Flowers add a touch of elegance to handmade bath and beauty products. Topping cold process soap with a sprinkle of pink rose petals or scenting bath bombs with Blushing Orchid Fragrance Oil can take your recipe from good to great. Both of those products are part of the new Modern Floral Collection, which is a fresh take on the classics. Learn how to add them to your projects below.
Infused liquids
You can customize your recipes with infused liquids. There are several ways to go about that, including hot and cold methods. For the cold method, add about 1 tablespoon of dried flowers per 1 ounce of oil or a liquid like aloe. We don’t recommend using distilled water because it can mold. Place the infusion in an airtight container and let it sit at room temperature for 4-6 weeks. Learn more about this method in the How to Infuse Oil with Tea post.
For the hot method, you can use the stove or a slow cooker. It takes 20 minutes to 4 hours depending on the size of your batch. The How to Infuse Oils with a Crock-Pot post has more information on how to get started. Once the oil is ready, you can pour it through a strainer with cheesecloth and enjoy.
Flowers add skin-loving properties to the liquid, and they can also add a subtle color and scent. In the Lavender and Rose Water Toner, dried lavender is infused in aloe vera liquid to give the recipe a luxurious feeling. The Herb Infused Bath Oil is made with chamomile and marigold. You can customize both recipes with any dried flowers you like. Try new options like pink rose petals, safflower petals, or jasmine flowers.
The Herb Infused Bath Oil has a skin-loving combination of chamomile and marigold.
Floral oils and extracts
If you’re looking for a quicker way to incorporate florals, carrier oils are the way to go. Options like rosehip seed oil, sunflower oil, and lavender butter add something special to your recipe. For instance, rosehip seed oil is rich in vitamins A and C. It’s a lightweight oil that absorbs quickly and works especially well for dry or mature skin. Those properties are put to good use in the Rosehip Eye Serum.
The serum also contains evening primrose extract. Extracts are made from raw materials like vegetables and mixed with fractionated coconut oil. They’re easy to add to soap, lotion, and more – all you need is about 1 teaspoon per pound of product. Learn more about extracts in this post.
We have two new extracts, orchid and lotus flower, which help hydrate the skin. They’d be an excellent addition to the Rosehip Seed Bath Salts recipe. It’s made with fine grained Dead Sea salt, rosehip seed oil, Rose Quartz Fragrance Oil, and red rose petals.
Add Rosehip Seed Bath Salts to your tub for a relaxing experience.
Floral scents
It’s safe to say floral scents are pretty popular. We have a whole category dedicated to them and they’re a staple in most perfumes and candles. We just added four new fragrance oils – Blushing Orchid, Baby’s Breath, Wild Rose, and Daisy Chain. For a limited time you can sample 2 ounces of each scent in the Modern Floral Fragrance Oil Collection. Get it now for 40% off the retail price.
With so many options to choose from, you can find the perfect scent for your recipe. Rose Absolute adds a fresh scent to the Rose Clay Face Mask. It’s a great way to pamper yourself. The notes of lemon, winter berries, succulent, and violet in Cactus Flower Fragrance Oil inspired the design for this cold process soap tutorial.
The notes of lemon, winter berries, succulent, and violet in Cactus Flower Fragrance Oil inspired the design for this cold process soap tutorial.
Floral powders
The shades you get from natural products like yarrow flower, safflower, and rosehip powders are beautiful. The Annatto-Yarrow Soap has several natural colorants, including yarrow flower, spirulina powder, and annatto seeds. It gives the soap a rustic and unique look.
Rosehip powder is especially interesting in cold process soap. When it’s first added, the color isn’t too exciting. However, the next day the bars turn a lovely rose red. A few days after that, the color changes to a dark red that’s even prettier. See the finished color in the Beet Cold Process Soap. The color isn’t the only advantage of rosehip powder – it also has a high concentration of vitamin C and other antioxidants, and it can be used as a mild exfoliant.
The Beet Cold Process Soap gets its dark red color from rosehip powder.
Flower petals
A finishing touch of pink rose petals or safflower petals is a simple way to make your products stand out. The Soothing Floral Bath Salts are made with three different types of salt, three different types of flower petals, and a fresh combination of Orange Blossom Candle and Soap Fragrance Oil and Lavender 40/42 Essential Oil.
Jasmine flowers are the finishing touch on the Swirled Orchid Cold Process Soap. The bright color is a beautiful contrast against the purple and white design. The soap is scented with Blushing Orchid Fragrance Oil, which has notes of lemon, lime, cucumber, tuberose, and coconut.
Jasmine flowers are the finishing touch on the Swirled Orchid Cold Process Soap.
Can I use tea for oil infusing by opening the tea bag & take out the tea? Like roseship tea, pepermint, etc.
Sure, you don’t even have to remove it from the bag if you wanted to make it easier on you during cleanup.
How do you get flowers not to turn brown on top of the soap? When I tried to add flowers before, they turned brown and then black… needless to say, I had to scrap it.
Flowers do eventually turn brown on the soap. You can still use the bars, but it’s something to keep in mind. If you’re not a fan, you can top your soap with other options like micas, salts, poppy seeds, or jojoba beads.
Micas: https://www.brambleberry.com/Micas-C46.aspx
Additives: https://www.brambleberry.com/Exfoliants-C158.aspx
Love your recipes!
As usual, I left the 2 batches of soap bars to cure at room temperature. Recently I have noticed mold on the dried rose petals & lavender buds (not fresh flowers as all were store bought in dried form) on top of the one & a half month soap bars. I ended up cutting off the top layer of the soap bars. Those that I whipped into the soap mixtures were unaffected.
My 1st in having dried flowers to my soaps. From now on I will just play safe, no more dried flowers as toppings.
Dried flowers will turn brown on the soap, and if they come in contact with moisture they can mold as well. You can definitely skip them if you like.
Good Morning Ladies,
I just recently made some beautiful Rose soaps similar to the ones on Brable Berry. I made the bar of soap via cold process and then sprinkled rose petals on the top.
I left them on the rack and after two and a half months, i looked closely at my rose petals, and on the soap there were tiny dark brown flakes , from the petals, and there were a few baby maggots :0 !!!!! How did they get there, i am guessing they have grown on the top there, is it from humidity or being left out of the box to continue to dry. After seeing that i have been so put of, and iv tried doing a google search and cannot find anything regarding this. I am afraid to now use botanicals, They were fresh from the garden and dried them as required in cool shady airy spot. Please help me!!! 🙁
I’m not sure why that’s happening – from a quick Google search it looks like maggots eat mostly meat, so I’m not sure why they’re on your soap. It may have something to do with the flowers in your garden. We’ve never experienced that with the rose petals we sell. You may check with a local gardener or plant specialist to see if they know more.
I am not an expert but I do know that maggots which come from fly larva will make their home in any work moist are ie: damp mops sitting on the floor too long or moisture collecting under a refrigerator which isn’t evaporating well. While they may eat mostly protein the fly who wants to reproduce will lay the eggs anyplace warm and damp.
It may be the humidity was high in the drying area and/or the dried rose petals were absorbing moisture from the evaporating moisture from the soap.
should have said …. > warm moist area sorry
Would like too know how too make soap with goat milk
Absolutely, this post tells you how to make soap with goat milk: http://www.soapqueen.com/bath-and-body-tutorials/tips-and-tricks/how-to-add-lye-to-milk-for-cold-process-soap/
This video has some great tips as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kerep0O4woM&t=35s