To copy or not to copy, that is the question.

I waffle a bit on the issue of copying another soaper's design. It's difficult to replicate your own soap many times, much less make a copy of someone else's, but should you even try? It sometimes feels like a cheat and I have made some of my worst soaps trying to replicate something, but there are times I have found that I automatically put my own twist or spin or signature into my soap, sometimes with intent, such as a slight riff on something I've seen, or unwittingly. There are many soaps you can recognize as a specific maker's because their signature is so strong. I don't have that but I hope over time that I will develop my own looks that I prefer.

I recently saw a picture of a friend's soap and fell in love with it. White and black and just gorgeous lines through it. I'll see if she will post it to her own blog so I can link it and you can see for yourself. I made one attempt to do the same technique but with a different tool, but it wasn't good. Then tonight I made two attempts with my own twist to them. Nothing special, but it was my way of trying her technique without it being a direct copy and putting my own style on it. It caused an awful lot of mental cursing because my first batch accelerated on me, although I kept to plan. I figured it was a bust. I tried another, taking out the part of the FO blend that I thought accelerated only to have that batch accelerate just slightly less, but again, I kept to plan. I thought I might have had better luck but was assuming it would be just not ugly, at best. Holy balls! They gelled, which I would not have done but the accelerating FO drove it that direction and I didn't want the partial gel, and when I cut, I was so thrilled! Is it wrong to love your own soap? It feels slightly narcissistic but I am going to do it anyhow.

The first batch gelled and the black stayed black. This soap got rock hard right after pouring and gelled first. The second batch seemed to have gelled hotter and I got crackle, even though I used well under 1 tsp ppo of TD and I got some precipitation of the AC in the lines, but dang, I love the effect!

Last of the pictures

Here are the rest of the pictures I took for the challenge. It's odd; there are almost 1400 people signed up on the challenge page but only about 4-5 people have posted anything. I was really hoping to see a lot of different photos and ideas and it was such an interesting challenge, so color me disappointed. I didn't make any wallopingly unique soaps for it because I was focused on the ingredients and the pictures I had in my head about how to present them, but I tried something different (for me) the other day but it was with a discoloring FO and I have to wait for it to discolor to tell if it's anything decent. It looked completely blase when first cut but is looking better with a little color, so far. Nothing outrageous.

I have an egg one to do, but I think I'll forego it since I look like a prat posting tons of photos all by myself.

I have to post my inverted stamp, as it pertains to this blog name. I almost forgot about it!

I made this swirl recently, but it's a pretty standard slab swirl. Just looking at it popped an idea into my head which I will have to try tonight. I need something to perk me up.  And last is a random picture,  of one of my cats. I like how her whiskers came out.

Soap Bar Challenge. 

Oh my my my. So busy making small batches of soap with various ingredients as my brain churns with possible photo ideas to meet the challenge of taking pictures of soap made near or with the origin of the ingredients, focusing on foods. I was able to set up some of the shoots fairly quickly but I sat in the garden watching bees buzzing everywhere my soap wasn't, no matter where I positioned it when I was trying to get a picture for honey. Clearly my honey fragrance oil is realistic only to me and not to them, even though I had dripped real honey down my soap to attract them. In almost two hours, only one bee decided to visit but I got my shot. I don't know if that one drew the short straw when they decided who would do what was needed to get the pathetic looking person whose sweat was distracting them from the heavenly aroma of flower nectars, out of their garden, or if that one bee was a Bee of Mercy, or perhaps just a little on the dim side. I was in love with that bee, no matter what the circumstance.

I have a few more upcoming and at least one in the works before the contest closes. Some of my ideas won't come to fruition but it was good to brainstorm and perhaps one day I will be able to put onto film (or equivalent) what I see in my head. Not all are good and my more fanciful ones are the ones that will remain in the files, for now.

Humble Pie

Serve it up and I shall eat it all. My botched batch from last night delivered, showing me yet again to not underestimate what soap can do and to not give up if things go awry.

As I was about to pour in my lye water, I realized I had made a serious miscalculation by putting my extra water into the colors instead of into the oils. I was using some NG's Fresh Cut Roses in my FO blend and while FCR's is well-known for behaving, that's not in a huge water discount, which was what my oils and lye water were going to be, since my liquids sat in cups on my counter. If it started tracing, adding the water from the cups was just going to worsen everything but all my colors were mixed and I didn't want to add an excess of water. I poured and stirred.

"Pleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease..." and as soon as it hit emulsion I started pouring but it was about 10 steps ahead of me. By the time I poured into my third or fourth color, it was thickening but I went ahead and poured, all 7 colors and 9 cups. Some of them I could stir still but the color was difficult to incorporate. Not wanting to have my soap bring me to my knees, I stolidly continued on as if I could still make this work. I was not winning the race, so I started stirring each cup up with my (gloved) fingers, scooping it out by hand and quite literally throwing it into the mold. Some of the colors I had to squish between my fingers to get it partially mixed and than WHAP, into the mold it went. After slamming the mold down like a dominatrix, but without the confidence, I manhandled my swirl tool (this now seems to be going in the wrong direction with the innuendo) through the batter, which was more like parting the Red Sea because where ever I shoved the batter, it stayed, leaving a wide gap in its wake. I slammed that mold down over and over and then used my hand to push the batter down and close any air gaps and "smooth out" the top.  Smooth is an exaggeration of large proportions and the top looked a horror from blended colors. I covered it with a blanket to hide my shame and to let it gel.

