Category Archives: Soap Art

Personalized Mother’s Day Soap

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No mommy can resist this awesome gift! With a little melt-and-pour soap base and some water soluble paper, you can make adorable personalized photo soap for Mother’s Day. I made these cuties for my sister with photos of her children.

What You Need:

1 sheet of water soluble paper

2 pounds of white soap base

8 oz clear soap base

Merlot Mica

Lavender Essential Oil

Silicone tray mold

Knife, scissors, printer (Inkjet or Laser)

Step 1: Print images on water soluble paper and cut them out. Arrange them in your tray mold before pouring soap, just to make sure you like the size of bars and that the images all fit perfectly.

Step 2: Pour 8 oz of clear melt-and-pour soap base in the tray mold, spray with rubbing alcohol and place the photos face down in the soap. Spray again with rubbing alcohol and let harden.

Step 3: Melt down two pounds of white soap base and scent with 8ml of Lavender essential oil. Make sure the soap is fairly cool (but still pourable!) when pouring a layer on top of the clear. You don’t want to pour hot soap or else it will melt through the clear and disrupt the pretty photo layout you set up. I like to add a cube of soap to my cup of melted soap to help cool it down faster. When that cube melts down, your soap should be the right temperature for pouring.

Spray the clear photo embed soap with rubbing alcohol and pour a layer of white on top. This white layer will really make the colors and detail in the photos pop. Always make your first background layer white for this reason.

Step 4: Split the melted soap into two containers and color one with a few mini scoops of merlot mica. Spray the white layer with rubbing alcohol and pour both the white and pink soap together to make a swirl for the rest of the bar. Let harden, unmold, and cut the bars with a knife.

Wrap in shrink wrap and share for Mother’s Day. Aren’t they sweet?

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!

Brand New Bamboo Mold!

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There are so many fun ways to use this mold! I used clear soap base with micas and oxides for a fun, fresh look. Take a look at Anne-Marie’s earthy and elegant version with olive leaf power, sea clay, and bamboo extract. Both methods are easy enough for beginners, so let your creativity fly!

What You Need:

1 Pound Clear Melt-and-Pour Soap Base

Fresh Bamboo Fragrance Oil

Coral Mica

Yellow Mica

Liquid Green Oxide

Droppers

Rubbing Alcohol

Framed Bamboo Mold

Begin by melting the soap base an adding 4ml of Fresh Bamboo fragrance oil. Stir thoroughly, pour about 1/4 cup of soap out separately and mix in one mini scoop of yellow mica. Keep your soap very hot during this process. Use a dropper to squeeze the soap into the frame on the mold. Spray with rubbing alcohol and let harden while you prepare the green.

In the same container that hold the yellow soap, add a few drops of liquid green and stir well. You will have to reheat this small amount of soap frequently because it hardens so quickly. Use a new dropper to fill in the bamboo details, spray with rubbing alcohol and let harden.

Finally, add two mini scoops of coral mica to the rest of your uncolored soap base. Spray the details in the mold and then pour the background. Let harden and enjoy!

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!

Honeycomb Bars for Your Honey

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Earthy, eye-catching, and easy! This project can be made by the most novice soap makers. The trick is to line your mold with bubble wrap before pouring. Here’s what you need to make 4 bars:

1 Pound Honey Melt-and-Pour Base

4ml Oatmeal, Milk and Honey Fragrance

1 Mini Scoop Yellow Mica

1 Mini Scoop Honeyed Beige Mica

12 Bar Silicone Mold

Bubble Wrap and Scissors

Paper Towel and Gold Sparkle Mica for rubbing over the surface

Step 1. Cut your bubble wrap into squares that fit in the cavity and line your mold.

Step 2. Melt the soap base and stir in color (just the yellow and honeyed beige) and fragrance. Pour into lined mold.

Step 3. Let harden, remove soap from mold and peel back bubble wrap to reveal the textured surface.

(Optional) Step 4: Tap a mini scoop of Sparkle Gold Mica onto a paper towel and rub it lightly across the surface to create shine that reflects in the light, enhancing the pattern.

Gift ‘em or keep ‘em. This is a great project to do with the kids!

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.

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.

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.



Come Make Soap With Us!

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You don’t have to be an expert soapmaker to create bars like these.  In an hour, a walk-in customer with no soapmaking experience made these gorgeous garden soaps! Our walk-in Soap Bar is $8 per person plus the cost of your soap base (she used goats milk melt-and-pour for $3.55 and got 4 bars from one base!). Kids under 12 get two bars of soap included in the $8 price.  We provide a huge selection of soap molds, colors and fragrances to choose from, plus friendly staff to walk you through the process. You can go as simple or detailed as you want and the mess is not in your kitchen!