Category Archives: Recipes

The Making of the 25 Color Cold Process Swirl

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This past weekend I had the talented and super fun Holly Port at my house.  She came to help me with a soap class and knock out some soapy projects.  (Really I just wanted to see her…the class was just an excuse!)  I thought we needed to do something crazy…something extraordinary…something challenging while she was here.  So I decided on a 25 color (+ white) 18 pound cold process soap swirl!  I invited over a couple of local soapers to give us a hand…Theresa and Yolanda!  I knew the four of us could pull this off!  It was on!  Here are some picture from the event.

Thanks – Yolanda, Theresa & Holly for coming over and tackling this with me!  Thank you to George who brought us snacks and a celebratory drink!  And thank you to Mike for taking pics!  It didn’t happen without pics!  There’s nothing better than spending an afternoon soaping with friends!

Happy Soaping!

Amanda

Happy Holly Balls – Bath Bombs with Holly Port of Lotion Bar Cafe

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Holly Port of Lotion Bar Café is the Bath Bomb Queen! If you were at the HSMG conference, the Alabama conference or the Texas conference you were lucky enough to get one of her bath bombs. She was visiting this weekend and I asked her if she would be willing to do a bath bomb tutorial for the blog. I told her I wanted something with goat’s milk and oatmeal so she came up with a specially formulated recipe that I could share with you! She also shared her process which includes some very helpful information and techniques.

These bath bombs have my favorite butter, mango, and my favorite oil, avocado! I got in a new fragrance from Bramble Berry (Fresh Snow) that smells amazing so I wanted to try that out.

The Recipe:
2.5 cups baking soda
.5 cups goat milk powder
1.5 cups citric acid
1 cup cornstarch
.5 cups powder oatmeal
1.6 oz avocado oil (wt)
2 oz mango buter (wt)
.5 oz water (wt)
.5 oz alcohol (wt)
.75 oz scent (wt)

Step 1 – Measure the citric acid, cornstarch, baking soda, oatmeal and goat’s milk into your mixing bowl. Put a towel over your mixer and turn on the lowest setting. The towel prevents the powders from flying everywhere! Although you don’t have to use a stand mixer…it helps to get everything mixed well and also aerate the mixture. Leave this mixing while you measure out the butter and liquid ingredients.

Step 2 – Measure out the butter and oil. Melt.

Step 3 – While the butter is melting, measure out the other liquid ingredients (alcohol, water, fragrance).

Step 4 – When the melted oil has cooled down a bit (warm to touch – not hot) combine with the liquid ingredients.

Step 5 – With the mixer still on low, dump in the liquid mix. Turn the mixer up higher to get everything mixed quickly. Scrape the sides of the mixing bowl with a skewer as the butter might stick a bit to the sides.

Step 6 – Test the mixture’s consistency by grabbing a handful and squeezing it hard. It should keep its shape and not fall apart easily.

Step 7 – Using a meatballer, scoop up some of the mixture. Squeeze the meatballer hard with your hand while smoothing the seam.

Step 8 – Using your thumb, press down on the hole on the top of the meatballer as you open it. This helps the bathbomb stay together as the meatballer opens. It takes some practice! If the bathbomb falls apart just dump it back into the mix and try again.

Step 9 – Let your bathbombs dry out in a cool dry place away from humidity and heat.

We dusted them with a bit of glitter just to add a holiday sparkle!

To use your bathbomb, simply drop it into the tub and watch it fizz!

Warning: This recipe does contain butters/oils. They will float on the surface of the water and deposit on your body as you soak in the tub and as you get out of the water. It will leave some in the tub and make it a bit slick so take care when getting out of the tub.

Thank you so much for doing this tutorial for us and sharing some of your tips, Holly!

If you are looking for wholesale bathbombs to add to your line of products…contact Holly!

Happy Soaping!  (Or bath bomb making!)

-Amanda & Holly

Pumpkin Coconut Milk Salt Bars

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It’s pumpkin time!  My favorite time of the year.  I thought I would kick pumpkin season off with a salt bar made with real pumpkin and coconut milk scented with Bramble Berry’s Pumpkin Lager.

