Tutorials on soapmaking, bath fizzies, lotions and more
Has your cold process soap ever looked gelatinous after a few hours in the mold? It’s likely going through gel phase. That’s a part of the saponification process where the soap gets hot – up to 180°F. It doesn’t affect the quality of the final bars, but it does affect the way they look.
You can choose whether to force gel phase based on your recipe and personal preference.
Sea sponges add interest and extra lather to soap. In this cold process recipe, silk sea sponges are placed into each section of the 9 Bar Unfinished Birchwood Mold. When wet, the sponges become quite soft and act similar to a washcloth.
The silk sponges used in this project come from the Philippines – they are sustainably harvested by specially-trained divers. Because they are a natural product, they do vary in color, size, and shape. The sponges are also available in a wool variety that have a different look and feel. The wool sponges can be used in this tutorial if you prefer, although they need to be cut to size.
The bars are scented with Sea Salt Fragrance Oil. It’s a unique scent with notes of seaweed, cucumber water, and white tea leaves. It gives you plenty of time to create the swirls in this project and it doesn’t discolor.
Speaking of swirls, this project does use a technique that may look a little intimidating. But as you can see in the steps below, the colors are layered into the mold in a very imprecise way. The key is equally distributing the colors so the top has a little bit of each. That helps create a more dynamic swirl.
The Sea Salt Fragrance Oil, jagua blue extract, and sea sponges are all part of the new Seascape Collection. It includes four ocean-inspired fragrance oils, exfoliants, sugar pearls, and more. Click here to shop the entire collection.
What You Need:
9 Bar Unfinished Birchwood Mold
Silicone Liner for 9 Bar Mold
9 Silk Sea Sponges
9.5 oz. Coconut Oil (27%)
2.5 oz. Cucumber Seed Oil (7.1%)
2.5 oz. Mango Butter (7.1%)
11.2 oz. Olive Oil (31.8%)
9.5 oz. Palm Oil (27%)
5 oz. Sodium Hydroxide Lye
10.4 oz. Distilled Water (10% water discount)
2.2 oz. Sea Salt Fragrance Oil
Hydrated Chrome Green Pigment
Caribbean Blue Mica
Jagua Blue Extract
Click below to add everything you need for this project to your Bramble Berry shopping cart!
If you’ve never made cold process soap before, stop here. We highly recommend checking out our FREE four part SoapQueen.tv series on cold process soapmaking, especially the episode on lye safety. If you’d rather do some reading, Bramble Berry carries a wide range of books on the topic, including Pure Soapmaking. You can also check out the digital downloads for that instant gratification factor.
FRAGRANCE PREP: Measure 2.2 ounces of Sea Salt Fragrance Oil into a small glass container and set aside.
COLORANT PREP: In separate containers, disperse 1 teaspoon Caribbean Blue Mica and 1 teaspoon Hydrated Chrome Green Pigment into 1 tablespoon of lightweight liquid oil such as sweet almond oil or sunflower oil. Use a mini mixer to get rid of clumps. Then, mix together 1/2 teaspoon of jagua blue extract with 1/2 tablespoon of distilled water with a spoon. Be very careful with this mixture – it’s highly concentrated and will stain skin and other surfaces. If necessary, you can use a mini mixer to help get rid of clumps. We recommend covering the container with your hands if you use the mixer, it can cause the water to spray.
SAFETY FIRST: Suit up for safe handling practices. That means goggles, gloves, and long sleeves. Make sure kids, pets, other distractions, and tripping hazards are out of the house or don’t have access to your soaping space. Always soap in a well-ventilated area.
ONE: Slowly and carefully add 5 ounces of lye to 10.4 ounces of distilled water. Gently stir until the lye has fully dissolved. Set it aside to cool. If you’d like a harder bar of soap that releases faster from the mold, you can add sodium lactate to the cooled lye water. Use 1 teaspoon of sodium lactate per pound of oils in the recipe. For this recipe, you’d add 2 teaspoons sodium lactate.
