September Challenge- Ribbon Pour

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Epic fail. My batter was too thin. So I waited a couple of minutes. Then it was perfect, until I got it halfway poured and a HUGE chunk fell out of the pitcher. I have a mold of vomit saponifying. The FO turned the batter a yolk yellow, but I had to go with it anyway. So my purple was brown, my yellow was ok-ish and my red was not so much. I thought it would turn out to be earth tones. It started pouring well and folded on itself nicely. Until the chunk fell out then everything went to pieces from there.

September - pour.jpg


September - pitcher.jpg
 
My nephew did a decent job of this, without even planning for it. I just mixed up the colors they picked and let them pour. He's very particular, so his slow pouring ended up being more of a ribbon poor than just an in the pot swirl ☺.



The soapers:
 
Teresa I like the colors! It might not be the ribbon pour you were looking for, but you will end up with pretty soap in the end. And if it was going well at the start you might have something ribbons on the bottom.

I have a second attempt planned. My first was just meh. But I've learned not to post pictures thinking I can do better. It will work if I need it too.
 
So many failures already for this challenge. I find that interesting. But I love the attempts!

My salt bars came out pretty decent (although plopped not ribbons) but I'm not posting a pic because I might try to use the same colors in my next attempt. I did however forget to estimate space for the 75% salt so my bars were double thick and I got twice as many as I planned for. Nice! :)

Mrsserena your nephews soaps came out delightful! I love the seahorse poking out of the one!
 
Epic fail. My batter was too thin. So I waited a couple of minutes. Then it was perfect, until I got it halfway poured and a HUGE chunk fell out of the pitcher. I have a mold of vomit saponifying. The FO turned the batter a yolk yellow, but I had to go with it anyway. So my purple was brown, my yellow was ok-ish and my red was not so much. I thought it would turn out to be earth tones. It started pouring well and folded on itself nicely. Until the chunk fell out then everything went to pieces from there.

What was the chunk?
 
Teresa I like the colors! It might not be the ribbon pour you were looking for, but you will end up with pretty soap in the end. And if it was going well at the start you might have something ribbons on the bottom.

I have a second attempt planned. My first was just meh. But I've learned not to post pictures thinking I can do better. It will work if I need it too.

Thanks! I was wondering about that. I'll have to see when I unmold it tonight.
 
Well, I made my challenge soap yesterday. I blended a hair too much so it was kind of thick during the pour, but it folded in on and around itself OK, color-wise. I guess I'll see what it's like cut this evening when I get home. I've intended it for the niblings' stockings come Christmas (cuz *I'm* not using a grape soda flavored soap!) regardless though.
 
So, I had a plan but...

I used a discoloring FO (new to me) for half and another FO for the other half. While both were pretty well behaved, it caused one half to thicken quite a bit faster than the other. I mixed micas with glycerin (I usually use oil), and when I added a darker brown to half of the discoloring FO portion, it was speckly. So even more stick blending. So now I have 2 cups still too thin, 1 cup about right and 1 cup too thick. I went ahead anyway. Let's just say that once in the mold I took a skewer to the whole mess.

Time for a new plan. This is tricky, and newbie makes it look so easy!!
 
hmm, how fast does 100% CO, 0% SF set up after being brought to trace? I need some more dish soap.... I guess colors wouldn't be bad for washing dishes. :think:
 
Last time I did that, I was able to mix in my colors but by the time I had done that, the main batter was thick glop. If it is going for laundry/dishes either way, it's worth a try- natural and white, maybe? White and blue and then it will look like Dawn?
 
When I made the 2 batches in June, I did one too thin and one too thick too, Sonya-m. I never got around to another batch until now, and what happens, but it was too thin this time, too. So back to the drawing board. I need to choose another recipe anyway as this one was too dark and I want some white.

Guspuppy, sounds like a good idea if you are quick with the mixing colors (while still at emulsion, right?) and pouring doesn't take too long. Even if it does move too fast, you will still have the soap you need and can report back how it went.
 
1. AMD - I miss doing challenges


2. penelopejane - I'll give it a whirl.


3. Rusti - I should have time this month


4. dibbles - I've been wanting to try this


5. TeresaT - I'll make time for it this month (if it's not hot & humid again ).


6. IrishLass - I'll give it a swirl.


7. Guspuppy - School is in, vacations are over, work is slow. Time to soap!


8. BattleGnome - many ideas, so little time


9. carlyjones - see if I can't make some time for this one!! IrisLass you beat me to that one...


