techniques Archives - Page 11 of 16

Using PJ’s Tool Kit – Part One

June 15, 2008 Filed Under: Melt & Pour Soap

We just received a new shipment of PJ’s Melt and Pour tool kits. I’ve broken this post into a few parts worth. I hope that you find it helpful for making artistic melt and pour soaps a la PJ. This M&P tutorial is helpful even if you don’t have a cool PJ Tool Kit.

Step # 1-2Make sure your mold and tools are clean and your pan of hot water (for cleaning tools) is on simmer.

Step # 3-4 Select your colors & fragrances ahead of time. If you know they will need adjustments (more soap pigment or fragrance) have those ready.

Step # 5-6 Cover all containers with plastic wrap before melting; melt only the color you need when needed.

These are all small amounts of soap (including the green for the base since they are hand soap sized) I suggest zapping at 35 second intervals stirring between zaps ’til melted.

I’ll be posting more in this four-part series over the next few days.

Happy Flag Day!

June 14, 2008 Filed Under: Personal Ramblings

Here’s my contribution to Flag day – a slightly funky take on the American flag. Isn’t it remarkable that even with the colors switched up it is still easily identifiable as the American Flag?

Now that’s good design!

Alabama Soap Meeting, "It’s Hot!"

June 13, 2008 Filed Under: Personal Ramblings

Greetings from sunny, warm Alabama. It is warm here, like walking into a hot yet damp blanket every time you step outside.

The Alabama Soap Meeting (day one) was fun, professionally run and all the attendees are (super duper!) warm and welcoming.
The program had a good mix of demonstrations – M&P Cupcakes, Soapless Facial Cleanser, and a fun “15 minutes of Fame” segment with soap stamping, shrink wrapping and cutting soap. The soap cupcakes came out perfectly. Karen used mica to make faux-sprinkles.

Beth H. did a great job job showing us how to use some serious arm muscle and mica to make the stamps really pop! on the soap.

Dianne from Dearly Yours brought a special Coconut Macadamia Sea Salt Scrub (scented with Cucumber Melon) for me. The scrub has a melt and pour Cucumber on top. The soap slice is a sophisticated touch.

Along the way, there were some baby kittens found outside and adopted. They are called “Bubbles” and “Soapy.” They were very small (albeit flea-ridden) and seemed happy to be held and bottle-fed. They’re the mascots of the show!

We finished the night in Debbie’s (TrueSoap’s Debbie) room, “snorting soap” (her quote, not mine) and talking fragrance and business.

I can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings.

PS – PJ, I’ll do the MP tutorial Saturday or Sunday, I promise…

Button Flowers for Summer

June 8, 2008 Filed Under: Personal Ramblings

I made some cute Daisy (or as we call it on the Bramble Berry web site: “Button Flower“) soaps this week (all in the name of more color and fragrance testing) but really, I just can’t get over how adorable the mold is. It must be the overcast weather in Bellingham that makes me gravitate towards this happy mold. Hopefully summer will be here both in name and weather patterns soon.

The Daisy on the left is my favorite. Because the color is a bleeding colorant, it won’t stay beautifully mottled. Within two to three weeks, the entire white bar should be more of a muted pink without the unique look the bar is sporting now.

If you want to recreate any of these bars, you’ll need the Button Flower mold, clear melt and pour, white melt and pour, fragrance of your choice (might I suggest Midnight Pomegranite or Energy?), and Merlot Mica, Non-Bleeding Red, Red Labcolor and Sparkle Gold Mica.

The bars on the right and middle are simple multi pour soaps. Simple Instructions: Melt, color and fragrance the soap in different containers. Pour the soaps at the same time. They will naturally swirl and mingle in a surprising fashion. I painted gold on the rims of the soap molds before pouring. That’s where the sheen comes from.

The white soap on the left is actually just a white overpour with chunked up pieces of red soap cut up very small to give a different embedding look. All three bars are simple to make and use basic melt and pour techniques yet they look so varied and different. Melt and Pour truly is a consumable and usable art form.

Celebration Soap Fans

June 7, 2008 Filed Under: Personal Ramblings

Over at the Homestead Notes blog, they made the Soap Queen project: Celebration Soaps! I like the patriotic color scheme that they devised, especially with Flag Day coming up on June 14.

If you miss this project, click here to review the instructions.

Candy Swirl Soap – Part One

May 24, 2008 Filed Under: Melt & Pour Soap

Over on the TeachSoap Forum, Erin asked for a tutorial on making the exciting Peppermint Candy Soaps that I made at Christmas.

Here is a tutorial on making Peppermint Candy Soaps – but redone for Spring with happy pastel colors.

