We realise it can be quite confusing when you are starting out - hopefully these tips will help you find your way!
- VERY IMPORTANT - when using our 15 ml dropper bottles, we recommend you cut off the tip of the nozzle as it will ensure that your colour drips more readily into your soap.
- Always use liquid colours or alternatively pre-prepare your colours into a liquid well in advance of use to cut down on speckling and clogging.
- Using prepared colours also cuts down on excessive stirring which leads to bubbles.
- Remember to ensure that if you want your colours to stay put that you must use non-bleeding pigments and colours. Its very disappointing when you go back to your soap to find your red heart so carefully embedded into a white cake of soap is now no more than a hazy red/pink edged blob in the centre.
- Check that your base is not too cool when using concentrated colours as the colour will start to thread as you stir it through the lukewarm base.
- Check that your base is not too hot as this can be the cause of speckling, even if using liquid colours.
- For best results with Micas, leave out the Titanium Dioxide. Micas reflect the light best when used in a transparent base.
- In our Clear or Translucent bases, we recommend about 1/2 a teaspoon per 500g to achieve a nice, strong pearly effect.
- If using in an opaque (white Base or Goats Milk) use at 1.5% to 4% of the total weight to achieve good colour but micas work best in clear soap. Remember, light is needed for the true reflective qualities of the micas to work properly. In a white base, Micas will become a pastel, solid colour.
- Micas are relatively simple to use, but a few can be stubborn to dissolve. Add the powder to your melting soap base, wait for the base to melt and stir the micas in. If stubborn little "mica bubbles" float to the top, zap them with a spritz of alcohol and you'll see them burst open. Just stir everything in until the mica is well incorporated, then add the fragrance.
- Most Micas work in Cold Processed Soap, but only marginally, as there is no light for reflection (since Cold Processed Soap is opaque). Try 2 tsp per 500g of soap to achieve good colour. I like to swirl the Mica in CP - simply add the mica to an icecream container with a tablespoon of Water, stir to remove lumps, and then add thinly traced soap and stir. directly to the soap and stir. Swirl through the main batch
