English by Teri
Hi, this is Teri, from Tree Marie Soapworks. Today I'm going to be showing you
how to make this soap. It's a layer pour and it has activated charcoal lines in
between the layers. Let's get started. First, I use about a third of my water
weight in distilled water ice cubes and then I use cold distilled water for the
remaining water weight. And then I measure my sodium hydroxide and my
sodium lactate. This recipe makes 40 bars and since I have to divide it by three
anyway to get the three colors, off-screen I am making two duplicates of
what you see here. Now I'm adding my sodium hydroxide to my cold distilled
water, and I'm stirring that until it's dissolved and I set it aside with my
sodium lactate in a well-ventilated area that's safe from any kids or pets, and I
just let it cool until I'm ready for it. Next, I measure my hard oils and get
them ready to melt, so I start with my coconut oil and then I measure my
sustainable palm oil. I'm using two different kinds of palm oil. The first
one is the kind that you have to melt completely, and the next one is the kind
that I'm trying out that's called no-stir palm oil.
When I'm finished measuring those, I melt them in the microwave and while I'm
doing that I measure my liquid oils. Aand I start with my avocado oil, and then my
castor oil, and then, finally, my olive oil. I normally use olive oil pure or classic
but in this recipe, I'm using extra virgin olive oil, just because this has a
darker color and it won't really matter for this recipe. Here are my hard oils
that are melted, and I measure in my cocoa butter and stir them until it's
melted or if I have to microwave a little at the end I do, but I don't like
to get my cocoa butter very warm so I only microwave if it's necessary.
Now that I have all of my ingredients cooling, I prepare my colorants. For my
yellows, I have Sunshine Yellow Mica from Nurture Soap and I have Blinded by the
Light and Yellow Oxide from Elements Bath and Body. For my medium green, I have
Groovy Green Mica, Radioactive Pigment and Blinded by the Light and these are
all from Elements Bath and Body for my dark green, I used Radioactive Green
again and then the Chromium Oxide Green for my pencil line, I use Smooth Coconut
Carbon from Elements Bath and Body but you can also use Activated Charcoal. I
just add a little olive oil to my colorants and I mix them on my
plexiglass sheet with my palette knife
for this recipe there's a lot of colorant because I'm making such a big
recipe, so I made sure and mixed my ones that are more difficult like my oxides
and my neons first, and then I added in my micas. I usually save my tips for the
ends of the videos. But since I have a little time here while I'm mixing my
colorants I just want to let you know what I've been doing lately with my
colorants. I'm finding that micas alone seem to be a little bit muted and I like
that vibrant color, so I've been adding a little neon and a little oxide to
whatever color I'm using. So for example if, I'm using green I use the chromium
oxide green and a little bit of the neon green, and so for the yellow, if I use a
yellow mica, I use a little yellow oxide and a little of the yellow neon. I'm
finding that just really gives it a little punch and it really intensifies
the mica. So if you're finding your micas are a little dull, just try
adding a little neon, and a little oxide to it. I also want to share a little bit
about how I figure out my colorants. I've tested this Groovy Green Mica before
and it's a light green when you use it at one teaspoon per pound of oils, which
is a really good rule of thumb to start with when you're dealing with colorants,
especially micas. But since I know it's a little light and I wanted it to have a
medium tone., I added a little bit of neon
to it, in the Radioactive Ggreen and the Blinded
by the Light. And I added a sixteenth of a teaspoon per pound of oils in each
of those, added with the one teaspoon per pound of oils of the Groovy Green. I
remember when I first started mixing colorants, more than one colorant to make
one color, and it's so much math and it was so overwhelming but I don't like
guessing. At the same time, I want to know what I used so I can repeat that result
if I liked it, or if I'd want to change it, I know how to change it, because I
know what I did originally. So saying that, I want to let you know that I
developed a colorant calculator with Elements Bath and Body and it's all up
and running right now. And also that I have made a video to explain the
colorant calculator, and it's at Elements Bath and Body's youtube channel.
After I finished mixing the colorants, I added my liquid oils to my melted hard
oils, and then I combined my sodium lactate with my lye water, and then I
strained it into another pitcher. I used Wasabi fragrance oil from Bramble Berry.
I divided my total amount of fragrance into three different containers.
I'm pouring down a stick just so it doesn't make a mess and run down the
container and onto the table.
Next, I add a piece of paper to the table just to protect the table from all that
activated charcoal it's going to be blowing around. I add the activated
charcoal after I poured the first and second layers. My husband and I made this
mold with instructions from an E-book from Benjamin and Amanda Aaron and I will
leave it a link in the description of where I got this E-book. I have added my
colorant and half a teaspoon of kaolin clay, and also my lye water, to my oils.
Once I stick blend that, I had one of my containers of fragrance that I split
before.
This fragrance accelerates, so I have to work quickly once I have it all
incorporated. I use a powder sprayer to get a good layer of activated charcoal
on my first layer of soap.
