I know this has been discussed here before, and all the'seasoned' soapers know how to do this, but this is for the new folks. It is a description of how to make the silk rose petal soaps.
Thanks for this link. I may give them a try. This makes it sound so easy, but when I attempted some before, it required a lot of patience. I also found it easier to use tweezers instead of a slotted spoon (although in my opinion there still wasn't anything "easy" about it!). Susan
I haven't tried making them but in talking to other people, here are a couple of "short cuts" worth trying - 1) Use a metal bowl / double boiler to melt the base. That way you can dip the petals into the bowl and control the heat so you don't have to remelt like you do with the microwave. 2) One soaper I talked to dips the entire rose into the base (flaring out the petals first) so she can dip by holding the stem. Once the petals are dipped / set up, she clips the petals individually apart. Sounds a lot easier than dipping each petal by itself!
Let me know if anyone else tries this and it works. I will probably try it this summer when we're doing our inventory build up for the fall.
Try using a small crock pot for the petals as well, it works great, I have done the petals individually and together and both worked equally as well for me.
For Christmas I did Pointsettas and Holly leaves dipped in the soap, the Holly laeaves were gorgeous,and on the top leaf in each package I was able to use a small paint brush dipped in soap and attach some of the berries, after attaching I used the brush to cover the berries in soap as well. One lady ordered 250 boxes of them, I used the most awesome Holly fragrance. On the poinsettas I used spiced cranberry.
I also had tremendous success with the fall leaves, they are so pretty with all of the different colors in them, for those I used Pumpkin Spice FO
try using an old crockpot to melt the soap and keep it hot. Works like a charm and you can dump a LOT of petals in at a time and pick out with log handled tweezers or hemostats. I also do not scent my soap. After the petals have set up I spread them in a flat and spray lightly with scent. I put alcohol and FO in a little spray bottle to do this. You can make it as strong as you like and can also have different scents. And less waste on the soap
