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Homemade Soap: Mold Making

This is a really fun project, making so in different shapes. And this is something that was a process of discovery that jean and I had when we were with her older sister, serena in venice, california. We went into a boutique on abbot kinney there, and I think was a jane. Were you the one who discovered this? The soap, those in the shape of, like little babies, arms like, maybe it was so mean. Serena's. One of I think, a serious my older adults and look at this weird soap is like a little fist on a part of the forearm was tiny little soap in was like it was a mold of it dulls hand and arm in the shape of soap in it, it was kind of a pink color, like a uh uh uh, color that looked like it was kind of a milky color was really interesting. And so I thought, you know, they obviously poured that soap somehow they made a mold of it. I was wondering if there's a way to do it. So when we got home, we did a little bit of research, and we found out that there is this cool so that you can buy at ho...

bby stores called glycerin soap. This looks like a tray of ice cubes here. But it's uh yeah has actually soap and the cool thing about glistens hope is that you can melt it in the uh you khun melted in the microwave and so it takes just it just takes about forty five seconds and you have this nice liquid that you can pour it into moulds and it's unscented so you can add sense to it and uh you can add colors to it and come up with different colors and what you do is you make a used silicone rubber to make thie to make the shapes and this is, uh the silicone rubber here and it comes in two parts there is uh uh purple in a way yeah, exactly a purple and a white and when you mix them together it cure is pretty cool quickly and you can wrap it around different objects. What we did was we used our our thumbs and I think serena used her toe and so we made soap in the shape of our actual hands and then we've used other things around the house today what we're going to do is is make soap in the shape of some objects that we have here in the studio and we're going to add colors and scents and it'll be a lot of fun I think also what I'm going to see if jean is willing to be a guinea pig is to hold someone her thumb during this so that we can make a least one thumb so because you had to really could jane at a great collection of some soap all different calling a while? Yes, yes, like ten different colors of heroin thumb sitting on her bookshelf was pretty cool. So before I before I explain to much more what way could should start making the mold so that we can allow them to cure it takes about twenty five minutes to fully cure we might be able to get a waste shave a little bit of time off of that. But one thing to let you know is when you make this when you make these when you mix up this stuff it sets pretty fast. You have like about one minute once you mix the colors up to wrap it around whatever shape it is that you want to mold and so on and also here's another thing um it's it's a thin walled mold is justus good is a thick walled mold and in fact is a little better it's easier to pop things out because it's more flexible this stuff is kind of expensive. I think these two containers, this half pound package costs about fifteen dollars and so that's not like outrageously expensive, but it is it is, you know, kind of expensive and so you want to be, uh pretty careful about how much you use but don't make it too thin or else days holes that's right there will be whole the cracks and things like that so you know it's going to take a little bit of experimentation and you might not get the first batch perfect we have with us some different shapes here that we're going to experiment with a little catch a bottle looks like a nerve dirt a pulley that one will be interesting to see what we can do with that that you know what? Maybe it would be a good time to talk about this one is being problematic if you have something that's like a ring shape yeah like that holes that have holes through it yeah because the world will be blocking this part ofthe which will make it like unable to come out that's right? Exactly you won't be able to pop this thing out of the mold so do not use this kind of a thing for a mold unless you were like really good at making fancy molds here we have a little keep of would that make a nice little yes that will be an interesting one. I look like a liquor will try it this and just be careful jane because the edges are kind of sharp on this one this on this drill bit speech bubble this speech bubble and then we have a lego many think and and can't and bob and carol I think you guys have some some different parts to that you can play with it a cool skeleton hand over there that looks great cans got another speech bubble um so, uh, with that said, let us take um first of all, I pull out some of this silicone and make some balls that are equal size and I'm going to start with something about this big like this is about the size of a large gumball smaller than a ping pong ball and remember don't make on lake one of the things is big as you think you're going to need it for the mold because it's only half of the size of the mold that's a really good point jane that's a great point and so it's a little oily too, so it might be good to have some of those those wonderful wipes that we were using and in the other segment to clean our hands the purple ones oil earlier yeah, the purple ones a little grease here and, uh a little harder to form one of them is kind of a catalyst and so once you have balls that are about the same size, you're good like this have you guys decided what you want to mold yet we're gonna wrap this around scott one of the fingers really thickly rapid or I would die you know it doesn't have to be super thick but not super just enough to hold I would say like if you could if you could approximately get like a quarter