{"id":10657,"date":"2016-06-27T08:00:27","date_gmt":"2016-06-27T14:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.greatcakessoapworks.com\/handmade-soap-blog\/?p=10657"},"modified":"2019-03-02T12:11:11","modified_gmt":"2019-03-02T18:11:11","slug":"apple-berry-faux-tall-skinny-soap-tutorial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greatcakessoapworks.com\/handmade-soap-blog\/index.php\/apple-berry-faux-tall-skinny-soap-tutorial\/","title":{"rendered":"Apple Berry Faux Tall & Skinny Soap Tutorial"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m kicking off Soap Queen’s #soaptherainbow series<\/a> by turning my soap on its side \u2013 literally! This Apple Berry soap is actually created in a regular 5 lb. log mold with sliding bottom<\/a>* and a multi-pour sectioning tool<\/a> \u2013 NOT a tall & skinny mold! I\u2019m a total sucker for fruity fragrances, so I came up with a combination of Apple Sage<\/a>, one of Brambleberry\u2019s newest fragrances and Holiday Candy<\/a>, a classic from the Brambleberry line-up with sweet notes of berries and sugar, rounded out by a touch of rose and carnation. Both work really well in cold-process soap \u2013 no acceleration or discoloration that I found.<\/p>\n

\"Apple
Apple Berry soap by Great Cakes Soapworks<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What You\u2019ll Need:<\/strong><\/p>\n

58 oz. of oils (I used 33% tallow, 33% olive, 30% coconut, and 4% castor)
\n8.35 oz. lye (recalculate this amount if you change any of the oils!)
\n20 oz. water
\n1 \u00bd tsp. merlot mica<\/a>
\n\u00bd tsp. electric bubble gum colorant<\/a>
\n\u00bc tsp. raspberry mica<\/a>
\n1 \u00bc tsp. gold sparkle mica<\/a>
\nextra olive oil to mix with colorants
\n1.1 oz. Holiday Candy fragrance
\n1.1 oz. Apple Sage fragrance
\n5 lb. log mold with sliding bottom (liner optional)
\nMulti-Pour sectioning tool
\nA small paint brush
\nWhisk
\nLarge kitchen knife & a ruler
\noptional: 2.5 oz. of soap scraps<\/p>\n

(If you\u2019ve never made cold process soap before, be sure to read up on the process. SoapQueenTV<\/a> has some great information.)<\/p>\n

Prepping colors and fragrance:<\/strong> In a small cup, combine the merlot mica, electric bubble gum, and raspberry micas with about a tablespoon of olive oil. Mix carefully and well. A mini mixer is a great tool to work out any clumps! In a separate cup, combine the gold sparkle mica with \u00bd T. of olive oil. Combine the Holiday Candy and Apple Sage fragrance oils in a glass container.<\/p>\n

Prepping the mold:<\/strong> In order to make the soap taller, I ditched the silicone liner in favor of a paper one. (Here’s my video<\/a> on how to line a log mold with freezer paper.)<\/p>\n

\"Mold
Mold lined with freezer paper<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Next, you\u2019ll want to prep your sectioning tool by painting the gold mica and oil on each side of the silicone dividers. I learned this vertical mica line technique from Teressa Mahoney<\/a>. After playing with several different ratios of mica to oil, I discovered that it was best to have the solution as thick as possible without being clumpy, and to apply it to the silicone dividers thinly on both sides. Use ALL of the mica & oil. Leave a \u00bc\u201d border without any mica on both sides of the dividers as you spread it with the brush. You don\u2019t want the mica to run off too much when you put the dividers in the mold (mine did a little).<\/p>\n

\"Painting
Painting gold mica on the dividers<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Once you paint both sides of a divider, carefully set it in one of the grooves on an end piece. The end piece will actually hold them up pretty well without any extra support! Once you have all three finished, slide the other end piece onto the dividers and carefully set everything in the mold, making sure to keep pressure on the outside of the end pieces so none of the dividers fall out as you are placing them in the mold!<\/p>\n

\"View
View of all dividers<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

(Optional) Embed prep:<\/strong> If you have some small soap scraps you\u2019d like to use to create some interest, chop them into tiny pieces with a kitchen knife. I used 2.5 oz. of scraps from my practice batches with this technique.<\/p>\n

Now we can begin!<\/p>\n

Step 1:<\/strong> Prep lye solution.
\nUse a plastic or stainless steel (never glass or pyrex!) container with a pour spout to weigh out the water portion. Slowly and carefully add the lye to the water and gently stir until the lye has fully dissolved and the liquid is clear. Cover with plastic wrap, and set aside to cool.<\/p>\n

