One of the cultural shocks I had when I came to the States was when I realized that most Americans have the ability to watch the same movie over and over. My cousin was really young at the time and her oldest sister offered to put a movie for him to watch. She opened this cabinet and there were a lot of videos in there. They chose a movie about dinosaurs that were migrating as resources got scarce. This was in 2001, so it was probably a VHS tape. Perhaps it was because I had just come from living in a third world country, but such a cabinet was something I had never seen before. We did not own movies to watch over and over. If we went to a Blockbuster (if you are old enough to remember that), we rented movies we had not seen before. We watched movies that were on TV or went to the movie theater to see new releases.
I had little choice in what movies we watched, being one of the youngest ones. There were no TV’s in bedrooms, and I did not have my own bedroom anyway (when you have four siblings, it would be quite far fetched to think you would).
But what I also found surprising, was my cousin’s ability to watch the same movie over and over without getting bored. A few years ago, I received some movies in DVD format, that I had said I liked, and decided to try and see if I could watch a movie a second time. Within a minute I was hitting that eject button, I could not! it seemed so predictable and boring. Same thing happens with Hallmark movies, if I have seen one, I have seen them all. However, I have been able to watch Forrest Gump a handful of times. Perhaps it was because when I first watched it, although I was a teenager, I had managed to remain oblivious to the adult themes of the movie. (I had been scared into believing women could become pregnant from a kiss, for example). So when I watched it again as an adult, I realized that there were some deeper themes that had escaped me earlier.
Some of my favorite quotes from the movie are:
“You have to do the best with what God gave you”
“There is only so much fortune a man really needs and the rest is just for showing off.”
“You can tell a lot about a person by their shoes, where they are going, where they have been…”
Recently I approached Shonna from Nezumi soaps to see if she would be interested in making a soap video collaboration. Not only did she accept, but she started asking questions to generate ideas for the theme of our collaboration. Things we would have in common that could work in soap. It turns out we both like watching movies, so we decided to pick a movie we each liked and do a soap based on that. This really sparkled my creativity and made me look forward to making the soap. And naturally I chose this movie (Pride and Prejudice 2005 was a contender, but I had already done a soap inspired by it.)
Because I could not pick a single design, I decided to make 5 different soaps in cavity molds.
By the way, I should clarify that in this information age, where an abundance of “content” and “bing watching” seem to be more popular, I have learned to rewatch tv shows and some other movies, mainly because a lot of what is new out there, is so lacking in meaning and quality. Maybe I have become old!
Here are the ingredients and supplies I used:
**Please note that a lot of the supplies listed below are affiliate links.
Colorants:
1 & 1/4 tsp of Alpine Green Mica for 12 oz of soap
1/4 tsp of Midnight blue Mica from Nurture Soap for 6 oz of soap (it was a bit too much though, too dark)
MOLD:
FRAGRANCE:
1 oz of Chocolate mint soap from Nurture Soap (discontinued). However, I actually wanted a pure chocolate fragrance, so I would suggest this one instead:
0.25 oz of Nut fragrance oil from Crafter’s choice
1.25 of DIY vanilla stabilizer
Equipment:
EMBEDS
Made with Soap dough, while I hand shaped my embeds, some of the molds that could work are:
- Sneakers mold
- Chocolates mold
- Ping pong paddle mold
- Not a mold, but I used something like these stamping letters to write his name in the military tag. (These are bigger than what I used, which might help make it more readable. I would roll soap dough into a flat sheet, and shape or cut the tag, let it sit for a day to dry, and then try stamping it). It might be easier to do this with black soap dough and then rub silver color mica on top. I used gray colored soap dough, then I mixed black mica with alcohol to let it sink in the crevices of the letters, later I rubbed silver mica on top with my finger. If you use a brush the mica might then go into the letters and you would lose the contrast)
Recipe Totals
| Liquid Required | 4.35 oz | 123.24 g |
| NaOH Weight | 2.68 oz | 75.93 g |
| KOH Weight | 0.22 oz | 6.23 g at 90% Purity |
| Lye Weight | 2.9 oz | 82.16 g |
| Oil Weight | 20 oz | 566.99 g |
| Fragrance Oil Weight | 1.25 oz | 35.44 g |
| Superfat | 5% | |
| Total Batch Weight | 28.78 oz | 815.9 g |
| Lye Concentration | 40% | |
| NaOH / KOH Ratio | 95% / 5% | |
| Liquid : Lye Ratio | 1.5 :1 | |
| Saturated : Unsaturated | 45:55 |
Recipe Oils, Fats and Waxes
| Oil | % | Ounces | Grams |
|---|---|---|---|
| Olive Oil | 30 | 6 | 170.1 |
| Tallow Beef | 30 | 6 | 170.1 |
| Coconut Oil, 76 deg | 25 | 5 | 141.75 |
| Castor Oil | 8 | 1.6 | 45.36 |
| Shea Butter | 7 | 1.4 | 39.69 |
| Total | 100 | 20 | 566.99 |
Custom Additives
| Add at trace | |
|---|---|
| EDTA mixed with water | 0.28 ounce |
Notes:
10 oz of soap will be left uncolored, or you can color them white instead with