This recipe sets up fast and gets REALLY hard so it is best done in individual cavity molds.  It does not cut well if done in a slab or log. 

The recipe:
Coconut oil – 28 oz
Shea butter – 4 oz
Fine Sea Salt – 24 oz

Pumpkin – 4.5 oz (canned pureed pumpkin)
Coconut milk – 2.25 oz
Lye – 4.6 oz

Make the lye solution.  Measure out the coconut milk and pumpkin.  I like to mix in a cold water bath.  Both pumpkin and milk contain sugar and the solution can heat up real quick and sometimes even burn.  So to keep the temps down, use an ice water bath or you could even freeze the pumpkin and milk in ice cubes.  Here I did an ice water bath.

Sprinkle in the lye while mixing.  Mix and mix and scrape and scrape until no lumps are left.  It will turn liquid.

Be sure to scrape as you mix and break up all of the lye clumps.

Measure out the coconut oil and shea butter and melt.  To keep the temps lower I like to first melt the shea butter.  Then add the coconut oil to the melted shea butter, mix and then if it needs a bit more heat to melt completely…add a bit more heat.

Get everything ready to go!  Salt bars can sometimes move a bit quick!  Weight out the salt needed.

For fragrance I used Bramble Berry’s Pumpkin Lager.  Its my favorite pumpkin scent so far this year.  Go ahead and add about 1.2 oz (you don’t need much) of the fragrance oil and add the lye solution to the oils.

Zap it with the stick blender just a bit until you get a light trace.

Add the salt and mix it all up.

Then pour it into your mold.  I used Bramble Berry’s 9 cube silicone mold.  This is a such a fun mold!  This mixture got thick because of several things… the high coconut oil, the salt, the fragrance oil and I did a bit of a water discount.  So I had to move fast.

I poured into the mold.  Well, okay…there was more glopping going on than pouring.  Then I used my spatula and smooshed it down into the cavities.

Bang it on the floor or counter top hard so that the soap will go all the way down!

The cool thing about salt bars is that they are ready to unmold in about four hours (depending on your recipe).  They heat up real quick and then as soon as they are cool…they are rock hard and ready to be unmolded.  I still had some air pockets because the mixture was so thick but I think it just makes them look a bit rustic or primitive.

Let them cure the standard 4 weeks.

Some general notes on salt bars:

  • Salt kills lather so use 50-100% coconut oil.
  • Since coconut oil can be drying you’ll want to superfat 10-20% for best results (I do an 18% superfat).
  • Salt bars made with high coconut oil set up fast…like 2-5 hours fast…so it’s easiest to use individual molds. If you use a log mold be sure to cut as soon as it’s hard enough…usually after 2-5 hours.
  • Don’t judge your salt bars the next day or even after week. Give it a nice long cure of 4-6 weeks and you’ll be surprised at how nice it is to use.
  • I prefer a salt bar with 75% (of oils) salt but you can go as high as 100%.
  • Use regular table salt or sea salt. Do not use dead sea salt or you’ll end up with a gloopy mess.

Happy Soaping!

-Amanda

Hearts in Cold Process Soap

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Here is how to create hearts on top of your cold process soap.  You’ll need a slow moving cold process soap recipe, squirt bottles and skewers.

The recipe:
Sweet Almond oil – 1.25 oz
Coconut oil – 12.5 oz
Olive oil – 10 oz
Rice Bran oil – 3.5 oz
Shea butter – 2.75 oz
Sunflower oil – 2 oz
Lye – 4.6 oz
Water – 7 oz

Bring your soap to a steady emulsion. You want it to be nice and thin to have time to separate and color your soap.  Divide out your soap for the base and the individual colors.  Put the colors into squirt bottles.  Here is the basic design process inside a single mold but you can do this across the surface of a slab mold as well.

Pour the base into your mold.  Using the squirt bottles, draw dots onto the surface.  You can make them as big or as small as you want.

Using a skewer, draw through the hearts starting from one side of the dot to the other drawing the tail out to complete the motion.  You can even go through many dots in one motion without removing the skewer.  For these I just went in a counter clockwise motion (without removing the skewer).

