I get asked all the time what my favorite soap related “things” are…  Here’s my list!  Leave your list in the comments!  I’d love to know what your current favorites are!

My favorite soap making molds.

Right now I’m loving anything from Bramble Berry with a liner!  I used a 18 bar with liner last year at the Soap Guild conference to do a peacock swirl in and have loved it ever since.  The liners are super affordable!  So if you have a handy dandy woodworker near and dear…you can purchase the liners and make your own wood boxes.  I love the loaf mold and liner, but I think my favorite is the 18 Bar Birchwood Mold with Silicone Liner.

Image from Brambleberry.com

Image from Brambleberry.com

It’s my favorite because it is so versatile!  You can use it as a slab mold (pour only 1-1.5” deep) for swirling or you can pour to the top and use it as a block mold (will make bars that are 2.5” tall).  If you use the high pour, you cut into logs and then into bars.

My other favorite mold, the 12 bar square silicone mold, comes from Bramble Berry also.  I use it for testing colors.

 My favorite place to purchase lye.

I’ve been using Essential Depot for a while now and they have remained my go-to supplier for lye.  Superfast shipping, always having a sale and I love getting lye in the 2 pound bottles.

My favorite base oil.

Besides the dynamic duo, coconut and olive…my favorite oil is rice bran oil.  I put it in almost every recipe that I make.  It can replace a bit of the olive and gives the soap a bit of a sheen.

My favorite place to purchase base oils.

Hands down… always has been and probably always will be… Soapers Choice!  I place an order from them and it usually ships THE SAME DAY, arriving at my door step a day or two later.  You can’t beat that.  And for the world’s best procrastinator (me) who doesn’t order oils for bootcamps until the week before… their speedy turnaround time is awesome!  I can always count on them!

My favorite fragrance oil.

Energy from Bramble Berry.  I’ve been touting the greatness of this fragrance oils for years!  Being swirling obsessed, I need something that is slow moving when I’m trying out a new design.  This is the one I grab every time.  Energy almost seems to reverse trace and it smells great.

My favorite essential oil.

Litsea!  Litsea is just so uplifting and happy smelling to me.  It also blends well with many other essential oils (tea tree, peppermint, lavender, rosemary, patchouli…really anything) and helps to anchor citrus or other flighty oils.

Some of my favorite essential oil blends with litsea.

1 part litsea | 2 parts lavender

2 parts litsea | 1 part tea tree | 1 part rosemary

1 part litsea | 3 parts orange | 1 part patchouli

My favorite colorants.

I’m all about the natural colorants these days.  My current favorites are yellow dock and annatto.  Check out Ruth’s guide to natural colorants here.  It is one of the best I’ve seen with swatches showing colorants in soap – gelled, ungelled and added at different times.

My favorite soap 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

Found here on this blog post.

My favorite packaging.

I recently found this box place while searching for boxes for our groups in Haiti.  You can get smaller runs and they also offer box printing.

http://www.yourboxsolution.com/index.php

But…I still LOVE Paper Mojo for wrapping small orders of soap.  I’m a bit obsessed with Paper Mojo.  Its where I got the idea of doing the peacock swirl in soap from!

So what are your current favorites?

Happy Soaping, -Amanda Gail