Behind the Scenes Sneak Peak at Making Soap

Are you curious to know how we make artisan goat milk soap?  Fascinated by the combination of colors and fragrance?  When my eyes first gazed upon Kenna Cote’s Tiger Stripe Soap back in 2013, I was smitten.  I was mesmerized.  I was hooked.  I couldn’t believe that I was actually looking at soap!  I could scarcely imagine that I would some day be capable of creating anything as stunning as what I saw.   Hopefully today I can inspire you!  Here is a behinds the scenes look at how we make the artistic color design of our Arabian Nights – Sandalwood Goat Milk Soap at Pure Goat Soapworks.

We begin by prepping our workspace and laying out all of the tools we will need to design our soap.  Here you can see that we have already lined our large tray mold with a trashcan liner.  It makes for easy soap removal and is lightening fast!  We also have pre-mixed our colorants.  The tiny squirt bottles have a mixture of reflective mica, mineral pigments, and glycerin in them.  The containers for the colorants are at the opposite end of the table, and already contain a mixture of mineral pigments and some of the warmed oils from our soap.  At this time we have already made our cold process goat milk soap batter and are ready for our color design.

Next we add some of our soap batter to the pre-mixed blue and gold colorants, and pour the balance of our soap into the mold.  Then we begin pouring the colored portion of the soap into lines.

Once all of the soap has been poured into lines, we can manipulate it to make gorgeous patters.  Arabian Nights features a pattern in soapmaking known as the Peacock Swirl.  Kevin custom made tools so we can quickly and evenly rake the soap.  Then we take another tool and make an s-pattern to recreate the peacock feather pattern.  When we are content with the look of the design, we insert the dividers, cover the mold, and wait patiently for at least 24 hours before we can unmold.

The final result stirs the same excitement in my heart as my first discovery of handcrafted artisan soap!  Are you smitten as well?  You can have your own piece of the magic here!