Category Archives: Cold Process Soap

Springtime Private Class at Otion

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Candy and I spent Saturday afternoon in a private class, making a whole bin’s worth of soapy goodies. We started with the “Swirled Heart” technique in cold process.

Candy was a pro! She got the hang of it right away and did an excellent job bringing the skewer to the edge of the mold to pull it out, rather than right out of the center.

Candy made some great single bars with the same technique in these handy take-home lidded molds.

The swirled heart technique is SO much fun, and it’s one of those instant gratification swirls (my favorite). In keeping with the love theme,  we then worked on a melt-and-pour heart embed project.

We took a break from soap and made luscious lip balm from scratch. Check out this fun layered lip balm with Candy’s own custom color blend in the bottom layer.

Back to melt-and-pour! We also made this adorable jelly roll soap with two embedded rolls. Love!

We finished off the class with an adorable layered melt-and-pour loaf with bright, cheery colors.

Judging by this bin full of soapy projects, I’d say we had a pretty fun and productive class. Thank you Candy! I can’t wait to see your future projects.

~Kat

The Dream Catcher Swirl

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This is a very simple swirl technique with dramatic end results. Make sure you have some practice making cold process soap before trying this, so that you are familiar with a light trace versus a heavy trace. It is important to keep the batter nice and thin during the entire process.

3# Recipe in the 9 Bar Birchwood Mold

12 oz Coconut Oil

12 oz Palm Oil

12 oz Olive Oil

6 oz Aloe Vera Liquid

6 oz Distilled Water

5.2 oz Lye

1/4 tsp. Ultramarine Blue Pigment

1/4 tsp. Activated Charcoal

1/2 tsp. Tangerine Wow! Pigment

2 oz Litsea Essential Oil

(It is up to you whether or not you use the dividers in your mold. I cut my bars by hand the next day).

Before adding the lye to the oils, pour about 1/2 ounce of oil from your batch into three small containers and stir in each pigment in each container. By doing so, you are eliminating clumps of pigment by breaking it down in advance. Then, mix the lye solution into the oils and reach a light trace. Keep in mind, when you use aloe vera liquid as part of your lye solution, it will turn an orange color and emit a light odor that disappears after the soap sets up.

At light trace, stir in the fragrance and split the soap into four equal parts by pouring into the color containers and leaving some neutral in the pot (1 part tangerine, 1 part charcoal, 1 part blue, and 1 part neutral). Stir the colors in by hand. You should not stick blend after reaching trace because it will only make your soap thicker. Aren’t you glad you broke down your pigments first?

Now for the fun part! Alternate pouring each color directly in the middle of your mold. Count “1…2…3…” as you pour to keep an even amount of soap distributed with each color. Shake and pound the mold on the table to even out the surface. When you are out of color, you will have created a bulls-eye pattern like this:

Using a bamboo skewer, start in the middle and drag the colors out to the edge of the mold. Do not lift out the skewer until you are have gone around the entire mold. The less you manipulate the swirl the better; you don’t want to overdo it and make one big blended blur of colors.  Stop at the first “Wow! My swirl looks amazing!”

Let the soap harden over night and cut it the next day. Try different colors and see what you get! I went with a dark, medium, and light color for the most contrast. I’d love to see your results. Feel free to show off your soaping skills and post pictures to our Facebook page!

Invigorating Shampoo Bars

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I am a new fan of shampoo bars for many reasons. The lather is incredible, the bar is long lasting, I have shinier hair with zero buildup, and it’s all natural!

My recipe contains a lot of castor oil, which creates a rich and foamy lather. Coconut oil and palm oil also provide a fluffy lather and add to the hardness of the bar. Tea tree essential oil is an antiseptic and is known to help treat scalp conditions such as dandruff and head lice. Plus, it stimulates new hair growth by removing dead skin cells from hair follicles. It also smells minty and fresh, leaving you energized and revitalized for the day. I rub the bar in a couple small circles right on my head and work the lather up with my fingers.

