Hi, this is Teri from Tree Marie Soapworks. Today I'm going to be showing you how to
make this bar. It's a charcoal bar with a gold top. In my last video I gave you
some tips on how to make a smoother bar and I'm going to continue those tips
today, at the end of this video. Let's get started. First, I measure my distilled
water and I've been using a third of my water weight in distilled water ice cubes,
and this helps it cool down more quickly and it also helps cut down on the fumes.
Then, I finish off with the remaining water weight in cold distilled water. Next, I
measure my sodium hydroxide and then I add that to my lye water and stir it
till it's dissolved. After that I measure my sodium lactate and I measure it at a
rate of one teaspoon per pound of oils. If you're using soap calc to put in your
recipes, it's super easy to figure out how much sodium lactate to use just by
looking at one number when you're looking at your soapcalc printout. Look
under the oil section and find the pound section, and that will tell you your
total pounds for this recipe. I use one point six seven five pounds of oils so I
just round that and make it one point seven and I use one point seven
teaspoons, so it's as simple as that. I set these aside in a well-ventilated
area that's free from and kids or pets. After that, I measure my coconut oil and
get that melting and then I measure my liquid oil starting with my avocado oil,
castor oil, in then my olive oil. Once I finished melting my coconut oil, I add my
cocoa butter and these are cocoa butter pastilles from Bramble Berry, and I
stir these until they're melted. If they don't melt completely, I just
microwave them a little bit until they're just barely melted.
Now that the lye water is cooled I just add my sodium lactate and I set it aside
for later. Next, I add my liquid oils to my melted hard oils. After that, I'm
adding one and a half teaspoons per pound of soap of smooth coconut carbon
or also called activated charcoal, and I'm using my smooth coconut carbon from
Elements Bath and Body today. The reason why I'm adding this to my oils is
because I want to make sure and get it completely incorporated before I add my
lye water because when I add my lye water it'll start to thicken up and I
don't want any pieces that aren't completely incorporated. Try and make
sure you're not incorporating any air bubbles by inserting your stick blender
at an angle and wiggling it a little bit and getting any air bubbles out before
you start pulsing your stick blender.
Once you're confident that you have all the activated charcoal incorporated, go
ahead and strain in your lye solution.
I'm using Dark Crystal fragrance oil from Bramble Berry. This fragrance
turns brown and cold process soap and it says that it accelerates slightly, but
I really didn't notice any acceleration. I really like this scent and I tend to
like scents that are kind of masculine and earthy, and this one to me reminds me
of one that I had from wholesalesuppliesplus.com
And to me, that fragrance didn't smell like sandalwood or patchouli but it
really smelled good, so this reminds me a lot of that, so thank you very much
Bramble Berry for sharing this collection with me. When I mix hope that doesn't
require any swirling I usually stick blended a little bit longer to get a
medium trace or so.
I'm going to do a textured top on this one, so it needs to get a little bit
thicker before I can do that. I just keep testing it and seeing if it's gonna
hold the texture or not, so when it's ready you just start texturing, and I was
trying to move the soap to the one side a little more so I started on a one end
and I kind of tried to push it over, and then just swirl a nice world like crazy
on this one. There is such a thing as swirling too much. You can overwork your
soap and your swirls end up a little grainy and I've had that happen to me in
the past, but this seemed to let me swirl in swirl. I was trying to get
the swirls really to kind of fall back over on themselves, so it works really
well in this case, with this recipe. If you don't know I list my supplies and my
recipes in the description below my video, and if you don't know how to put
these recipes into soapcalc, I have two videos on that and I will list those in
the description as well. Just in case you're interested I started a Facebook
group also called true Marie soap works and it's for asking questions and
sharing, and it's a closed group so, just request to join and I will be leaving a
link to that in the description below too. When I finish swirling I add two
little foam board spacers and then a sheet of Plexiglas and then I cover with
plastic wrap. I forced this through gel in my oven I just used my lowest
temperature and I preheat it to that and then when I s et the soap in the oven I
turn the oven off and leave the light on and, I just leave it on overnight and
then I turn it off in the morning, and I let that come to room temperature
naturally. We have a few things to do before we unmold our soap. We are going
to make our spray for the top of your soap. And our spray is a ratio of two
parts isopropyl alcohol to one part gold mica. I'm using an eighth of a cup which
is two tablespoons of isopropyl alcohol to 1 tablespoon
Gold Rush Mica and the Gold Rush Mica is from Elements Bath and Body. And you put
those ingredients in your spray bottle and you shake them really well. Get any
clumps out before you start to spray, and then you spray it on a piece of scrap
cardboard or a paper until it's spraying well, and then you spray it on your soap.
And you just need to keep turning it around to make sure you get every angle.
I made a mask to put over my mold, just to catch some of that spray so it
doesn't get all over my counter, but this is a lot less messy than sifting your
mica on your soap and it sticks a lot better. It just takes a short time for
the alcohol to evaporate and you're left with a really nice coating of mica.
