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Yes, these are truly easy to make. Even my very first attempts came out
great, yours will, too. Here's how!
Follow standard procedures for working with melt & pour soap (MP)...The
same concepts can be applied to CP as well.
You can use any brand of melt & pour soap, whichever is your favorite. I
use the clear for most of the gemstones. The opaque stones, like the
turquoise and jade, are made with white base.
I don't add anything to the base except for color, fragrance and
occasionally exfoliants. Make sure you are using a good quality base. Adding
oils, butters, glycerin etc will not improve the soap, harden the base or
increase lather. The soap is called melt & pour, it is ready to use as is.
Adding oils and butters to a saponified base (MP) will result in those
additions being "free" oils in the bar. If you feel the need to enhance the
base to make it better, you need to find a new base. If you want to create
something more luxuriant with fine butters and oils you should be
formulating cold process soaps where you will get the benefits of the
saponified fatty acids.
I prefer to use micas in the gemstone soaps. They offer a wide spectrum
of hues and provide a variety of gem like effects including pearlized,
solid, metallic and glittering. I have over 50 micas that I use for stones.
Occasionally, I use oxides (lapis is ultramarine blue) but they don't blend
as well as the micas. Always use skin safe colorants.
Liquid colorants and dyes are used on a limited basis because of the
migrating or bleeding. There are times that you may want the migrating
colors. Take note of the black veining on the lapis picture(below). This
effect is created with liquid colorants. I make watermelon tourmaline by
making the layers dark green, clear and dark fuchsia. I know the colors will
migrate blurring the "line" of the layers. If you see real watermelon
tourmaline it has that gradient look so liquids work well for that stone. I
also use liquids if I want a clear stone like emerald or ruby. I use the
rock base, with pearlized matching mica and top off with the clear that is
colored with the liquid. The liquid color will migrate but it is not as
noticeable as the other layers are dark or similarly colored.
Liquid colorant is also used in the turquoise and jade soap as I use
white base and micas don't work as well with the white base. They need the
transparency to really sparkle and you cannot get a vibrant deep gem quality
color with the white base and micas.
Any skin safe essential or fragrance oils can be used. Be sure you follow
the manufacturer's directions for safe usage percentages. You will want to
be wary of any fragrances that will morph your colorants. The most common
offenders are fragrances with vanilla. A good fragrance supplier will tell
you in the product description if the color will cause browning. There are
vanilla color stabilizers on the market that work most of the time.
Spend a session making components of colored MP in whatever colors you
want to use in you gems. The components will be carved chunks of soap in
several shades, sheets of soap for veining, small base rock, crystals etc.
To make shades of colors for your stones, just color the MP with the
lightest shade you want, pour 1/3 of it into a mold, add some more colorant
to deepen it, pour 1/2 of that into another mold then darken it further to get
your third shade. You can also do a solid, a pearl or glittery in the same
color family.
I use lots of browns, bronzes, blacks, etc for the base rocks and the
contrast that surrounds the gemstone. Since I use that for just about every
stone, I make up several molds of those colors as well.
When the soap has cooled, remove it from the mold. I use a variety of
tools like knives, ice cream scooper, melon baller, dough scraper, large
forks, etc. to get chunks of MP ready for the rocks. Small pieces,
especially those used for the rock base, can be made in the food processor
(I recommend a separate processor for soap). I like my dough scraper best,
just slice it up and chop to the desired texture. Cut large chunks with a
dough scraper then carve the individual pieces with a vegetable peeler to
get a natural rounded look to each piece. In nature, you find very few
straight edges. Keep the scraps from carving; you will melt them to use when
assembling your stones.
I also make sheets of thin MP mostly in gold, bronze, black and white.
These will be added to make veins in the rocks. Just color the MP. I don't
fragrance the sheets because they are used in a variety of rocks. Pour it
out onto a silicone sheet, cookie sheet lined with saran wrap or directly on
a clean counter. If bubbles form, spritz with alcohol. When cool, peel it
off and you have very thin sheets for veining. I tear the sheets by hand to
get a more natural edge rather than cutting. The soap sheet "curls" on the
edges when torn.
When you are ready for the more advanced gems that are set in quartz, you
can make the chards as well as the crystals. The clear shards quartz-like
supporting the crystals are the same for all projects so I make a lot of
that. I usually melt clear MP, add a tiny amount of snowflake, or silver, or
pearl mp and let it harden. Then using the dough scraper I cut in into fine
chards. The crystals are cut individually.
I store all the cut up components in zip lock bags. This step is the most
time consuming. Once you have these pieces ready, you can make many dozens
of gemstones in a couple of hours.
I suggest starting with a basic gemstone rather than the more elaborate
crystal museum type of stones.
You can use just about anything for a mold as long as it is flexible
enough to remove the finished soap. I have custom-made silicone molds that I
use, but I started with cool whip, margarine, zip lock/gladware type
containers. You will have a little more waste with these types of containers
as you will have to cut away the edges to get rid of the shape of the bowl.
With the smaller square zip/glad containers you will get 3 to 4 small
stones.
You really can't go wrong with these so use you creative side to make
each stone unique. The following directions are just a guideline. Feel free
to experiment.
