Tuesday, May 8, 2012

New Melt & Pour Soap Making Supplies Available at Michaels

To those who have taken my melt and pour soapmaking class in the past, I am happy to report that Michaels Arts and Craft Stores have exciting new melt and pour soap making supplies on the shelf.  After sometime they have been eliminating the Life of the Party brand, they now have ArtMind which is a brand distributed for Michaels.  Now, I must warn you that availability may vary from store to store.  The items above were found at the Redwood City, CA store.

What I can tell you that is now available is the following:

* .5 oz fragrance oils for $3.99.  The available choices in fragrances are orange, mint, almond, tropical, rose, and melon.

* Silicone log shapes in hearts and stars are available for $17.99.

* Loaf Mold for $29.99.  This is not a silicone mold.  It is a plexiglass type of material held together with screws. Once the soap has harden, then you unassemble the mold to remove the soap.  It holds 3 pounds of soap.  But I am sure it will be less if you added soap embedded shapes to it. This mold could also be used for cold process soap if you decide to pursue that avenue.  I am planning to get one once Michael's has a 50% coupon.

* Wavy loaf soap cutter for $8.99.  Mountain View also sold a straight sided cutter for the same price.

* Individual shaped molds and rubber stamps to make embossed soaps.  Prices range from $1.99 to $4.99.

* Droppers (pipettes) for $1.99.

* Spray bottles for rubbing alcohol for $1.00.

* As for colorants, Michaels will still be carrying the trio of dye colorants.  But what is new is individual colorants in .5 oz.  Even though there are only a few such as white and silver, at least they are expanding.  These colorants are very watery like a dye, but they have mica powder for the gold and silver and probably titanium dioxide for the white.  The gold and silver would be great colorants for the clear glcyerin soap if making soap embedded shapes. Now to be honest I am not sure if they are non bleeding or not. But they maybe. I will have to try them out and let you know.
* Michaels is still carrying Life of the Party glycerin soap.  But they have added the following to their shelves.  First of all, they have added a 2 lb clear glycerin high temp soap base for $11.99.  I have never heard of or tried this base before but I guess you can make soap embed shapes with this soap and it may take the heat of the other soap base.  What is really nice is now, Michaels is carrying a 5 lb soap base for you to purchase for $24.99.  It comes in two versions.  The first one is an Opaque Double Butter and the other is a Clear Honey Glycerin.

I am excited about some of these products especially the loaf/silicone molds, new colorants and soap bases. So I will be looking forward to trying these new products and I hope you will too.

5 comments:

Elizabeth said...

thanks for the info! bought my first supplies from michael's for melt and pour soaps and was trying to figure out how many ounces were in the artmind's essential oil fragrances...i had ripped the packaging. thanks a bunch :D

Soap Crafter said...

I think it may be a half ounce. Most of the scents are fragrances oils not essential oils.

L. Haase said...

I purchased the double butter soap base and the soaps turn out great! The lather is copious, soft and silky and the fragrance lasts a long time.

I am a newbie soaper and hope to find tutorials, videos and blogs that help me learn. I like that your blog has lots of the same crafty stuff I like to do!

Unknown said...

I was wondering if you've every used their liquid soap colorants in cold process soap making. I'm having a hard time finding any information about it online. Thanks:)

Soap Crafter said...

I normally use liquid colorants with melt and pour. Have not tried in with cp. Micas, powders work good but sometimes they can clump. I think if you mix those with a little glyercin they will not clump as much. Not an expert on that those.