Cold Process Archives - Page 2 of 9

Orange Spice Hot Process Soap Tutorial

November 13, 2017 Filed Under: Bath & Body Tutorials, Cold Process Soap

We love making things from scratch. That love of DIY inspired this Orange Spice Hot Process Soap, complete with homemade dried orange slices. The slices were created in a dehydrator as a perfect accent for this holiday project.

It’s scented with a combination of Orange 10X Essential Oil and cinnamon leaf essential oil, which makes the bars smell like a delicious holiday treat. Orange peel powder adds texture and a touch of color.

Unfamiliar with hot process soapmaking? The main difference between hot process and cold process soap is that hot process is cooked, which speeds up the saponification process. This results in soap that can be cut within 24 hours and enjoyed the same day. It’s the perfect project if you need to make last-minute gifts. Learn more in this Lemongrass and Lavender Hot Process Soap video on Soap Queen TV.

To create the dried oranges, we used a process very similar to this tutorial. After about 12 hours in the dehydrator, the orange slices are a hard texture perfect for topping soap. They are purely for decoration and can be left out if you prefer. Oranges are natural items that can wilt or even mold if left in the shower long enough.

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Moonstone Cold Process Soap Tutorial

August 25, 2017 Filed Under: Bath & Body Tutorials, Cold Process Soap

It’s amazing what a little mica can do. It adds a beautiful iridescence to handmade bath and beauty products. This Moonstone Cold Process Soap has a layered design, but what makes it special is the glimmer on top.

The recipe is topped with Snowflake Sparkle, Aqua Pearl, Party Pink, and Lavender Micas. You can place the colors on top of the soap easily using the new Powder Sprayer, which is part of our gemstone collection. All you have to do is press the top of the sprayer and the mica is dusted onto your soap. It’s an easy way to work with powders, and also happens to be pretty fun to use.

This recipe is scented with new Moonstone Fragrance Oil, which is a combination of soft floral, light powder, and sweet fruit. It has notes of lavender, bergamot, jasmine, violet, sandalwood, and vanilla. You can sample Moonstone and three other new scents in the Gemstone Fragrance Oil Collection. It includes 2 ounces of each fragrance for just $16.95, and is available until Sept. 3rd.

The Moonstone Fragrance Oil discolors to a soft brown. To combat the discoloration, this recipe includes plenty of titanium dioxide. An abundance of titanium dioxide can lead to glycerin rivers – learn more about glycerin rivers here. To prevent glycerin rivers this recipe has a 15% water discount, so be ready to move quickly.

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Agate Spin Swirl Soap Tutorial

August 23, 2017 Filed Under: Bath & Body Tutorials, Cold Process Soap

This Spin Swirl Soap is inspired by the beautiful layers and textures of agate stones. The design is created with a technique known as the “Spin Swirl.” It’s an advanced technique that involves layering colors of soap in the mold. Once the mold is full, it’s spun on a Lazy Susan or directly on the counter. The spinning motion causes the soap to swirl together. See the spin swirl in action here.

Once the soap is swirled, pieces of LCP Melt and Pour Soap Base are sprinkled into the corner of each bar. LCP soap base has less glycerin than regular melt and pour soap, which helps prevent sweating. But, because cold process soap needs to cure unwrapped, you may still experience some glycerin dew. Our bars got a little bit, but the glycerin dew actually added some extra “sparkle” to the embeds!

The key to the spin swirl is formulating a recipe that gives you plenty of time to pour all the layers. Once the layers are poured, the soap needs to be liquid enough to move during the spinning process. This recipe contains plenty of slow-moving oils like olive and apricot kernel. It also features the new Amethyst Fragrance Oil, which doesn’t accelerate in cold process soap.

If the soap needs to be fluid for a long period of time, you may be wondering why there is a water discount. The first time we made this soap, we experienced heavy soda ash on the bars. Soda ash is more likely to occur if the soap is poured thin and temperatures are kept cool, like this batch. A water discount is the best way to prevent soda ash. Luckily, even with the water discount, we were still able to create a spin swirl. Just remember to use your stick blender sparingly and work quickly.

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Black Tea Soap Tutorial

July 14, 2017 Filed Under: Bath & Body Tutorials, Cold Process Soap

Black tea has been renowned for centuries as a potent source of powerful antioxidants. This Black Tea Cold Process Soap recipe harnesses those properties by replacing water with black tea. It’s also scented with the new Bergamot Black Tea Fragrance Oil. The fragrance is a complex blend of smoky tea leaves and bright bergamot with a subtle base of amber. It’s a fantastic uni-sex fragrance oil.

If you’ve never replaced water in your recipe with tea, it’s easier than you think. Simply brew the tea, allow it to cool and mix in the lye like you would with water. The lye solution will become a dark brown, so this recipe contains titanium dioxide to lighten the color. Purple Brazilian clay adds a natural purple hue, while activated charcoal gives a deep grey color.

