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.

Well, how wrong was I?

It does pay to test your theories, I must say. After doing the circular spin with the mold, I thought most patterns would end up looking fairly similar. Looking anywhere for inspiration, I though I would test this tonight, although I did change one fairly major factor. To avoid being overrun with soap, I made individual soaps instead of putting each pattern into the larger 9x9 inch mold. That must make a significant difference because of the distance the soap will move around the periphery of a large mold versus a much much smaller 3x3 mold. However, I noticed that the middle 3x3 inch square in the middle of the large mold moved very little when I made the prior soaps so I wasn't certain what would happen in the indies. Okay, this was a fairly crappy experiment because I changed the mold size and I also changed the way I circled the mold. With the 9x9, I moved the mold in fairly large circles, briskly, and with the individual ones, I moved the mold in very small tight circles, briskly. I didn't think about it but I automatically adjusted the size of the circle to the cavity size. So what would happen if I took my large mold and made tiny fast circles with it? That remains to be seen.

At any rate, I used very fluid batter for these. The first was poured so it had green and black vertical lines of various thickness. The second was poured in an X pattern with a stripe of black overlaid with a stripe of green that ran from corner to corner, then a stripe of black overlaid with green was poured to run between the other corners. I made many layers. The third was poured as a bunch of random bullseyes, black first and the green poured in the middle of that. The bottom was a mess because my black soap would not run down the straw to lay it in the mold and just kept pouring all over (the cup of batter was extremely full) but I eventually got it. There was no specific pattern to the black-outlined green dots on the surface. The fourth was poured as a mantra with black on the sides and green in the middle, then swirled from side to side and then I put an eyelet swirl on top. The pattern was asymmetric before spinning. The fifth was poured in a bullseye or faux funnel right into the middle. The bands of green were very thin as I had a fair amount of black left comparatively but  saved a spot of green with a black center for the very middle. Hardly anything happened there and I can't see any of the thin green bands right now but they may show themselves if I slice the top of the bar off.

What differences! And given that there was no symmetry at all before spinning in 1, 3, and 4, they came out remarkably symmetrical. Number 2, the X pattern, sounds like it would be symmetric and parts of it were, but the last line of green and black lay crosswise and was not interrupted as all the others were. The bullseye was very symmetric but I can't see any of the detail yet. I used low water, which seems to keep the colors more distinct from each other so I'm hopeful I will see something when I lop the top quarter inch off that bar. What would happen with any of these patterns in the larger mold and using larger circles? I may have to find out tomorrow.

1). Vertical lines (excuse the blob of black on the top)
2) X's
3) Random bullseyes
4) Mantra- asymmetric pattern
5) Faux funnel with very thin lines.

Slacker

I have not been making much soap lately as I have not been feeling very inspired. I seem to be devoid of creativity this month but I know my head is wrapped up in an upcoming bathroom remodel and so have been collecting bits and pieces and envisioning what I want. I can't start it though until I know I have an uninterrupted shot at finishing in one swoop and I worry for myself as sustained attention is not a strong suit. I hope having to got to the basement for the john would be incentive enough but I am very adaptable to mess, disorganization, and inconvenience which does not work in my favor here.

Anyhow, I have to run a challenge in MAy and have been trying to prepare. I spent a ton of time and made HUGE mess on one tutorial only to have my fantastic purple/violet color take a hike and never come back, leaving me with fleshy tones which look gross and then my technique didn't do what I wanted. Easier to think about the bathroom.

Spurred on from zebra soap lady, Cara, I soaped last night looking for another in I can use for my challenge. Last month was spin soaps. I can honestly say that I'm not that fond of the technique for whatever reason. when I had tried it before, I was looking for alternatives/variations and used a high sided box lined with freezer paper. I poured a faux funnel, stuck a dowel in the corner of the box and whipped it around the dowel, like you would a hula hoop. It gave okay results but it's limited in it's use because the soap goes several inches up the side and so you have to have the right size box. Being a lazy mold finder, I have not repeated it esp since the effects don't light a fire for me. However, I saw a post from Shieh Soaps and she did a spin that did. She laid out her soap I believe with a faux funnel but instead of the jerky movement of the spin swirl, she took her entire mold and briskly moved it in circular pattern on the counter. It gave a very nice effect without all the jerking spilling I get when I do spins. I also saw a pattern I can use for my challenge. I tried myself last night but laid out the soap in a radial pattern, like spokes of a wheel. I got a nice effect as well. I suspect that no matter how you pour your soap, you will get something similar because of the nature of the swirl, but I could be wrong and I have not tested that theory.

https://www.facebook.com/ShiehDesignStudio/photos/a.244134692280180.84032.231445363549113/1292913280735644/?type=3&theater

I can see a nice Carrera marble look in the gray side of my back to back soap. I can't give up on the universe so my other side a repeat of the grays and blacks i made earlier. I like the other galaxy soap better though.

Spin Swirl

It's always fun to look for new takes on a technique or to use it to make something a bit different than the standard. Our forum's challenge this month is spin swirls but it's not a personal favorite of mine; I don't know why that is but to me they tend to all look alike. WHen Great Cakes did their challenge, I loved the soap Claudia made  because it was a novel take on the techniques and looked very different from other people's; I admire her innovation. I didn't want to make the standard spin pattern and I had been looking at pictures of the universe, which included galaxies and their delicate arms whirling into space. That was a picture worth trying to get.

I was so pleased when it was done. I took a thin slice off the top since the tops are often slightly muddled and although it was not what was in mind's eye, I am happy with the outcome. It is very difficult to get a picture of, though. Outside, the light has been so flat that the pictures look dulled. Using a flash inside means I have to take the picture at an angle because head-on, the flash bounces off it too much. There is some heavy gray gray extremely sparkling gray mica in parts which looks cool, but alas, I can't capture it.

My aunt, Dierdre Luzwick, is an artist who works in charcoal and her artworks is very very detailed. Not that a soap can hold a candle to her art or the work she put into it, when I look at my soap, it makes me think of her.