How to make melt and pour clear soap to incorporate mica curls

Mineral Makeup application pictures

Cold Process Soap-making and Micas...what works, what doesn't

How to make mica painted soaps

Materials needed to mica paint the Bearded Iris Soap,
made with Fine Arts Bearded Iris mold.
(Any other soaps, just use the same method, only your choice of colors and mold.)

Micas: Flower color: Purple Shimmer or Passionate Pink (select one)
Leaves: Majestic Green
Background Bronze Shimmer, or Shimmering Gold (select one)
Highlights: Diamond Cluster, Shimmering Gold, White Pearl

Brushes: 2 (if you have a brush like you would use for makeup to apply blush,
it makes a nice sheen to the finished product).

Liquid: I personally prefer to mica paint with a dry brush.

2 Paper towels or Kleenex, one to lay the soap on while you are working on it, and one for clean up.

Method:

Hold the iris that has been molded and scented in your hand, with the flower up. Take the wider of your paintbrushes,  and apply the mica smoothly to the flower part of the soap, including the center or stamen area.

Wipe brush off well with your dry paper towel or Kleenex. Now dip the end of the brush into the purple shimmer (or passionate pink if that was your selection) mica, and apply slowly to the flower area. Do not be alarmed when the flower looks streaked, and not even.

Now, when you have coated with one coat of the mica, start again coating with the same color, directly over where you already applied mica. DO NOT wet your brush again before you do this… you want it dry…. apply up to 4 or 5 coats, till the flower looks pretty smooth in appearance. Dust off your paintbrush to remove any loose mica possible. It is easy to do if you tap it lightly on the side of your table.

Still using a dry paint brush, dip your brush tip into the diamond cluster, and apply to the center area of the iris…in the little dip, and blend it out to shake out any loose mica from your brush.

Now, lay your soap down on the paper towel, and we will apply your choice of either  color of mica to the background and leaf area of the soap, including the sides.

Now, the flower is almost done, so we will move to the leaves. Again, we will use the finer brush for the leaves. Dip the end area into the majestic green mica….and follow the creases of your soap leaves, go from the base of the soap (bottom of the flower area) and pull your brush upward in all 5 of the leaf lines.

When you have completed one coat on all, go back and put on 2 more coats,  using your dry brush.  Shake any loose mica possible from your dry brush. If there is extra mica sitting loose on your soap, just blow it away… it will make the air sparkly, and will get it away from your soap, all at the same time.

We are now ready for the background. Again, hold your soap if you can in your hand. It will be easier to paint it that way. We will use the broader of your brushes for this area.

Dip that brush into the bronze shimmer mica. You need to apply these coats more heavily than the previous coats…and again from the bottom area of the iris, paint in an upwards motion to get the bronze to the entire background, around all of the iris leaves, and down the sides…so if you look at your soap, at least from the top, it is all mica covered.

 Now when you are done, go back over the background 2 more times with the bronze, each coat should be applied as thickly as you can, without leaving mica “globs”. If you do happen to have one of the cosmetic brushes like the one you use to apply powder blush, just lightly dust all the bronze area. It will give a real smooth polished finish. If you don’t have a blush brush, just use the widest brush you have, dry, and just “polish” it.

Now, still holding the soap, we will do highlights…again we will use the fine brush, and dip it into the white pearl color this time…we are going to highlight the iris itself now…so put your loaded brush down to the points where your flower leaves come out. And press lightly, so you will deposit, or paint some of the mica at the first half inch of the leaf, as it comes out of the center…now, lightly, brush the mica left and right horizontally just to make sure the pearl color is in the veins of the flower. There are 6 flowers petals, the 6th one is small, and in the center, or the top area of the stamen. Shake out the brush well of all loose mica.

Now, still using that dry, finer brush that you just dusted out, dip the very tip into the bronze shimmer mica, and just paint only the stamens of the iris flower…do it lightly just to give it a shimmery look that differentiates the stamens from the rest of the area.


Now, you are finally ready to do the back of your soap if you desire.  Use the largest brush you have, and dip it into the bronze shimmer mica, and dust it on the soap. You may need to do this twice; then again, polish the soap and mica with the largest sized brush you have.

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How to make melt and pour clear soap to incorporate mica curls

You certainly can use the micas for coloring M&P, that’s ALL I use! The best results with micas are used in a clear base, as mica works on the light refracting off of the mica minerals to generate the color...it will sort to some degree in opaque soaps, it will color it, but not give off that eye catching WOW look that you get in the clear. No, the colors don’t bleed, and they are pretty sturdy too under the lights, where the other colorings just fade out.

 How much you use is a totally personal thing I think. I can tell you how to make the soaps I make. And I  have made several hundred a week, as I sell them like they are going out of style.

We formulate all our soap bases with the oils used in massage, the sweet almond, vitamin E, evening primrose, and shea butter. They really moisturize the skin. All the soaps you see pictured there are made from our clear soap base.