Three Pound Batch Shampoo Bar Recipe:

10 oz Coconut oil

10 oz Palm oil

8 oz Castor oil

8 oz Olive oil

12 oz Distilled Water

5 oz Sodium Hydroxide

1.5 oz Tea tree essential oil

If you have never made soap from scratch before, please check out Anne-Marie’s four part series on cold process before trying this recipe. It is really important to understand how to work with sodium hydroxide (lye) so that you are soaping on the safe side.

Your oils and lye should be around 100 degrees when combined. Add color at trace if you like, or leave neutral, then add fragrance. Stick blend to a thick trace and pour into mold. Use a spatula to create peaks on the surface for texture and grip. Remove the soap from the mold after 24 hours and cure the bars on a rack for 4-six weeks. Enjoy!

Tip! If your hair is extra dry, try incorporating some vitamin rich oils such as avocado and sweet almond oil. Jojoba oil is amazing as well, but currently a bit pricey. If you change the recipe, make sure to re-calculate the lye.

Advanced Cold Process Swirling

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Here are some fun bars from our swirling class last Saturday. The top soap is scented with Pineapple Cilantro and colored with hydrated chrome green oxide, yellow mica, electric bubblegum, and tangerine wow pigment. The bottom bars are scented with a blend of Black Pepper, Litsea, and Rosemary essential oils and colored with rose clay, activated charcoal, and safflower powder. Thanks for another fun class, ladies!

The Best Part of Waking Up…

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We LOVE coffee butter. One whiff and you’ll be in heaven. I add it to my cold process soap, lip balm and lotion bar recipes. My next experiment with it will be to make another cold process batch but sub out my water for cold coffee, which should darken the color of the soap and hopefully add even more fragrance. Yum! The soap in the photo also has ground coffee beans in the top for scrubby action.

All Natural Rose Clay and Pink Salt Bar

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I love this recipe because everything about it is natural, including the gorgeous pink color! The bars are a generous size at about 4.7 ounces after 24 hours, and will continue to shrink slightly as they lose water weight during cure time. The pink salt provides a beautiful surface texture and lovely scrub for those rough spots.

What You Need:

12 Bar Silicone Mold

2 oz Natural Hawaiian Synergistic E.O. Blend

12 oz Palm Oil

12 oz Coconut Oil

12 oz Olive Oil

12 oz Distilled Water

5.2 oz Sodium Hydroxide

1 Tablespoon Rose Clay

2 Tablespoons Aloe Vera Liquid

1 Cup Pink Himalayan Sea Salt Fine or Coarse

Feel free to adjust the recipe by adding some healing butters such as mango, cocoa, shea, or avocado. Just be sure to run your recipe through a lye calculator to get the correct amount of lye for the new oils. This very basic recipe of palm, coconut and olive oil is simple but makes a great bar of soap that lasts long and lathers big.

Begin by making a slurry out of the Rose Clay and Aloe Vera Liquid. Rose Clay is extremely absorbent and will suck the moisture out of your soap if you don’t make a slurry first. Plus, it is was easier to incorporate the clay when it is wet. Notice how dark the color is. The clay ends up drying a nice light pink in your finished product. You can use water to make the slurry, but I love aloe liquid for it’s added moisturizing benefits. If you feel like you are adding too much liquid to your recipe, discount your water to 10 ounces for a faster cure time.

Prepare your batch like normal (if you are not familiar with cold process soap making and handling lye, learn how here)  and add your fragrance at a light trace. Then separate half into a second dish and stir in the Rose Clay, leaving the other half uncolored.

Pour your rose colored soap into the white soap in a circular pattern. Try not to stir the two colors together too much or you will be left with one blended shade.

By pouring the soap, gravity and the actual pour creates the swirl pattern for you. No stirring is necessary! You should be able to fill the entire mold (12 bars).

Top off the bars by sprinkling the Pink Himalayan Sea Salt on the top while the soap is still wet. Let it sit 24 hours, pop the soap out of the mold and set the finished bars on a drying rack to cure for 4 to six weeks. I love this mold because you don’t have to line it and the sides of the soap come out perfectly smooth. Enjoy!