Flowers on Cold Process Soap

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Original flower design tutorial here…

Here is how to create flowers on top of your cold process soap.  You’ll need a slow moving cold process soap recipe, squirt bottles and skewers.

The recipe:
Sweet Almond oil – 1.25 oz
Coconut oil – 12.5 oz
Olive oil – 10 oz
Rice Bran oil – 3.5 oz
Shea butter – 2.75 oz
Sunflower oil – 2 oz
Lye – 4.6 oz
Water – 7 oz

Bring your soap to a steady emulsion. You want it to be nice and thin to have time to separate and color your soap.  Divide out your soap for the base and the individual colors.  Put the colors into squirt bottles.  Here is the basic design process inside a single mold but you can do this across the surface of a slab mold as well.

Pour the base into your mold.  Using the squirt bottles, draw a circle onto the surface.  With another color, draw a circle inside of the first circle.  Do this until you have about four rings as shown below.

Next, put the skewer into the soap on the outside of the circles and drag to the center. Pull the skewer out, wipe it and do this three or four more times to create the petals.

This is a great flower!  You can leave it as it is or you can pull the petals out to make pointy petals.

Insert the skewer into the middle of the flower.  Pull the skewer through the middle of the petal to the outside.  This will pull the point out as far as you like.

So easy to do! You could even have a little yellow in a squirt bottle to dot in the middle as pollen if you wanted. Here are some flowers spread out over a slab.

A new palm free soap, silk AND 2 new molds!

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First up.  A new mold.  Well, not exactly a new mold…but a silicone liner!  Bramble Berry sells the liner and I had my guy make the simple mold box that holds it.  BB also sells the mold box if you need one.

I also wanted to try out a new palm free recipe using some silk that my friend Holly Port sent me.  I’ve never used silk before so ya’ll tell me if I’m doing it wrong!

The recipe:
Almond oil – 5 oz
Avocado oil – 5 oz
Castor oil – 4 oz
Rice bran oil – 5 oz
Olive oil – 18 oz
Shea butter – 5 oz
Coconut oil – 18 oz

Water – 12 oz (I did a discount since I have all of the soft oils)
Lye – 8.4 oz
Silk – a pinch

This recipe makes 5 pounds of finished soap which fits perfectly in the Bramble Berry liner.

This is my first time using silk so I have no idea if I did this right or not.  I’ve heard to add it to the lye water.  So I pinched off a bit and added it to the lye water.  I’m kinda thinking I used too much…but not sure.

I melted the coconut oil and shea butter, then added the liquid oils. I strained the lye water (use a stainless steel strainer) to make sure there weren’t any floaters from the silk.

Then I added an essential oil blend of tea tree, litsea and grapefruit.  Yum.  And brought the mixture to trace.

Then into the new Bramble Berry silicone liner it went.

I unmolded after 24 hours. It was super easy even with a partial gel. I thought maybe the edges or corners would stick. The liner is smooth as glass which also made the soap bottom and sides smooth as glass!

Perfect! Easy! I see using this liner quite often.

Next up…short and sweet. My guy Mike is into guitars and even makes guitars! He helped me make a silicone mold for a Gibson P90 guitar pickup! I used Brown Mica and a splash of yellow neon (from BB) to make the cream color and I used vintage grey mica (BB) on the screws. Here is the resulting soap made out of MP.  It came out really great!  And now I have soap to make for all of his guitar playing friends… lol.

Have a great week and happy soaping!
-Amanda

Piping soap cupcakes – another palm free recipe

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I’m currently converting most of my recipes to being palm free. One technique I love to use is piping cold process soap on cupcakes. I do whipped soap also but this isn’t whipped soap. Its simply just waiting for the soap to get thick enough and then piping it. Super easy to do! So here is the recipe that I used:

Piping Soap Recipe:

Coconut oil – 16 oz
Olive oil – 13 oz
Shea butter – 3 oz
Lye – 4.7 oz
Water – 9 oz

I melted the coconut oil and shea butter, then added the olive oil.  Everything is ready to go.

Brought the mixture to a light trace and divided it out into three parts.

I put some pearl mica in the white base and then colored two parts purple and blue. I poured the base into the cupcake liners.

