Gemstone Soap Tutorial

Waking up to a white winter wonderland on a Sunday morning got my creative juices flowing. And I knew the time had come to finally try out making gemstone soaps.

The first step was gathering all my micas, because a gem has to be kind of glittering and glimmery, shouldn't they?

If you're wondering what "micas" are, well they are very small mineral particles that reflect the light in a wonderful shimmering manner. They are widely used in all kinds of cosmetics, ranging from lipstick to eye shadow. The mica per se is colorless, but nearly every color can be added to them. You can order a sampler package here.

Next, I took some clear and white melt and pour soap base, cut it into small pieces and heated it up in a stainless steel container on my desk stove. The important thing here is to be a little patient while the soap melts at a very low temperature. Those of you, that are short of time could heat up the base in the microwave. If you're using this method, don't forget to remove the mixture every 30 seconds to give it a good stir.

The next step was preparing the colorants/micas in a silicone mold. As I had decided that I wanted a greenish-blueish coloured soap with golden streaks, I put a small hint of those colours into the different cavities of the mold. After the soap had melted, I added a few drops of fragrance (Palais by The Fragrancy) to the whole batch and poured it into the mold.

Then again, a little patience was needed until these were cooled down and solid. Don't they already look like little gems? 

I cut them into little tiny pieces and layered those in 3 cupcake molds. I tried to make a gradient, starting with the lightest blue on the bottom and gradually adding darker bits, while throwing in some golden pieces.