TWO: Melt and combine 9.5 ounces of coconut oil, 2.5 ounces of cucumber seed oil, 2.5 ounces of mango butter, 11.2 ounces of olive oil, and 9.5 ounces of palm oil into a large container (remember to fully melt then mix your entire container of palm oil before portioning). Once the lye water and the oils have cooled to 130 degrees F or below (and are ideally within 10 degrees of each other), add the lye water to the oils and stick blend the mixture to a very thin trace.
THREE: Split the soap into four containers and add the following amounts of dispersed colorants. Use a whisk to fully mix them in.
NOTE: You’ll notice in the final bars, the jagua blue extract became a much lighter color. Interestingly, this only happened on the top of the bars – the jagua blue shade on the inside of the soap stayed a deep blue. Natural colors can do interesting things. We think the light gray is still pretty, but if you like contrast you can add more jagua blue extract or add a touch of dispersed black oxide pigment or activated charcoal to ensure the color stays dark.
FOUR: Pour the 2.2 ounces of Sea Salt Fragrance Oil equally into all the containers (it’s okay to eyeball it). Use a whisk to fully mix in the fragrance oil.
FIVE: Pour some of the first color (it doesn’t matter which) into the mold in long S-curves lengthwise. Pour some of a different color in the mold, still going lengthwise. Continue pouring alternate colors lengthwise into the mold. If the soap starts to thicken, mix with a whisk to loosen it up.
SIX: For the first few passes of color, the order doesn’t really matter. Once the mold is about half full, take more care to differentiate the colors to make a more distinct pattern when you swirl them. Once you get to the top of the soap, pour so that each color is showing.
SEVEN: Once all the soap is in the mold, tap it firmly on the counter to get rid of bubbles. Insert a chopstick or dowel into the very top of the soap and drag the tool so that it crosses the lines created by the soap. Continue this S-curve down the entire length of the mold.
EIGHT: Insert the chopstick again, and move it up and down the mold in small wavy lines.
EIGHT: Insert the dividers into the soap. This drags the design down the sides of the bars. If you prefer to cut your bars, you can skip this step.
NINE: Insert a dry silk sea sponge into each bar. We placed most of them toward one side of the bar to allow the swirl to be seen.
TEN: Spritz the top of the soap with 99% isopropyl alcohol to prevent soda ash. Cover the mold to insulate and promote gel phase. Gel phase helps the colors pop and it helps the bars release from the dividers faster and more easily. If you live in a very cold climate, place the mold on a heating pad set to medium for about 30-60 minutes to help raise the temperature.
TEN: Allow the soap to stay in the mold for 2-3 days. To remove, take out the silicone liner and pull on the sides to break the airlock. Push the soap up from the bottom to release. If the bottom of the soap is still soft, let it harden in the dividers for a few more days.
Once firm enough to handle, gently remove the soap from the dividers. To prevent tearing, do not pull the dividers. Instead, push the soap down or slide the dividers up or down to remove the soap without tearing. This video shows that process in more detail. Allow the soap to cure for 4-6 weeks and enjoy.
There are so many color options when it comes to soaping. You can choose a vibrant neon palette with plenty of pinks and oranges, or a more subtle and rustic palette with natural blue and gray tones. If you’re going for a vibrant palette, there are several tips and tricks to make your colors really pop. Bright colors can help your soap stand out and catch the eye of a potential customer. Not to mention you can impress loved ones with your excellent soapy skills and color selections =). Let’s dive into the factors that affect the vibrancy of your soapy creations!
Color Options
What colorant you use plays a big role in how vibrant the soap will be. For instance, micas create gorgeous color in melt and pour soap, but some can morph or fade in cold process soap. Before choosing the colorant for your recipe, make sure to check how it performs. The descriptions on Bramble Berry have information on how the color performs, and some also have pictures of the colors in a finished bar of soap. The Talk It Out Tuesday: Colorants post also has helpful information, including how to use each color in your recipe.
Mica colorants work great in melt and pour soap, but some can fade in cold process soap.
The Sea Clay Swirl Cold Process Soap uses a clay and a pigment to create the minty green shade.