I start by placing enough black/brown base rock in the bottom of the mold
to make a layer, as thick or thin, as you like. I generally prefer a thin
layer. Melt some clear MP, you can add a little sparkle if you like, it is
best to use a mica that is more individual sparkles than a pearl or solid
one. Spritz the soap chunks with alcohol, and pour the hot MP over the rock
base. I like to have just enough melted soap to hold the chunks in place
without covering them completely so you don't have a flat layer/line.
Allow soap to cool until quite hard, but not necessarily fully hardened.
I think you get better adhesion between layers if you don't completely cool
it. I use hot MP, you may have a little melting of the previous addition but
that give it a more natural flowing appearance and less chance of separating
layers. Always spray components and layers with alcohol.
I like a few large chunks of dark stone to serve as an "imperfection" in
the rock. I place these in the mold on top of the rock base. Melt some dark
MP, spritz the chunks with alcohol and pour some hot MP into the mold, just
enough to cover half of the black/brown chunks. While it is still hot start
adding your larger pieces of the color gemstone pieces that you carved
earlier. I use variety of sizes and shades. Fill the container about 1/3 or
the way full and press down firmly. Some of the dark liquid MP will surround
the colored. Continuously move the mold around until the soap thickens to a
gel, allowing the soap to form an undulating layer of molten color on top of
the bumpy layer.
This give you the look of uneven layers like you find in real gemstones.
Allow to cool. One nice effect is to pour a contrasting color onto the
previous layer, again moving the bowl around to create another uneven layer.
If desired, you can: add pockets of chards, clear or base rock
strategically placed throughout the stone; use a paintbrush to dust metallic
mica between layers; or sprinkle a few grains of poppy seed, cornmeal,
jojoba beads into the clear layer to replicate imperfections in the stone.
Using very hot MP will melt some of the adjoining soap to create a marbling
effect. Another interesting effect is to roll some of your "component"
chunks of soap in metallic mica before putting it in the mold.
You can add some veining with pieces of a sheet of black, gold, silver,
copper or white MP over or in between the pieces. Nature is random. Don't
strive for perfection! Now put in some more pieces of gemstone. Repeat the
process until your mold is full.
Once your master block is completely cooled, you can unmold it. Decide
how many stones you can get from this block and make your first cuts with a
large knife. I usually cut on an angle to create more visual interest.
The next step is to use a paring knife to carve away the basic shape. You
don't want to have any signs of the original container. First, decide if you
want a crystal like cut or something rougher. For the rough cut just cut
away the container shape at random angles. Carve away until you are
satisfied with the shape.
For the crystal cuts, I start by making angled cuts on the edges to get
beveled edges. Cut and bevel all the sides. You can be as elaborate or
simple as you like with the facets. Fine-tuning can be done with a peeler.
The carved soap may be a little dull from handling, if so, spritz it with
alcohol to bring back the sheen.
If you have any tiny holes in the stone, highlight them by brushing
metallic mica into the crevice. You can create crevices with the point of
the knife, peeler or chopstick. Use a good paintbrush with a chisel point to
"paint" the crevice with mica. If the mica doesn't want to stick to the
soap, spray the brush with alcohol before dipping it into the mica. One tip
for getting a clean edge on your metallic mica fissure is to paint in the
color, then using the peeler or knife slice away a very thin layer of soap.
You will end up with a striking sharp edge with the gold/copper sparkling
inside.
Crystal formation soaps that replicate museum quality gemstones can be
made using the same techniques as the basic soap rocks. These are not really
user friendly as soap goes but they are fun for the "Wow" factor.
To make the aquamarine stone, I made sheets and "sticks" of MP by pouring
a layer about 1/8 inch. I colored it with mica and used an eyedropper to
drop in tiny amounts of darker colors to get the shading. I unmolded it and
cut it into strips then filled a cup with the sheets and sticks. I then
filled the cup with melted MP (slightly cooled so it didn't melt the sticks)
unmolded and carved out the shape I wanted. Then you just place the finished
crystal into a bed of "quartz" MP. The quartz is just clear MP colored with
snowflake or pearl mica, shredded in the food processor and cut in to shards
with a dough scraper. I used a small round mold, poured in hot MP to act
like glue to hold the pieces together while letting the sharp soap shards to
stick up out of the melted MP. After cooling, remove and roughly carve so it
does not have the "bowl" shape.
The amethyst and emerald and ruby formations are done the same way. Carve
the crystal elements separately and hold together with shards and hot mp.
The Tiger Eye & Malachite are done one layer at a time. Malachite is dipped
in layers. The veined lapis rock was made by using a large fork to chop up
the component chunks creating the craggy edges. Another layer of "dirty"
soap made with cornmeal, seeds, etc can be added to the outside to add
another dimension by melting MP with the additives and dipping the piece
into the slurry until the desired effect is reached.
The geode is a great way to use up all the scraps you will have after the
hand carving. The center is the same shreds used for the "quartz" held
together with melted MP, like making a snowball. I melt the other scraps to
get the colors for the layers. It is messy but I use my hands to dip the
center in the melted MP, smoothing and dipping over and over again until you
get the desired effect. It takes a while but uses up everything so there is
no waste. I finish by dusting metallic mica on the outside and when cooled
completely, cut in half or quarters. I use a fork or chopstick to roughen up
the quartz center to give a more crystal like appearance.
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