And I use a bulb syringe to blow off any excess. It's a good idea to wear a mask
when you're spraying this stuff because it really just gets it in the air.
Next, I prepare the layer that's going to be the medium shade of green. The kaolin
clay that I added has been hydrated over night. I didn't want it to speed up my
mixture too much because the Wasabi fragrance already accelerates a little bit.
I poured some of the mixture into another pitcher, so that I didn't have to
lift that heavy pitcher because my wrist tends to give out sometimes when I'm
lifting heavy objects like that.
I stick blended this layer for probably a little bit too long and it sped up
pretty fast, so I banged it down and did the best I could and it turned out fine.
Okay just one layer left and I add my kaolin clay and my colorant, and then
my lye water.
Mix that in and, then I add my fragrance.
I'm pouring my batter over a spoon that I bent just so it doesn't break their
surface.
To force myself through gel, I put it in the oven that was already preheated to
the lowest setting, and then I turned my oven off and I left the oven light on. I left that on overnight and in the morning I just turned the oven light off,
and I let my soap come to room temperature in the oven, and then once
it's back to room temperature I can cut it.
Off-camera I split my slab into four logs.
And now, I'm just splitting it into ten bars for each of the logs. I really like
the way this batch came out, and I really like how the colors came out so, I'm
going to have to keep on doing the trick where I use a little bit of oxides and a
little bit of the neons to make that mica pop. I found the air bubble in
between the layers and I just want to show you how I patch that. I have some of
that same color leftover from when I planed off the soap, and I take a little
bit and I press it into the hole. And then I have a tool called a stylus
that's used for dry embossing and it's a good tool because it's got a round point,
and if there's a cavity in there, you can push it further in, and make sure the
hole is completely filled up. So I use that and then I use my detail tool to
push it in there and smooth it out a little more and then I finish it off by
making it a smooth surface with my palette knife.
I really wish you could smell this batch. Wasabi fragrance is so fresh. It just fills the air.
You would think that Wasabi would be something that's spicy. This is not; it's
just green and fresh and I just love it!
And now let me tell you a little bit about what I learned from this batch.
One thing that was really nice for this batch that I used was that bent spoon.
I would recommend that over using a spatula to pour over, and also I used it
to smooth out that top yellow layer and it worked really well and I kind of wish
I would have used that on the layer underneath. So in the future I'm gonna
try to remember to use that bent spoon.
Also, I tend to try to get every last drop of batter into the mold, and I think
sometimes I need to just get most of it in there and then have another mold
ready to put the excess in, because when I try to get the last bit of batter in
there, sometimes that makes my top uneven, because it sets up a little. I think
I just need to make my batch a little bit bigger and account for that excess
and I'll just have a mold ready for it.
I don't often make big batches like this, but it's much more efficient and I was
wondering if any of you that make bigger batches know, does it go through gel easier?
I got a little bit of silicone rash on this batch. And it's just where it gets,
the edges that touch the silicone have little bumps in our pits in them, and I
accounted for this then I planed it all off and it was fine, but I just wondered
if I got it too hot, and if bigger batches go through gel easier. So if you
know about that, if you could just leave a comment. That
would be great! I really loved using this mold it is the perfect size, so if you
don't have a mold of this the size you want, if you want to make your own mold, I
would recommend this E-book. The only problem was we used the wrong kind of
silicone, so it was our own fault, so you could see the mold was a little flimsy,
but it did the job. It was fine and once you get the batter in there it would
stick to the sides but next time if we pour this mold again, we would use a
stronger silicone. Another thing that I learned is now that I have a bigger slab
that I need to split, I need to come up with a better way of cutting it. I rigged
up a way to cut it with my wire cutter and it didn't work very well you can see
that one of the lobes got messed up, because it started to fall out of the
thing that I had to run my wire cutter on to cut it straight, so I need
to come up with one of those log splitters where you can just kind of
push it through and a wire cuts it kind of push it through like you're closing a
drawer. The way that I did it it's not very feasible and I would need another
person to hold the log, so it doesn't fall out.
For one of my next videos, I'm going to show how I test my colorants, so I can
have little swatches, so when I'm trying to design a batch, I can just go to my
colorant swatches and see which color would be perfect. So stay tuned for that.
Mad Mica has sent me a bunch of gorgeous colors, and I'm going to test them and so
I'll show how I do that.
When I was new to soap making I really struggled to find anything
about color, and I guess having an art background I always loved color. It's a
big thing. I want it to be right. So between making your own color swatches
and the coloring calculator at Elements Bath and Body, I think that will give you
some confidence with your color choices. I just want to share with you that I
have a website now and I'm slowly getting things added but I do have a
gallery and I also have a little bit of information about me, and I have a shop
so if you're interested, take a look. If you're new to my channel I just wanted
to say welcome and if you found this video helpful please just give me a
thumbs up. If you want to see my next video, just hit subscribe button and also
the bell for notifications and I'll see you next time! Thank you so much! Have a
great day! :)