Blueberry Week Day 4 - Blueberries and Cream Swirl Soap

For our fourth day of Blueberry Week, I am sharing a recipe for a Blueberries and Cream Swirl Soap!

Finished Blueberries and Cream Soap. Look at how pretty it is!

⚠️Safety Notes:⚠️ I am going to be honest, making soap scares me a little bit. I’m always worried that there are so many things that could possibly go wrong and I think that working with Sodium Hydroxide can be intimidating, especially when you are new to the soap making world like me. I’ve already gotten a few minor lye burns and trust me it is not fun! Please be careful when using Sodium Hydroxide. Always wear gloves and goggles, you can find them in our catalog here. When the solid lye (Sodium or Potassium Hydroxide) is added to water, the crystals dissolve and the water heats up as a start of the chemical reaction. As the water heats, it will steam and carry some amount of the Sodium or Potassium Hydroxide into the air. These wisps of steam can cause irritation to the eyes, mouth, and nose. We recommend mixing in areas with excellent ventilation as well as protecting your eyes, mouth, and nose. As an additional safety precaution, I always wear a lab coat or a long sleeve shirt to protect my arms. Anyways, enough about safety, let’s get to making some soap!

All the soaps I’ve made so far have been a little bland looking, so today I am going to start playing around with coloring my batches of soap. Please be patient with me as I am just starting to learn about color! When I was first planning how I would make this recipe, I thought I would just make one big batch, divide it in half and then color each half. After my sounding board session with Andee, I learned why this may not be the best way to go about coloring my soaps. Andee explained to me that it is always possible that you could reach false trace and when you split your batch of soap, discover that you have made one part of the batch be lye heavy and the other doesn’t have enough lye. This can cause uneven ripples between the colors as each soap will be used up at a different rate. To be safe, it is a better idea to make two separate batches for the different colors.

Another thing that Andee suggested was to make the white batch much larger than the blue batch and I have to say that having more white soap really helped the blue color pop that much more! I learned that I mixed had equal amounts of each color, the color can seem to overwhelm the white and the colors can seem a little more muddied.

I thought that making this soap was a little tough. I had two batches of oils and two batches of lye solutions and I felt that trying to monitor the temperatures of all four was a little crazy. Luckily I had a little help from Andee, so my soap turned out perfect! Let’s make soap!

Batch #1 (white):

Batch #2 (blue):

Weighing out the oils

The two batches of oils and two batches of lye solution

Q.S. In this recipe means quantity sufficient. Everybody has different preferences when it comes to color and fragrances. Also, the amount of lye and water you use can vary depending on where you live and what oils you use. If you are unsure about the amount needed, I recommend using our Lye Calculator, as it is so helpful!

After pouring the soap into the mold

For this batch, I started by weighing my fragrances and mixing my Titanium Dioxide into water. I learned that by mixing the Titanium Dioxide into water and letting it sit and hydrate for at least 10 minutes, I would not get tiny white speckles in my soap. I also pulled out the premixed Ultramarine Blue which was made by mixing 2 ounces of dry color into 16 oz of Liquid Glycerin.

I like to start by weighing my Sodium Hydroxide and water separately. I slowly added the Sodium Hydroxide to the container of water. DO NOT add water to your container of lye. The saying around here is, “Do what you otter and put the chemical in the water.” I know it is a little silly, but it always helps me remember what to do! While my lye solution was cooling, I weighed out the Coconut Oil, Palm Kernel Oil, and Olive Oil into a microwave-safe container. For most soaps, you will want to mix your oils and lye solution when both are somewhere between 110°F to 130°F. Waiting for the oils and lye to cool is always the hardest part for me because I am so impatient and I want to be finished now! I usually have to distract myself with another project so I’m not just twiddling my thumbs while waiting for the oils to cool.

Once the oils and lye solution have cooled, they can be mixed together until the raw soap reaches light trace and then you can add the fragrance oils and colors. To make this swirl super easy, I poured the blue mixture into the white mixture, gave it a slight stir, and then poured that into my mold.

Now let the soap sit for 24 hours so that it can harden up and finish the saponification process. After 24 hours, cut the soap. Use the Cure Cards to monitor the cure time of your soap.

I am so happy with how my first colored soap turned out and I couldn’t have done it without the help of Andee. If you ever have any questions don’t hesitate to give out technical support team a call, they can really help you out!