Tutorials on soapmaking, bath fizzies, lotions and more
Soapmaking is both a science and an art. Countless variables, like temperature, can affect the look and feel of your soap. Cold process soap that gets too hot can form glycerin rivers.
They don’t affect the quality of the soap, but they do affect the way it looks. Glycerin rivers create a cracked or mottled appearance that can obscure more intricate designs. This post goes over how to prevent them.
Our Soap Crafting Club had a little bit more of a challenge than we planned for this week. When reports of failing batches came in on the private Soap Crafting forum, we knew something was wrong. After all, the recipe that we were making (Tie Dye from the Soap Crafting Book) had been made at least 8 times and gone through 2 photo shoots and 1 video shoot. It was designed to be fail-safe. We tracked down the culprit to a mis-manufactured fragrance oil that was sent out to the entire group of soapers. Oh dear, chaos, sturm und drang.
Coloring lip balm can be tricky. Often times, getting the perfect oil and wax blend is difficult to master, and the color in melted balm is different than the color on your lips. To eliminate the guesswork, the spoon trick is an excellent way to quickly identify the color and texture of your dried lip balm without waiting for the whole batch to harden.
To formulate your lipstick and lip balms more quickly, stick a metal spoon in the freezer for 1 – 2 hours so it’s nice and cold. Make your perfect lip balm or lipstick formula and then dip the frozen spoon into the liquid balm. The balm will immediately harden on the spoon, revealing its true color. Check out the examples below:
