Soapisms.Com

CPOP & Balance? What's That?

2011-01-25T09:41:00.000-05:00

Well, one thing I am clearly not very good at is balancing my life thee days. I must be the most horrific excuse for a blogger out there! At any rate, I won't bore you to death with the details of all this minutia that swirls around me much if the time, leaving me yearning for some time and peace to enjoy my craft, soap making.
What I would like to discuss though is my my new adventures with CPOP. Have you heard of this yet? Wonderful concept, common sense concept. Yet still there are some glitches I haven't quite figure out. CPOP for those who havent heard, is Cold Process - Oven Process. And, it is just like the name sounds. You make your batch of cold process soap just like you normally would, but instead of leaving it to rest and saponafy for the next day if two, you pour it into molds at trace and transfer immediately to a pre-heated 170 degree (f) oven where you let it sit for 3 hours, turn the oven off and leave it be to rest over night. By the next morning, you should be able to unmold, slice, and use immediately. The dry heat of the oven is supposed to accelerate curing time. While many soap makers are zapping their tongues with their finished bars to see if they are truly cured, I have resorted to using atual ph test strips. I figure since soap (any soap) will undoubtedly taste like a freshly scrubbed a$$ hole, this method really does nothing more than confuse me. Did that soap taste like a 9 volt battery? Or did it just taste like shi*? So here is the problem with CPOP as I see it. My ph test strips are not revealing cured bars after the oven method, not only that but they are not showing a cured bar even after another week passes. Is this method really speeding anything up?
A few months prior to learning if the CPOP method I had stumbled upon a similar technique on my own. I'll be danged I know what caused me to put my soap in the oven in the first place. Ah yes, the soap had traced quite quickly and was not pouring into the molds so much as chunks of it were diving in. I decided that heating it while in the mold would allow it to loosen up and settle into the mold. However, I used a 220 degree (f) oven and left it in there at that temperature for a good 5-6 hours before turning it off and letting it cool down. But I wasnt trying to cure it, just loosen it up. I fully intended to go ahead as usual and slice the next day, let cure for 4-6 weeks and test it then for readiness, as I usually do. But when the oven cooled down and I removed my loaves Of soap, I immediately noticed that they had settled and hardened quite nicely. They felt ready for use. Ph test showed 7-8 so not far off from where I wanted it. A week later it was ready for use.
The techniques out there I am questioning for both temperature and baking time.
I will continue to experiment with this process and figure out what truly works. With any luck I will be able to post a video and some pictures of the process and results.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this, so please feel free to post them, especially if you have tried this method and have found it successful.
Until next time,
Over and out, soapers!

Update Soapisms Blog

2010-03-26T04:27:00.000-04:00

Please hang in there with me as I am coming out of a very interesting March Break. Just when I thought it was over, and time for the kids to return to school, we had an unexpected visitor immediately after and all I can say is "wow!" I am thoroughly overwhelmed, but absolutely dying to get back into my soaps, websites, discussions, and blog! I tried a wonderfully smelling Chocolate / Vanilla soap a few days ago. It was going to be a great tutorial, but the soap never hardened. It looks a lot like pudding, and smells really good, but something went wrong. As promised, I will be posting all of my mistakes as well as my successes. I do think that time will free up for me very soon, and I hope you hang around and watch for it. I promise not to disappoint. The promises that I can't seem to keep these days have more to do with timing, than the actual delivery.
Thank you for your patience,
Sincerely
SAPS

Soapisms.Com: The Things of Spring

2010-03-06T15:17:00.000-05:00

Melt & Pour Soap tutorial (Embedables; spirals, shavings & curls) Soapisms.Com: The Things of Spring

The Things of Spring

2010-03-04T19:42:00.009-05:00

These are the Things of Spring
Part I - Colorful Embeddables
Spring is just around the corner. The sun is peeking out, our days are lasting longer, and we day dream of all of the things of Spring; colors and scents of roses, lilacs, Jasmine, grass, violets.......
This is a Spring inspired soaping tutorial. Great for beginners of melt and pour, and can be incorporated into cold process as well. This tutorial will show you how to make beautiful embeddable glycerin spirals, chunks, and other shapes in all of the colors and aromas of Spring. These embeddable pieces can be used inside of your next loaf of clear, or opaque melt & pour soap, and / or your next batch of cold process soap.

