That's beautiful! It's kind of a fun technique, isn't it? And the results are so pretty!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!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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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 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!
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".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: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.
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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Mind sharing the patterning technique?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?
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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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 .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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