Because this recipe does contain plenty of titanium dioxide, it has a 20% water discount. The first time we made the soap without a water discount, we got a lot of glycerin rivers (Learn more about glycerin rivers here.) The water discount — or in this case, tea discount — eliminated them completely. The discount also helps to achieve a thick, easy-to-layer texture.

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Simple Coffee Soap DIY

July 5, 2017 Filed Under: Bath & Body Tutorials, Cold Process Soap

If you’re a coffee lover, this simple soap recipe is for you. It’s made with coffee seed oil, a dark and rich oil extracted from roasted coffee beans. Coffee seed oil has a delicious aroma. This recipe uses only 3% of it, but that’s enough to give it a light color and coffee scent.

The soap also contains used coffee grounds for exfoliation and coffee butter for extra moisture. Fresh grounds can bleed in soap, which is why used grounds are best. The liquid in this recipe is half distilled water and half brewed coffee. If you have never used coffee as the liquid in your soap before, check out our How to Make Coffee Soap post. Feel free to use all distilled water or all coffee if you prefer.

All these amazing coffee ingredients give the bars enough color and scent without any fragrance oil or colorant. That being said, the scent is very light. If you want a stronger coffee scent, Espresso Fragrance Oil would be great in this recipe. It will lightly discolor the soap.

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Lemongrass Mojito Soap Tutorial

June 26, 2017 Filed Under: Bath & Body Tutorials, Cold Process Soap

Both lemongrass and mint have a refreshing, herbal scent. The new Lemongrass Mojito Natural Fragrance Oil features notes of both plants, along with litsea and a touch of rosemary. It’s a bright, herbaceous fragrance oil that’s perfect for summer.

This Lemongrass Mojito Soap was inspired by the new fragrance oil, along with this Mojito Melt and Pour Tutorial from 2010. The combination of swirls and chunky melt and pour embeds suggest the appearance of a mojito cocktail. The Hanger Swirl Tool swirls the green hues together, creating a unique look in each bar. If you love the look of this soap, you might also like the Shimmering Sea Glass Cold Process Soap.

Wondering what a “natural” fragrance oil is? A natural fragrance oil (a.k.a. nature-identical fragrance oil) is a chemical replica of an essential oil that is created in a lab from the aroma chemicals present in plants, fruits, flowers, and other natural aromatic ingredients. Natural-aroma chemicals are derived directly from the plant, but the specific scent molecule is isolated from the other components of the plant. This single-molecule product differs from an essential oil, which has a more complex profile.

Because it comes from a combination of sources, it can’t be called an essential oil. But, it doesn’t contain the synthetic ingredients that a “regular” fragrance oil contains. Some soapers do not consider nature-identical fragrance oils to be “natural.” As with many ingredients, it comes down to an individual choice to use them or not.

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Cactus Flower Soap Tutorial

June 21, 2017 Filed Under: Bath & Body Tutorials, Cold Process Soap

Nature is full of inspiration. This Cactus Flower Soap was inspired by the colors and textures of a blooming cactus, along with our new Cactus Flower Fragrance Oil. It’s fresh and green take on a floral scent, with notes of violet petals, lemon, and white musk. It behaves wonderfully in soap and gives these bars the perfect floral scent.

This beautiful photograph led us in designing the colors, layers, and textures of this soap. The first layer is created using Bright Blue Jean Colorant, with poppy seeds to mimic the texture of a cactus. An activated charcoal line separates the white and blue layers. Finally, green melt and pour embeds and soap “flowers” add color and interest.

The melt and pour embeds do need to be created several hours in advance to allow them to cool and harden. We recommend using LCP White Melt and Pour Soap Base when embedding into cold process soap. LCP stands for “like cold process” and refers to melt and pour soap that contains less glycerin. It melts at a slightly higher temperature, which helps prevent some morphing or melting if the soap goes through a hot gel phase. LCP bases are also less likely to develop glycerin dew.

This recipe should be kept cool to prevent the embeds from melting. A slightly lower soaping temperature will also prevent glycerin rivers from forming in the white layer. This recipe does use a 10% water discount to further prevent glycerin rivers. Lower soaping temperatures also help achieve a thicker texture and prevent the soap flowers from melting. If you live in a very hot climate, you’ll probably want to place this soap in the fridge for several hours.

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Daisy Cold Process Soap Tutorial

April 10, 2017 Filed Under: Bath & Body Tutorials, Cold Process Soap

Daisies are such cheerful, happy-looking flowers. The bright white petals were the inspiration for this cold process soap recipe. White flower embeds are placed into a yellow soap base to create tall and skinny bars that are perfect for spring.

