When I do face painting ( weekends gigs), one of my most requested designs from little girls is a unicorn. I have painted so many that I might be able to paint it with my eyes closed! So I thought it would be good to make a unicorn soap as well. Last time I made a unicorn soap, the embeds were sticking out from the top, which made for a ginormous bar! So I thought it would be better this time to put the embeds on the face of the soap.
I used a horse mold I had made several years ago, and added the horn and extra “hair” with soap dough, overall I am happy with how it turned out. I have a couple of the bars left, you can find them here or here.
Here is how I made them and below the supplies used.
Click here for Video
Needed Ingredients
| Ingredient | Gram(s) | Ounce(s) | Pounds(s) | Oil % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coconut Oil, 76 deg | 114.82 | 4.05 | 0.25 | 25.03% |
| Ricinus Oil (Castor Oil) | 36.57 | 1.29 | 0.08 | 7.97% |
| Karite Butter (Shea) | 32.03 | 1.13 | 0.07 | 6.98% |
| Olive Oil – All Grades | 127.86 | 4.51 | 0.28 | 27.87% |
| Lard | 136.64 | 4.82 | 0.30 | 29.79% |
| Mango Butter | 5.39 | 0.19 | 0.01 | 1.17% |
| Cocoa Butter | 5.39 | 0.19 | 0.01 | 1.17% |
| Ingredient | Gram(s) | Ounce(s) | Pounds(s) | Batch % |
| Lye – NaOH 100% Purity (5% Superfat) | 63.80 | 2.25 | 0.14 | 10.24% |
| Water (40% Lye + 60% Water Solution) | 95.70 | 3.38 | 0.21 | 15.36% |
| Total Oils | 458.69 | 16.18 | 1.01 | 73.60% |
| Soap Weight (Pre-Cook) | 623.24 | 21.98 | 1.37 | 100% |
Please note that the recipe above has a considerable discount-lye water concentration*. If you are a beginner, a recipe like this one might be better (or add 1 or 1.5 oz extra of distilled water, like I had to do when it started ricing due to the fragrance)
Custom Additives
| Add with the Fats | ||
|---|---|---|
| Rosemary oleoresin | 0.01 oz | 0.23 g |
| Add at trace | ||
| EDTA solution (mixed 50/50 with distilled water) | 0.23 oz | 6.45 g |
For more information on these additives you can click in the links below, please note above links are affiliate ones
- Rosemary oleresin (My oils already had this added when I masterbatched the oils)
- Tetrasodium EDTA
Colorant:
1/4 tsp Berry Twist Mica for half of the soap batter (11 oz)
Molds:
Fragrance:
Bahama Berry and Melon (1 oz). I found this fragrance to be soft from the get go (it is not that it faded, but it is soft but present from the get go). It is sweet and a bit floral, pleasant but not loud or overly sweet. So far, it has remained in the soap (a couple of months later).
Embeds
To make the embeds I used soap dough. I used white and off white for the main body, and an assortment of colors for the hair. I brushed white pearl mica on top of the body later and added some cosmetic iridescent glitter on the hair.
I made the mold myself, and have added it to my shop. Link here:
- Here is another unicorn mold that could work.
Equipment
Safety Equipment:
- Nitrile gloves
- Facial Shield (I use either a facial shield or the goggles below)
- Safety Goggles
- Respirator (I use this when mixing the lye, I mix the lye in the window sill, window opened, with a pedestal fan blowing the fumes away, better yet, freeze your distilled water prior) I also try to wear long sleeves, pants and closed shoes. In my personal experience, most of my near misses (when I feel my skin itching or a slight burning sensation), or when I come contact with the soap batter, have happened when I am wiping down the containers, when I am almost done.
Some concepts explained:
*SUPERFAT:
By now you probably know that lye (sodium hydroxide) converts oils into soap, through a process called saponification. And you probably also know that there are specific amounts needed of each for this to happen. Because each soap has a different SAPonification value, different amounts of lye are needed for each oil.
Superfatting sounds like something I like to do to myself when I keep eating after I feel full. But in the soap world, many will know it is when you either add more oils or less lye than it is required. Let’s say, hypothetically, that you need 3 oz of lye to convert 16 oz of manacao oil (totally made up oil) into soap. If you only use 2.5 oz of lye instead of 3, that means that a percentage of the manaco oil will not become soap, but will remain an oil. And this is desirable as that extra oil will cause the soap to become more gentle on your skin, by reducing its cleansing ability slightly. But if you use 4 oz of lye instead of 3, that means all 16 oz of manacao oil will become soap, and not only that, there will be extra lye floating around. That extra lye will be looking for more oil to convert to soap, that oil could be the natural skin oils, which means this soap can burn or irritate the skin.
Usually superfat of at least 3% is recommended as oils properties may change from crop to crop. But even if you had a 0% superfat soap, it would still be gentle as handmade soap creates glycerin, which is a skin humectant. (From most commercially produced soap, glycerin is removed to be sold separately).
*LYE CONCENTRATION / WATER DISCOUNT:
Most soap calculators will give you the amount of water needed to mix the lye with, based on traditional cooking methods of making soap, what we now know as hot process. This is a big percentage of water (38% of the oils) because a lot of it would evaporate through the cooking process. However, for cold process soap this is usually too much water, which can lead to a lot of soda ash or a lot of shrinkage during the cure.
This blogpost explains it better (from modern soapmaking).
Soaps by Glenda 