A fun, festive way to celebrate fall on a daily basis without having to eat candy!

Skill Level: Intermediate 

Duration: 1 hour

Makes: 8 bars

Ingredients:

1. - Trifecta w/ Lye
2. - ½ tsp. Gold Mica
3. - ½ tsp. Orange Salsa Mica
4. - ½ tsp. Liquid White Soap Dye
5. - 1 oz. Candy Corn Fragrance Oil

Equipment & Materials:

• - 2 lb. loaf mold
• - Mixing bowl - MC-9
• - Stick Blender
• - 4 Measuring Cups
• - 4 Mixing Spoons
• - Latex Gloves
• - Safety glasses
• - Microwave or Stove
• - Ice and water
• - Soap Cutter or large knife
• - Thermometer

Instructions:

• - Gather all equipment needed and prepare your ingredients.
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• - Heat your trifecta oils in a microwave until they are melted and let cool to about 110 degrees.
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• - Prep your lye water - Weigh at least 4 oz of ice cubes into a measuring cup. Add enough water until you have 8 oz. of water and ice total.
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• - Gloves and goggles on now - carefully pour your lye into your ice water slowly and stir until lye crystals have dissolved. This should take at least 2 minutes. (If you do not use ice, the water will heat up to about 200 degrees, get cloudy and produce fumes that may make you cough if you are not in a well-ventilated area).  
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• - Allow lye water to cool to 100 to 130 degrees F and return to a semi clear color.  
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• - Both the water/lye solution and oils must cool to temperatures between 100 to 130 degrees F. If either is too cool you must heat them up again and if they are too hot, be patient and wait for them to cool. When both the oils and the lye solution are between 100 to 130 degrees you are ready for the next step.
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• - While your oils and lye water are cooling - Prepare colors – place 1 TBSP (or divide 1 oz. bottle by 3) of fragrance oil into 3 different measuring cups. Then add ½ tsp. of color to each measuring cup (1 color per cup). Mix well to get any clumps out and make a smooth texture. You should have a measuring cup of each white, orange and gold.
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• - Time to make soap! Here’s the fun part and hopefully you still have your rubber gloves and safety glasses on. Slowly pour a steady stream of lye solution into the oil mixture and stir with a large spoon or spatula. Be careful not to spatter lye onto yourself or anything else. Continue stirring until lye is fully mixed with the oils.  
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• - Break out your stick blender and let her rip for about 5 seconds until the lye water and oils create an emulsion, or thin “trace”. When working with color, it is very important to have a very thin, fluid trace so that your soap is thin enough to have more time blending the colors. Soap will thicken as it’s stirred but it cannot be thinned once it has reached a thick trace.
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• - Divide your thinly traced soap into equal parts into your measuring cups with color. Stir to incorporate colors into the soap, making sure to get all of the color from the bottom. It’s important to not get disturbed and work steadily during this process so your soap doesn’t thicken too quickly. Keep stirring your soap until it thickens to a pudding consistency. You want the consistency to be as thick as possible and yet still be pourable.
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• - Pour a layer of the gold color into the mold first. 
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• - Then pour a layer of the orange.  
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• - Last but not least, pour the layer of white on the top.  
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• - Spray the top of your soap with alcohol, cover with plastic and keep warm for 24 hours to allow the gel phase to happen. Your colors will be more vivid if the soap is allowed to gel in a warm environment.
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• - After 24 hours, remove the plastic wrap/cover and let your soap breathe. Leave your soap in the mold for at least 2 days to harden before removing or cutting. Cutting too soon could make your layers drag into each other and not be as defined.
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• - After 48 hours, remove the soap from the mold cut into bars.
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• - The final firmness of your soap requires 4 to 6 weeks of exposure to air. During this time, the water content will evaporate from the soap and the bars will become harder as they “cure”. You can test the firmness of your soap by pinching the bars in the middle to see if they are still soft. When you don’t feel any soft spots in the middle your soap will be ready to use.
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• - Be patient – if you use your soap too early, the bars are not hard enough and they will not last as long. It will be more of a body wash and not a bar soap.