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.

Decal Soap 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.