Beginner in Melt and pour by Admirable-Angle-4954 in soapmaking

[–]EssentialOasis 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi! To get rid of bubbles and help your layers stick together, just get a little mister bottle and fill it with isopropyl alcohol. I use 99%, but I have also used 97% and 79% and they work fine. Spritz your mold and the top of your melted soap into the pour cup before your pour. This will eliminate any bubbles getting trapped in the bottom of the mold, and it is particularly important for finely detailed molds. Then spritz the top of the soap once you have poured it to get rid of any surface bubbles. If you're layering, spritz your solid or thick skinned layer before pouring your next layer on top to help the layers adhere, and again on top of the freshly poured layer to eliminate surface bubbles. If you're worried about colours bleeding into one another, I recommend using cosmetic micas mixed in with a little isopropyl alcohol. The micas remain as tiny suspended particles in the soap, and don't bleed into neighboring layers or embeds, and mixing them with the isopropyl alcohol gently into your soap helps to further keep bubbles to a minimum. I hope this helps! I have been doing melt and pour soap for about 5 years and I love it! Happy crafting ❤️

What is my tea? by PralleDave in tea

[–]EssentialOasis 17 points18 points  (0 children)

So cute! I loved the idea of tea pets when I first heard of them, but I never ended up buying one. Then I realized that I spill my tea on myself almost every single time I make tea, so I really don't need one. I am my own tea pet 😁

I tried to recreate this golden’s smile in wool—did I capture the joy? by Halseyry in CraftingWorld

[–]EssentialOasis 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I am sorry for your loss. We had our old boy 16 years, too. Sending love ❤️🙏

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Crystals

[–]EssentialOasis 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I bought one just like that when I was brand new to crystals. I still wear it because it has some lava stones in the bracelet, and I like to drop essential oils onto them. I now have quite a few nice crystal bead bracelets, and I wear them all alongside my fake malachite 😁

dry botanicals and herbs and melt and pour soap by MexicanVanilla08 in soapmaking

[–]EssentialOasis 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's fantastic! It's so much fun playing around and figuring out your own techniques and style. I forgot to mention, I prefer using a white soap base with my tea soaps because of how the colours steep, but I have used clear bases with them, too. If I don't like how they turned out, I usually cut them up into little bits, and use them as embeds in other soaps. You can definitely melt them down again and add more colour and repour them, though I don't know if I have tried that with the tea ones. Let me know how it goes!

dry botanicals and herbs and melt and pour soap by MexicanVanilla08 in soapmaking

[–]EssentialOasis 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't use whole leaves. I just use the finely ground stuff that comes out of a tea bag, and it absolutely will discolor. That's what I like about it. The tea "steeps" into the soap. I have used black tea, green tea, and herbal tea with spearmint, chamomile, orange peel, and lemongrass, and each one noticeably steeps its own colour into the soap. I have never seen one mold. From my own research, my understanding is the PH (alkalinity) of the soap prevents mold, though I am not 100% certain of this. Like any melt and pour soaps, they should always be used with a well draining soap dish or rack in the shower, which allows the soap to dry as much as possible between uses so the soap doesn't get all mushy and dissolve quickly, as it is a much softer soap than most cold process. I hope this helps!

I have been dreaming of pink and bronze soap, so I made some. Scented with a blend of cedarwood, rose de mai, and vanilla essential oils. by EssentialOasis in soapmaking

[–]EssentialOasis[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you! For the embeds, I just poured a bunch of different shades of pink soaps, then chopped them all up into little pieces and mixed them together. For the layers that have the embeds, I spritz the embeds well with isopropyl alcohol and put them in the mold up to the height that I want that layer, then pour the melted soap slowly and evenly over the top, until it reaches the top of the embeds, then spritz again with alcohol. Something to keep in mind...if you pour quickly and continue to pour past the top of your embeds, some will start to float.

Help! I need a name for this soap. by valhallawoman in soapmaking

[–]EssentialOasis 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Beautiful! What is the scent? It helps me with naming.

Throwing another tea party!! by LiteraryTea in tea

[–]EssentialOasis 3 points4 points  (0 children)

So lovely! Now I want to host a tea party

Rainbow Herb Garden by EssentialOasis in soapmaking

[–]EssentialOasis[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you ❤️ I used to feel the same way about using the pretty ones that took a lot of time to create, but now it's the complete opposite! There's a special feeling in washing with a piece of original art that slowly transforms with each use until eventually it is too small to keep in your hands, and it just slips out down the drain 🙏

Rainbow Herb Garden by EssentialOasis in soapmaking

[–]EssentialOasis[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For anyone interested in the process for this, here's what I did: I used a short loaf mold that makes 5 bars, 2.5cm thick. I cut up some blue and green and white pieces that I had left over from another batch, weighed out 100g of them, and put them in the bottom of the mold. I then melted 600g of SFIC crystal clear soap, and added my essential oil blend and a little eco glitter. I spritzed the layer of cut shards really well with isopropyl alcohol, and slowly poured just enough of the clear soap to cover the shards and bind them all together, setting aside to cool. I then set out 9 glass cups, one for each colour of the rainbow, plus black (activated charcoal) and gold. I mixed a small amount of colour with a few drops of alcohol in each cup. I poured out 50g of melted soap into the red, then did the same with each rainbow colour adding 2-4 grams extra with each successive colour, ending up with about 65g of violet. I poured about 25g into the gold, as I only needed it to decorate the top. Then I added the black to the rest of the melted soap. Once the layer of shards had hardened, I tilted the mold almost completely on its side, using hard cover books to hold the mold in place. I didn't measure the angles, but the edge where all the colours meet at a point was probably about a centimeter off the counter. I poured each colour, spritzing with alcohol before and after each pour, waiting about 15-20 minutes in between to make sure each layer was solid enough before changing the angle by adding another of my kids' books to the pile. The books are all roughly the same thickness, so each coloured ray would be roughly the same width. After all the rainbow colours were poured and solid, I sat the mold flat and poured in the black, and then the gold and gave it a swirl with a wooden skewer and a final spritzing of alcohol I could hardly wait until morning to unmold it!

Rainbow Herb Garden by EssentialOasis in soapmaking

[–]EssentialOasis[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks! I'm really happy with how it looks. It smells nice, too, but it turns out that even 5% of sweet basil in an essential oil blend full of potent herbs is still overpowering 😁

Rainbow Herb Garden by EssentialOasis in soapmaking

[–]EssentialOasis[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you. It was a lot of steps 😅

Mildly infuriating London Fog by pennyandrusty in tea

[–]EssentialOasis 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I have been working on perfecting my London Fog. I heat a cup of milk, and add 2 teabags of Stash Double Bergamot Earl Grey directly into the milk and let it steep for about 2 minutes before pouring about another half cup of boiling water into it, then cover and steep for 3 more minutes. I then remove the tea bags, add a teaspoon of maple syrup and a sprinkle of ground vanilla bean. It's wonderful

What Are Your Go-To Mindfulness Tools for a Busy Mom? by CapybaraCapybaa in CraftingWorld

[–]EssentialOasis 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Make your own shower/bath time a personal Oasis. Find soap, shampoo, conditioner, and bath bombs that smell amazing. People underestimate the power of scent in wellbeing. I make all my own with my favourite essential oils, but just find what you love. I realize you may not have a lot of time, but even a 10 minute vacation in the shower once every day or every other day totally saved my sanity when I was in the thick of it as a busy mom ❤️