Halloween Treats: Subliminal Messages Bar Soap

Halloween has been my favorite holiday for a long time! I love fun Halloween themed bath and body products because they bring the holiday into my self-care routine and allow me to celebrate for just a little while longer. This year, I decided I wanted to bring Halloween into my shower with a pencil line soap, but not just any pencil line! I wanted to make a subliminal message pencil line that was inspired by my first job.

The finished bars of soap with a subliminal message in the pencil line!

Back when I was in high school, I had a job at a yarn shop. One of the classes that was taught at a retreat hosted by the shop was a yarn dyeing class. The focus for this particular class was sock yarn that was dyed with a subliminal message! Before the class, I helped knit panels on the knitting machine with uncolored sock yarn and those became our sock blanks. During the class, the students wrote words or painted pictures with the dye on their sock blanks. After the dyes were set, we dried the blanks and then unraveled them for each student to turn into hand knitted socks. Their messages were part of the color pattern of the yarn and did not show up again in the finished socks. What better way to know that the socks knitted also had a secret message that wouldn’t be seen?

Back to my planned soap for the day, I wanted to take this subliminal message concept and use it for a pencil line of color in soap. Come join me in the blog kitchen with your goggles and help me bring this idea to life!

Recipe:

bottom layer portion

top layer portion

Start by weighing all of your oils into two separate batches. Heat those oils gently until liquid. While the oils are heating in the microwave, weigh out your lye and mix with your water. This is also a good time to measure your desired fragrance oil. I chose Enchanted Apple Fragrance Oil for a Halloween type scent that would also have no discoloration. Remember to add your lye to your water, not the other way around. Your safety is our first concern! Allow the warmed oils and the lye solution to cool to a temperature range of 110°F-120°F.

My molds filled halfway with the first batch of soap.

Writing my subliminal message with Activated Charcoal on the soap.

While allowing your oils and lye solution to cool, I like to put away my buckets of oils and set up my molds and colors during this period. This helps keep my counters clean and my distractions to a minimum. When your oils and lye solution are both around 110°F-120°F, add your lye solution to your oils. Don’t worry about having your temperatures match as that will drive you crazy! I highly recommend no more than a 10°F difference for best results.

A comparison of using a spoon vs. a transfer pipette to write my message.

Dusting the Blaze Orange over my subliminal messages.

Using your immersion blender, mix the first batch of soap until you reach a light trace. Once I reached light trace, I added the fragrance and mixed just enough to thoroughly incorporate the fragrance. Then I poured the soap into my molds. I used two molds so I could divide the first batch and fill half the mold.

After both molds were filled halfway, I started using a spoon to try to write my Halloween message on the first soap with Activated Charcoal. I promptly dumped a large glob of powder on top of the soap, so I tried again with the spoon. I quickly decided that the spoon didn’t work and left the first mold with blobs that tried to spell Halloween. For the second mold, I switched to using a transfer pipette filled with Activated Charcoal. This method worked and I was able to successfully write “Halloween” on the soap in a thin layer of powder. Yay! 🙂 I used a fine mesh strainer and quickly sifted a thin dusting of the Blaze Orange over my two molds of soap.

Gently pouring the second batch of soap over my dusted pencil line.

Filled molds of soap!

I moved back to my waiting second batch and mixed the oils and lye solution together until I reached light trace. I added the fragrance and I had intended to just lightly mix to incorporate the fragrance, but I ended up with a much thicker raw soap mixture because I had to stop and answer a question. The thicker soap didn’t turn out to be a problem at all! I gently poured the second batch of soap over the color dusted first batch. To prevent the powder layer from being pushed down by the soap, I poured the second batch of soap over a spoon and flow over the color pencil layer. After pouring the soap and filling the mold, I dusted the top of the soap with a little Activated Charcoal to give a speckled look.

Dusting the top of the soap with Activated Charcoal.

Allow your soap to sit in the mold undisturbed for 12-24 hours. Then cut into bars and place out on a shelf where they can dry. You can use your soap immediately but it will last longer if you allow it to dry completely. It will also keep longer if you store it in an area where it doesn’t sit in water constantly. A great aid in determining if your soap has thoroughly dried are our Cure Cards. The best part is you can have them included in qualifying orders for free! If you want a set, let our order desk know, they are fantastic at taking care of special requests. Once the soap has fully cured, package it and give it away or use it yourself.

Notes: I loved how this soap turned out and next time, I think I’ll try cutting my message out of a plastic sheet and laying that across my soap for a clearer subliminal message. I wasn’t able to keep my hand steady enough for a clear message, but maybe I should embrace the shaky message as an extra layer of subliminal messaging. What do you think?

Would you try to make a subliminal message soap? Share your ideas and pictures of subliminal message soap. We’d love to see your creativity hard at work!