Ahhhhhh…  Who doesn’t like to break in a new soapmaking mold?  Join me, won’t you?  Let’s do this.

(Want to make your own silicone slab mold?  Get the eBook here.)

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The Recipe
Olive oil – 16 oz
Coconut oil – 16.8 oz
Avocado oil – 4 oz
Castor oil – 3.2 oz
Rice bran oil – 4 oz
Shea butter – 4 oz
Lye – 6.82 oz
Water – 12 oz

Colorants (from The Conservatorie)
Peacock Blue Mica
Cupreous Brown Mica
Olympic Gold Mica
Shimmer White Satin Mica

Scent
.5 oz Anise essential oil
.5 oz Cornmint essential oil

Swirling Tools
A spatula

Step 1

Weigh out the lye and water into two separate containers.

Gear up in your goggles and gloves before you handle the lye.

Step 2

Pour the lye into the water slowly while stirring. Set your lye solution to the side to cool down.

lye into water

Step 3

Measure out the coconut oil and shea butter and melt.

coconut oil and shea butter

Step 4

Measure out the liquid oils into the melted oils.

measure liquid oils into melted hard oils

Step 5

Add the essential oils to the melted oils. I used .5 oz of anise essential oil and .5 oz of cornmint essential oil.

Step 6

Time to stickblend!

Gear up in your goggles and gloves if you took them off to prepare the oils.

Touch the outside of both the oil container and the lye container. They should feel warm but not hot. If they feel hot, then let them sit for a bit longer. Aim for a temperature of 90-110 for the oils and lye. If the lye is a bit cooler you shouldn’t have any problems…you just don’t want it too hot.

Pour the lye solution into the melted oils.

lye into melted oils

Stickblend until you get to a stable emulsion. Do not reach a visible trace or you have gone too far.

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Divide the soap mixture into four containers (or however many colors you will be doing). You can divide it evenly or you can do more of certain colors if you want and less of others.

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Add about two teaspoons of mica to each container. You might need more or less depending on the depth of color you want to achieve.

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Use a spoon or mini-mixer to mix the color in. Make sure there aren’t any clumps.

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When we pour this swirl we want all of the lines to go in one direction. So pour your first color.

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Pour the next color.

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Keep doing this until you fill the mold up.

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Be sure the top layers you pour has a little of each color.

Grab your spatula! It is time to swirl!  Use the motion below to break through the lines to swirl.

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MOVEMENT copy

Here is the motion that I used.  But…the cool thing about swirling is that you can pretty much do whatever you want and still get something awesome!

To prevent ash, spray with alcohol (any type- try to find 90%) about 10 minutes after you swirl.  Then again in 30 minutes and again in 1 hour.

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Let sit for 24-48 hours and cut and cure for 6 weeks.

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Beautiful!

Pssst…don’t forget the eBook to make your own silicone molds.

blockMolds

Happy Soaping,

-Amanda Gail