inch ok of material around it that would be great jean I would like you to try to do your film if possible does that sound good actually that might be not enough for you from why don't you go with it the bigger amount I'm going tio lego person you want me to try the lego fig yes ok I'll try the lego fig yes he would have been his legal thinking I want to try the lego fig I'm going to try a few things so I'm going to make several batches but I'll try the lego fixed so one sure you've decided what you want go ahead and mix and you're going to have once you get the color uniform you have about a minute like I said mix them quickly yeah makes him up pretty quickly because because it starts curing right away and richard look here you can feel it getting harder as you make you actually can and then you kind of just spread it out into a hey pancake shape and envelope your your part his lego many fig might be a challenge we'll see what happens because of those arms and then once it's on there you wantto kind of precedent in there to get the air voids out also so I'm just forming it around this this shape and another thing to do is put these the smallest part of your piece towards the bottom and the larger part towards the top it you have to kind of think about the way you're going toe orient the material this lego figure is going is uh might might not work it zoo might be stuck in there pretty sharp shapes yes he might be in tuned in this little kind of like a mummy yeah it might be a mummy lego figure and that's ok you'll have a new toy to play with I kind of told you cover the whole thing you covered you shouldn't even opening at the top to pour this so that's that's a really important thing and so james got a piece under thumb do you have it so that you've got all the air out jane I'm not sure I I don't think so so are you guys feeling with this is you is it coming along well for you ok and I'm gonna quickly makes up a little more for that these fingers for the other things that I'm going to put together here it's a little it's a little nerve racking to be racing against the clock with this stuff just because it does hardened pretty quickly then you start can you feel it starting the hardened already ten yeah tops that you bought today is there a limited shelf life well no they need to get them in the picture rachel you don't really need to keep them in the fridge just put the cap on and that's about it uh it keeps when they're separate like that for a really long time good shelf life okay I'm mixing this up you just kind of as soon as it's like not marble lee looking any more than you can you can put the next ship on that this block will beak a nice easy one because it's going to just pop right out of course and I probably used a little too much for the block that's okay it'll still work it will just pop out quite easily and so yeah again just kind of make sure you you press down pretty good to get the voids out because otherwise you'll have uh that part of the soap will be like projecting out from the piece you could always then cut it with a craft knife though so don't worry about that that's looking pretty good it feels heavy help that it does and then I'm going tio just for fun try the try the drill also I still think it will look like liquor it probably will how are you guys doing? I think I'm good okay feels like vanished in a little bit just that the hard part is feeling the voids tryingto yeah especially when it's got some edges on it yeah you know there it takes it takes a little bit of getting used to your um I when I if I were you you know going to the hobby store by probably by an extra pack of this stuff because you might not be successful on your first attempt but you'll learn and then so the next time you do it you'll have more knowledge about how this stuff works how fast it cures how big of a wall you need to make that spoon so that soap spoon the spoon might be a little too narrow actually I'm going to do the drill and uh you're mine is hardening meets a guy tried to fold this over and like oh yeah okay good we'll probably be able to pour sooner than we think so I'm using the cutting board to flatten this out so I can get it around this this drill this drill will be interesting too because we've got a lot of voids in it I'm rolling it around here pinching it down and so I imagine I will have to like unscrew the drill like turn it yeah it will be interesting so while we're waiting for this to set I could just talk a little bit more about this material and what else you can use it for the nice thing about this uh material is that once it hardens and you have this mold you can use a ticket to uh make more than one in soap you can use it over and over again until it eventually cracks, but until then you can just keep on making things over and over again and you can do more than just soap with it um even if it does crack like if it's like a flat surface couldn't you just like use a little bit more to cover up the whole crew? Good, sure and I've even used tape toe hold it when they're when it's cracked um well this thing rather stuff is setting have a purple you two I don't have a green don't I have a you do that's the sign of a maker? Um I have used uh this actually to make shapes and then I'll call cure the silicone and then you can actually take polymer clay, which we had in our other other segment and pushed it into the push the polymer clay into the silicone and you can get an impression that way and then bake the polymer clay and in that way you can make polymer clay pieces if you want. So this would be cool casting uh different different toys or objects and then you could make plastic duplicates of it using the polymer clay it's pretty cool how making it might come out of this, you'll be able to because your thumb will start to get sweaty and it'll pop out um the other thing is there are certain kinds of metals that have really low melting points like bismuth and some other medals