Well well well, my ugly duckling soap needed only to shake off (okay, cut off) its top layer to show me its beauty. No, its not for everyone, but I absolutely love it.

Nothing lasts forever

Destruction underway. I forgot about an idea I had been wanting to try so soap is in process plus I am trying to think of other additives for soaps for the challenge that could present some interesting photo ideas/opportunities.

I look out of my kitchen window every day and watch the yellow finches flitting from sunflower to sunflower, plucking seeds from the heads and littering the ground with shells and sometimes a dropped precious seed, which gives me next year's sunflower forest. I wanted to make a feather soap after the finches but with a bit more striping and more breadth of colors but I got more than intended. I'm certainly not unhappy about it, but I realise it looks more like the sunflower than the bird. That works; I can use it in a photo shoot for sure!

The colors should be brighter once it's saponified.

After a complete bust of a batch, which for once I was smart enough not to try to put on the backside of this, I made the flip side but I am not certain I like it or not. It's not quite what I imagined, in part because I stink at pouring my faux funnel spot-on in the middle. I generally like that kind of variation but I am on the fence with this one. The batter was a bit thicker than I anticipated (impatient and soaped warmer than I should have) so the soap didn't swirl like I thought it would. You won't find me complaining, just looking for how it could improve or look different. And of course, a cut bar can be a very different thing than the whole slab.

Made with juice squeezed from organic California green table grapes.

No soap, just practicing photography for The Soap Bar's recent challenge here. I can't post my entry pictures but I liked this one that I took, trying to get a handle on my camera. The soap looks a little tippy but I don't mind it.

My kitchen is clean right now so I don't really want to make soap, plus I'm having a dry spell, ideas-wise. Something will pop up, I'm sure, and compel me to destroy the peaceful feeling of uncluttered counter space.

The Flip Side

I have no energy to wax philosophical tonight.

I surprised myself by liking the orange and purple side a lot and finding the blue and orange less appealing, which was the opposite of what I anticipated. I am hopeful people will find them fun to use, watching the colors and patterns change as they rotate the soap through their hands, as well as through the process of wearing it down. Each side is thin enough that the swirl stays pretty well defined throughout, as opposed to a thicker bar where the weight of the soap decreases the amount of movement. I like the patterns on the edges as well. People suggested I call the the double-sided swirl although I tend to say it's a back-to-back bar, because the back sides of the soap are together. Neither sounds terribly catchy but a back-to-back bar has better alliteration.

They are easy to do. I make a 16 ounce oils batch and use a 9x9 or 8.25x8.25 inch silicone mold and slab swirl. I leave it to harden overnight and then unmold and flip it over, so it is face down in the same mold, then make a new 16 ounce oils batch on the back of it. If I am trying something new that I want a number of chances to try, it allows two tries in a slab but makes only 8-9 bars, so I don't get overloaded with soap. In addition, the user gets some added interest and more variety. Win-win.

The blue side, and the orange/purple side:

I tried a new piece of equipment in the black and white bar. It definitely needs tuning. I thought my batter was thin enough to move more on the bottom but it did not, so I have to thicken up the swirl tool and it was awkward to move, which left me with less than fluid draws. It was a touch too snug in the mold. That will be on the docket for this week or weekend, depending.

Trippy

I made the flip side of my blue and orange but made a mistake in subbing out one purple portion for a light green. The orange dominates far more than I had hoped. I adore orange- one of my favorite colors- so it's not that it shouldn't be orange, but I was hoping for a better balance of colors. Oddly, this is the same amount of orange as in the blue and orange soap and the same three orange tones but the difference is staggering. I used three blues in the other but in this one I used two purples and a green and same volume as in the blue and orange soap. The brightness of blue is able to break through the orange but the purples aren't able to do it even though the batter was unquestionably colored to show; I don't have a light hand with mica. I haven't thought of blue and purple as too far apart on a color wheel when thinking of contrast, but I have a lot to learn. Good experience and the soap isn't ugly so I got away with a lesson without a price.

I was also very interested to see what a difference there is when I circle the soap one way versus the other. When I swirled counter clockwise (or widdershins, thank you old English) to the stripes, the result is messier because it seems like the strokes break through the lines rather than carry them along, which seems to happen in the clockwise circles. Why? It's fairly consistent. It must be the stroke that leads to the clockwise turn that does it, so I will have to do the opposite one of these days to check it out.

Blues and Oranges

I had to stop soaping for a few days due to low morale. Putting out three completely boring soaps in a row is a sharp pin in the balloon of a person's motivation, deflating creativity if not calling into question its existence in the first place. I think I need to take some classes or something, something visual like how to make a fresh and exciting soap.

I didn't make anything particularly fresh or unusual today but at least they came out. I've been meaning to make a blue and orange soap for some time and defaulted to the slab but without any particular pattern in mind, which can be a recipe for disaster, or deadly boring soap. It's not deadly boring, thankfully, but as has been happening lately, my brain cramped when presented with the opportunity to try a new pattern. Gah. Tomorrow the flip side will be done but I think I'll use orange and purples and try one of ebru patterns I saw. Because I'm too stunted to come up with one of my own.

The other is cut but the colors have to develop a bit. I'm having some trouble deciphering what happened inside it. It looks fine but again nothing too original. Hopefully, I will be lightning struck with superb dreams of colors and patterns tonight.