Greetings from Belgium

Soapmaking Forum

Help Support Soapmaking Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

BaBa

Member
Joined
Aug 27, 2017
Messages
22
Reaction score
34
Location
Brussels
Hi over there!

I am very glad to find this active forum with numerous users! I am a contemporary artist from Belgium, and my goal is to make some huge sculptures in soap. However, as I'm quite new to soap making (with something like 10 lbs already made), I'm making soaps reliable for human consumption before doing anything big :mrgreen:

People in Europe are much more organic orientated than US, as I can see. So I tend to privilege 'natural' ingredients as clays and plant-based tinctures even if I really don't care about titanium dioxyde. Have to match my targets! But as I quite like bold looks and rusticity, that's fine.

Hoping to see you and share our international expertise!

Cheers,

Baba
 
Hello and welcome!!! It sounds like fun! But DO wear goggle & gloves when you work on soap sculpture. And please DO SHARE your work. We would like to admire soap in the artistic form!!! :p
 
Hi Baba - nice to meet you and welcome!

When you say soap sculptures, how big are you thinking and where would you showcase them? The soap might eventually go off (spoil so to speak)... are the sculptures ever going to be used as soap? How long are you thinking they would be displayed? I've got so many questions!! Very interesting indeed!
 
Thank you for your interest! I will surely post things when done :)

@SoapTrey
Actually, applications may vary. While I want a few sculptures to be pretty big (the biggest one in volume should be something like 70 x 60 x 80 centimeters), I'll make others with a much more reasonable size, between 10 x 4 x 6 cm and 80 x 15 x 15.

Sculptures are not meant to be outdoors, except for those devoted to melt with the rain (in Belgium, I'm pretty confident it will melt quickly enough, we have very bad weather
icon_mrgreen.gif
). These ones do not require preservatives, they just can't contain anything harmful for environment.

There is a Joseph Beuys' sculpture made in soap that causes so many preservation problems that it has become a sort of joke, curators of the museum ended by telling something as "Oh, just let it rot by itself, that's fine".

Nevertheless I'm taking all necessary precautions for having quite solid sculptures, both in formula and manutention. Oils will be chosen for their low Iodine and strong hardness (Capric/Caprylic Triglycerides are very nice), and superfat will be minimal. Antioxidatives, strong bactericids and fongicids will also be added in composition, so no, they won't be suitable for human use. They will be preserved at temperatures between 18°C and 25°C (sorry for the centigrades). They of course will "move" a little during their live, but this is the whole charm of this technique I guess. Some will receive a structural help (e.g. wood or metal bars) if required. Biggest ones will be filled with an empty box for saving oils and money.

However, I also will make some art soaps for consumption, with a surprise. At this stage, I cannot tell more
icon_twisted.gif


But for now I'me really trying to get used to all marbling and swirling techniques, and also to master emulsion, trace, and to design proper recipes. I guess my family is going to receive complete sets of soap this Christmas.

Here a little sample of my first sculpture trial :)

mininemea.jpg
 
Last edited:
Hello BaBa and welcome aboard. One of my favorite soapers is Clyde Yoshida from Vibrant Soap. I had the joy of meeting him last year and he is as pleasant and genuine as he is on camera.

Although this technique is not new, I believe he is the one who introduced it to soapers - Intaglio. Here's the 1st video he did on the process. [ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XD8a1MBEfHU[/ame]
 
Hi and Welcome to the group . Interested in seeing what artistic soap creations you will be coming up with . tgc, bless.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top