BUST

Today was not my day at ALL. I have to do the challenge for May so thought I'd start now with getting things together but both batches were utter bombs. I used my regular recipe and (I hate to type this) Monkey Farts FO, which is supposed to behave but it went so fast I didn't get to mix my colors in completely. I hate that name and I detest bananas but it gets such rave reviews I thought I should try it. Bah humbug. I don't like the scent that much so far and it also ticked me off by behaving so badly. If it were a floral, I could forgive it, but not a fruity scent. No sir.

Not to be put off, I went straight to making another batch to try to get the effect I wanted. This time, I would outwit the soap gods by using a very high tallow/lard recipe with full water and scent it with Blackberry Sage and Champagne, which you can use even in low water without problems. Ha ha! I would succeed. Oils still slightly warm and lye water about the same, blended and as I was pouring it out, it started thickening up like mad. WTH??? Not possible. Maybe it was false trace so I stirred and stirred but things just got worse. There was no pouring to be had and everything had to be put in the mold with a spatula. It's clear that I should not be soaping today so in spite of the temptation to go again (I make only 1 pound batches) and make it happen, I held off to see if I could learn anything from the colors I had chosen in the crappy soaps. I hate the first batch; there is very little to redeem it and someone will have to use it, so it will be pawned off as one of my uglies. The second batch is only moderately better, and I did find some changes I would make to the colors, should I try again, so there is that. There is only one bar that I like and that's only because I tend to like oddities and unusual looks. I should also add that I like only one surface of that bar, so it's a thin profit margin on this batch.

I spent part of the evening looking for different inspiration.

If I make it look like I want it to look, I will show the inspiration picture but I don't want to be the butt of jokes so I shall play it close to the chest for now.

A few more whipped soaps

This was so interesting to work with. The texture is like pudding but it didn't continue to thicken throughout the coloring or pour like some FO's will. I had a lot of difficulty getting clean cuts and corners at least in part because of my own impatience but also because I couldn't seem to find the right window in which to cut. Some bars were very hard in a couple days so I could carefully trim and get a nice surface and others would still have soft posts even a few days out of my mold but I
d find out the hard way, by hitting an area of sticky soft soap, which would then gouge or fragment in some way, leading to the impossible task of ever making it look neat without cutting off half the bar. In the end, I just went with it. Trimming seemed way way messier than with normal batter which I think is because the soap is somewhat tackier when it's whipped and it would stick to everything.

Anyhow, I am very pleased to have a new technique to pull out and use and I'm sure I will do so again.

Quickie

One person on the forum said she didn't really get the point of whipped soap and if it's for the bathtub, it should be made into toys. Made me think of making soap who was very much at home in the water, so I carved and colored this soap. I love the guy! Unfortunately, he will become a white whale after his first wash because his make-up will come off in the water and after a couple washes, he will be in the ether. As a general principle, I like through and through soaps, where some design element goes all the way through the soap so the washer has something of interest the entire time they use the bar, but Mr. Whale is staying with me and was done an a whim, so he is excused. Also added the handsome devil who was my inspiration.

Whipped Soap

Our forum's challenge this month is whipped soap, which I have heard of but never investigated nor tried.

http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=58858

Testing is underway and it is remarkably fun. I've been using a very high tallow recipe which gives the most luscious decadent-looking whipped oils ever. I swear my blood sugar jumps up by 100 points just looking at it because it looks like marshmallow fluff on crack. Lordy. The texture of the batter after lye water is added remains fluffy and firm and is somewhat reminiscent of the batter we got when a slew of us tried the -40% superfat castile recipe. It was fun to work with but I don't much like the resulting soap so haven't made more, but I was disappointed not to have that type of batter to mess around with. Well, now I do! And you can use accelerating FO's largely problem free so I've been having a field day.

My first batch has some issues because my coconut oil didn't whip but rather was broken into small and one or two larger chunks. I think the soap will because zap-free but all the surface chunks of CO melted when I was rinsing the bars under hot water to clean them up a bit. Now they look like moon rocks with pock-marks and mini-craters. Oh! That just gave me the idea of how to make lava rocks!!!

My first set of trials has been working with micas to see what sort of effects I can get and what sorts of wonders it holds for me. I like mica lines a lot but I like them super sharp and fine, which is difficult to get when doing pencil lines. I'm trying different ways to get them to see what gives the best effect and how to control what I get. I like them so far but an still working out how to control the shapes a bit more. I tried mixing them in a bit more in the last ones, to get a raspberry ice cream effect but it's not quite right. I have to figure out the ribbon effect which may not be possible with only this texture of batter. It's very light cake icing-like and if the soap has loads of air whipped in, the resulting soap has this almost styrofoamy texture when cutting it. It most definitely floats. More experiments are called for.

My gray and white soap picture is a touch blurry, but you get the idea.