is myth is like a non toxic metal that you can use to make jewelry and you can make your your jewelry out of out of wax or clay or something molded out make a silicone uh a mold of it and the liquid metal all right and then let it up yes and this this bismuth you can actually melt on your stovetop in a in a pot because it melts at such a low temperature and also it will pour into cured silicone without damaging the silicone silicones really great stuff for those kind of higher temperature applications the fact that you can do that without damaging it means that you can make metal jewelry fed that looks really cool using low cost materials and fairly low temperatures so that's something else that you might want to try out mine is like cured because like like it's I can't even make like a secure I can't but my nail that's feeling pretty good I mean like try to puncture okay so this's interesting with show jane's jane's looks like hers is cured pretty well already I'm pushing my thumbnail into it I'm not seeing a mark from my thumbnail so that's a pretty good sign so I'm going to pull it off it popped right out and so we have jane's thumb now immortalized in silicone rubber so we can pour that that could be one of the first things report how are you guys doing do you feel like here's a started to curia for anything this one's getting teared is almost so it's a little flexible but like you said you if you put your thumb nail into it it kind of pops back is that right? Yeah give it just a little bit more okay can take you do we have any comments from I'm actually re entry what the guys they're using for their moles kao what's what's your mold that you're working on mmm mmm mmm mmm was that this is a dark dog well and then this was hello block block and now I'm doing my some you'll feel ok dance using the thing so the fingers of the skeleton which really good which is a little tricky because I don't know if I have all the voids filled but we'll see what I'd take it off if I can pop it off well, like I said if you do have avoided something that you can just carved the soap away with a little icing craft knife so this one really sick I know that this this is an example of too much material oh like I said, you need to get a feel for it and uh this was definitely too much but that's ok it will still work especially because it's just a cube so it's easy to make this to pop the wood out we'll have no problem with that lisa lisa is saying she used a silicone mold of a pine cone actually for candle making but she did find that the mold would tear after a few candles because it was so delicate but she said it still works at least a couple of times ok, yeah, it will eventually tear that's that's something that you do make them think it still is good because it well last longer jane what's been your favorite mold that you've created one that you just thought so working anywhere turned out really great I had this little I will think you're I think we might have a picture of it in the book the way I think we d o and it was really, really cool oh have to show you later but yeah, yeah, I can let's see if we can show a picture of the owl that we did and jeans fingers here that see you remember page it is changing certainly you've tried just you thought would make a really great mold and sadly just didn't work um I've been pretty careful about the things that I've chosen luckily so yeah that's so no, but I mean there there are ones that I wish I could do like, you know, mobile vintage toys there's something that I just know would not work like some kind of an elf with really pointy years there's I don't think that would make it through that rivals wouldn't it be cool so it's kind of hard to see you this well, just us guys just hold it there and you can see the feet powell and then some of jane's thumbs, then there's an excellent picture of jean when she was just starting out with her thumb collection right here and she ended up with a lot of them. One thing that we did notice with the coloring if you leave it on like a shelf where a lot of sunlight hits it, these colors will tend to fade over time, so she ended up they ended up being like kind of white after a while, okay, so I'm going to try tio remove this uh many fig and I have no idea if it will work or not, but it will be an interesting doesn't work for you it will work for me. So one one way to kind of get started is to is tio press on the bottom of it and see if it will start to slide out? The problem with this one is the way that those arms heir extended there's a lot of there's, a lot of holes and stuff in this mini figure that make it want to kind of hang up see if you can see here the arm really uh is what held things up here I'm going to just go ahead and and tear this to show you what the problem is these arms the silicone got stuck between the arms here and so when I was pulling it out there's just no way that I could pull it out that's why I was thinking when you put it on I was thinking would be easier to do it from the head as opening that way for the film off the head would be where you'd pour that stuff yeah I think you're probably right okay well know many figures that way unless you come up with like an interesting two part mold and there are ways to do more sophisticated mold from where you have layers and things like that you could make some really cool stuff okay all let's see if I can remove this well look how easy this comes out jane well, this is like coming right out so that will be interesting before the soap and we'll see if we can twist that out and then we have the cube and all thicker so it needs to drive longer I think yeah, but it's coming out your work on it a little bit careful not coming out piece this one I found the hard way that I hadn't left enough room on top and so on and getting it out ripped on site to try to repair with another piece of it will be interesting to see how they're gonna back out that just in case cuba so