Jack-o-Lantern Soaps 3

Collect needed items:

To make these soaps, I did need to do some work just to prepare the colors I would use. I mixed the Black Onyx Dry color with Liquid Glycerin and then mixed well. From now on, I will refer to this as Liquid Black Onyx color. I also created 1 ounce bottles of extra concentrated color by putting 1 teaspoon of the Purple Raspberry Dry Color and Lemon Yellow Dry Color in separate bottles and then topping the bottles off with water. In the rest of the tutorial, I will refer to these as Concentrated Liquid Purple Raspberry and Concentrated Liquid Lemon Yellow. I set the colors aside after mixing for 24 hours before using to make sure there were not any clumps before using these colors.

Melt a small amount of Melt & Pour Glycerin Soap Base, about 1/2 ounce. This will be the soap we will color black for the faces. I did this twice so I could have both yellow and black faces. I’ve found that the best soap for the black faces is the transparent because I am not fighting the white colored soap. Once the soap is completely melted, add a about 1/2 teaspoon of the Liquid Black Onyx color and stir until thoroughly mixed. Color the other soap yellow by using about 6 drops of the Concentrated Liquid Lemon Yellow. After mixing the Concentrated Liquid Lemon Yellow into the soap I decided that the soap was too easy to see through, so I added a small sliver of the White Melt & Pour Glycerin Soap Base to give the soap some opacity.

Using a transfer pipette, gently fill the small cavities for the eyes, nose and mouth. Don’t worry if you accidentally splash the rest of the pumpkin face. If you do, allow the soap to cool completely and gently pull it off with your small hand tool and toss right back into the beaker. I discovered that the best way to get rid of the any bubbles is to suck them up with the transfer pipette. Repeat until all of your pumpkins faces have been filled in. Allow the soap to cool completely while you prepare pumpkin colored soap.

Melt about 24 ounces of soap either white or transparent and color it however you desire. I used about 15 drops of the Concentrated Liquid Purple Raspberry and 30 drops of the Concentrated Liquid Lemon Yellow. Once the soap has reached the desired color and the faces have cooled completely, spritz the mold and faces with rubbing alcohol to allow the layers to adhere. Gently pour a thin layer and set aside. This will prevent the faces from bleeding into the pumpkin due to the hot soap being poured into the mold. Spritz with alcohol to remove any bubbles and allow to cool. Once the first layer of pumpkin colored soap has cooled, spritz with rubbing alcohol and add more soap till you fill the mold with the desired amount of soap. Spritz with alcohol to remove any bubbles and allow to cool completely.

Gently remove the pumpkins from the molds. Voilà! You now have an amazing set of 6 Jack-o-Lantern soaps.

Remember that the black color may possibly stain washcloths, so be cautious with the use of black. You can use other colors, like yellow or even green, depending on the kind of Jack-o-Lanterns you want to make. Don’t forget that pumpkins themselves come in different colors, so you may want a Lumina Jack-o-Lantern (ghostly white) or a Jarrahdale Jack-o-Lantern (grey-green). These Jack-o-Lanterns are truly limited in appearance only by your imagination!

My first pumpkins looked horrible, but you can just practice to make your pumpkins look amazing. You may be asking why my pumpkins looked horrible and I’ll tell you that I learned lots of things about hot soap while playing with this mold. When I first made these soaps, I waited until my faces cooled and then poured the soap to fill the mold. After the soaps completely cooled, I discovered that I had melted portions of the faces instead and this had made a mess of my pumpkin. Then I remembered that my best melt & pour soap experiences before had needed many thin layers to protect the soap I wanted to show off without melting the soap. If you follow my directions, you shouldn’t have any pumpkins that look horrible!

If you did have a Jack-o-Lantern and part of the face bled into the pumpkin colored soap, you can scrape off the soap that is colored differently by using your small scraper, pick or micro spatula. Just scrape in a vertical manner from the top of the face to the bottom to give your Jack-o-Lantern a “pumpkin” striped appearance.

Enjoy!