There are a wide variety of ingredients to customize handmade soap. Oils, colorants, additives and fragrances create a perfectly customized bar. Honey is a popular additive for cold process soap. It has various properties that make it appealing for skincare. In particular, honey is a natural humectant, which means it absorbs moisture from the air. Humectants are great for the skin, as they can help the skin retain moisture. Honey also contains antioxidants and natural sugars which can increase the lather of cold process soap.
While honey has some great benefits for soap and skincare, it can be tricky to work with. Adding honey to cold process soap means you are adding extra sugar. Sugar causes cold process soap to heat up. This also happens when using ingredients such as milk, fruit juices and purees, which also contain natural sugars. When soap heats up after poured into the mold, the soap goes through gel phase. ‘Gelling’ and ‘gel phasing’ in cold process soap refers to a part of the saponification (soapmaking) process where the soap gets warm and gelatinous – up to 180 degrees. Click here to read more about gel phase.
In many cases, gel phase is a good thing! It can result in brighter colors, and give the soap a shinier appearance. But when you’re working with a soap that contains extra sugar such as honey, you may want to avoid gel phase. The extra sugar can lead to an extremely hot gel phase. The hot gel phase can produce cracked soap and a kind of caramelization, which leads to a deep color within the soap. If this happens, the soap is still perfectly fine to use, but it may not be the color you want. In some cases, sugar combined with extreme heat can even lead to a soap volcano. Check out the volcano that occurred when I made soap using coconut milk.
In general, use about 1 teaspoon of honey per pound of soap. You can certainly use more, but keep in mind the more honey you use, the hotter your soap will get. Some soapers add their honey to the soap directly during trace. Others prefer to dilute the honey in a portion of the water in their recipe, and add this mixture at trace. If you’ve never worked with honey in cold process soap before, I recommend keeping your design very simple, as the honey can cause the soap to accelerate and thicken quickly. This can make swirl and complicated designs very difficult.
Today is the third tutorial in the Back to Basics Cold Process Series. The first two projects were designed to give you a “feel” for soaping, and did not feature color or any complex design elements. Now, we are ready to work with color, thick trace and gel phase! The Back to Basics Soapmaking Kit includes all the soaping ingredients you need to create all four recipes in this series, including the 10″ Silicone Loaf Mold. Now, let’s get soaping!
Basic layers are a fantastic design option for the beginner soaper. To make sure layers don’t blend together, the bottom layers of soap need to be thicker than the top layers. This Layered Lavender Cold Process Soap works with thick trace to ensure the layers stay separate. Thick trace soap has a texture similar to pudding, and holds its shape. To help give the soap its thick texture, this project uses Lavender & Cedar Fragrance Oil, which accelerates very slightly. To learn more about trace, check out the All About the Trace blog post.
In addition, this project uses LabColors to give the layers a purple ombre effect. LabColors are highly concentrated liquid dyes. In order to be used in water based projects, they first must be diluted in distilled water. Click here to learn more about LabColors, and how to dilute them. LabColors become more vibrant when the soap goes through gel phase. Gel phase refers to the part of the saponification process where the soap gets warm and gelatinous. Gelled soap looks slightly more transluscent and shiny than non-gelled soap. Click here to read more about gel phase, and see how gel phase affects LabColors.
Today is the next lesson in the Back to Basics Cold Process Series. Today, we are reviewing how temperature affects cold process soaping. If you missed yesterday’s Basic and Simple Cold Process Soap, be sure to check it out! It’s the perfect recipe for the beginner soaper. Tomorrow will feature another cold process tutorial including butters and essential oil. If you’d like to receive all the ingredients to make all the projects in this series, the Back to Basics Soapmaking Kit contains everything you need!
Cold process soap making is a science. It involves mixing oils and lye solution to begin a chemical reaction known as saponification. Like any scientific process and reaction, it’s important to be precise and consistent. For soap making, these means carefully measuring and mixing ingredients and controlling for factors such as temperature.