at this point what I'm going to do is start stepping on the bottom is it? So we so jane pointed out that this one they wouldn't cuba stuck to the bottom and so that could be because it's like stuck on the green so I think just going slowly and gently taking your time we're also will stick to the cuban it'll tell you could rip so slowly working on it okay, here it comes ok, okay, so what I'm going to do now is melt this thiss glisten and we have a couple of containers here so we can melt a couple of different batches so that we can have different colors and so we have the dies here which calling should leave. Well, see, I'm trying to see what colors these are. We have yellow obviously green in blue. You can tell green okay, noah green and blue. So why don't we do one uh one blue and one yellow? It is this hundred to you guys okay, so what we will do first is, uh, melt this stuff and let me talk a little bit about melting thea data things yeah if we mix the blue and the green we could get like some pretty turk lies that's cool ok do you want to do that? Okay so let me talk a little bit about melting this glycerine soap you do it in the microwave and you want to do it just a little bit at a time because, um if you just likely to go for like two minutes and there it will start to bubble and it will start to burn and you know yeah it has a really bad smell and nobody wants stinky soap you want have really nice smelling so what's the use of that yeah exactly soaked to make you smell worse who wants that so and then we have a couple of fragrances to jasmine and lavender so we'll add some of that as well so what I'm going to do is uh come over here to the microwave oven on I'm going to start by just snapping it for fifteen seconds to see how it goes let me see if I know how to use this thing okay fifteen seconds that probably is not enough time to do t do much with it but uh but it's better to you it less time yeah see any melting at all yet it's a little bit has been a little bit of liquefied at the bottom there you can see I think it doesn't tell you much well, I'm going to do it for another fifteen seconds and you just do it a little bit of the time and eventually it will liquefy there's no rush could they be doing too much then you get the bad smell give it to one of your enemies for their birthday okay that's looking good I think another fifteen seconds five seconds how's that smell so be it does have a so peace you know I'm going to I'm going to do ten seconds see how it goes and then after we get it melted that's when we had the color and the fragrance okay it's almost completely liquefied now you can see I'm going to just kind of stir it up. Okay, well it's still there's still some solid chunks let's forces for it I'll see if I can get these tio melted there like ice cubes and just see if I can get them to melt is by stirring it up naturally. Like I said it's so easy to burn that I really want to do careful with making sure way don't overheat it I should make like a whole glove could be cool I could need I came to a stop and I could wear it is some weird freaky clothe mold we're getting close to be a good oven mitt silicone is like commonly used in the kitchen stuff and I'm going to give it another five seconds when we put the spoon here so it doesn't give us one another five seconds that's great. Okay, just very tiny bit of solid left in there I'm going to just stir it up and then uh way will add a property okay, go ahead and james gonna add a drop of each in their blue ok, I think that's what they are it doesn't matter this man oh, this is red oh it's red, blue and yellow okay that's better. So what do you let's do? One color for one one for the other. So what do you want to do? Uh let's do read. Okay, go ahead and put a drop of red in there and why don't you stir that up and also can you can add a drop of fragrance to it also and I'll get this other one going for, uh for ken and bob and cal look what you actually need very little color there. Yeah. Thinking pink that is that the red that you put in war that's a really nice pink color. Hey, what if we had some yellow? Do you want to add a drop of yellow and see what happens and I turned like a light or in which end up being kind of a sickly color but fun fun dad color ok you guys I'm making some for you guys to use did you how did you do getting your your mold off of the hand there I think it came off it didn't feel like it was tearing my test I can't tell which is which one is the dark ones a finger double this is, uh it's pretty detailed I put this put this lock in here, huh? And I look in here and I can see the keyhole cruel so like it went right in that degree it does get a detail that's good impression that is today is this yeah, just one drop in there that's so he's putting the fragrance and that what is the frequency used the mark jane lavender and it is that like an essential oil or is it just dissent on dna? They they sell special sense for soaps. Well, that was a special they sell special sense so that you should just buy those. Okay now this group is asking about that online said did you did you really stick to that or could you use essential oils or mixed thank you probably could try other essential oils I would just put them in after you melt the blistering because that way you're not cooking the oils and like, you know he's going to constantly mix this so that it does not solid solidify yeah I think that's perfect thank you that's great okay, so I'm going to hand this over to well let me give it another five seconds and then I'm going to give it to you guys and you can add your colors and fragrances so how are you going to do this? I feel like we ok you guys why don't you uh you guys stir this up and you guys can decide on what kind of colors and and sense and and uh see if you can share with that if not we can make some more so how are we going to do this? Okay, so what I'd like to do it is get a paper cup to prop my parts of