# Help I'm colorless



## NPgoats (Mar 18, 2010)

I'm trying to understand all this stuff on Soaping!!!!
How do you do swirls? At what stage in soaping do you put your micas, oxides, and ultramarines in to color? How do you use clays? Where do you find clays?
I read on a post... you can use charcoal (activated?) to color too? Really how does that work?
All I can imagine is using a bar of soap with charcoal and coming out like I wrestled with pencil lead! LOL
How do you make the little white foam on the top of your soap that looks so darn cute?
Help me please I feel like I'm soap on a stick after being on the forum non stop for a few days reading and reading...I feel like my brain needs to be rebatched!!! LOL
Linda


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## Greylady (Mar 28, 2012)

Linda, I am still learning as I new to soap making. Although many moon ago I did make some but not like I make today! Do a google search on swirling and you will come up with all kinds of ways to do it. Soapqueen has some tutorials. As for the micas, I have only just begun to use them and am having fun with them. I take some batter out, about 2 cups and color it and use it to swirl with. (mix mica first with a little bit to combine and then stir in reat of batter) I have seen where you can swirl in the bucket and then pour. Am going to try that this week. Split batter in half and color each different. (you can do as many as you like though) Then pour the other back in with the other color. Then stir one time around the bucket and across. Then pour into mold. Charcoal I am not sure how to use.


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## hsmomof4 (Oct 31, 2008)

Definitely see if you can find some YouTube soap tutorials. There are quite a few aimed at specific techniques for coloring your soap. Look for kbshimmer, shieh design studios, and iamhandmade for starters.


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## NPgoats (Mar 18, 2010)

Thank you so much!!! I will start looking today.
Linda


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## petey (May 1, 2010)

It is a learning curve, but it's a lot of fun as you do more and more of it. It is always a surprise to me how it comes out, I've learned to appreciate the uniqueness of each batch!


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## Anita Martin (Dec 26, 2007)

YOUTUBE! great demonstrations of swirling techniques there. I was just thinking I need to watch some more of those videos because I've seen some absolutely georgous soaps, CP, that other folks are making that look like fruit on top, beautiful layers, etc. I've got hundreds of bars of ordinary soaps, some un-colored, some colored, but I'd love to make a few bars that are drop-dead georgous and really attract people to my market tables and look great on my website too....


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## Greylady (Mar 28, 2012)

Tried the in the pot swirl along with putting that thin line in with charcoal! I loe a challenge! It came out good!


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## Anita Martin (Dec 26, 2007)

I did a swirl on accident last week that turned out really pretty and I plan to do it again. I added my color, (blue) to the pot of oils, but it wasn't blending in very well (a bran new color for me), so I took some out of the pot and added more color to make it a darker blue. I then added it back in and the contrast was really pretty. The scent was called "Celestial" so I stirred it just a little and then poured it and the two different swirley blues looked great, kind of like the earth. I plan to do this again with other colors. It was simple and I didn't have to worry about matching anything. (The less my brain has to work, the better)


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## Greylady (Mar 28, 2012)

Sounds nice! What coloring do you use?


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