Then I waited until the purple and blue set up enough to pipe. I waited about 10 or so minutes and stirred every now and then to check the consistancy. Once it was thick enough I put it in a piping bag with a 1M tip. I like to set mine in a cup to hold things up straight while I fill the bag.

You can find all kinds of cupcake piping videos on youtube. I didn’t have enough hands to take pics of the whole process but I start with a blob in the middle.

Then starting on the outside…spiral to the inside.

And add glitter! I don’t know why…but I always have to top cupcake soaps with glitter.

Let these cure for 4 weeks. Here is a great video on how to cut your cupcake soap in half for easier use!

-Amanda

Palm Free Swirling – Recipe 1

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I’ve decided to go palm free so need to figure out a good swirling recipe to use that doesn’t contain palm oil.  Tonite I tried out a recipe and worked really well.  It gave me plenty of time to color each individual color and get the swirling done. 

The recipe I used was:

Palm Free Swirling Recipe:
Olive oil – 18 oz
Coconut oil – 10 oz
Shea butter – 4 oz
Water – 9 oz
Lye – 4.5 oz

I always do a bit of a water discount especially with recipes high in olive oil because I don’t want to wait forever for the soap to set up to be unmolded and cut. 

Melted oils ready for the lye solution

Colors ready to go in individual cups

I just did a sort of free form swirl. As you can see I just poured the soap randomly.

And then I took a spoon handle and swirled. I muddied it up a bit…but it turned out okay.

This recipe worked well. The shea butter sped things up a bit but I still had time to swirl. I think tonite I’m going to just try a olive, coconut and something…maybe avocado, sweet almond or apricot kernel.

-Amanda

Cold Process Rock Soap

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photo by Bramble Berry

Head on over to the Soap Queen blog to check out my new guest blog post.  This tutorial shows you how to easily create rock shaped soap using cold process soap.  I also share one of my favorite palm free soap recipes that is great for those that want to go palm free. 

See the full tutorial on Soap Queen! 

Thanks! 

Amanda

 

Soaping with Deer Tallow

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In case you missed it – Rendering the Fat

Coming up with a recipe.

I wanted the deer tallow to be a major player in this recipe but also wanted a well rounded bar so decided to keep it simple and use the deer tallow with coconut oil and olive oil.

The recipe:  Deer Tallow Soap

Deer tallow – 13 oz
Olive oil – 19.5
Coconut oil – 13 oz
Water – 8.5 oz
Lye – 6.45

Step 1 – Make your lye solution.

Step 2 – Measure out the tallow and coconut oil and melt.

Once the coconut and tallow are melted down…add the olive oil.  A note:  The deer tallow had a really high melt point.  It was almost like melting cocoa butter.  This is a good thing as it will add hardness to our bar.

Add the lye solution to the melted oils and bring to trace.

I added a light blend of peppermint and anise essential oils.  I wanted a very lightly scented soap.  Pour it into your mold.

Let the soap set up for 24 hours, unmold and cut into slices.  Cure for 4 weeks.

So when I first started this I was wondering if it was going to be worth it or if it was just going to be one of those things that I crossed off of my “want to try” list.  The conclussion?  I NEED MORE DEER!  I am in love with this soap.  I also like the fact that I’m using something that is just going to get thrown out anyways.

Rendering was not as bad or stinky as I thought it would be.  Just like when you boil a chicken…you have that ”I’m boiling a chicken smell.”  Well with this you have that “I’m boiling a deer smell.”  The rendered fat did have a bit of a smell but the soap does not.  The process didn’t take that long.  I have a large stock pot that could easily render 10#’s or so.  It should freeze well when rendered.  It’s cheap.

This actually is probably one of the best soaps I have made as far as feel and hardness.  The next day it was as hard as a rock and almost wax-like.  I went ahead and used a piece and was amazed at the silky smooth feeling and hardness of the soap.  The lather was fluffy, bubbly and silky.  It turned out to be an awesome bar of soap.

-Amanda

p.s.  Alright, Elin.   Tag.  Let’s hear about that buffalo fat you have to render.  I’m really interested to see how that turns out!