Teach Soap

Hi all! I'm new here but I am bursting with questions so be prepared!

I spent at least 4 hours reading through the entire forum the other night- you guys are extremely talented and you offer such great info...thank you! I feel like I am ready to make my BB order and know what I'm doing.

There is one thing I'm unclear on- coloring. I understand mica's are "metallic" and then there are the actual colors. Here are my questions:

1. Do mica's have pigment in them as well? If I wanted to do, say, a metallic burgundy soap, would I just need burgundy mica? How would I add mica into the soap? How does it work if I need to mix say, a colorant and a mica in the same color? Does this even happen?

2. There are a bunch of colorants on the BB site. Some say they are mixed with liquid glycerin. How much would I use of this per pound of soap and is it going to affect the lather if I also add 1 oz. FO to the 1lb. soap?

I know you guys always get stuck answering newbie questions, but thanks for your patience and also thanks in advance!

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ween rules

Welcome!

If you want burgundy soap, you would add burgundy mica. You can add it straight to the MP soap, just mix very well, then spray the top with alcohol to get rid of any extra bubbles.

With liquid colorants, it depends how deep you want the color to be. Try a drop at a time til you achieve the color that you want.

1 oz. of fragrance to 1 lb. of MP soap might be too much. Try a 0.5 oz. per pound of MP.

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

Thanks for your quick (and patient) response. I can't wait to get started and am one of those people that does exhaustive research before I get started...

I didn't realize that mica's were a colorant themselves, I guess.

So only .05 oz of fragrance per 1 pound soap. Good thing you caught that..

Thanks again!

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ween rules

one more (probably silly) question...

I got my BB order today (yay! everything smells so delish) and with my colorant sampler it says to add them to liquid glycerin. I also saw on the teachsoap blog that you can add powdered colorants to alcohol and mix them in that way. What are the pros and cons of each method? I'd like to know what I'm getting myself into before I start experimenting and really muck something up.

TIA!

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ween rules

Alcohol evaporates; glycerin doesn't. If you add too much glycerin to your MP soap, it could make it sticky.

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

Thanks soapbuddy! You're the best

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ween rules

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.