The embeds are created with the Mini Daisy Silicone Column Mold. They need to be made 3-4 days in advance to allow them to fully harden. If you don’t want to wait for the cold process embeds, you can make the embeds with LCP White Melt and Pour Soap Base instead.

This soap is scented with Sunflower Fragrance Oil, which is a sophisticated and warm floral scent. Everybody who smells it can’t help but love it. Sunflower Fragrance Oil does accelerate trace, but in this design the acceleration helps suspend the embeds throughout the soap. Just make sure to use your stick blender sparingly once the fragrance is added. A touch of titanium dioxide is added to combat the slight fragrance discoloration and keep the yellow bright.

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Kokum Butter Cold Process Soap Tutorial

February 8, 2017 Filed Under: Bath & Body Tutorials, Cold Process Soap

We are excited to introduce kokum butter to the Bramble Berry line! If you’re unfamiliar with kokum butter, it’s a hard butter that is most comparable to cocoa butter. Kokum butter melts slightly above body temperature and is known for its light, non-greasy feel on the skin. In cold process soap, kokum butter adds firmness. Read more about kokum butter here. Soapers have also found that kokum butter adds a bit more lather than cocoa butter; Amy Warden of Great Cakes Soapworks has a great kokum butter lather test here.

For this recipe, I kept things simple to let the creamy texture of the soap stand out. It’s scented with eucalyptus essential oil for a refreshing scent. The smell is great during the cold winter months. Titanium dioxide is added to lighten the color, while ground pumpkin seeds add exfoliation. Because this recipe contains plenty of olive oil, a small water discount helps it pop out of the mold a bit quicker and prevents glycerin rivers. Learn more about water discounting in this post.

Below, you can see one of the test batches for this soap that I made on Facebook Live. The recipe has been tweaked a little bit, but it gives you an idea of what this project looks like in action!

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Cotton Candy Swirl Cold Process Soap Tutorial

December 27, 2016 Filed Under: Bath & Body Tutorials, Cold Process Soap

Is there a treat that screams “fun!” more than cotton candy? I can’t think of any! Fluffy, colorful and sweet, it brings back memories of summers at the fair or circus. This soap is made with Cotton Candy Fragrance Oil, which smells just like the real thing – sweet, sticky and fluffy. I made this soap at the tail end of summer, and the bars smell as good as when they were freshly cut. Of course I had to use light blue and pink to replicate classic cotton candy colors, along with plenty of sparkle and a melt and pour embed.

One of the best things about the Cotton Candy Fragrance Oil (other than the smell, of course) is the minimal discoloration. It gives the soap a yellow tint, but that can be overcome with some titanium dioxide. It does accelerate, so be ready to move fast when working with it. With fast-moving fragrance oils, sometimes it can be nice to have a “soap-helper” nearby. This is a great project to get help from friends and family who might be visiting for the holidays, or if you’re teaching a friend to soap!

For this project I did a combination of a spoon plop and hanger swirl using the Hanger Swirl Tool. As you can see, the Hanger Swirl tool didn’t swirl the soap as much as it usually does, because the soap was on the thicker side. But, it still gave the swirls some nice movement. Because this soap uses a good amount of titanium dioxide, I used a small water discount to reduce glycerin rivers. A few still popped up, but nothing too noticeable. =)

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Energizing Orange Cold Process Soap Tutorial

November 29, 2016 Filed Under: Bath & Body Tutorials, Cold Process Soap

Making cold process soap for the first time can be intimidating. To make the process as easy as possible, we designed the Natural Soap Kit for Beginners with the first-time soaper in mind. The kit comes in three color and fragrance options (orange, lavender and lemongrass) and includes 100% pure essential oils, botanicals, lye, soaping oils, a reusable mold and safety gear. All you really need to provide is distilled water, soaping containers and a stick blender. Plus, it ships for free to anywhere in the lower 48 United States! It’s the perfect gift for that crafty person in your life.

This Energizing Orange soap may be my favorite of the three Natural Soap Kit for Beginners color and fragrance options. The soap is scented with 10X Orange Essential Oil, which gives the bars a bright orange color. Orange peel powder adds extra color and a touch of exfoliation. Marigold petals are added to the top for a finishing touch. The bars smell amazing, and look so bright and cheery. I have yet to meet somebody who didn’t enjoy orange soap. =)

Part of what makes this project so easy is that it requires a nice thick trace. The orange peel powder can be added directly to the soaping oils prior to adding the lye, or it can be added at trace and stick blended. To create the texture on top, continue to stick blend until you achieve a texture of thick pudding. You really don’t need to worry about stick blending this project too much!

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100% Coconut Oil & Annatto Soap Tutorial

October 18, 2016 Filed Under: Bath & Body Tutorials, Cold Process Soap

There are so many amazing uses for coconut oil. From creating lip balm to cold process soap, it’s fantastic for a variety of crafty beauty projects. In terms of cold process soap, I use it in just about every recipe.

