Maker Monday: Zombie Repellent Soap

A few days ago we made our 2016 batch of Zombie Repellent! 

 

I love using micas from Mad Oils. This year we are doing a 3-layer neon green soap with layers of shimmery black mica in between.

 

 This green is so bright and vibrant! This bucket will be the bottom layer which gets the most color. After a few pulses with the stick blender, the soap base turns into a nice, vibrant green!

   

 Unlike our 2016 Rainbow Soap where we wanted nice, straight lines, I'd like there to be a bit of a wave in the final slice of soap. This particular scent blend - cinnamon, clove, musk, patchouli and anise - sets up pretty fast. We added the scent blend after making sure the color was fully blended. It's okay that we poured the mold at a thicker texture, because that's the look we were going for!

You can see in the pictures above where I am dusting this layer with some of the beautiful Black Oyster mica. This soap mold measures about 15 inches x 10 inches and in that area, I used about 2-3 teaspoons of the mica to fully cover the layer.


Once I poured the second layer, this cool little swirl happened from kicking up some of the mica on the bottom layer. Not completely what I expected, but I love the way it looks!

Below is the final soap! You can see the various shades of neon green, the nice, dark pencil lines across the layers and the wispy little swirls between the layers. I can't wait to get this year's batch of Zombie Repellent wrapped and on the shelves!

Rainbow Soap 2016 - Using Mad Oils Micas

 

Ever since our 2016 batch of Rainbow Soap has been shared around the internet, we've been getting private messages asking exactly how we got these colors. I'm going to share that information with you right now!

I'll start by leaving this right at the top. I purchased all of these micas from:

Mad Oils

I make soap in 60 bar batches. For this recipe, each color is  mica in 38 ounces of oil. Here are the colors we used, all from Mad Oils:

Purple - 2 tsp of Harold's Purple Crayon

     * note - this color turned out so right and deep that next time I will try 1.5 tsp or maybe one of their other shades of purple! Harold's Purple Crayon definitely seems to be the darkest, richest purple.

Blue - 2 tsp of Key West Blue

Green - 2 tsp of The Maniacal Pea

Yellow - 2.5 tsp of Pot O' Gold - You can't tell from the picture but you CAN see golden shimmers in the soap!)

     *note - My first choice was Bright Yellow Raincoat but it was out of stock when I first purchased these micas. I love the way Pot O' Gold turned out but will probably test out Bright Yellow Raincoat next time!

Orange - 2 tsp of Orange Crush. 

     *note - Unfortunately this specific color is discontinued (you can still get it in bulk by special order), but they have two other oranges I will consider trying next time we make rainbow soap at the shop: Tangerine Dream and Neon Orange. I will likely try the Neon Orange color!

Red - 2 tsp of Voodoo 

     *note - while Voodoo is more of a pink-red instead of a true red, these colors all look great together! I can't imagine this bar with any other shades of color than it currently has. I love it!

A few other notes about making rainbow soap:

- You either need to use an extremely slow moving scent blend, or you need to scent and mix each layer separately. I opt for mixing each layer separately to make sure I'm getting nice straight lines.

- Although you want a slow moving fragrance oil blend, you want to make sure the layer is then decently set before pouring on the next layer so top layers don't break through lower layers

- Pouring your layer slowly down the back of your spatula will help keep the layers from breaking through.

Here's the evolution of our rainbow soap. The Mad Oils batch is by far the best! 

You can purchase a bar of our 2016 Rainbow Soap here.

Please email me at info@halosoap.com if you have any questions about soap making!

Soap, soap, soap!

I've been working like crazy at the soap shop to load up on soap after the holidays!  There are some long awaited returns sitting on this rack - Lavender, Oatmeal Milk and Honey - and some new ones too! 

I've been wanting to make a Pomander soap and a Patchouli Twist soap for quite a while. And I finally had time to do it! Want to know why I've been able to make all this soap? 

 My new oil melter! This bad boy helps me make 6 batches of soap a day (with time to spare!) when before I was only making 2-3 batches. 

These three batches of beer soap for Miller Brewing Company were made in under an hour! I love it. 

Well, folks - long story short: you have tons of soap to look forward to in the coming months!

On a final note, I leave you with a picture of kitty:

Meow!