What you need:

Clear Melt & Pour soap base
FD & C Color
Essential & / or Fragrance Oils
Mica Powder (gold, silver, pearl)
Flat molds that will allow you to pout sheets of soap (1/4" thick and at least 12 or more inches long) Any of the following can be used for a mold: Tupperware, other plastic containers, empty. clean milk or juice cartons, plastic food trays. If you do not have something suitable for a mold, don't fret. You can pour your soap slowly over any flat surface such as your counter or table. As long as your soap hardens in a thin, long slab and can be peeled off of the surface it is poured on, you're fine. Pouring on a sheet of wax paper works fine as well.
Spray bottle with rubbing alcohol for spritzing your poured soap to remove surface bubbles.
Optional: liquid glycerin

Step One:

The first thing we do of course is cut our clear glycerin soap base into small chunks to speed up the melting process. After you have chopped up your base, (I used about 4 loose cups), place it into a microwavable cup. The amount you choose to cut will depend on how many slabs of soap you are pouring, and how many different colors you will be using. For the purpose of this tutorial, I am using 3 colors: Violet, Pink & Green. Therefore, I have chopped up enough soap base to loosely fill about 4 cups. For Spring colors, you may wish to use: Yellows, Greens, Blues, Violets, Pink & Aqua. Because you will be doing more colors, than I am, you will likely want to melt more soap, say 6-8 cups, or approximately 1.5lbs of soap base.

Because we are pouring thin slabs of soap that we will want to remain flexible, we are going to add a little bit of water to the soap chunks before microwaving. In this four cup glass, I added approximately 3-5 oz of water. A small amount of water should not hurt the integrity of your finished soap. If you have liquid glycerin, add about a tablespoon of this (per pound) before microwaving as well. Both the water and the glycerin will help the hardened soap remain flexible enough to roll, twist, etc., without cracking and breaking. If you don't have glycerin, you can add a touch of olive oil.

I will be pouring my soap into these plastic TV trays. They can be purchased at most dollar stores and are great for projects like these. Directly below this picture, take note of the three small plastic containers. You will need one small container for each color you decide to make. I have added my chosen essential oils to each of my containers as well as some pearl, silver and gold mica. For my scents, I am using florals, such as Jasmine, Lavender, rose, geranium and lilac. My colors will be pink, violet and green. As a side note, gold mica looks great in green coloring. Silver and pearl mica look great in any coloring. The way you choose to use your micas are totally up to you. If you do not have any micas at this time, no worries. You can still make these embeds and they will look great either way.

By now you have begun to melt your glycerin soap base in the microwave, and you have gathered small containers which contain the scents you have chosen to use, the micas you are using, and a few drops of FD & C coloring. The coloring will separate from the fragrance or essential oils in the containers, but this will be mixed in just fine once you add the melted glycerin soap and mix it.

*Do not heat your soap base any more than needed. If you heat it to steaming, you will have lost some of the moisture in the soap, making it dry.

Once your melt and pour base has melted, pour some into each of your small containers, and mix gently.

As you can see (left), I have used a silver mica with violet color (mixed blue and red), a pearl mica with the pink (red FD&C color), and a gold mica with the green FD&C color (yellow and blue mixed to green).

Re-Cap:

Just to recap before proceeding:

Each small container should contain:

~Color of choosing,

~Fragrance or Essential Oil of choosing,

~Micas (if using)

~Your melted glycerin soap base.

Mix these gently, and if they are super hot, let them cool down before pouring. Why? Because we want the mica to stay somewhat suspended within the color, so pouring the base a little cooler than usual is a good idea.

Pouring:

When you are ready to pour, proceed to do so. Each color is poured into a long thin slab of soap, approximately 1/4 of an inch thick. Spritz the poured soap with rubbing alcohol to displace any foam or bubbles on the surface of the soap.

