SMF April 2021 Challenge - Lollipop Swirl

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Dibbles please show us your soap when you get a chance to finish it! :D
This is the soap I started for the challenge. It got too warm and I had some silicone rash on the edges, so I cut that part off with a cookie cutter. I really only planned to put the round soaps in a slab mold and pour new batter around them to make square bars, but I doubt I will bother doing that now. They are a nice size for hand washing. I also like the way the edges look when they have been trimmed a little. I knew I wouldn't have much time to make soap in April - I had even less time than anticipated, though. It was fun to see what everyone was working on and I still enjoyed the challenge that way!
 

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This is the soap I started for the challenge. It got too warm and I had some silicone rash on the edges, so I cut that part off with a cookie cutter. I really only planned to put the round soaps in a slab mold and pour new batter around them to make square bars, but I doubt I will bother doing that now. They are a nice size for hand washing. I also like the way the edges look when they have been trimmed a little. I knew I wouldn't have much time to make soap in April - I had even less time than anticipated, though. It was fun to see what everyone was working on and I still enjoyed the challenge that way!

They look great. I did what you were going to do with some failed attempts. It was too long from when I poured the round soap though and they didn’t bond. So now I have some white shredded soap to use as snow confetti! Also they were HUGE because my rounds are 3 inch so the soaps were 4 inch squares!
 
They look great. I did what you were going to do with some failed attempts. It was too long from when I poured the round soap though and they didn’t bond. So now I have some white shredded soap to use as snow confetti! Also they were HUGE because my rounds are 3 inch so the soaps were 4 inch squares!
Thank you. I've waited too long and had the embed not bond with the new soap too, which is why I'm just planning to leave well enough alone. Snow confetti is nice 🤪
 
This is the soap I started for the challenge. It got too warm and I had some silicone rash on the edges, so I cut that part off with a cookie cutter. I really only planned to put the round soaps in a slab mold and pour new batter around them to make square bars, but I doubt I will bother doing that now. They are a nice size for hand washing. I also like the way the edges look when they have been trimmed a little. I knew I wouldn't have much time to make soap in April - I had even less time than anticipated, though. It was fun to see what everyone was working on and I still enjoyed the challenge that way!
These are GORGEOUS... I love these colors.
 
View attachment 56935

What normal people see: chocolate covered hazelnuts

What I see: the next Lollipop swirl mould!
Normal people? I see kalamata olives (first glance, not reading the label, of course - and yes, the shape is a bit off, but I do love kalamata olives.)
 
Finally I grated up jellified with a planer. It really was worth the hassle to trickle the melted M&P base between the rice gratings; I should have done this from the very beginning. But see yourself:

planed_sushi.jpg


I now just need a purpose for dozens of beautiful 2 mm thick sushi soap sheets 🤣.

The rice effect only got stronger with time. The triple rice gratings (more rice content than actual cooked rice, btw!) really want to tell you “I'm rice!”. And I'm also very happy with the orange-red: paprika kernel oil really is an insider's tip for such orange-salmon colours, and this will definitely not be the last soap I'm dyeing with it. A bit disappointing is the hole (air bubble) in the middle of the Lollipop column. As if the soap has been stuck that strongly to the mould that it partially tore apart itself during drying/shrinking.

Slightly related, I had the courage to actually use one of these “filled” sushi rolls (top left). They work well! Though the first impression likely was by a large part from the M&P mess at the lower and outer sides. But at age between two and four weeks (depending on how you count), it'll get its chance with a full cure anyway.
 
Finally I grated up jellified with a planer. It really was worth the hassle to trickle the melted M&P base between the rice gratings; I should have done this from the very beginning. But see yourself:

View attachment 57149

I now just need a purpose for dozens of beautiful 2 mm thick sushi soap sheets 🤣.

The rice effect only got stronger with time. The triple rice gratings (more rice content than actual cooked rice, btw!) really want to tell you “I'm rice!”. And I'm also very happy with the orange-red: paprika kernel oil really is an insider's tip for such orange-salmon colours, and this will definitely not be the last soap I'm dyeing with it. A bit disappointing is the hole (air bubble) in the middle of the Lollipop column. As if the soap has been stuck that strongly to the mould that it partially tore apart itself during drying/shrinking.

Slightly related, I had the courage to actually use one of these “filled” sushi rolls (top left). They work well! Though the first impression likely was by a large part from the M&P mess at the lower and outer sides. But at age between two and four weeks (depending on how you count), it'll get its chance with a full cure anyway.
So creative' wow
 
@amd
😍 They look lovely (the colours are stunning), though I wouldn't have recognised it as lollipop swirl on the first glance.

