See What You Can Make!

These are soaps made by Courtney, 11 years old, here at The Gift Garden. She did such a great job. Hard to believe she is a first-time soap maker. Come in and see what you can make!

Soap Making Weekend

I have been busy making soap this weekend. This is a sneak peak at two of the batches I made. Lots of new scents will be available soon. They will include Cold Water type, Energy, Beach Breezes, Gardenia, Puakenikeni (a Hawaiian Flower) and Peach Passionflower type.

Cookie Cutter Soaps

The other day, I was using cookie cutters to cut out some shapes to embed in soaps when I came up with the idea to use them to also create layers of color. I made a batch to test the theory and it works. I was having issues with pouring that day and kept over pouring so my surface is a bit uneven as I had to scrape off excess soap. However, if you don't do that while making your soaps they will be nice and smooth. Here is how I made them.

I selected what cutters I wanted to use and poured my first color in the smallest part of the cutter. The temperature of your soap during the pour is very important. You do not want it to be very hot. If it is too hot, your soap will seep out under the mold. I suggest pouring a little in the cutter to fill the bottom, spray with alcohol, and let cool briefly. After that, you can spray with alcohol, and finish filling the cutter. This will help to avoid the soap from seeping out.


After the first color cools completely, you can push it out of the cutter. I found the smallest ones the hardest to get out.


Place the first parts into the next size cutter. Spray thoroughly with alcohol and pour your second color. Again, make sure your soap is not to hot so it does not seep out or melt your first color.


Once this part cools, remove from the mold. Place into your next size cutter. Spray thoroughly with alcohol. Pour your final color.



Once your soaps cool, remove from the cutters. The shapes and color combinations that can be done with this is endless. Have fun and happy soaping!

Fall Soap

As we progress into the latter part of the year, we must recognize that it is time to be planning for fall and winter. I am soooo not ready for this but signs of the changes are everywhere. As I was out shopping today I saw displays out for Halloween, Fall, and more. So as I am thinking about was fragrances to incorporate, colors, and designs for my soaps for fall and winter, I stumbled across these phenomenal fall soaps by First In Line Soap. The use of colors and design is inspiring. These are great looking soaps.

Geisha Soap

This is a sample of my Geisha Soaps. I scented them with Japanese Cherry Blossom fragrance and used the Geisha Mold. The soaps are now available for purchase in my shop for $7.00. We will be able to ship them in the future. We prefer to wait until after summer as I don't think these little gems would be too happy in our 100 degree temperatures. We want to ensure that they arrive in the best condition possible.

4th of July Soap

I know I am late in posting this, but better late than never. I got inspired to try this mold and of course waited too long to order. Fedex decided to play hockey with my boxes resulting in damages and further delays but after 3 attempts my order finally got here. Then of course, I procrastinated. I finally finished but I was sad because I had worked so hard to try to get the stars perfect and when I took the soap out of the mold, 2 of the stars fell off. :-( I think my blue could have been darker and the colorant I used for the red is supposed to be non-bleeding but as you can see there is some bleeding. Back to the drawing board on this one. It is a really cool mold though, I just now have to fix the user errors.

Experiment Away

There are so many possibilities when it comes to making soap and it is very easy to settle in to one recipe and not experiment with different colors, oils, fragrances etc. Two of the biggest reasons that impact play and experimentation is time and cost. Do keep in mind, that if you are experimenting and you have a batch go bad, in most cases you can save it by rebatching. Or if it just comes out ugly or not quite what you were hoping for but otherwise is good soap you can sell it at a lower price. I usually have a discount basket at my craft shows where I put such soap. However another option is to make a very small batch or even just 1 bar. Here is a recipe for making 1 bar of soap:

1.5 oz Olive Oil
1.5 oz Palm Oil
1.3 oz Coconut Oil
.6 oz Lye
1.4 oz Distilled water
1/4 (or less) teaspoon of essential or fragrance oil

Be sure to double check it with your lye calculator and use proper safety measure when handling lye.

Happy experimentation!

Turtle Soap

I was playing around and trying out different soap molds along with some new micas and lab colors that I have not used since I received them. This is the Turtle Mold by Milky Way Molds. I used a clear glycerin soap base and a Sea Green Mica for colorant for the turtle and the Emerald Greeen Lab Color for the bottom of the soap. I don't normally like green but I do like this combination and how the final soap turned out.