As you can see, I had some green left over, as well as some violet and pink, so I have poured the remainder into the smaller squares on my tray. You don't need small slabs. If you have soap left over, pour it into a mold and let it harden, then wrap it up for future use. You can even pout your left over soap base into glad baggies and let it harden in the bag. Make sure you label it with the scent you have used. It can be peeled right out of the bag when you are ready to use it in the future.

The Fun Begins:

Watch your poured soap carefully and check it often. You will want to peel it from it's mold as soon as it becomes hard enough to do so. It won't take long to harden at this thickness. Within 10-15 minutes or so it should be ready. If you can peel your soap off of it's mold while it is still warm, it will be even easier to manipulate it without it cracking or breaking. Pick a corner and lift your soap out of it's mold. It is best to remove all colors of soap from all molds at the same time. You can stack them in piles while you are working with the first color. You will now manipulate your slabs of soap into spirals. Start with one slab, and wrap it tightly just like the picture below:

Now you can do the same thing again, but this time keep two slabs together so that when you roll it, you have something like the picture below:

Get Creative:

Carefully slice your colored rolls into a variety of thicknesses. You can make large rolls, small rolls, very thickly sliced roles, and very thinly sliced rolls.

The smaller rolls in the picture to the left were made by shaving some thin slices off of the edges if the soap slabs with a vegetable peeler. They were then simply rolled by hand both by themselves and with other colors.

One thing to keep in mind after you have wound up your rolls and sliced them is that you need to loosen the slices up some. If the slices are wound too tightly, they may not adhere properly to the soap batch you're going to pour over them. The larger rolls pictured above are an example of rolls that are too tightly wound. This is fine when you are rolling them up initially, but they must be loosed as pictures below, after you have finished slicing them. Continue on to the next few pictures. The pictures have notes beneath them and are there to show you examples:

Properly loosened, sliced rolls

Too tightly wound

Properly loosened, sliced rolls

Imagination & Creativity:

After you have mastered the rolling, slicing and loosening, you can try many different things. Your imagination is your only limit here. As picture left for example, try taking a tightly wound, sliced roll and pull each end of it outward to form a spring shape. You can curl your soap pieces around your finger, a pencil, pull it, twist it do whatever you want to it! Make squiggly lines, small cubes, rectangles, shavings and on and on it goes. I have taken a few pictures, (below), to give you an idea on all of the different shapes and sizes you can create here.

Variety:

Try some of the following.......

Preparing to use your embedables:

It's time to either a) put your embeds into a plastic baggy and put them away for future use, or prepare to use them now, If you are bagging them for future use, try to get as much of the air out of the bag as possible, Too much air around these, and they will begin to sweat. If you are ready to move on and use your embeds now, it's time to choose a soap mold. Pictured below, are three different types of molds I have chosen for my embeds.

1) A small plastic Bundt Cake mold.

Remember with cake molds, your cake is actually upside down, so you will want to place your embeds carefully and with some thought to ensure that they look upright after your soap cake is complete.

2) A sheet mold of 4 dome cavities.

Again, depending on how your soap will sit, you may have to place your embeds with careful thought to ensure that they look upright when your soap is complete.

3) A disk shaped mold which is meant to be cut into half moons afterwards. Again, because of the way this soap will be cut and places after, I put some thought into how I wanted to place these embeds, ensuring that they would look upright when the soap is complete.

Pictured below: Dome molds, Bunt cake molds, and a disk mold - all filled with embeds.

When you pour hot soap over these embeds, they will sink down, and shrink. You may want to have some extra embeds left over to add after pouring is done. I prefer to leave mine with a little more clear soap around the embeds so I filled these molds loosely.

Wrap your filled molds in wax paper, and place them into a freezer. We want to make sure that when we pour hot soap over these, the colors don't run into our clear or opaque soap. These can stay in the freezer almost indefinitely, so you don't have to rush onto the next step. Before proceeding to the next step, take some time to decide what you will be pouring over these. Will you be pouring clear melt and pour? Opaque melt and pour? Or will you be using a cold processed soap with these?

~Melt & Pour (beginners) Proceed to step two below, when ready. Embeds should have been in the freezer for at least a couple of hours before pouring hot soap over them.

