December 2019 Un-Challenge - New to You

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My exams are over, and I am finally free to soap!
For my "something new" challenge I did a lot new. I made a white and peach marbled loaf by mimicking brambleberry's swirl quick mix recipe. I used the peach prosecco fragrance oil forvthe first time and It. Smells. Amazing. As some of you may recognize, the soap I am making is inspired by the BB peach prosecco soap project. I also used BB tangerine WOW!, magenta, and sunset orange mica for the first time for this project. Everything seemed to be going well except my beautiful loaf started cracking after a few hours. The top is still soft enough that I've bee trying to moldthe top with a spoon to hide them but I am a bit disappointed. I suspect this was caused by overheating, and I wish I'd put the loaf in the freezer.
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I made a soap with embeds, and I used PKO flakes instead of coconut oil for the first time. The white part of the bar is AMAZINGLY white. I also threw in some soap shaving "confetti" for the first time, so I guess that's 3 new things! I also learned that when a vendor says "When not enough is used it can go gray. It can also have a greenish cast in very yellow or green oils," pay attention. This was supposed to be a dark navy blue (what it could be if it weren't for user error, below. ) Pretend. :D

ETA: Speaking of user error, I somehow uploaded 2 pictures of the navy soap and I can't figure out how to delete it... Fixed by magic ;)
 

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First swirl attempt. I did not anticipate how much volume decreases when you remove the dividers. These will be short little bars!
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Ha! I tried my first swirl today that I might post tomorrow... but I thought the same thing when I took out the divider... didn’t think of that when formulating! Yours look pretty swirly in the mold... mine does not... lol! Good job!
 
Note to Relle - see what a good, space efficient poster I am today :p

I tried so many new things in the last 18 hours that my head is spinning. First I did a project that required more discipline than technique or creativity :rolleyes:. Then I tried two new techniques along with an accelerating floral FO. I have been very good at staying away from florals, but it was time to take it on. I believe I survived the FO, but the colors of my micas are making me a little nervous. o_O In any case, my house smells like a flower shop!

@Shereen I like your soap enough that it has me thinking about buying a wavy cutter.
@EllieMae Cool soap that does an excellent job of showing just how interesting “rivers” can be! It looks a bit like black leather, similar to these famous soaps made by Auntie Clara.
@dibbles I love the colors and the scent sounds interesting. I wouldn’t pick it out as a swirl you did, but it’s still nice. Did you use a technique you’ve used before? If so, do you think the beeswax had something to do with the different outcome?
@szaza Now that’s what I call an experiment!
@Jennifer Horne beautiful and I love the color you picked. When you get around to trying it, please do let us know how it feels. I’ve read that cream can make a very nice soap.
@AmandaLRF I’ve seen where people have wrapped soap entirely in an impression mat, but never with bubble wrap. Neat idea!
@Kosmerta Don’t worry about the cracking. It’s beautiful soap and the cracks will hardly be noticeable when the soap is cut.
@SmokyMountainBeauty Wow! If those are you first layers, congratulations, because you nailed it. I love the colors, too.
@Carly B The blues are killing me, too. I have that navy and you really do need to use a lot and it helps to add some AC. Your soap still turned out great!
 
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@dibbles I love the colors and the scent sounds interesting. I wouldn’t pick it out as a swirl you did, but it’s still nice. Did you use a technique you’ve used before? If so, do you think the beeswax had something to do with the different outcome?
This was just an in the pot swirl, which I have done many times. It doesn't look like I expected, but I can't say it was due to the beeswax. The batter was somewhat thicker, but not past a medium trace. I think trace played a small part, and I also colored less of the batter than usual. I didn't know what to expect, so kept my plan pretty simple.
 
Note to Relle - see what a good, space efficient poster I am today :p


@Carly B The blues are killing me, too. I have that navy and you really do need to use a lot and it helps to add some AC. Your soap still turned out great!

What's AC? I'm having a senior moment. All I can think is "air conditioning." :confused:
 
It's so cool to see everyone try something else for the first time! And also so inspiring.. My soapy to-try list has grown so much watching all of your wonderful soaps and here I thought this challenge would help me reduce the list. Ha was I wrong! :D
 
Hi! My first is using an FO instead of an EO for scenting and layering. I used indigo powder in half of the lye mixture. My batter got a thick trace before I could finish pouring all of the layers. I used a spatula to pour layers so I'm assuming that the layers are uneven due to the thick trace! Not a successful even layering job but the scent is divine!
 

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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 :rolleyes:. 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!
 
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@Tee you achieved super pretty blues with the indigo. You did great and made pretty soap!
@Curtis that is a really fun soap! I love the colors and especially that you went with a slightly olive green. It can be holiday soap, or not, which is brilliant.
 
All these firsts are so inspiring! I attempted a Taiwan swirl for the first time. It didn't come out like Tree Marie's, but I'm happy with it. I think next time I'll use a thinner popsicle stick for the back and forth motion. The thing I'm happy I figured out is the cut. I cut my loaf vertically and then horizontally so that the swirl is visible. I used Lavender and Spring Apricot FO (also a first) from Micas and More. Lovely!
 

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