Yesterday we did ghost swirls (patterns made by the soap batter having different lye concs) at the soapy meetup. Hubs was asking for more of his indigo & patchouli lard soap, so I figured I would give it a try.
The lye water had indigo powder (.75 tbs ppo, rounded down), citric acid and sugar added to it before the lye. I made the entire batter first at 40% lye conc, got it to emulsion, added the patch, split half the batter and made the other half 30% lye conc with the addition of more water. Plop swirl in the pot and a little "woop woop woop" with the spoon through the length of the mold to swirl some more. Wrap up gell well and check that night.
I open up to peek and my soap is WHITE?!?!? yeah..... No idea. The next bar pic is what I saw that night when I cut TOO early (but sometimes you just need to see whats going on). The indigo is still very green (the batters were crazy green, you would have thought it was spinach powder).
This morning they were actually ready to cut and check out the fancy swirls on the last two pics! And a white frame on them that apparently is due to soap fairies, or indigo just being weird. But I betcha that fades in 2 weeks. It's definitely not partial gel or ash. Fun stuff
The lye water had indigo powder (.75 tbs ppo, rounded down), citric acid and sugar added to it before the lye. I made the entire batter first at 40% lye conc, got it to emulsion, added the patch, split half the batter and made the other half 30% lye conc with the addition of more water. Plop swirl in the pot and a little "woop woop woop" with the spoon through the length of the mold to swirl some more. Wrap up gell well and check that night.
I open up to peek and my soap is WHITE?!?!? yeah..... No idea. The next bar pic is what I saw that night when I cut TOO early (but sometimes you just need to see whats going on). The indigo is still very green (the batters were crazy green, you would have thought it was spinach powder).
This morning they were actually ready to cut and check out the fancy swirls on the last two pics! And a white frame on them that apparently is due to soap fairies, or indigo just being weird. But I betcha that fades in 2 weeks. It's definitely not partial gel or ash. Fun stuff
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