~Cold Process (some knowledge and experience of cold process soap making required). If you are using a cold process soap recipe, proceed with making your CP soap, and bring to a light trace. If it traces too thick, you may end up with a lot of air bubbles in a project like this one. You can either add these embeds to your traced soap and stir it together before spooning it into molds, or you can keep the embeds in the molds and simply pour your CP soap over the embeds. (Tap the sides of the mold after to release any air pockets / bubbles). Cover & Insulate as usual.

Part Two:

Remove your now frozen project from the freezer. I am completing this tutorial using the bundt cake mold I had filled with embeds earlier, Melt an appropriate amount of clear glycerin soap base, add your chosen scent to it, and slowly pour it over your frozen mold full of embeds until the mold is full.
Tap the sides to release air bubbles, and spray the top with rubbing alcohol to reduce foaming and bubbles on the surface.

If you have any left over shavings or embeds to add, complete your soap by topping it off with these and pressing them into the melted glycerin soap you just poured. If you do not have any remaining shavings or extra embeds, it is not a necessary step. I just had some yellow ones to use up in this photo.
You should leave your soap to harden at room temperature now. It won't take as long as usual because you poured the soap over some already hardened and cold soap embeds.

When your soap is ready (hardened and cooled), remove it gently from the mold by pressing down on the underside of it with your thumbs. This will create air pockets inside of the mold between the mold and your soap, and it will allow the soap to slide out. This is a picture of my soap already removed from the mold.

We're not done yet......
We're going to finish this off with some finishing touches. Grab some white / opaque melt and pour soap. You don't need much. We're just going to drizzle it over the soap cake.

I have added some red FD&C which will create a light pink in opaque M&P soap. I have also added more of the fragrance I am using for this recipe.

The center of my soap cake has a hollow part, as you can see in the photo left. I'm going to fill this up with pink melt and pour before I drizzle. Your soap make or may not have a hollow area like this to fill. And you may choose to leave a hollow area unfilled if you have one. It's up to you.

Here we have the hole filled in, but I am going to continue drizzling the pink M&P so that it drips down the sides of the cake.

We're looking for some contrast and character here. Let's see how this turns out. You will be drizzling in whatever method you wish to, as your soap may or may not have grooves in it like this one, in which the poured soap can follow.....like this:

We're getting there. It's starting to look a little more like desert!

I'm going to keep pouring.

Almost finished, view from the top.

I think we're about there now. I'm going to leave it alone and let it harden. This won't take long at all.
After about 20 minutes, I come back to it and it's ready to cut!

The finished soap......

My Hang Outs!

2010-02-28T14:58:00.000-05:00

I really appreciate the friends who have come to read my blog. I wanted to let you all know where I am at on the internet.

You can find me at twitter as: soapismsdotcom.
You can also find me at Facebook under the name: Sappy Sally.

I would love it if all of us Facebook, blogger and twitter friends could be networked together at each site. This would provide all of us even more opportunities to hook up with other soapers and crafters in each others' friend lists.
Hope to see you soon!

Project for Today

2010-02-27T16:38:00.000-05:00

Here is what I am working on today... Tell me what you think.
Raspberry Explosion (Melt & Pour)

You might be wondering what on earth this is. Here's how I did it:
1) I melted clear glycerin M&P as usual and added color (blue oxides) and Fragrance Oil (Raspberry & Vanilla) and some Essential Oil Anise Seed (just a very small amount).
2) Filled an empty (clean) milk carton with ice cubes.
3) Poured hot M&P soap over the ice into the carton and gave it a couple of taps and whacks to make sure all of the air bubbles were out. It doesn't take long for this to set on ice, but you have to leave it alone until the ice cubes finish melting inside of the brink. Once melted, release the brick from the milk carton (mold), and let the water drain out of the brick. Make sure you don't leave any water behind. After it drained, I took a paper towel and gently wiped the brick down, getting rid of any left over water.

Meanwhile......

I chopped up enough white M&P soap base to fit loosely into a clean milk carton. This is a great way to estimate the amount of soap base you'll need to cut up.

I returned my white soap base to a microwavable dish and melted it, adding more Raspberry & Vanilla fragrance oils, as well as a tbsp of Shea Butter.

