Summary
Highlights
Saf introduces the video, where she will be attempting to make cupcake-shaped soaps. She highlights her love for fancy soaps and shares her previous experience following a YouTube soap art tutorial, which yielded mediocre but fun results. She then introduces the concept of soaps that look like desserts, specifically cupcake soaps, which she finds particularly appealing.
Saf chooses to follow a tutorial from Anne-Marie, also known as the "Soap Queen," whose hanger swirl soap tutorial she followed previously. Anne-Marie has a sparkling champagne soap cupcake tutorial, and all necessary ingredients and tools are available on her website. Before starting, Saf provides a crucial warning about the dangers of cold process soap making, which involves combining oils with sodium hydroxide lye. She stresses the importance of extreme caution, keeping children and pets away, and avoiding contact with skin, eyes, or ingestion.
Saf explains the two-day process for making the cupcakes due to the prep involved. She decides to personalize the cupcakes, opting for a "nocturnal cupcake-of-the-night vibe" instead of the original champagne theme. Day one begins with making the embeds for the top of the cupcakes using melt and pour soap, which is a safer, pre-saponified soap base. After melting, coloring with gray and stormy blue mica, and pouring into bat, star, and moon molds, Saf admits her pouring wasn't perfect but hopes the embeds will still turn out well. Next, she prepares the oil mixture and lye water for the frosting, which need to be refrigerated overnight to be cold for combining. She measures and melts various oils and then meticulously prepares the lye water, emphasizing safety precautions.
Day two focuses on creating the cupcake base. Saf starts by preparing the colorants for the base, choosing a deep purple orchid mica instead of Anne-Marie's teal, to fit her nocturnal theme. She mixes the mica with lightweight oil. Next, she measures out the fragrance oils: champagne and white rose, noting the champagne smells like Sprite and the white rose like a 'soapy grandma's house'. Then, she combines various oils for the base and melts them. Donning her safety gear again, she prepares the lye water for the base, explaining that unlike the frosting, these ingredients need to be around 120°F when combined. After bringing both the lye water and oil mixture to the correct temperature, she combines them using a stick blender.
Saf blends the lye water and oils to achieve a "light trace," which refers to the thickness of the soap batter. She recounts her previous experience of over-blending and aims for a lighter trace this time. Once a light trace is achieved, she incorporates the purple mica pigment and half of the fragrance oil blend. After further blending to a "medium trace" or thin pudding consistency, she pours the colored soap batter into the cupcake molds, making sure to tap them to release air bubbles. She then moves on to the intimidating task of making the frosting.
For the frosting, Saf uses her solidified cold oils and explains she will add cold lye water and fragrance while whipping them to create a pipeable frosting. She begins hand mixing the hard oils, struggling with the effort required, comparing it to riding a mechanical bull. She then slowly folds in the lye water with a silicone spatula to minimize splashing, as lye is corrosive. After the lye water is incorporated, she continues blending with the hand mixer for several minutes, aiming for frosting that can form and sustain peaks. Once the frosting is fluffy and holding peaks, she adds the remaining fragrance oil, which temporarily reduces the peaking ability, requiring more blending. Finally, she scoops the frosting into a piping bag and begins to frost the cupcake bases. Starting with a dollop in the middle of each, she then pipes a circle around the base, and then creates the upward peaks, exclaiming with a mix of nervousness and accomplishment at the results, which she jokingly describes as an 'amateur Yogurtland experiment' but successful in holding peaks. Her assistant, Tyler, encourages her to make one particularly tall peak.
Saf adds the final touches to her frosted cupcakes. Instead of Anne-Marie's white glitter, she opts for silver holo glitter for her nocturnal theme, which covers her sleeve in the process. Next, she places the pre-made embeds onto the frosting. She's pleased with how most of the star, moon, and bat embeds turned out, even the scarred ones she had to fix with an X-Acto knife. She aesthetically places the stars and moons as if peeking from clouds and the bats flying in front. Despite her lack of experience, she's happy with her first batch of soap cupcakes. She then places the finished cupcakes in the fridge for a couple of hours to allow the frosting to set, followed by many more hours outside the fridge.
The next day, Saf unmolds her cupcakes. She carefully pushes each cupcake out of its mold, sometimes accidentally nicking them but smoothing out the imperfections as it's soap. She observes that the frosting is artistic and "interpretive," and while not uniform, the cupcakes are cute, batty, and intact. She humorously describes them as "homemade with love but not much skill," embracing their imperfections as intentional modern art. She presents the finished cupcakes, explaining they need to cure for four to six weeks for the water to evaporate, making them last longer. She demonstrates the lather they produce, which is good, but notes their unusual shape for handwashing and her reluctance to use them because they are so pretty. Saf concludes they will likely be decorative rather than functional, yet she feels accomplished, especially for a "soap peasant" like herself. The final challenge is to resist eating them, and she plans to get a real cupcake. She thanks viewers and encourages them to like and subscribe.