Hello again loves! I'm here to share the process behind one of our newest soaps, Pink Clay and Charcoal. This soap along with both sizes of the 'Woman' Soap are available in our Etsy Shop now.
As you will see in the video below, my original intent for this soap was to have the activated charcoal layer angled; however, I changed my mind after I poured the black and took the soaps out from under the mold. Before I poured the first layer of the white, I cleaned up the edges and evened out the top of the black layer. I also intended for the pink and white layers to be even stripes; however, I got a little over eager and didn't let the layers set up nearly enough before moving on to the next one.
Likely what I'm going to try if I want the angled black with the angled striped effect. I will follow a tutorial by Sopish for the diagonal sliced striped soap. That method will take much longer than this soap did; however, I think I would end up with the effect I am actually going for. For her method I would have to make a full loaf of the pink and white layered soap, then split it and add the black charcoal layer on the top. In order to achieve this I'm going to need to invest in one more mold, so this method might be a while down the road for us. Otherwise I will just have to be more patient while layering this soap next time.
Overall I kept this soap as simple as I could, because I wanted to offer an unscented soap in our shop that could be used as a facial bar. This soap is unscented; however, we do use unrefined shea butter in our base oils so these bars will have a scent of raw shea butter. I also want to mention that I have started using milk powders in our soaps. The buttermilk and coconut milk powders add such a lovely soft yet rich lather.
The colorants I used in this soap are activated charcoal from Bramble Berry for the black layer. Activated Charcoal in soap is said to be a lovely detoxifying ingredient, and I personally love using activated charcoal soaps at the end of the day. Our soap also contains kaolin clay and pink clay (magnesium aluminum silicate, kaolin clay, montmorillonite clay, and mica). The clays are also said to be a detoxifying agent in soaps. Our pink clay was sourced from Nurture Soap and the Kaolin Clay is from TKB Trading.The white colorant I used is an oil dispersible titanium dioxide which I supply from TKB Trading; however, I will be switching to a water dispersible titanium dioxide from Crafter's Choice once I run out of what I have at the moment. In order to make the batter turn white you actually have to use the stick blender in the white batter, you cannot just stir it in with the spatula. If you just hand stir it in it won't turn quite as white.
To complete these bars, I kept the tops of the bars simple with a quick swirl with a pipette and no additives.
With all of that said, the full video for the making of unscented Pink Clay and Charcoal soap is below and over on our YouTube page! The soap is now available in our shop.
Soap Recipe:
Shea Butter - 35%
Coconut Oil 76 deg - 35%
Olive Oil - 30%
All ingredients are in percentages so you can calculate your weights by using a lye calculator such as soapcalc.net.
Free Beginner’s Guide to Soapmaking: Cold Process
If you are interested in a bar for yourself you can find them here. Overall I love the way this turned out, and it smells so lovely and refreshing in the shower. The bars turned out so unique and interesting, so I will definitely keep this process in mind for another soap! Let me know what you think!
All the love,
Pam
Fairmount Soapery
Find us here:
Etsy Shop - Fairmount Soapery
Youtube Channel - Fairmount Soapery
