Wednesday 17 February 2016

Learn How We Made Winter wonderland soap - a soap challenge entry



This month Amy from Great Cakes soapworks set the challenge for the soap club as a winter themed soap with 2 options – all natural or synthetic.
I chose to do the all natural option as I really want a chance to win the prize: Anne Marie Faiola’s new book Natural Soap making!!


My idea was to have a Christmas tree with pretty coloured baubles floating on the branches…..
I used French green clay, Rose clay, paprika, and cocoa powder to make the baubles.


This was a disaster. Not quite sure what went wrong but I think I mixed too much oil with the colours. The soaps were hard and crumbly and I was unable to make little baubles out of them, but I pressed on all the same. Fortunately I had some of the pink soap in a larger batch, made for Roses which did not go crumbly (I am guessing this is because there was so much more so and less oil?)
The idea was to use Coconut oil, Canola, Palm, Olive for the Baubles and insets and then Coconut, Palm, Avocado, Canola for the "snow" and Verbena essential oil.  
Winter Wonderland prep-002
Fortunately the cocoa powder soap worked well and I had my tree trunk.

Once I had the bables made up I put them in my mould that had two sides positioned at angles to create the tree.

Making Winter Wonderland
I poured layers of french green clay soap ontp each other to try and make an ombre tree. I don’t think it work too well.
Once I had my layers done I put the trunk into the green soap and then poured more soap over it!! Sutpid. It is supposed to be a trunk and stick out! So I had to do a bit of quick thinking.
Making Winter Wonderland-001Making Winter Wonderland-002
The rescued tree trunk help in place with wooden skewers.

Day two – soap base poured into the mould and the christmas tree inserted into it. Left over night to harden
Making Winter Wonderland-003
More soap base poured onto the tree.

The finished soap. Cut and beveled. Not quite what I wanted but cute all the same.The Verbena oil reacted with one of the oils and made the base a little yellow but it is okay. Looks pretty good.
Winter Wonderland (19)_thumb
You can see the video on YouTube here.



#Riverlea Soap 

Tuesday 9 February 2016

How to make beautiful, easy Valentine MP Hearts

 Valentine 2016 -005
I decided to go non traditional with the colours for this years Valentine soaps.
Blog You will need
2800g Clear soap base 
 Deep brown Mica
Peacock Mica 
Titanium Di Oxide 
Fragrance oil, we used Forever 
Silicone moulds
Chopstick for stiring
IPA for spritzing away bubbles 
Little heart shaped cutter
Microwavable jugs


Blog How to
Melt all the clear soap base
Premix all your colours in a little glycerine to prepare them
Pour off 300g soap base add  1/2tsp of Deep brown Mica, add fragrance oil, cover with a lid
Pour off 300g soap base and add 1/2tsp Peacock Mica, add fragrance oil, cover with a lid
Pour off 300g soap base and leave it clear, add fragrance oil, cover with a lid
Add the premixed Titanium Di Oxide to the rest of the clear soap base and cover with a lid
Pour half the brown soap mix into each of your soap moulds and let it go hard
Take the cookie cutter and cut out your hearts. The hearts should stick to the silicone mould. Pull out the main layer of soap and it will leave the hearts behind (left pic)
Spritz both the hearts in one mould and the cut out sheet in the other. Take the clear soap base and pour 150g into one of the moulds and then lay your sheet of cut out hearts directly on top of the clear soap.
Pour the other 150g over the other mould that has the hearts in it. Spritz both lots of soap to remove  bubbles
Leave this to go slightly spongy but not hard, spritz with IPA
Pour half your peacock soap into each mould, spritz with IPA and leave to go spongy, not hard
Spritz again with alcohol IPA and then pour half the white soap over one mould and the other half over the other mould. Leave to go hard.
 Cut into squares and wrap in plastic wrap once cool
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Valentine 2016 -014
#Riverlea Soap
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