Black charcoal soap w/Ione swirl

I had too much stuff going on to be able to enter the SMF March Black Background Challenge, but I was finally able to make a batch yesterday (swirled Ione-style). I used WSP's Nag Champa FO to scent it, and it behaved beautifully...... and it smells soooo gooood! I've never soaped Nag Champa before, and didn't really know for sure what it smelled like either until I bought a bottle of the FO, but one sniff from the bottle seemed to scream black background soap with colorful Ione swirls to me. This is going to a dear friend who put in a request for some Nag Champa soap from me.

I was very apprehensive about making this soap, because I've never done swirls in a charcoal soap before, and I didn't know if the colors would be bright enough show up very well. I cannot begin to tell you how happy and relieved I was when I cut the first few bars and saw what awaited me inside.





IrishLass

Those are beautiful!!!

Shimmery colours! Very nice

Wow! Those bars are gorgeous!

E.G. nailed the right descriptive word, shimmery. Beautiful swirls, and one of my favorite fragrances, a perfect combo. And what kind of bevel is that? It looks like some kind of double bevel. Nice job of beveling, however you did it.

Those are beautiful, I love the finish and the dreamy swirls!

This is another one of those moments where I wish scent could travel virtually..

Really beautiful, IL. Your colors are perfect, and you nailed the Ione swirl. Great job!

Absolutely gorgeous IL!!!

Those are really pretty and unique looking. Great job.

Oh wow, what an awesome soap! Beautiful job!

Thank you so much everyone! My only apprehension now is discovering whether or not I used too much of the micas and will end up with shimmery lather! lol

navigator9 said:

E.G. nailed the right descriptive word, shimmery. Beautiful swirls, and one of my favorite fragrances, a perfect combo.

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When I was searching the forum for good Nag Champa recommendations, it was actually your posts on the subject that that sealed the deal for me to go with WSP's version, so a thank you is in order- thank you!!! Now I have a new FO to love.

navigator9 said:

And what kind of bevel is that? It looks like some kind of double bevel. Nice job of beveling, however you did it.

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I use a woodworking tool to make my bevels- specifically a Japanese 1/8" & 1/4" radius planer made by Kakuri. I bought it from LotionCrafters years ago. They had billed it as the "Best Ever Soap Beveller". They don't sell it anymore, but here's their description of it from the Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20100314210333/http://www.lotioncrafter.com/best-ever-soap-beveller.html

Good news, though- although LotionCrafter doesn't sell them anymore, you can buy them either from LeeValleyTools or from JapanWoodworker .

It's pricy, but it is built to last. I've had mine for at least 7 years, and as you can see from my pics below, which I took last year to help out a fellow forum member who needed a visual of how I get my bevels, it is still in pristine condition after having beveled though hundreds of batches (white oak is pretty awesome). JapanWoodworker sells replacement blades for it, but I'm still using the original blade that came with mine- no dulling at all yet:

Here's my radius plane/beveller from different angles:




And here's how I use it: I set the edges of my soap in the groove/guide and just slide it along through the slicing blade. For what it's worth, the soap in the pic that I am beveling was an extremely hard, 5 year old-or so soap and took a little muscle to get 'er done compared to a much newer soap, but the results are still gorgeous:

And here's what I end up with:

The soap and the scent complement each other quite nicely, me thinks. Thanks for sharing!

Very nice! Beautiful soap!

So lovely. So classy. I pray my soaps can look so artistic......someday lol. Thanks so much for sharing IL

I love Nag Champa! I am sure it pairs really nicely with your gorgeous Ione Swirled Charcoal soap.

Very pretty color combo and swirl!!! And that bevel is really something special.