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