Embossing Stamps and Mica

[Cedar Leaf]

Is there a trick to using micas with soap stamps? Do micas ever go bad? Or are there different grades of micas that may not entirely set on a bar of soap?

I was sooo excited to get my butterfly and bee soap stamps this morning and cut some soap and stamped it. Someone had given me some micas and I used a twilight blue on an orange essential oil soap -- thought I might call it orange grove. When I finally put it on my cure rack the blue had sort of disappeared -- I noticed it while I was stamping earlier but thought that on the first bars I stamped just didn't use enough mica. I have another stamp and mica that stays just fine.

Looking for answers,

Linda

[MarieJeanette]

The only micas that I've gotten to stay stamped on my soap and look good without clashing badly with the color of my soaps (until they are bathed or showered with, that is) are gold mica, bronze mica, and silver mica. The gold and bronze micas look great on any colored soap, but I've found the silver to be more finicky. That one looks good only on my blue colored soaps. I've also used blue, pink, and shamrock green micas, but they just don't look as good to me on my soap as the others do.

MarieJeanette

[Cedar Leaf]

Looking at several bars last night that were stamped earlier in the day, I have concluded that the citrus eo has just changed the color. The mica is still there but the color is not. All the other bars that I stamped are just fine. Some thing to be said about the learning curve!

For those who stamp is there a better way than using a fine paint brush for appling the mica to the stamp? I had heard of using glycerine but that was a mistake! For those of you that feel successful using stamps would you share pointers, please?

Thanks,

Linda

[MarieJeanette]

I guess it would depend on the kind of stamp you use. For the most part, I use rubber stamps with well-defined, raised impressions on them from the craft store to stamp my soaps with as soon as the soap is unmolded and cut, and they work great. It's so easy to use them. All I do is take a dry, natural bristled basting brush, dip the tip of the dry brush into the mica, and then shake the mica off the brush onto a small dish (this gives me a nice, light dusting of mica to dip my stamp in). Then I just take my rubber stamp (also dry) and press it into the mica on the dish (making sure all the raised, decorative parts of the stamp are well dusted), and then press the mica dusted stamp onto the soap, and voila! No need for the muss and fuss of glycerin or painting the mica onto the stamp, etc... Just press the dry stamp into the mica dusting and go. The only extra thing I do is give my stamped soap one light spritz of alcohol to 'set' the mica in place, and that's it.

I also have a couple of other stamps, but they are made quite differently from the rubber stamps, and it's impossible to use them in the same way as explained above. These particular stamps are recessed instead of raised, and so pressing them into mica is useless. For these I have to hammer the stamp into the soap to make an impression, and then I paint the resulting impression on my soap with soap paints and a fine paint brush. Brambleberry sells the soap paints, but you can also make your own with mica and a little glycerin. Just mix the two together until it's of paintable consistency and paint away. It takes about a day for the home-made paints to completely dry, while Brambleberry's dries quicker.

HTH!

MarieJeanette

[Kitn]

That is great information , I am getting a stamp , now I will know how to use it.