While you're waiting for your soap top to dry, it's time to clean out the spray
pump. You just need to get some warm soapy water and run it through that
sprayer until no more mica comes out. Then, pull the top off and rinse that out
and then run some more water through there. And then spray all the water out
of that and you can replace the lid on your mica bottle. Just don't run anymore
mica through it, or you have to clean it out again, because it will clog if you
don't clean it out. But you can use this again and again, until you're out and
just add more or make a different color and it works so nicely I just love the
look!
Okay, I think you know how to do the rest, so, I'm just gonna start in with some
more tips about making smooth soap. Last time I gave you three tips and one was
to use sodium lactate and another one was to soap between the temperatures of
85 and 95 degrees Fahrenheit which is 27 and 35 degrees Celsius and the other tip
I told you was to use a water discount. What I think some of you aren't
understanding about a water discount is, you're not really discounting water. You
don't need that much water. You only need that water to introduce your lye to your
oils. You can use any amount of water as long as it's not lower than the amount
of lye that you use, so you can't go lower than a one to one ratio. So when I
use this 25% "water as a percentage of my oils" it still ends up
being a 1.8:1 ratio, to one water to lye, so think about this, if you're
using the default in soap calc of 38 percent and you lower it to 25 percent
you don't have to change the rest of your recipe it doesn't change your lye
or your oils. It just changes how much water has to evaporate out of your soap.
If you're scared to do it, I would just decrease your water by a little. If
you're using 33 go down to 29 and then go down to 25. And I think you'll find
that it just solves a lot of problems. Okay, sorry, I kind of got off on a rant,
but I really wish I would have known that when I was newer to soap making.
One thing I shouldn't mention about discounting your water in your soap is
that it doesn't let your gel phase last as long as when you use full water,
or even a little bit of a water discount. What is necessary a lot of times is
to force your soap through gel. So that's why I use the oven or a heating
pad but sometimes insulation would just be all you need, but if you don't a lot
of times it just causes partial gel which makes your soap have the
appearance of a ring around the inside of it, so that makes an undesirable look
to your soap. There's nothing wrong with it but just that inner part of your soap
gelled and it didn't get all the way to the edge. Okay my next tip is just to use
a strainer and strain your lye solution. You might already be doing this, but if
you're not, I would suggest that you do just because I think it would help your
soap appearance. You don't get all that lint in your soap, and also if there's
smaller pieces of lye or even bigger pieces, it's just to be on the safe side.
Okay, my next tip is just yo pour down the side of the bowl or the shaft of your
stick blender to introduce your lye water and your fragrances to your oils.
Just try to minimize the amount of air that gets into your soap and along those
same lines, when your stick blending, always insert your stick blender at an
angle and then kind of try to get that air bubble out of there by wiggling your
stick blender. Before you turn it on and when you turn it on make sure it's
buried far enough to where it's not gonna take in a little air from the top.
Another tip that I have is just make sure your soap has traced before you pour
it. It can be at an emulsion when you're mixing in your colors and when you're
mixing in your fragrance, but make sure when you're poor it's at an actual trace,
because if it's too thin, sometimes weird things will happen with your texture of
your soap. Traces is when your batter is thick enough to pour without separating,
and if you take a little spoon of it and just kind of drizzle it back in there
you could see the trail that you just left, and that's when your soap has
traced. There's different stages of trace but you need to at least make sure that
it does that. My next tip is to cover your soap after you're done making it,
and cover your soap so there's not too much headspace and this is mainly so
you don't get soda ash, but also so your top doesn't crack because sometimes when
the air is cold on the outside and your soap builds up heat on the inside it
causes the soap to crack on the surface just because of the difference in
temperature. I leave my soap covered for two days I
think it really has to do with what kind of climate you live in. I think if you
live in a more humid climate, that this is more necessary. I'm in Indiana and I
find that it's humid enough here that I think that's what causes the soda ash
and I really find better results when I keep it covered for 48 hours. Now if
you're thinking it's too hard to keep it covered for 48 hours, I use a plexiglass
cover and then I cover it with plastic wrap so I can still see my soap and I
think that just helps me be able to wait that 48 hours because I can still see
the soap. This rule doesn't necessarily apply if you're using a soap that has
honey or beer or milk in it. This is just for your regular water soaps. Another
reason why I wait 48 hours to cut my soap is sometimes when I cut my soap I
get little smears and it's the fragrance and then those little smears turn to
little pits in the soap. If I let it go for the 48 hours, I think it has time to
absorb and it doesn't have that problem. Also if you are cutting with a wire and
you are getting a little pits when you cut if you change to using a knife that
actually smears those pits in it completely flattens them out, (if they're
not big air bubbles) if they're just those little tiny air bubbles, cut it
with a knife and you won't have those pits. And for my last tip, I would just
recommend if you're going for a smooth look to bevel your soap. It gives it that
finished look, but also it just feels better in your hands when you're using
it. I find when I didn't mobile my soap I just didn't like that sharp edge when I
was using it. I hope you found these tips helpful and if you do just give me a
thumbs up and subscribe and hit the bell for notifications. Those of you that
placed orders this week thank you so much, and have a great day! :)