I did not enter anything due to not being happy with my attempts. In the middle of it all I sliced my thumb while conditioning some polymer clay and ended up with 3 stitches. Since I am on pain meds the husband wont let me near Lye. Here are some of my failures. Between being too high on the pass across, forgetting to pour a color, no movement on the swirl, I have about 5 tries under my belt. Will keep trying after the thumb heals because I really loved this challenge! Thank you for putting this together.
Sere
I did not enter anything due to not being happy with my attempts. In the middle of it all I sliced my thumb while conditioning some polymer clay and ended up with 3 stitches. Since I am on pain meds the husband wont let me near Lye. Here are some of my failures. Between being too high on the pass across, forgetting to pour a color, no movement on the swirl, I have about 5 tries under my belt. Will keep trying after the thumb heals because I really loved this challenge! Thank you for putting this together.
Sere
Oh dear Teresa, please don't give up. Fragrances are a nightmare with soap. I suggest you make a batch of uncoloured soap, divide it into small mini bar sized amounts and test a batch of fragrances with it. That way you will know if you are dealing with an accelerating one before you start. It's the same with everyone. Anyway, the point of my message was that it happens to everyone so try not to be disheartened. I also find essential oils have less tendency to accelerate, unless they are the spicy ones like clove, so perhaps try an essential oil blend next time you are attempting something complicated to avoid issues. Oh and work yourself out a standard slow trace recipe that works for you that you like the feel of. I know all this sounds a lot of work, but will save you time in the long run. High olive and lard soaps trace fairly slowly.
Teresa, I know you are feeling out of your depth but I think you earlier identified one of the things that may be tripping you up. You mentioned some posts ago that you were using new fragrances and colors because you like the adventure, which can be great but if you want to focus on the technique, it pays in spades to use an FO you have used a bunch and know well. It does feel boring in a way; I have to force myself to use a tried and true because I feel in some ways making a soap without a new fragrance when I have them lined up to try is a waste, but using your no acceleration go-to allows you to focus on the pour or the swirl or whatever and it decreases your chances of a miss on the trial. I don't think you are too new of a soaper to try these techniques. I think you are too experimental! If you dial back to one experimental aspect- the technique being the experiment-I think you would do perfectly well. I feel like you are going to make a joke about being too experiMENTAL, so I will just cut to the chase and make it now! .
I finished the fifth batch at 2am yesterday (yep, addicted to soapmaking!), but the house was too cold for it to gel. Unfortunately I don't have much luck with CPOP. I can't turn the oven low enough to leave it on, and if I turn it off, it doesn't gel. I'm not sure it worked though, because the batter in one of the colours wasn't mixed quite enough.
Rowan,
Do you put your soap in a cardboard box and wrap it in an blanket when you put it in the oven that is turned off?
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