 How I do it is to cut off how ever much of the base I want to work with and microwave it untill its melted. Some folks prefer to melt the soap base on the stove top in a double boiler, so whatever you prefer will work. 

I then scent it with my fragrance oil, (I use about 1/2¼ of an ounce for 2# of the soap base) and stir it in well into the clear base. If you get a cloudy look to your soap base when you add the fragrance oil, just keep stirring, and it will incorporate into the soap, and then clear up.

I pour my molds  about 3/4 of the way full of the clear, scented base. Now I wait till the soap in the molds is cool enough to stick your pinky finger in without having it to hot...then, I just stick in my "mica curls", (these are made with my trusty potato peeler, just sliced directly off  the plain M&P soap piece before it was melted down, I peel about 2 cups of the curls, throw them into a plastic bag, and put about 1/4 to 1/3 teaspoon of any color mica I want them to be, then seal the top, and shake it for a few seconds, and wellla, soap curls !

 You can also use imbeds if you want to, say hearts, or whatever and do the same thing with the mica and a plastic bag, and that works too. 

If you get some bubbles in the soap base when you pour it, just spritz it with the plain isopropyl alcohol you get at the grocery store for 50 cents a pint. and it immediately pops the bubbles.

When the soap cools pretty much, I nuke again a small amount of clear base, and when it is out, I put in any color of mica I want the back to be, say shimmering gold..to about 2 cups of melted base, I would add about 1/2 a teaspoon of the gold mica, and stir it...and then scent it, and spray the dickens out of your cooled soaps still in the mold with the alcohol so the back will adhere to the soap, and then immediately pour the melted gold (or whatever color you want) back on them, (the alcohol spray is what makes the hot soap adhere to the cooled soap already in the mold). When the back is then cool, flip them over and pop out your pretty soap!

This way, you use very little mica, and they look gorgeous, If you want though, you can just color the whole soap base with mica, and pour them in a solid color, or you can do some swirling with micas too.

I have received some great information from one of our customers, Cheryl, whom I owe big for this tip on getting the colors that normally fade out in melt and pour soaps, make it hold the wonderful colors we all love Cheryl sells her soaps at a shop with lots of windows with bright sunshine streaming in. Here is what she has said, and with her permission I have reprinted it here.

I was delighted to find the inhibitor because I  love the sapphires & diamonds which fades pretty quickly in bright sun.  The inhibitor is specially formulated for bath and body products, and was sold by a company that sells ingredients for both bath and body + candles.  I used 1 teaspoon inhibitor per pound in melt and pour, which is really all I use the mica for - I love how it looks in clear soaps.  (So I am afraid that I can't testify for the inhibitor in CP or another process.)  The inhibitor didn't make a noticeable difference in terms of foam or product behavior.
 

This soap called starry nights was made August 20, 2007 (over 3 months ago) and kept in a very sunny room.

Thanks Cheryl, this is a wonderful tip for our soap making friends. If you have a tip you would like to share with us, just send it to us at sweetscentslady@cs.com

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By Joan Trebilcock, RN, www.sweetscents.com

Micas from Sweetscents.. how to use them

All our micas are all cosmetic grades. The US Government regulates all these regulations.

To use mica in the bath salts

To use micas in cold process soaps.. what works, and what doesn’t.

Mica that work in cold process soap.

Red  and purple Green tones

Brown & Metallic Tones that work

Autumn Masterpiece, Brown Pearl, Tigers Eye, Cappuccino Shimmer, Bronze Shimmer, 24 Karat Gold, Shimmering Gold, Chrome Shimmer, Pewter Shimmer, Golden Satin, Bronze Pearl, Copper Pearl.If you use the micas in crock-pot process, hot process, oven process, and add the micas the very last thing before pouring into the mold, the micas will hold up well, as the lye has saponified.

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Eyeshadows galore, great application looks, from one of Sweetscents customers! Thanks to Capri G., who graciously gave us permission to post her photo, of the wonderful look you can get with different colors of Sweetscents eyeshadows. Here are pictured the following colors on her lids:

On the inner corner of the eye is Sweetscents 12th Night, in the center of the lid is Royal Peacock, and on the outer edge of the eye is Purple Shimmer.. Very pretty tones, don't you think?

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Here is another of our customers, Becky from UK that has done a beautiful look on her eyes with the Sweetscents pigments, she has applied the colors with a  wet brush (foiling), and got an absolutely beautiful look. She has used "Iridescent Purple" wet on inner lid and then applied "Aborigine Aqua" wet on out lid, crease and lower liner for the dramatic look that really makes your eyes stand out. The minerals make it fairly easy (after some practice) to achieve looks like this. Don't be afraid to experiment with different colors and techniques to get your own personal look.

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Here is another beautiful look with Becky from UK, she has used:
Golden Green packed over my lid dry
-Emeralds and Diamonds dry in crease (what a beautiful colour!!!!!)
-Russet wet as liner
-Just a black eye kohl under