything you need to know about handling lye safely. If you’re a visual learner, watch this video to learn how to handle it safely.

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Lemon Cold Process Soap Cupcakes DIY

July 14, 2016 Filed Under: Bath & Body Tutorials, Cold Process Soap

Lemon-flavored desserts are always a favorite. Not only are they delicious, but the bright yellow color is hard to beat. While you can’t eat these Lemon Cold Process Soap Cupcakes, they look just as yummy as the real thing! The design was a spin off the Luscious Lemon Cupcakes, which were made with melt and pour soap. Scented with Lemon Verbena Yankee Type Fragrance Oil, these soaps smell fresh and tart.

This recipe does require a few steps, and is considered an advanced soaping project. If you’ve never made soap before, I recommend getting a few batches under your belt before trying this tutorial. In particular, creating soap frosting requires a good understanding of soaping temperatures and lye safety. To watch the process of making cold process soap frosting, check out the Soap Queen TV video below.

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Orange Peel Swirled Soap Tutorial

July 7, 2016 Filed Under: Bath & Body Tutorials, Cold Process Soap

This week has been all about orange for #SoaptheRainbow. This Orange Peel Swirled Cold Process Soap contains four different shades to create a bright orange swirl. It’s scented with Orange Peel Cybilla Fragrance Oil, which smells wonderful in cold process soap. The fragrance also behaves well and does not accelerate, making it perfect for the swirled design.

To create the swirl shown in the soap, I used the Easy Swirl Tool and Comb Swirl Tool (you can find these tools sold together in the Swirl Tool Kit). These tools feature stainless steel screws that create beautiful patterns in soap. They can also be customized to fit any size mold. To see more swirl ideas using these tools, check out the tutorials below.

Swirl Tool Techniques (Peacock Swirl, Frog Foot, Butterfly, etc)
How to Make the Perfect Peacock Swirl in Cold Process Soap
Soap Challenge: Peacock Swirl
Butterfly Swirl Soap Tutorial
Frog Foot Swirl Cold Process Tutorial
Amethyst Garden Soap Tutorial
French Curl Cold Process Tutorial
Fall Sherbet Cold Process Soap
Peacock Swirl in Cold Process Soap

I made this soap while filming live on Facebook. To watch the live videos, be sure to “like” the Bramble Berry Facebook page. You can see the full video below.

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Red Hanger Swirl Cold Process Tutorial

June 30, 2016 Filed Under: Bath & Body Tutorials, Cold Process Soap

Red is bold and dramatic. It conveys a variety of feelings including love, anger, passion and courage. When brainstorming a soap design to represent the color red for #SoaptheRainbow, I wanted it to be bold and daring. I decided on a hanger swirl design with a vibrant shade of red paired with black and white. It’s scented with a combination of Apple Sage Fragrance Oil and Yacht Club Fragrance Oil for a blend that’s fruity with hints of musk.

The technique in this tutorial uses a bent hanger to swirl the soap. In this case I used the Hanger Swirl Tool, which is bent to fit inside the mold lengthwise. First, the black, white and red soap are carefully layered on top of each other. Then, the Hanger Swirl Tool is pushed up and down within the soap to swirl the layers. This technique can be modified in many ways depending on how you layer the soap and move the Hanger Swirl Tool. For example, the Butterfly Swirl made famous by Zahida of Handmade in Florida is a modified version of the hanger swirl technique. Click here to see Zahida’s Butterfly Swirl in action.

Red is a bit of a tricky color to achieve in cold process soap. When you add red colorants to a white batter, they tend to take on a pink shade. To create the vibrant red in this soap, I used a combination of Magenta Mica, Merlot Sparkle Mica and Sunset Orange Mica. On its own, Magenta Mica has a pink shade. The Merlot Sparkle Mica deepens the color, and the Sunset Orange Mica helps get rid of the pink hue. To see more red shades in cold process soap, check out the Quest for the “Perfect Red” in Cold Process Soap post.

Don’t forget to keep sharing your #SoaptheRainbow red photos until Sunday! I will be choosing my favorite red photos on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. The winners will be posted on the Bramble Berry Instagram account, and will win a $10 Bramble Berry gift certificate. There is also a Grand Prize worth more than $250 of Bramble Berry goodies. Click here to enter. But wait, there’s more!

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Why Did My Soap Crack?

June 20, 2016 Filed Under: Tips & Tricks

You poured your soap into the mold and everything looks wonderful. But, when you look at the soap the next day…ack! There’s a huge crack down the center. What happened? There are several reasons why your batch may have cracked. Below are some of the most common cracking culprits, and how to avoid them.