@Peachy Clean Soap
Thanks! I too am really stunned each time I'm looking at them. Lollipop swirl is an amazing technique, and the rice has turned out better than I could hope in any respect. Kudos also to @Tara_H for inspiring/encouraging me to embed the rice gratings into M&P soap. The only downside is that the high glycerol/proplyene glycol content effectively halted cure, and they're not drying/curing any more, but even sweat on humid days (large surface area!). And I noticed how the red from the paprika kernel oils slowly diffuses into the clear jelly, giving it an pinkish-orange hue. My initial fear was that this happens a lot quicker, and to the white streaks inside the lollipop core, so that it would have come out of the mould as a solid orange block.
 
lollipop_ghost_vertical_cut.jpg

Want to wrap up too my Lollipop experiences with above chocolate hazelnut can, three weeks into cure! I did it for fun, and to tackle several outstanding questions to the technique.

It's a “faux ghost swirl”, faux since I added different white pigments to the split batters (TiO₂ and ZnO, each 0.45%TOW to either), not varied water contents.
I cut it vertically, since I wanted to see how this looks with soap (not only with margarine). And the “regular” (horizontal) cuts haven't come out overly impressive anyway.

lollipop_ghost_mould+beakers.jpg

I also tested a more thorough planning: marked pour points on the mould with three different felt pen colours, so I would pour the same batter at the same location at each revolution (the pegs on the beakers helped me distinguish the, well, not overly different batters). You can imagine that the whole process was a single blind flight … still took me mere 6 minutes from having the batters prepared until CPOPing (estimating from pic timestamps). It is so relaxing to not have to take any design decisions during the pour!

You can barely see that I had cut the mould into half beforehand and taped together. Needless to say it didn't stay fully tight, and I was glad that I had put the mould on that plate (easier to turn and transport without touching the mould too)! Another downside is that the plastic decided to deform, and the cross-section wasn't circular, but had an odd oval shape. Aaaaaand, I did this with easier unmoulding in mind – but that eventually was of little use even after CPOP plus three full days of settling in the mould (Which lunatic has tweaked that darn recipe to not harden up in any meaningful amount of time? 45% cottonseed oil, seriously?).

Unfortunately, I can't reconstruct/tell apart for sure the two pigmented layers. I conclude from my other experiments, that the titanium white is the one with the stronger white pigmentation/opacity effect. But I detect more of what could be the onset of glycerin rivers, or stearic spots, or uneven trituration in the less pronounced white layer – as if zinc white promotes glycerin rivers even more than titanium white, but with less opacity at the same time.
 
I would probably cut the bottom and top off before I used them and see if I could somehow fashion a secure bottom. I’m not sure they would work but they are sitting here waiting for an opportunity. They are the perfect size.
Yeah, I think you would have to cut off the bottom to get the soap out. I have used Pringle’s cans, and I just peeled the can away, but obviously you can’t do that.
 
View attachment 57771
Want to wrap up too my Lollipop experiences with above chocolate hazelnut can, three weeks into cure! I did it for fun, and to tackle several outstanding questions to the technique.

It's a “faux ghost swirl”, faux since I added different white pigments to the split batters (TiO₂ and ZnO, each 0.45%TOW to either), not varied water contents.
I cut it vertically, since I wanted to see how this looks with soap (not only with margarine). And the “regular” (horizontal) cuts haven't come out overly impressive anyway.

View attachment 57772

I also tested a more thorough planning: marked pour points on the mould with three different felt pen colours, so I would pour the same batter at the same location at each revolution (the pegs on the beakers helped me distinguish the, well, not overly different batters). You can imagine that the whole process was a single blind flight … still took me mere 6 minutes from having the batters prepared until CPOPing (estimating from pic timestamps). It is so relaxing to not have to take any design decisions during the pour!

You can barely see that I had cut the mould into half beforehand and taped together. Needless to say it didn't stay fully tight, and I was glad that I had put the mould on that plate (easier to turn and transport without touching the mould too)! Another downside is that the plastic decided to deform, and the cross-section wasn't circular, but had an odd oval shape. Aaaaaand, I did this with easier unmoulding in mind – but that eventually was of little use even after CPOP plus three full days of settling in the mould (Which lunatic has tweaked that darn recipe to not harden up in any meaningful amount of time? 45% cottonseed oil, seriously?).

Unfortunately, I can't reconstruct/tell apart for sure the two pigmented layers. I conclude from my other experiments, that the titanium white is the one with the stronger white pigmentation/opacity effect. But I detect more of what could be the onset of glycerin rivers, or stearic spots, or uneven trituration in the less pronounced white layer – as if zinc white promotes glycerin rivers even more than titanium white, but with less opacity at the same time.
I love this ghost swirl' nicely done 🤗🙌🏼. This is one I'd like to try.
 
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