Category Archives: Tangy Tutorials

Ginger Soap – Using fresh ginger pulp in soap

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Holly Port of Lotion Bar Cafe came down to visit a couple of weekends ago and help out with a class.  Unfortunately she wasn’t feeling well so we decided to juice some fresh ginger to hopefully knock out whatever was getting her.  As we got done juicing and started to clean up the juicer…we both kinda paused, looked at each other…and I think it was Holly that said…”let’s soap it!”  And “soap it” we did!

I took some of the ginger pulp and laid it out on a cookie sheet to dry a bit more.  Then I put it in a food processor shred it down some more.  We used about 1/4 cup in our three pound recipe.

Ginger Soap Recipe:

Avocado oil – 2 oz
Coconut oil – 20 oz
Olive oil – 16 oz
Rice bran oil – 5 oz
Shea butter – 4 oz
Sunflower oil – 3 oz
Ground ginger pulp – 1/4 cup

Lye – 7.2 oz
Water – 12 oz

Make your lye solution.  Weight out the solid oils and melt.  Add the liquid oils to the melted oil.

Holly and I decided to add the ginger to the melted oils and stickblend to help break them up some more.

Add the lye solution and bring to trace.  We wanted to do two bars…one scented and one unscented.  So we divided our mixture at trace and scented one.

Then pour it into your mold!  We used mail tubes with liners to make cute 3″ round soaps.

After 24 hours, cut your soap and cure for about 4 weeks.

I used one today for the first time.  Its been curing about 2 weeks so I’ll let it keep curing a bit longer.  I love this recipe.  Its nice and hard (and palm free).  The lather is great and it rinses nicely without any tacky/sticky feel.  You can see some of the pulp in the soap so I was worried that it might be a bit scratchy like oatmeal.  It wasn’t scratchy at all.  You could feel it a bit if you really tried but it was really smooth.  It turned out to be a great soap!

Happy Soaping!

-Amanda

ps – Do you want to purchase some of the liners used above?  I sell them 25 for $10.00 (includes US shipping).  Email me amanda@lovinsoap.com to order.  See original liner post on how to use them.

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.

Creating Custom Colors using Oxides and Ultramarines – Color Palette 1

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One of my favorite things to do as a soap maker is to mix colors! I’m by no means an expert but I wanted to share how I mix, test and use colors. In this post we’ll focus on oxides and ultramarines. Oxides and ultramarines are my favorite type of colorants to use because they are stable, easy to predict (what you see is usually what you get) and they don’t usually fade, bleed or cause other issues. The only problem I’ve had with them is using too much and having it come off on a wash rag…especially reds. So I’m going to show you my process for coming up with and testing new color combos.

During this tutorial I only use yellow oxide, brick red oxide and ultramarine blue. That gives us our base colors of red, blue and yellow which we can mix to create a rainbow of colors. It’s good to have a little color theory knowledge. I might go into that in a future post but for now do a little research on color theory and paint mixing and you’ll find some great info online.

First we need to setup our base colors. People color mix two ways. They simply mix dry powders or they wet/suspend them and then mix them. I prefer mixing wet. I just think it’s easier to see what you’re going to get and to also add additional parts of a color if needed. I simply mix about 8 tablespoons of glycerin with 2 tablespoon of pigment. I didn’t have glycerin today but used sunflower as it’s a nice light oil. You can even do 4 tablespoons glycerin to 2 tablespoons pigment; just a matter of preference. Give these a good mix. I love using the little frothers. I buy mine at Ikea but I think Bramble Berry might sell them also. The pigment will start to sink down if left alone too long so always give it a good mix before you start measuring them out into the little cups to color mix.

Now for the fun part! Its time to mix colors!  I like to mix colors in the little plastic bathroom cups. I use teaspoons and keep track of “parts” so the color recipe is easily scaled up or down. For example if I want to mix a purple, I will measure 3 teaspoons of blue and 3 teaspoons of red into a little cup. These are equal parts so the color recipe is 1 part red and 1 part blue. Be sure to keep track of the parts; I like to write on the cups with a marker to keep track.

Where do you start? Some simple and common combos are blue and yellow to make green or blue and red to make purple. I start with equal parts and then go up or down to create different hues.

For example, take a look at the colors below. The one on the left is 1 part blue and 1 part red. The one on the right is 5 parts red and 2 parts blue. Usually I would have flipped that and done a 2 parts red and 5 parts blue…but I didn’t this time. You can be methodical or just throw parts into a cup to see what you come up with! Have fun with it!

To get a better idea of the color you can dab a little onto a paper towel.

Once I get the colors where I want them, I test them in MP. This gives me a better idea of how it will come out. My soap recipe is not as white as MP but it is pretty white. You can skip testing it in MP if you want. I just prefer too.  Here you can see I’ve tested them in MP.

Then it’s time to test in CP. Use your standard recipe. Please note that the colors of your oils will affect the colors you end up with. My recipes tend to be pretty white, barely creamy. Some people use olive oils that have a green tint to them. This is why it is important to test. I usually test about 5 colors at a time so I make a 1 pound test recipe. I use a silicone muffin pan as a mold. I also like to see what the color difference will be between ungelled and gelled soap. Gelled soap seems to be more vivid and slightly darker. So I use a heating pad to force gel on the muffin pan and I’ll pour little sample sized amounts into a brownie pan which will not gel. This way I can see the color difference between gelled and ungelled…simply a matter of preference.

I’ll also test them to see if the lather is colored. If it is…I’ll know to use less next time. Usually I only have this issue with reds.

So here are some color recipes that turned out great.

From left to right:

(1) Green – 1 part ultramarine blue / 4 parts yellow oxide
(2) Blue – 3 parts ultramarine blue / 1 part yellow oxide
(3) Purple – 1 part ultramarine blue / 1 part brick red oxide
(4) Maroon – 5 parts brick red oxide / 2 parts ultramarine blue
(5) Orange – 2 parts brick red oxide / 4 parts yellow oxide
(6) No color

(Ignore all of the ugly bubble marks in the pic above.  I mixed using the frother and that just added tons of bubbles.)

I went a little heavy handed with the colorants.  I used about 1 teaspoon of the mixed color per 4 oz of raw soap.  I kinda thought the maroon would bleed/have colored lather but it actually didn’t.  See below.

Once you find color combos that you like…you can make up bigger batches of them and keep them in bottles already mixed and ready to go.

Do you have any oxide/ultramarine combos that you really like?  If so…let us know so we can give them a go!

-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