I poured approximately 3/4 of an inch of the white melted soap base into my empty milk carton, then placed the blue soap brick into the mold. (I sprayed each side of the brick with rubbing alcohol to ensure that the white soap would adhere to the brick.

With the melted white base I had left, I set aside about 1/4 of it and mixed my color into that small portion. I chose a raspberry red. I used an oxide colorant instead of FD&C or liquid soaping colors to make sure that the color would be vibrant and strong. My oxides are water soluble, so I mixed it onto a couple of teaspoon of water, which should not hurt the integrity of your melt and pour soap.

Leaving the colored melt and pour aside, I moved on to pouring the remaining white melt and pour soap base over the blue brick in the milk carton (mold). I poured slowly, making sure to tap the sides and let any air pockets out, also making sure to fill as many of the holes caused by the ice cubes as possible.

I left approximately 3/4 to 1 inch at the top of the milk carton.

Now I warn you......This is where things get to looking a little on the ugly wuggly side. Don't say I didn't warn you, ok?

I then poured my the layer of red, and I thought "Man is this ugly looking", but continued on, pouring the red until 1/4 to 1/2 inch of room was left on top for one final layer of white. You may want your layers clean, so you would have to wait for the red to form a thick skin before you pour. If you do this, you may want to spray the layer with alcohol before pouring again to ensure that your layers adhere. I wanted my colors to run into one another, so I poured immediately. Again, tapping to release any air pockets.

I really had a hard time with it's ugliness while it set, but I knew that its the seemingly ugly ones that often give you a pleasant surprise, so I kept my fingers crossed. After the soap loaf set (about an hour), I peeled away the milk carton and this is what I saw:

So I began slicing and was pleasantly surprised at how pretty it was inside. The following pictures are the bars sliced, though not trimmed up perfectly. This was a fun experiment, and as ice goes, you can be sure that no two soap loaves made with this technique will ever be alike.

I always take great care to keep the soap shavings in good condition for my next project. These little shavings will be great for using as embedded raspberry soap chunks in your cold process soap! Mixing the two techniques can provide your CP soap with an extra boost of smell since the M&P tends to hold the fragrances much better.

And of course, I always try to make a few sample sized bars from the two ends of the loaf.

Thanks for viewing! If you are a beginner, please feel free to ask me anything you would like to know. Send me a message through Facebook.

Free Soap Labels & Candle Labels Biz Starter Kit | Worldlabel Blog

2010-02-27T08:00:00.000-05:00

Free Soap Labels & Candle Labels Biz Starter Kit | Worldlabel Blog

I saw this great link at facebook, and wanted to share with everyone, knowing how much difficulty people sometimes have with their bath and beauty product labels. These are really nice and they are being offered up for free by the owenrs of this website. Haven't found any strings attached to mine. Everything seems to be in order, and the download was simple.

Intervention Needed?

2010-02-27T05:28:00.000-05:00

The day I feared, my fellow soap makers, has come;
for I cannot look into a pan of frying bacon without seeing rendered fats, which are usually enjoyed by the family pets. But alas, today I find myself staring, and staring, and imagining, and imagining........tallow, tallow, tallow. I see tallow in every meal I cook, in every beef broth I make, in every pure lard pie crust I roll, and now..........
the time has come my friends. I am officially addicted to soap making.....I pray that I won't lose my marriage over this. I am no longer able to share my laboratory, I mean the kitchen. I find myself working feverishly under the cover of darkness, because I know.....those people (I mean my family) if they were awake and able, would wander aimlessly in and out of my laboratory while I am attempting to make the next miracle batch of soap. They don't understand. They can't understand....how could they? They think it grows on trees. They rarely take the time to smell it, let alone understand what goes into it. They leave them sitting in the bottom of the shower floor, melting away under that annoying faucet drip....drip...drip.... Will they ever fully appreciate this thing we call cold process soap making? Probably not. I just hope we can all survive this addiction of mine. How careless I am to have fallen into it in the first place. Do I want out? Hell no! Nothing will tear me away from my lye and fats! Never!
Ok, that was a little dramatic, but I had to get my point across. I LOVE SOAP AND I'M NOT ASHAMED OF IT.