Too Much Hard Oils, Butters, Wax
One reason why a batch of soap might crack is because of the recipe. Soap is more likely to crack if it contains a large amount of solid oils, butters or wax. The potential for cracking is greater with more brittle butters and waxes, such as cocoa butter and beeswax. In general, I recommend limiting the amount of butters to 15% of your total oils, and the amount of beeswax to 8% or less of the total oils. This post has more information about various butters and how to use them in your soap and other beauty products.

Lots of firm butters like cocoa butter can cause soap to crack. I recommend using no more than 15% butter in your recipe to prevent this.

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Cold Process Soap Design Directory

June 15, 2016 Filed Under: Bath & Body Tutorials, Tips & Tricks

There are so many designs that can be created with cold process soap. The ability to manipulate the texture from thick and pipeable to fluid and pourable allows a wide variety of possible techniques. For example, thin soap can be swirled in the mold to create a spin swirl. On the other hand, extremely thick soap can be piped and manipulated to create shapes and texture. If you can dream it, you can probably soap it!

Over the years, I have tried a lot of techniques and designs. With each tutorial here on the blog, I’m always thinking about what technique I have yet to feature. I love teaching and demonstrating the possibilities of all things soap, bath and beauty. Because of that, I thought it would be helpful to categorize just about every Soap Queen cold process tutorial by design type.

This Soap Design Directory is quite the list and includes everything from techniques created with thick soap (layers, textured tops, spoon plop) to thin trace techniques such as the spin swirl and linear swirl. Keep in mind this list focuses on the design elements and technique, rather than recipe type. In addition, some tutorials feature more than one technique so they may pop up in several categories. As I continue to publish tutorials, I will try my best to keep this list updated. But, if you don’t see it updated right away, just know I will get to it as soon as I can. =)

I hope you enjoy this design directory, and find it helpful and inspiring! It has helped me identify which techniques I need to showcase more. Stamped soap, confetti soap, feather swirl and petal techniques…I’m looking at you!

Layers
Moonstone Cold Process Soap
Sahara Sunset Cold Process Soap Tutorial
Exfoliating Green Tea Cold Process Bars
Goat Milk & Oatmeal Cold Process Soap
Watermelon Cold Process Soap Tutorial
Lard & Loofah Cold Process Soap Tutorial
Natural Colorant Rainbow Cold Process Soap Tutorial
Couture Confetti Cold Process Soap Tutorial
Layered Lavender Cold Process Tutorial
Luck of the Irish Hot Process Soap
Layered Lilac Loofah Cold Process
Queen of Hearts Cold Process Tutorial
Vibrant Mehndi Cold Process Soap
4th of July Fireworks Cold Process
Black, White and Gold All Over Cold Process
Striped Berry Champagne Cold Process
Holiday Cookie Bar Cold Process Tutorial
Bramble Beer Soap
Soap Challenge: Elemental Swirl
Smoky Bay Cold Process Tutorial
Waves of the Sea Cold Process Tutorial
Handmade Soap for Gardener
Sunset Ombre Soap Tutorial
Falling for Pumpkin Pear Soap
Ombre Rebatch Layers
Fall Sweater Stripes
Sunset Over the Water by Lovin’ Soap
Man Soap with Tamanu Oil
Neapolitan CP for Valentine’s Day
Almonds, Chocolate and Lavender CP Tutorial
Apple Jack Peel for Fall
Luck of the Green Beer Cold Process Tutorial
Let it Bleed: Cold Process Soap Color Gradation Tutorial
Cheery Holiday Cold Process Soap Tutorial
Valentine Cold Process Soap

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Perfect Pineapple Soap Tutorial

June 1, 2016 Filed Under: Bath & Body Tutorials, Cold Process Soap

Juicy, sweet and slightly tart, pineapple is a delicious summer fruit. I love putting pineapple in smoothies or just enjoying it on its own. They are also super popular right now; I have been seeing pineapple themed paper goods, clothing and designs popping up everywhere! For this project, I wanted to create a realistic pineapple soap. To mimic the texture of pineapple skin, I rolled a real pineapple over Flexy Fast Molding Putty. This created a silicone mat with a pineapple skin print. Shades of green, yellow and orange soap are poured onto the mat to mimic the shades of real pineapple.

For a sweet fruity scent, I used Pineapple Cilantro Fragrance Oil. The cilantro notes give just a hint of green, which gives the fragrance a well-rounded scent. It also behaves wonderfully in cold process soap, which allows you to create an “in-the-pot-swirl.” If you’d like to see this technique in action, check out this episode of Soap Queen TV.