Step 2:<\/strong> Prep oils and begin!
\nMeasure out the tallow and coconut oil into a large plastic container (I like to use gallon size ice cream buckets!) and melt in the microwave for two minutes, then stir until all has melted. Add the olive oil and castor oil. Once the lye water and the oils have cooled to 85-90 degrees, add the lye water to the oils and stick blend until emulsified or a very thin trace.<\/p>\n

\"Adding
Adding lye solution to oils<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Step 3:<\/strong> Divide the soap into four parts.
\nWithout the silicone liner, not all of the sections will be equal. I poured off just over 2 \u00bd cups of soap into three containers and what was left in my pot was enough when I added the embeds to it. If you aren\u2019t using embeds, pour off exactly 2 \u00bd cups of soap in 2 containers (this will fill the middle two sections), then split the remaining soap into two other containers.<\/p>\n

\"Dividing
Dividing the soap<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Step 4:<\/strong> Mix color and fragrance into each container.
\nFor the ombre effect, pour HALF of the pre-mixed merlot blend into one part for the darkest section. Then pour a little over half of what is left into the next part, and a little over half again into the next, and what is left (which won\u2019t be much!) into the last part and whisk each part to incorporate. Then, divide the fragrance equally into each color \u2013 just eyeball it \u2013 and whisk again.<\/p>\n

\"Adding
Adding fragrance<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Step 5:<\/strong> If you\u2019re adding embeds, pour them into the lightest portion of soap and stir well with a spoon.<\/p>\n

\"Adding
Adding embeds<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Step 6:<\/strong> Pouring!
\nMake sure all the colors are just starting to set up before you pour. I noticed that the lightest color set up first because it had the least amount of extra oil from the mica blend, so I started with that one first. Without the silicone liner, there\u2019s some wiggle room for the sectioning tool, so I pushed it all the way to one side of the mold so that I had an extra large section for the soap with the embeds which made it easier to pour.<\/p>\n

\"First
First pour<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Make sure to pour just a little bit of each color into each section to prevent the soap from flowing under the dividers too much, THEN go back and fill each section. You may need to tap the mold down to release air bubbles as you go. (There will be some leftover soap batter after the mold is full.)<\/p>\n

\"Partial
Partial pour of all the colors<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Step 7:<\/strong> Removing the dividers.
\nOnce you have all of the sections filled up level with the top of the mold, it\u2019s time to pull the dividers out. Pull each one straight out, one at a time. Don\u2019t scrape the dividers as you pull them out of the mold. It will just mess up your mica line. Leave the end pieces because they help maintain the fill level.<\/p>\n

\"Pulling
Pulling out the dividers<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Step 8:<\/strong> Cover and let it set up for 24 hours.
\nYou can put the soap in a warm oven to force it to gel and create more vibrant colors. I set mine outside on my grill because it was so hot!!<\/p>\n

Step 9:<\/strong> Cutting and trimming the soap.
\nFirst step is to take it out of the mold and cut off the end pieces from the sectioning tool with a large kitchen knife.<\/p>\n

\"Cutting
Cutting off the end pieces of the sectioning tool<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Once the soap has been freed, you can slice the log into bars. I\u2019m a precision soapmaker and I like all my bars to end up close to the same size (3.5\u201d x 2\u201d x 1.25\u201d), so after slicing the log with my wire cutter, I used a ruler to mark 2 1\/8\u201d across each bar and trimmed them off with a kitchen knife. This gives me room to plane off the other side of the bar where my mica lines ran a bit. If you don\u2019t have a soap planer, you can use the kitchen knife or a vegetable peeler to trim it off if you like.<\/p>\n

\"Trimming
Trimming up the soap<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I ended up with twelve bars weighing 5.3-5.5 ounces before cure, plus a few end pieces and one thin bar. Cure for 4-6 weeks to allow the soap to fully harden and become mild.<\/p>\n

\"Finished
Finished bars<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

More resources to help you achieve red soap:<\/strong>
\nPerfect Red in Cold Process Soap<\/a>
\n4th of July Soap<\/a><\/p>\n

*all links to Brambleberry products are affiliate links<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m kicking off Soap Queen’s #soaptherainbow series by turning my soap on its side \u2013 literally! This Apple Berry soap is actually created in a regular 5 lb. log mold with sliding bottom* and a multi-pour sectioning tool \u2013 NOT […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10671,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[1073,924],"class_list":["post-10657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-making-soap","tag-bramble-berry-soap-supplies","tag-soap-tutorial"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t