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Decals on Soap

Make Fancy Gift Soap Bars Using Decals

Put Any Design on a Bar of Soap with Lazertran Decals

These decorated soaps make great little gifts. My girlfriends love them.

Take any image you want and transfer it to create a pretty bar of soap.

You can scan wallpaper or fabric to match upholstery, curtains or walls; take a photo of a painting or the pattern on a vase or plate.

The soaps pictured here use designs from the Print Artist art gallery except for the orange bar with flowers which is a photo of an oil painting my friend Trudie commissioned for her home.

Materials

• Graphic software to lay out and print your designs – I got most of my designs from Print Artist as I mentioned, but laid them out in PrintShop because I prefer the PrintShop interface and design options.
• Bars of soap with squarish corners
• Lazertran Waterslide Inkjet Decals
• Krylon Crystal Clear Spray
• Delta Air-Dry PermEnamel Glaze - Clear finish (glossy) for transparent soaps; satin finish for white bars.

Directions

Find your designs in a graphics software program with an art gallery (like Print Artist, PrintShop or Print Master) or digitize a design you want by photographing or scanning it.

Import the designs onto a blank page of your graphic program. Size each to fit a bar of soap. Rectangles are fine. You can round the corners as needed after printing.

Print the page onto the chalky white side of a Lazertran Decal sheet. Use a printer setting which does not lay down much ink. I used draft setting. Too much ink will cause the colors to run together and ruin the design.

Allow the decal sheet to dry for a half hour. Spray the printed side with Krylon Crystal Clear Spray to seal the ink.

Cut out the designs and round the corners as needed.

Submerge one design in a shallow bowl or sink basin of water. The decal will immediately curl up. Wait for it to relax. It takes about a minute. Then test to see if the decal slides off easily.

Remove from water. Slide the decal off and position it on a bar of soap, smoothing out any wrinkles.

This step is optional. I didn’t like the chalky look and feel of the decal on the bar of soap at this point. So I coated the design with Delta Air-Dry PermEnamel Glaze.

It makes the design appear to be imbedded in the bar of soap. I use the glossy version on transparent soaps because they have a shine to them and the satin finish for white bars.

Design Tips

Use large bars of soap for large designs. For example, with 20/20 hindsight, I should have put the Japanese drawing on a larger bar. The design is a bit difficult to make out.

Palmolive glycerin soaps are good for this project.

Dark designs with high color saturation are best. Pastels don’t show up well.

Find directions for making coordinated Decal Bath Accessories here.

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