Advanced Swirling Soap

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Here’s a look at the soap we made in our Advanced Swirling in Cold Process Class last Saturday. Students split into two groups and were responsible for color and fragrance of each batch. By the looks of the finished soap, they did an excellent job!

Above is a 4.5 pound batch made in the popular 18 bar Birchwood mold. The fragrance is a blend of Ylang Ylang, Litsea and Grapefruit essential oils. For the colors, they chose ultramarine blue pigment and a blend of cellini red and yellow mica to create this gorgeous orange. The white is neutral, uncolored soap.

Below is a three pound batch made in a custom log mold. The scent is a blend of Yuzu Cybilla fragrance oil and Litsea essential oil. Colors used were activated charcoal, hydrated chrome green oxide, yellow mica, and electric bubblegum. The white is uncolored soap. You’ll have to take my word for it, the scents in both batches are amazing! If you would like to sign up for one of our classes, check out our schedule here.

Starting the Year Off Right

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I had the pleasure of teaching a really fun group of students in the basic cold process class last Saturday. They all took to soapmaking like pros. Some made really simple bars and others got really creative with our dried botanicals and additives provided.

I highly recommend our cold process classes because, well, you’ll have a blast.  The basic class is loooong. Three hours long and jam packed with information.  The first half is spent talking about soap. You learn everything from how to use a lye calculator to designing a recipe, what color and fragrances work best, what supplies you need and tons more. Then we make lots of soap! Each student leaves with four bars, each scented and colored to your liking (and with scrubby additives if you like!).

I will be teaching advanced swirling in cold process at this year’s Soap Weekend Intensive again, and I will also be teaching at the Handcrafted Soapmaker’s Guild annual conference, which is in Portland this year. My classes are every Saturday morning at 10am and I’d love to meet you! Sign up online or give me a call at Otion (360) 675-1030.


Advanced Swirling Class Soap

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Every Saturday morning is a cold process class at Otion, and last Saturday was our advanced swirling session. Two batches of soap with two different swirling techniques were demonstrated. Above is a linear swirl with a blend of Rosemary and Peppermint essential oils, green chrome oxide, activated charcoal and titanium dioxide colorants. This batch was made in our favorite 18 bar Birchwood mold.

Below is a bright 7-color (one color for each student in the class) in-the-pot swirl with a linear surface swirl. We used grapefruit fragrance oil, a loaf mold and lots of fun neon pigments. Join us for the next advanced swirling class on Saturday January 14th and January 28th at 10 am.



Brighten Up the Season with Neons

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In this abstract swirl pattern, I used a basic cold process recipe that lathers great, forms a hard bar that lasts forever, and is super mild and nourishing. I colored this batch with three of my favorite neon pigments and scented it with some bubbly Champagne fragrance oil, just in time for New Years!

Neon Cold Process 3 Pound Batch

12 oz palm oil

12 oz coconut oil

12 oz olive oil

12 oz distilled water

5.2 oz sodium hydroxide

1/4 tsp Tangerine WOW! pigment

1/4 tsp Electric Bubble Gum pigment

1/4 tsp Ultraviolet Blue pigment

2.1 oz Champagne Fragrance

Make sure you have a few batches of cold process soapmaking under your belt before trying multiple colors. It is really important to work with a fragrance that does not accelerate trace because you want lots of time to work. I prepare my colorants before I mix my lye and oils together. Simply pour about 0.5 oz of oil (from your weighed batch) into the bottom of three smaller containers and stir in 1/4 tsp pigment in each. This breaks down any lumps and clumps in the pigment, making a perfectly smooth finished color. Follow normal batch-baking procedures and separate the soap at a very light trace into each container with color in it. Hand stir the colored soaps thoroughly. Add your scent to each section of soap.

Now pour each color lengthwise in your lined wood loaf mold. Layer the colors until the mold is full.


Use a rubber spatula to form the swirl. Hold it straight up and down and form zig-zags through the loaf. Make sure the spatula is touching the bottom of the mold while you make the pattern. Let is sit overnight and cut it in the morning (waiting is the hard part!). Each bar you cut is unique. Enjoy this bright and bubbly soap for yourself, or give them out as gifts.