December 2019 Un-Challenge - New to You

[Misschief]

Thank you. I got it horizontally. I used a lot more mica for the next one, with more layers and more irregular layering:

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That's beautiful! It's kind of a fun technique, isn't it? And the results are so pretty!

 

[Mobjack Bay]

That’s a pretty bad pic of a soap that’s been in my suitcase, but thanks. I like that the marbled soaps are on the minimalist side of things, but also come across as a bit elegant/sophisticated (IMHO).

 

[SideDoorSoaps]

Everyone’s soaps are just beautiful!! I love the whisk idea @soapmaker. I’m gonna try that! I found these tools in my closet and I’m going to attempt some cool designs, particularly with the jagged one. I did make soap this week with adding citric acid in two batches to my normal CP recipe. I want to increase lather in my hard water and reduce the soap scum we get. Here’s hopin!

It took me a bit of mathing to make sure I added in the right amount of Naoh to counter the citric acid and I make a solution of it and added to my batter instead of the lye water...I forgot to add it to my second batch and had to pour the batter back into my bowl even after I had colored it with purple and yellow. I thought I was going to have a brown muddy mess inside but it cut just fine. I even tried a spoon swirl inside to add some interest. I couldn’t take pics because my son made off with my phone. Here’s the top though. I love the texture. To fit into my new boxes I trimmed off some of the bottom so I could keep the texture top.

Merry Christmas to everyone who celebrates!/

 

[Dru B.]

I gave myself one weekend to go crazy with the Un-Challenge before I get serious about holiday prep and then take off for Arizona for a week. It’s been wonderful to see the soaps others are posting. I am always inspired by the creativity!

My first un-challenge was to make color blocks for all of the blue micas I have. This was my “be more disciplined” challenge! The micas are all from Nurture. I added 1/16th teaspoon to 55 g of batter (just under 2 oz). That’s less than half the recommended amount for Navy in the upper left corner, which is probably why it looks grey. I used that mica at a higher concentration in a soap I made this past summer and it was fine. For Baby Blue in the lower left corner, I ran out of batter, so that one is more concentrated with the same amount of mica in 20 g of batter. I used that one in a soap I made recently and it went green due, I think, to an FO that Is a bit yellow. My base recipe for the test blocks was made with GV tallow, lard shortening which has a wee bit of soybean oil, and CO, OO, and castor oil. I left them unscented.

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With the blue test blocks done, I moved on to use an impression mat I bought during the summer, but never used. I selected Klein Blue (upper right corner) as a base color and added a small amount of TD to a portion of uncolored batter for the lace. I haven’t cut it yet, but I’m really pleased with how easily it came out of the mold and how easy it was to remove the mat. The scent is White Lily and Aloe from BB which is new to me and known to accelerate, but not discolor. I successfully avoided disaster by soaping at 90F and adding the fragrance at trace. I switched to my Bastile base recipe for this soap. Unfortunately, the blue looks a lot more grey than it does in the test block. I suspect the culprit in the color shift is the RBO (5%) I used to up the linoleic just a tad. Even with the addition of TD, the soap in the lace is verging on tan. I don’t like to use a lot of TD, so I guess I will be relegating the RBO to darker soaps for the future. (ETA: It wasn’t the RBO. I made another small batch w/o RBO and got grey soap again. I’m puzzled...).

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More to come! ETA: Here’s the rest of my Un-Challenge results.

First, the cuts of the lace soap:

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for this next one, I used BB’s Apricot Freesia FO and a new to me mica called Summer Crush from Nurture. The FO does not accelerate or discolor. I was hoping for a nice apricot color from the mica, but no luck. I used the same recipe as above, which has 5% RBO. It’s not quite the dreaded flesh color, but almost. Perhaps it will cure to a better color. If not, I will be sticking to a very white base in the future.

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Here’s my last soap for the Un-Challenge. It’s my first attempt at making a marbled soap. Same base recipe as above, but colored with rose clay from BB at 1 tsp ppo. Note to self: the base recipe did not affect the color of the clay... the FO is a custom blend of BB’s White Ginger and Amber (80%) and Wild Rose (20%) that I call “Desert Rose.” I used what I thought was a ton of mica, but it hardly shows up in the soap. I poured a bunch of layers that I did not allow to set and dusted each with a continuous layer of mica. The intent was to have each successive layer break through the mica and batter layer below to produce highly uneven layers accented by mica. I think that part was somewhat successful. Out of the mold, I cut blocks of soap from the loaf and then cut horizontally through the blocks. A lightbulb came on as I was doing that. I think I should angle the layers a bit the next time so that more of them are cut when I make the horizontal cuts through the blocks. Or, I should find a YouTube video that shows the right way to make a marbled soap . In any case, the texture of the soap is perfect and I think it will clean up nicely.