The set up is simple:

White Melt and Pour
Clear Melt and Pour
Non-Bleeding Colorant
Fragrance or Essential Oil
Milky Way Round Mold
Rubbing Alcohol
Knife (a little paring knife)

Directions for Making Candy Swirl Soaps

Step 1: Cut soap into small squares

Step 2: Melt soap in a coffee cup or Pyrex container (or whatever you have that is heat safe in the microwave).

Step 3: Add scent to melted soap base. I used .25 ounces of fragrance per pound of soap. Pour soap base into the round mold and spritz with a finishing touch of alcohol. If you are incredibly impatient (like me), put mold into the freezer for roughly 25 minutes. If you want to do things the “right” way to ensure no condensation is formed, wait 2 hours and pop the soap out of the molds.

Bath Fizzy that Ate the World!

May 23, 2008 Filed Under: Personal Ramblings

Bath Fizzy that Ate the World!
Originally uploaded by brambleberry22098

Learn How to Make Me! This Weekend!

May 23, 2008 Filed Under: Personal Ramblings

The Soap Queen blog will be doing a multi-part tutorial on making these fun Pinwheel Soaps, starting tomorrow.

Make Soap from Bacon Fat

May 23, 2008 Filed Under: Personal Ramblings

Thank you to Bob Pritchett from Logos Bible Software for alerting me to this super cool Bacon Soapmaking Video.

Just a small safety note, weighing out oils is better than volume measurements if you’re making cold process soapmaking recipes. But, even without that pesky scale part added in, this is a fun instructional video!

Click here to see the 5 minute video on rendering fat, cold process soapmaking and making soap that looks like bacon.

Hummingbird Art Soap

May 19, 2008 Filed Under: Personal Ramblings

Thank you to Judith Ann from Sugar Island Treasures for sending us this fabulous photo of her Hummingbird soaps.

She is very artistic, having painted the Hummingbird photo in the back of the soaps and making the Hummbingbird soap to match. Using our Melt and Pour Tool Kit and the Milky Way Hummingbird mold, she made these wonderful Hummingbird soaps with the Non-Bleeding Red & Purple (mixed to make Fuscia), Green Patina Sheen Mica, Sparkle Gold and Merlot Mica. NOTE: The Hummingbird Mold has been discontinued. You may like the 6 Cavity Guest Bee Silicone Mold instead.

I am in awe of her artistry and the patience and vision required to make this beautiful soap a reality.

Gel Phase

May 14, 2008 Filed Under: Personal Ramblings

This 30 second video is a great example of gel phase in cold process soapmaking.

Remember, if you get this blog emailed to you daily, the video won’t appear in your email. You need to click through to the blog to watch it.

Owls and Button Flowers

May 1, 2008 Filed Under: Personal Ramblings

Check out our awesome new Aloha Molds. We have 7 new Aloha molds and our favorites, so far, are the Retro Owls and the Button Flowers.

These molds are so great for layering because the divots are deep enough to effortlessly pour multiple layers. My first batch using these new molds were actually just to test some colors. They turned out pretty cute (if I don’t say so myself).

I used our clear melt and pou r and tested a brown, a yellow and a red liquid oxide concentrate. I liked how the colors turned out and no bleeding. Yahoo!. If you like these test colors you could try our Brown, Yellow, Red or Ulatramarine Pink Oxides.

Bramble Berry will for sure be adding the Brick Red Non-Bleeding Colorant pictured in the tests above.

These Owls were created by Bev, in packing. She saw mine and thought she could do better. I think we can all agree that Bev’s Owls are the winner. She used our Black, Brown and Yellow Oxides with White Melt and Pour Base. Bev used the clear melt and pour to achieve a true black (using black oxide and black mica) and also for the Sparkle Gold colored soap.

I absolutely love how the black owl turned out. Spooky and dark… though, it might be just dark enough to lather black. Using black oxide is tricky that way; if you use too much, it will create black bubbles in the tub.

To find step by step instructions on how to create Melt and Pour Soap, click here. For instructions on doing a double pour or layered soaps, check out the instructions on Teach Soap here.

Melt the batch; no really, melt it (video)

April 17, 2008 Filed Under: Personal Ramblings

For future reference, this is what happens if you’re cutting corners and you don’t make sure your entire melt and pour batch is fully melted.

Thank goodness this was a run through for a longer shoot and not an actual live class or t.v. appearance.

Divot Suggestion

April 9, 2008 Filed Under: Lip Products

Thank you to Barb from Miller’s Homemade Soaps for this awesome suggestion to fix divots in lip balm:

You can fix holes in your balms by waiting until the holds appear and then waving a heat gun set on low over them. The heat gun will remelt the top of the balm. I usually add a little more balm and then let them cool again. Works great for lip balms and solid lotion bars!

If you missed my not-nearly-as-cool suggestions, click here to read them.

Thanks for sharing Barb!

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