Do you Have a Case of the Soap Isms?

2010-02-27T00:30:00.003-05:00

What's an Ism?

Well, thankfully it's not as bad as having a case of the runs!

Read on......

1. The Soap Crafter "Isms"

There are many definitions for the slang term "Ism". In our case, "Isms" refer to the wildly adventurous soap crafters who get just as excited over an experimental mess, as they do a perfect loaf of CP Soap. In the case of us soap crafters, it's the excitement of the process, born of our own ideas, (albeit sometimes pretty whacky) that keeps us coming back for more. Someone with a true case of the soapisms will have any or all of the following characteristics:

1. Knows that any CP (cold process) soap mess can become an HP (hot process) delight, allowing our imaginations to go wild in the kitchen.

2. Someone with the soapisms gets excited over oils, lards, butters, and may even day dream of making the next soap batch while staring into a pan of frying bacon. The Soapisms are something like having shiny ball syndrome.....we are distracted by anything and everything that reminds us of our next batch of hand made soap. All of that white fat accumulating in the pan.....bacon soap? Hmmm..... These are the thoughts of a true soaper who is afflicted with the soapisms.

"Incidentally.....There is a positive correlation between people who have the soapisms, and those who have shiny ball syndrome (i.e. distracted by all things that shine). We all know who we are, and we're not embarrassed by it whatsoever. Those with Shiny Ball Syndrome are more likely to have the soapisms as well"

And that's why:

3. We live for the art of soap making. The next batch always expected to be better than the last, the best bar ever is always about to come out of our next batch. We are like mad scientists in the kitchen. We scream at people who dare to enter into our physical domain while we are in the depths of our soapismness. Many of us wait until the wee hours of late night or early morning to engage in our soapismness, so that no one else is awake, and the fear of others walking into our kitchen can be avoided.

4. We are so proud of our art that we flash pictures and even videos of our soaps all over the internet. What separates a soap crafter from someone who has the soapisms? It's kind of like the ugly baby scenario. You know that thing that happens to us parents when we give birth to a child with a cone shaped head and hideous facial rash, that only a mother blinded by love could pass portraits around with beaming pride and we are certain that our child is the most beautiful child ever born on the planet? We don't see the cone head, or the facial rash. What we see is the most meaningful creation we have ever been responsible for making. Similarly, the soap crafters with the soapisms will also flash pictures and videos of their most hideous soap disasters ever. We even compete for the "ugliest soap title". Are we nuts? No, we are in love with the craft, and every born disaster is a learning experience for ourselves, as well as the fellow soaper we share it with. Our disasters are as equally important as our best results!

2. The Soap Seeker "Isms"

This type of Ismness is one in which the person who has the soapisms is not interested in making soap, but rather

1. Has an unquenchable thirst for owning the best looking, most wonderfully smelliest, most purposeful soaps ever made.

2. Like the soap crafter, this group may also suffer from shiny ball syndrome, being unable to resist purchasing a good bar of soap, like the shiny ball buyers, who are unable to resist buying anything that shines or sparkles.

3. Also like the soap crafter, this group sometimes prefers to operate under the cover of darkness, thereby avoiding interruption by family members while surfing eBay, and other online shops that sell soap.

4. Also similar to the soap crafter is this group's need to hide the expense of their soapism from family and friends. The soap crafter hiding the actual cost of oils and additives from loved ones, while the soap shopper can be as equally secretive about the expenses of purchasing these delectable items.

5. Like the mother blinded with love, handing out portraits of her cone headed, rash faced baby, the soapism shoppers are proud enough to show off their most recent purchase, even if it has the title of "ugliest bar" as long as it has that skin disorder miracle we've been looking for.

So, you see crafters and shoppers are much more alike than we are different. My personal thanks to this group of soapismers. If it wasn't for the soapism buyers, soap crafters afflicted with the soapisms would have no one to share their isms with at all.

By the way, my name is MJ and I am addicted to making soap; cold process, hot process & melt and pour. I really enjoy all of the soapers' blogs I have come across, and I am hoping that you all will enjoy mine too. If you're looking for a free link exchange, please visit my website and submit your URL so that I can list your site in my links section. Happy Soaping!