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Thank you @dibbles for this fun Un-Challenge and for your always inspiring soaps!

Hello! May I ask what you use to cut your soap into bars? They are so nicely even. I’ve always used a knife but it comes out so lopsided. I ordered a soap cutter from BB, unfortunately, it cuts horizontally, I just want to cut straight down through my loaf, nothing fancy.

 

[Misschief]

Hello! May I ask what you use to cut your soap into bars? They are so nicely even. I’ve always used a knife but it comes out so lopsided. I ordered a soap cutter from BB, unfortunately, it cuts horizontally, I just want to cut straight down through my loaf, nothing fancy.

I'm not Mobjack Bay but I use a wire cheese cutter to cut my loaves of soap. Mine's pretty much identical to this one. I added a stop so that all my bars are 1".

 

[luluzapcat]

I tried my hand at some sort of fancy swirling for the 3rd time, having blown it on colors AND batter consistency in my last 2. My goal was to make snowflake-themed non-sectarian soaps as holiday gifts ...maybe I'll save them for next year. Didn't quite nail the snowflake but beyond thrilled at the progress I made from previous batches.

So the relative success part is new-to-me...as is the patterning technique, which I think I actually made up, for trying to get a snowflake.

Thanks so much Dibbles for doing this as the December challenge. I'm very excited to be part of it, and to have a place to share my efforts with people who appreciate them. (Quote from beloved Dad, which only makes me chuckle; he's really my biggest fan: "that's all very clever...but at the end you have...just...soap.")

 

[Mobjack Bay]

Hello! May I ask what you use to cut your soap into bars? They are so nicely even. I’ve always used a knife but it comes out so lopsided. I ordered a soap cutter from BB, unfortunately, it cuts horizontally, I just want to cut straight down through my loaf, nothing fancy.

I have a single wire cutter made by Bud Haffner/Buds Woodshop on Etsy:


I also have a cheese slicer just like @Misschief. No matter how hard I try, I can not get a straight cut down through soap with a knife. Do you have BB’s “soap slicer”? If so, maybe you could put your soap loaf on the small end and run it through, or cut it into small blocks before you turn them on end.

 

[soapmaker]

@luluzapcat They're beautiful. Looks like a snowflake to me!

 

[Zing]

Your 'just soap' is stunning! Well done!
Thanks so much Dibbles for doing this as the December challenge. I'm very excited to be part of it, and to have a place to share my efforts with people who appreciate them. (Quote from beloved Dad, which only makes me chuckle; he's really my biggest fan: "that's all very clever...but at the end you have...just...soap.")

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[soapmaker]

I tried my hand at some sort of fancy swirling for the 3rd time, having blown it on colors AND batter consistency in my last 2. My goal was to make snowflake-themed non-sectarian soaps as holiday gifts ...maybe I'll save them for next year. Didn't quite nail the snowflake but beyond thrilled at the progress I made from previous batches.

So the relative success part is new-to-me...as is the patterning technique, which I think I actually made up, for trying to get a snowflake.

Thanks so much Dibbles for doing this as the December challenge. I'm very excited to be part of it, and to have a place to share my efforts with people who appreciate them. (Quote from beloved Dad, which only makes me chuckle; he's really my biggest fan: "that's all very clever...but at the end you have...just...soap.")

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Mind sharing the patterning technique?

 

[luluzapcat]

Mind sharing the patterning technique?

Sure! I'd love to know if anyone's seen this before. I haven't, but I'm sure it's likely I've re-invented something already out there. If it's new, I need to name it!

I made rings of cylinders and secured them in my mold (sloppily and arduously). I then poured alternating layers of 2 colors down the very center. The idea was to let the layers stream past the obstacles, forming lines where they got split--and it kind of worked! Now I'm dreaming up all kinds of other ways to use this approach.

I'm sorry I didn't take pictures during the pour.

 

[Kiti Williams]

I tried my hand at some sort of fancy swirling for the 3rd time, having blown it on colors AND batter consistency in my last 2. My goal was to make snowflake-themed non-sectarian soaps as holiday gifts ...maybe I'll save them for next year. Didn't quite nail the snowflake but beyond thrilled at the progress I made from previous batches.