The temperature of cold process ingredients (the oils and lye solution) can greatly affect the final product. The temperature of your soaping area also affects your results. If you were to ask advanced soapers, “What is the perfect soaping temperature?” you would receive a wide range of answers. This is because it depends greatly on the particular recipe and design. For most soapers, the preferred temperature of soaping lye and oils are 120-130 ° F. In addition, many soapers and books believe it is helpful to have the lye and oil within 10 degrees of each other.
Now that summer has officially begun, temperatures are on the rise and in some area of the country, are way way up (Shout out and cooling thoughts to Arizona, Arkansas and Eastern Washington). If you are a summer person like me and live in a more moderate climate, this is great news! I absolutely love spending time in the warm weather and outdoors hiking, biking and swimming. However, the heat does affect how certain soapy ingredients need to be handled. Butters, oils and other ingredients change consistency when exposed to higher temperatures. This is especially true when ingredients and products are being shipped and sit in a hot delivery truck for long periods of time.
If you have ordered from Bramble Berry recently, you may have received liquid oils or butters when you were expecting a firm texture. All solid oils and butters have a melting point where they melt from a solid into a liquid. Once the butters cool down again, they will resolidify. The quality of butters and oils does not decrease by melting and solidifying several times. But remember to always fully melt your entire container of palm oil to ensure your soap receives the proper ratio of all the fatty acids.
Average Melting Point of Common Hard Soapmaking Oils and Butters
Avocado Butter about 90° F
Cocoa Butter about 100° F
Coffee Butter about 104° F
Mango Butter about 86° F
Shea Butter about 90° F
Coconut Oil 76° F
Palm Kernel Flakes about 102° F
Palm Oil 95-97° F
Beeswax 144-147° F
Temperature plays a very important part in soaping. It can affect the trace, color, texture and scent of your final soap. In general, we recommend soaping at around 120-130 ° F. This means that both the lye and oil are this temperature range immediately before the two are combined and the saponification process begins.
An important factor that affects the temperature of your cold process soap is insulating it after it has been poured into the mold. Insulating the soap involves covering the mold with a lid or homemade device (we often use cardboard) to keep the soap warm. In addition to covering the soap with a lid or cardboard, you can also wrap the mold in a blanket to insulate. For soap that has a textured top, I recommend creating a “tent” with cardboard and cover with a blanket to ensure the top of your soap is not smashed. Below is a soap covered in cardboard and wrapped in a blanket. I always write a little note so people don’t disturb the soap =)
Above, soap is being insulated with a lid and cardboard to promote gel phase.
[Read more…]
This week was the beginning of the Roman Holiday series of tutorials inspired by the art, history, and architecture of Rome. First up is the easy to make Olive Oil and Dead Sea Salt Scrub. The combination of Pure Olive Oil and Fine Grained Dead Sea Salt creates a luxurious body scrub that’s great for your legs and body.
Many of the ingredients used, including Neroli & Shea Blossom Fragrance Oil, are now 25% off until July 25th at noon, PDT. Use the code ROMEDAY25 during checkout. To see the full list of sale items, click here.
This week the sun came out in full force, warming up cloudy Bellingham to 70 degrees! All this sunshine certainly inspired new projects and recipes, including a delicious twist on kale salad. Using roasting chickpeas instead of croutons, the Roasted Chickpea and Kale Cucumber Salad is the perfect lunch on a hot day.
Speaking of heat, the Jazzed about Gel Phase post is full of information regarding what happens when your soap heats up. Gel phase has great benefits, particularly when you gel with LabColors. If you’d like more information on LabColors, this post will get you up to speed.
Does soapy inspiration ever strike while you are away from your computer and enjoying the sun? The newly updated Soap App for Androids makes it easy to collect and formulate cold process recipes. You could even use it to formulate recipes for the Make it Monday Challenge! Simply share your project using the Carnation Fragrance Oil, or the Sunny Herb Garden Fragrance Oil with the hash tag #BBGarden for a chance to be featured on the blog. Projects can be shared on the Bramble Berry Facebook page, Twitter or on Instagram until May 30th.
The Facebook Photo of the Week was inspired by all this talk of hot summer days days and impending summer vacations. Called “Birds of Paradise,” it’s a bright colored soap reminiscent of exotic beaches.