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Guest Post: Thyme & Witch Hazel Facial Bar DIY

May 26, 2016 Filed Under: Cold Process Soap

Thyme & Witch Hazel Facial Bars. Photo by Jan Berry.

Today, Jan Berry of The Nerdy Farm Wife was kind enough to share this recipe for Thyme & Witch Hazel Facial Bars from her new book, 101 Easy Homemade Products for your Skin, Health and Home. The book is full of unique and simple recipes for cold process soap, scrubs, lotions, balms and more. Jan is also the author of several eBooks, including Natural Soap Making, Things To Do With Roses and Things To Make With Mint.

For this recipe, the distilled water is infused with fresh thyme. Then, witch hazel is combined with honey and added to the soap at trace. The large amount of olive oil and sunflower oil creates a gentle bar, making it great for delicate facial skin. Castor oil boosts lather and tamanu oil is added for its anti-inflammatory properties. To learn more about tamanu oil, click here. Because of the small amount of hard oils, so you may find this recipe takes a little bit longer to reach trace.

The water in this recipe is infused with fresh thyme. Photo by Jan Berry.

I was intrigued by the idea of adding witch hazel at trace, as I previously avoided adding witch hazel to cold process soap. My thought was the alcohol content in the witch hazel would react poorly. Once, I accidentally sprayed witch hazel on top of my soap rather than 99% isopropyl alcohol and it caused some separation. When I tested Jan’s recipe, I found the witch hazel behaved wonderfully with no problems at all. Even after 20+ years of soaping, I’m still learning new things. =)

Jan reports that adding witch hazel to soap at trace can lead to a slightly medicinal smell while the soap cures. When I made this recipe, I found the curing bars had a slightly sweet/medicinal smell that I really enjoyed. After about two weeks of curing, this scent faded.

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How to Make Shaving Soap on Soap Queen TV

May 5, 2016 Filed Under: Cold Process Soap

This Cold Process Shaving Soap recipe creates thick and luxurious bubbles. The key is a combination of castor oil, combined with skin-loving butters like cocoa and avocado. It’s scented with a combination of spearmint and patchouli essential oils for a refreshing, yet earthy blend. Bentonite clay is added to give the soap “slip,” which helps prevent razor burn.

I poured this soap into short bail jars, which are the perfect size to use with the shaving brush. This recipe does contain a 15% water discount to help the soap cure while in the jars. If you prefer, you can use a different mold or container. But, I don’t recommend skipping on a shaving brush. It’s crucial for creating a thick lather.

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Kombucha SCOBY Cold Process Soap DIY

April 21, 2016 Filed Under: Bath & Body Tutorials, Cold Process Soap

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:

The full amount of water in this recipe is 18.15 ounces.
First, I calculated a 10% water discount to help it unmold faster. This gave me 16.3 ounces of water (18.15 x 0.9= 16.3).
I’m adding 5 ounces of SCOBY and 3.3 ounces of kombucha at trace. I estimated the SCOBY is about 50% water, which means I’m adding 2.5 ounces of water via the SCOBY.
The total amount of liquid added at trace is 5.8 ounces; 2.5 ounces of liquid in the SCOBY and 3.3 ounces of kombucha. (3.3 + 2.5 = 5.8).
To compensate for the added liquid, I subtracted 5.8 ounces from 16.3 ounces to get 10.5 ounces.

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.

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Lard & Loofah Cold Process Soap Tutorial

April 19, 2016 Filed Under: Bath & Body Tutorials, Cold Process Soap

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.

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Clover & Aloe Spin Swirl Cold Process on Soap Queen TV

April 14, 2016 Filed Under: Bath & Body Tutorials, Cold Process Soap

The spin swirl technique refers to pouring layers of soap into the mold, then spinning the soap to create a unique design. The key to the spin swirl is a slow-moving recipe and fragrance oil that does not accelerate trace. This Clover and Aloe Spin Swirl Soap is made with the new Clover and Aloe Fragrance Oil, which behaves wonderfully in cold process. I also like to use a lazy Susan for this project – it really helps with spinning motion!

If you’re a beginner soaper, I would recommend getting a few recipes under your belt before attempting this project. The soap batter must stay fluid for a long period of time, so a good understanding of trace is essential. If you’re looking for more spin swirl tutorials, check out the Psychedelic Spin Swirl Cold Process Soap and the Pantone Spin Swirl Cold Process Soap for more inspiration.

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