So the relative success part is new-to-me...as is the patterning technique, which I think I actually made up, for trying to get a snowflake.

Thanks so much Dibbles for doing this as the December challenge. I'm very excited to be part of it, and to have a place to share my efforts with people who appreciate them. (Quote from beloved Dad, which only makes me chuckle; he's really my biggest fan: "that's all very clever...but at the end you have...just...soap.")

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I love this! I would be happy to be gifted with any of them!

 

[soapmaker]

The outer edges remind me of the design I get when I do a slab mold and pour alternating colours directly in the center, then use a chopstick through it all in a spider web fashion.

 

[Craft-T]

Hi everyone from Melbourne,Australia. I love waking up or sitting in front of my computer to just read your comments. I have been soaping for about one year now. I am hooked. I have given some soap to friends/family and sold some to work mates and they love them. I need to slow down because I have so many varieties,different techniques ,scents colours ingredients etc.I love my salt bars the best.

 

[Quilter99755]

[QUOTE="luluzapcat, [/QUOTE]
These are gorgeous. I see a beautiful flower rather than a snowflake, but anyway you look at them they are great. My husband and your Dad seem to be made out of the same stripe! "It's nice but still soap!" I'd love to learn how to do "your soap"!

 

[SoapSisters]

I did two more new things this month!!! (This was a great challenge for a newish soaper like myself!) A tiger stripe + hanger (gear tie) swirl and confetti soap. The gear tie swirl soap is scented with Burst of Energy from Micas and More. The colors are more vivid in real life. The confetti soap has all kinds of scents from the original bars, so I scented with lemon EO just to have a subtle background scent.

 

[Kosmerta]

Sure! I'd love to know if anyone's seen this before. I haven't, but I'm sure it's likely I've re-invented something already out there. If it's new, I need to name it!

I made rings of cylinders and secured them in my mold (sloppily and arduously). I then poured alternating layers of 2 colors down the very center. The idea was to let the layers stream past the obstacles, forming lines where they got split--and it kind of worked! Now I'm dreaming up all kinds of other ways to use this approach.

I'm sorry I didn't take pictures during the pour.

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Very clever! I love the pattern this creates

 

[Kosmerta]

My final new-to-me for the month of December:
Last night and this morning I used two new fragrances that both cause extreme acceleration. First batch was this oatmeal soap with Honey Almond fragrance from makeyourown.buzz. it smells great, I had my oatmeal and yellow oxide mixed in and added the fragrance right before I was ready to pour. It turned into the consistency of chunky peanut butter super quickly, but I scooped it into my mold and smoothed it with my spatula

This morning I made a batch with Brambleberry's Honeysuckle fragrance. It warns this is not recommended for cold process as it causes ricing, but in the spirit of the un-challenge I wanted to try anyway. I took advice from a review who said it wouldnt rice, but would accelerate if mixed with oils before emulsifying, and when I reached light trace immediately poured into the mold. I poured my excess into a smaller mold I had on hand, then picked up a fork to make the design. In all of 30 seconds it went from mashed potatoes to wet cement.

I'm really happy with how they both turned out.

Dissapointed to say the lavender EO soap from my last post has absolutely no smell after 1 week curing, but now I've learned to use more next time

 

[Mobjack Bay]

Sure! I'd love to know if anyone's seen this before. I haven't, but I'm sure it's likely I've re-invented something already out there. If it's new, I need to name it!

I made rings of cylinders and secured them in my mold (sloppily and arduously). I then poured alternating layers of 2 colors down the very center. The idea was to let the layers stream past the obstacles, forming lines where they got split--and it kind of worked! Now I'm dreaming up all kinds of other ways to use this approach.

I'm sorry I didn't take pictures during the pour.

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I personally haven’t seen anything like this before and assumed it was made by pulling a strainer through the batter in a round vertical mold (“pull through”). You’re forcing the soap around columns, somewhat like what happens with the “outer” batter when it’s poured around pipe dividers (“pipe divider swirl”). FWIW, you could call it the “obstacle swirl”, “mini pipe divider swirl” which somewhat evokes what you did (but no batter poured into the pipes?), or the “luluzapcat swirl” or “lulu swirl.” Or, maybe we can start calling it the lulu swirl so you don’t have to name it after yourself .

 

[dibbles]

I'm happy that so many of you played along and made something new for the Un-Challenge this month. Thank you all for sharing your efforts!

Happy New Year to you all, and I'm looking forward to soaping with you in 2020!