Benjamin Aaron and I were at the Alabama Soap Conference this past weekend! What a fun time. We love to hang out with soap makers, talk soap and learn from others in the industry. A big thank you to the Alabama team for having us again this year.

Need swirling tips? Check out our free swirling guide.

I gave a talk on coloring soap based on my eBook, How to Color Soap. We talked about mica, mineral pigments, cosmetic pigments, natural colorants and how to use them in soap. I thought that my talk was going to be a bit dry so I wanted to do something exciting at the end!

After I was done with my presentation, I brought an 18 pound batch of soap to emulsion, divided it out into 35 cups and handed them out to 35 soap makers to color and pour! Benjamin passed out gloves, a large Popsicle stick and a colorant to each of the 35 people.

35 Color Soap Swirl Recipe

  • Olive Oil – 100 oz.
  • Avocado Oil – 10 oz.
  • Rice Bran Oil – 20 oz.
  • Coconut Oil – 60 oz.
  • Shea Butter – 10 oz.
  • Lye – 28 oz.
  • Water – 60 oz.

Bramble Berry has sent me many sample colorant bags over the last year for various projects, so we used 35 colorants from Bramble Berry. They ranged from micas to oxides to natural colorants to clays.

I have to say…my two favorites were Orchid Mica and Caribbean Blue Mica. LOVE!

Thanks to Amy Warden, Kenna, Shonna and her daughter for their help in passing out cups of soap and helping to direct people on what to do. Thanks to Benjamin for helping and for taking great photos!

Thanks to our 35 volunteers who helped to make the soap!

We used a drawer from my Grandma’s old chest of drawers that I now have. We used it for another super swirl, the 25 Color Swirl!

Here are some photos from the event!

Enjoy!

-Amanda Gail

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