I get it and so we have here jane's thumb is inside this cup so jeanne why don't you pour this in be careful cause it's hot so I don't want youto to hurt yourself and just go up to the top great and then just let it sit here for a while one thing that we've done before is uh put these in the freezer or the fridge and then it's being yeah, it speeds things up so we might want to do that and and take a look at these this would be like the perfect college let's uh let me hold the gingers I just don't want it to burn I'm going to put it in the the drill bit now is it hot it's not hot it's not really hot because I haven't touched it yet could just kind of keep that going there like that ok let's do the cube a chunk dropped in there okay not one doesn't need to be in a cop recon just said it like that okay so uh so uh are you guys how are you guys doing have you poured any in yet uh I need a cup for you oh yeah paper cups jane would you give them some cups the whole prop there little pieces up in and I can tell give you this let me just give this another five seconds and you could get next to you and that's one of the things that I should mention is that if it hardens just just heated up again after you've put center and on yeah and you can't do that once it hardens up you khun re melting no problem five seconds you just be careful it's it's hot so so kind of avoid getting it on your skin and then a report like that ondas melting in just a regular pan on the stovetop work just as well I think so this is microwave is just so convenient on I think it will prevent scalding if you have it in a microwave if you do it on the stove top you might call that you just have more control. I think with the microwave okay can't why don't you, uh I tried this out here and see how things work you might want to kind of pinch that open thank you we'll see how things go ok so it is going to take a while for this stuff to get hard so we might have to take a look at that should weigh you might have to take a look at it after the stamps yeah which I think would be a good thing to deal so how is it how's it go I wanted to come over there and take a look and see how you guys there are doing way have like um we're going to make so brings is my ring oh cool and so we'll make like a dozens of these and then when you go in the shower you can just wear little just such a cool eighty I love it that really cool great we'll see you again yeah I guess that that didn't stuff we get his crack that off yeah definitely eventually why don't you guys go ahead and pour that other stuff and then we'll get started with our all right where's the rubber stamps and any way can we could pull pop these out afterward done with the rubber stamps data yeah some like if you feel the top of it like it was like a thin layer on top of the liquid yeah that means that it's not yet this one just feel squishing but like non feels like the mold okay well that's fine let's let's set them over here and let them cool often will start to prepare for the refrigeration or even in the freezer is of your stage you do that yes ok after I pour them just there's there's no reason that you have to do that is just if you're excited and you want to see them well some other problem lies in that rock coaxes saying they've done that as well and it helps the cooling process yeah it does because I think this silicon is probably insulate sit you know because it's using cooking utensils a good insulator so it's if it's hot in there it's going to stay hot for a while so if we had a fridge right here they'd be in there but we'll just let's set them aside will work on our other project sounds good yeah among you think also could be ready no. Oh yeah it's definitely ready. I think we can pump it out if we have a couple of saying let's do that so so so cute that was really well and you want to get your film out of there and see how that looks thank you thumbs creepy look at that check out jane's thumb and it even stands up without tipping over that's really cool that's a good one okay, let me see if I can get there creepy this this is going to be a little tougher to get out this screw I think I can get you want to try okay good luck I feel like it's almost you should have put in the role of the more selling is there not did this open up for in there no, it did that you should have put in like a little more like we could pulled it out of those rings turnout you guys fragile when your papa but yeah I think if I could just get it just don't work because there's so thin but just a little hard to pop out groups they break really easy whoa death but what happened at the bottom you know let's make that sacrifice that stuff and cut it like so you can just see how it turned out oh yeah what broke hey actually if you just make a little sled it could actually be useful. Okay? Okay. That's what do you think that's in aiken dio ok, wait. I think I need to make another split on the other end so you can get a good grip on that stuff because it looks really told me let's have a look at this. Oh yeah thumb turned down that has turned out really well you could see the detail like even her fingerprints in their hot cool we need to make this look bigger I think can get this yeah, ok, so I want to incriminate you. Another thing, jane, I could just go around putting your farm on everything is not going to go that's, really great detail on that is incredible. Yeah, well done. Or you could access her iphone, right? The touch I d on the cube has got some of the wood grain onto as well. That's. Really? Yeah. So picks up the details pretty well that it does. Yeah, well, look, the word bubble we've had, it looks like a melting ice cream coming. I didn't leave enough space, the tops of kind of ripped. So that's. A good it's, flexible, but not that flexible. But it came out. Cool. Things like hamilton is going, yeah, yeah, love, really clever on the investors don't really were very nice, young and happy about that.