Ok so I guess Soap Queen has a tutorial where she disperses powdered indigo with some oil from the batch, and uses that to color part of the batch.
More disturbingly I have lately found my husband watching these Soap Queen videos about making swirls, muttering darkly to himself and twiddling his pen or cigarette in little figure eights or loops...
So this soap was his soap baby. We used his favorite 30% CO, 70% OO 10% superfat soap with bentonite. For reference this same soap made a very nice true blue with indigo in the water before the lye - see this one.
The plan was to mix the oil dispersed indigo in half of the batch and then do something that involved twiddling. PLUS we wanted to try CPOP to see what happened.
The indigo was really a purple grey more than a blue and that's kind of what I expected, but we wanted to experiment.
The mixing and staggered pouring went very well, we worked as a well regimented team! Then hubby twiddled the top and made a really pretty pattern!
The loaf went in the oven and we used a good thermometer to make sure the oven stayed between 170 and 180 deg F for 2 hours, then turned it off.
I think it got too hot - the top went all barky looking and oily, the pattern almost completely disappeared.
It did look a little better after cooling. When unmolded it was slick with oil that I think was the teatree EO.
When cut it looks nice and marbly. I wouldn't use indigo like this again, but I think activated charcoal and maybe titanium dioxide would be nice for more contrast.
More disturbingly I have lately found my husband watching these Soap Queen videos about making swirls, muttering darkly to himself and twiddling his pen or cigarette in little figure eights or loops...
So this soap was his soap baby. We used his favorite 30% CO, 70% OO 10% superfat soap with bentonite. For reference this same soap made a very nice true blue with indigo in the water before the lye - see this one.
The plan was to mix the oil dispersed indigo in half of the batch and then do something that involved twiddling. PLUS we wanted to try CPOP to see what happened.
The indigo was really a purple grey more than a blue and that's kind of what I expected, but we wanted to experiment.
The mixing and staggered pouring went very well, we worked as a well regimented team! Then hubby twiddled the top and made a really pretty pattern!
The loaf went in the oven and we used a good thermometer to make sure the oven stayed between 170 and 180 deg F for 2 hours, then turned it off.
I think it got too hot - the top went all barky looking and oily, the pattern almost completely disappeared.
It did look a little better after cooling. When unmolded it was slick with oil that I think was the teatree EO.
When cut it looks nice and marbly. I wouldn't use indigo like this again, but I think activated charcoal and maybe titanium dioxide would be nice for more contrast.
I think its a pretty soap all the same (my photos suck, and don't do it justice).