10. Mx6inpenn - yay! I finally can do a challenge!


11. Misschief - let's try this again


12. TheDragonGirl - I dont think I understand how to take the pictures though


13. Brewer George - I'll give it a shot


14. kchaystack - All my supplies are still packed. Maybe this will give me motivation to tackle that chore.


15. earlene - I will be home in a few days to give this a try; my first attempt a couple months ago was just practice.


16. Judiraz- Love this look. Can't wait to try. Three day weekend!!!


17. doriettefarm - So many possibilities with this technique . . . off to pick a striking color combo and well-behaved FO!


18. SunWolf - Hmmm...hopefully I have some well behaved FO to use.


19. Sonya-m - I WILL soap this month!! It's been 8 weeks since I last soaped!!!


20. Snappyllama - This will be the inaugural soap of my new soaping room! I'm with Sonya in soaping withdrawal!


21. CTAnton....the heat and humidity has abated..time to get soaping!


22. TeriDk - I tried it when I first saw the video so will give this another try.

23. Lisajudy2009 excited to try!
 
Just finished my first attempt. I did a small batch and poured 2 individual bars. The first one may be okay, but the second thickened a lot. All the colors look pretty combined so I don't think I'll like that one. We'll see tomorrow I guess.
 
Epic fail. My batter was too thin. So I waited a couple of minutes. Then it was perfect, until I got it halfway poured and a HUGE chunk fell out of the pitcher. I have a mold of vomit saponifying. The FO turned the batter a yolk yellow, but I had to go with it anyway. So my purple was brown, my yellow was ok-ish and my red was not so much. I thought it would turn out to be earth tones. It started pouring well and folded on itself nicely. Until the chunk fell out then everything went to pieces from there.

That didn't look to bad. I was thinking "why does this woman have rice sauce in a soap mold?" until I realized what it was.
 
A fair number of people have said their soap is too thin and/or that colors have mixed too much. Make certain your soap is at the trace I show in the Trace video before you load your container. It's also important to pour slowly into the mold and if you are pouring from a height, it can help to pour it down the wall of the mold as that will slow it down. The closer you can get the container to the surface, the less mixing you will have.

I hope that's helpful. I'm taking a guess at what might be issues for people so I apologize if I'm off the mark.
 
A fair number of people have said their soap is too thin and/or that colors have mixed too much. Make certain your soap is at the trace I show in the Trace video before you load your container. It's also important to pour slowly into the mold and if you are pouring from a height, it can help to pour it down the wall of the mold as that will slow it down. The closer you can get the container to the surface, the less mixing you will have.

I hope that's helpful. I'm taking a guess at what might be issues for people so I apologize if I'm off the mark.

Oh, you are on the mark, at least in my case. It's a matter of impatience, really. I made this back in June and had the same problem with my first batch, too thin & the colors at the beginning of the pour blended. But by the end of the pour they were more distinct. (Same this time, the bottom of the soap mold shows blended colors, while the top shows some distinction.)

In June my next batch was too thick. I hope that doesn't happen with my second batch this time. I plan to make that today. I may even do a third batch today also.


~ ~ ~ ~ ~
ETA: I Just did my second batch for the challenge, and ran into another problem. My colorants caused different tracing issues, which messed up the pour. I tried being prepared for the TD which I already knew speeds trace, but another color was even thicker than the TD colored one and that didn't work out so well.

I haven't been making soaps with more than one color for very long, and I am new to micas, oxides, and TD anyway, so I still have a learning curve going on, especially when it comes to multiple colors and these fancy pouring techniques. So I shouldn't be surprised this is a problem for me.

Anyway I poured 4 molds, and two won't even count because by the time I got to them I had blobs of very thick soap as well as some of the thinner soap batter, so they are not so much ribbon pour as random colors. I guess they'll look more like and ITP than anything else. But the first two started out fine. One of the individual molds is looking pretty good I think, considering the different rate of trace these colors gave me.

This morning I cut the batch I did yesterday and I think they look nice, but not where I was going with them. Today's batch may have one or even as many as 5 good bars. I'll just have to wait and see.

So my next batch, I won't use TD for white. I'll just use untinted batter for white. And I'll skip the other color that caused thick trace. Now that I know of at least 3 colors I have that won't affect trace, I'll just use them and plain batter and see if I can perfect this technique.
 
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