While coconut oil is extremely hydrating when applied directly to skin, when combined with sodium hydroxide, it adds cleansing properties to cold process soap. If used at more than about 33% of the total recipe, it can make the bars feel too cleansing and can be drying to some. But, some soaping rules are meant to be broken! You can make soap out of 100% coconut oil if you have an unusually high superfat. Not sure what a “superfat” means? Long story short, it’s the amount of oils in a recipe that are not transformed into soap during the saponification process. An average superfat is usually between 1–7%. This means 1–7% of oils in the recipe are “free-floating” in the bar and were not turned into soap. A superfat is also referred to as a “lye discount.” This is because in order to turn fewer oils into soap, you reduce the amount of lye in the recipe. Still a little confused? This video may help.

A high superfat of 20% combats the super-cleansing properties of soap made with only coconut oil. Because the Bramble Berry Lye Calculator doesn’t calculate a superfat that high (it’s something we are hoping to add), I’ll walk you through how I calculated this recipe. It’s super easy!

First, choose “Solid” for the type of soap. Then, select ounces or grams (whichever you prefer working with). Then, select a superfat of “None.” Click the “Next” button. Then, enter how many ounces or grams of coconut oil you’d like to use. In this case, I used 21 ounces. Click “Next.” The lye calculator gave me the recipe below.

Now, we are going to reduce the amount of lye in this recipe by 20%. This will create a 20% superfat. To reduce the lye by 20%, multiply the 3.74 ounces of lye by 0.8 (because we want 80% of the lye). This equals 2.992, which I rounded to an even 3 ounces for ease of weighing. Then, while it’s not necessary, I like to reduce the water amount by 20% to maintain the ratio of water and lye (otherwise, the soap can be pretty soft and gooey coming out of the mold initially). Multiply the 6.93 ounces of distilled water by 0.8. This equals 5.544, which I rounded to 5.5 ounces. Now you have the lye and water amounts to give this recipe a 20% superfat.

To keep these bars natural, I infused the coconut oil with annatto seeds for a bright orange color. I scented them with a blend of bergamot essential oil and litsea essential oil. It gives the soap a bright, citrusy scent that matches the orange hue. If you’re looking for more 100% coconut oil recipes, check out this 100% Coconut Oil Soap with Aloe Vera and Mantra Swirl by Kenna of Modern Soapmaking.

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Crescent Moon Cold Process Soap Tutorial

September 27, 2016 Filed Under: Bath & Body Tutorials, Cold Process Soap

Fall officially started last week, which means it’s time for Halloween projects! Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. It’s an excuse to embrace dark colors, moody fragrances and spooky themes. For this Crescent Moon Cold Process Soap, I wanted to create a bar of soap that would be appropriate for Halloween and beyond.

These bars are a sophisticated take on Halloween with a striking yet simple design. Black Oxide gives the bars a dark gray hue. If you want a darker color, feel free to add more colorant. Just keep in mind the more you add, the darker the lather will be. The crescent moon shape is created with melt and pour soap and the Mini Moon Silicone Column Mold. Gold Sparkle Mica on top really pops against the dark gray. The bars are scented with Tobacco & Bay Leaf Fragrance Oil, which is a wonderfully smoky and complex fragrance. It’s great for both men and women.

This project is appropriate for both beginning and intermediate soapers. It requires a medium to thick trace, so you don’t need to worry about over blending with the stick blender. But, keep temperatures in mind. Melt and pour soap begins to melt around 120-130 ° F. If this soap gets too hot, the moon embed could melt. I recommend soaping around 100-110 ° F and not insulating the soap to keep temperatures cool.

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Sparkling Snowdrop Cold Process Soap Tutorial

September 22, 2016 Filed Under: Bath & Body Tutorials, Cold Process Soap

Remember when the movie Frozen was everywhere? If you have young children, it still may be a huge part of your life! =) These Sparkling Snowdrop Soaps remind me of an ice princess, à la Elsa from Frozen. They are made in the Tall Narrow Wood Loaf Mold to create the skinny shape. The design is created with a mixture of the drop swirl technique and the butterfly swirl made popular by Zahida from Handmade in Florida and Soaps From Home. The top is sprinkled with Snowflake Sparkle Mica and melt and pour embeds for an icy look.

This project does involve advanced techniques and a keen understanding of trace. If the trace is too thin, the colors will muddle together. If the trace is too thick, the white and blue will not swirl properly. The new Sparkling Snowdrop Fragrance Oil does accelerate soap slightly. Add it to the batter at the very last second to avoid a trace that’s too thick. If you’d like to learn more about trace and how to manipulate it, click here.

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