SMF January Challenge Black and White

[Saponista]

I have white grout and a pretty much entirely while bathroom. I have used black soaps with grey lather without any problem. However your result may vary so I don't want you to hold me responsible for ruining your bathroom! I also had worries when using that violet shampoo for blonde dyed hair. That washed out of the grout too and was a far more vibrant colour.

 

[traderbren]

My first attempt just went in the mold, and it is a failure. I couldn't get my charcoal fine enough, my batter went super thick super quick, so I have a plop and swear soap with extra scrubby bits of AC.

 

[CaraBou]

Penelope, I bet you could test it pretty inconspicuously and easily, and keep your eye on the effect over time if your initial results are encouraging. But you could always play it safe and leave AC soaps out of the shower, and just use them at the sink, a guest shower, for gifts, etc. AC is very fine, I wouldn't be surprised if repeated uses over time cause a slight graying on the floor over time. I wouldn't think it would be too much of a problem on the walls though since soap doesn't make contact there often.

I have my entry soap but still wanted to play around with B&W. Glad I did, I love this bar! The batter was about 20% black, which is at the upper end of the amount of black I want in bars that i actually want to use. I adore how a touch of black classes up a bar. It looks to me like I got differential gelling with this relative low water (1.75:1) soap. I used a heating pad on medium, which might not have been quite enough to get it all the way to gel.

 

[Steve85569]

My first attempt just went in the mold, and it is a failure. I couldn't get my charcoal fine enough, my batter went super thick super quick, so I have a plop and swear soap with extra scrubby bits of AC.

Got one of those yesterday. Jan says I got the white down good and some of the black ended up in the white for contrast. Try, try again.

 

[penelopejane]

I have white grout and a pretty much entirely while bathroom. I have used black soaps with grey lather without any problem. However your result may vary so I don't want you to hold me responsible for ruining your bathroom! I also had worries when using that violet shampoo for blonde dyed hair. That washed out of the grout too and was a far more vibrant colour.

Thanks Saponista. I have used that violet shampoo too! Good to know. I think I will try the AC, after all, my attempt may not even get to "soap".

Carabou, Testing it is a good idea. I can always give it away to my boys who rent if it stains.

 

[Saponomancer]

This is probably the place to ask something I've been curious about: is there any reason not to make your own charcoal and grind it to use for blacks?

 

[Saponista]

I imagine it's fairly difficult to get a nice fine powder. I have seen people try to grind up the pellets to make powder and I've not seen anyone get really decent results. If the powder isn't fine then you don't get consistent colour.

 

[Saponomancer]

I just thought there might be a reason for using activated charcoal in particular other than it already being a convenient powder form but I had never been able to find anything on it. I actually spent about six hours one day reducing some good cedar charcoal from our own logs with a mortar and pestle and some sieves.

I think I've gotten pretty good results with it, although I was trying out black oxides for the challenge

 

[DeeAnna]

A better type of homemade black might be lamp black, because it's a super fine powder and colors things super black. I haven't tried it, just to be clear, but Google is my friend. Here are some methods of making it:

https://paleotechnics.wordpress.com/2014/02/25/lampblack-what-it-is-and-what-its-good-for/
http://www.instructables.com/id/Lampblack/?ALLSTEPS

It sounds like lampblack became a huge industry in the early 1900s. It was (maybe still is?) used for coloring rubber for automobile tires:
https://news.google.com/newspapers?...AIBAJ&sjid=8SAEAAAAIBAJ&pg=4603,2978733&hl=en

 

[Saponomancer]

DeeAna: Thats actually really cool information, the tutorial is interesting, and it would certainly produce a finer grain than anything we can produce by hand, although it some how seems like its just as much or more effort to set up and collect

 

[McGraysoldtowngifts]

This is probably the place to ask something I've been curious about: is there any reason not to make your own charcoal and grind it to use for blacks?

I tried grinding up the charcoal and it is to hard to get a consistent size. I resorted to buying the charcoal capsules and using the medical grade charcoal that is used in them it worked great.

I am going to buy some oxides this week for the next batch later on this Month.


Todd

 

[Steve85569]

I got AC from the health food store. It's food grade and very fine - I can't feel any grit at all.

I had not thought about lamp black though. Maybe I'll have to drag the kerosene lamps out and do a little dirty burning.

 

[Sonya-m]

Soapy disaster today! Made black embeds the other day (which to be fair are probably grey anyway!) and the plan was to make my white base tonight and insert the embeds. Well my white was too warm and got too thick to pour so plopped in. No way have I got it right upto the embeds. It's gonna be full of air holes.

Might not all be lost though as I have another batch of oils and lye cooling right now

 

[Sonya-m]

Oh well maybe not! Definitely too much grey from swirling in this one too!!

 

[BlackDog]

You guys I'm four tries in, have not gotten my desired result for the idea in my head, and the package of activated charcoal is taunting me from the other room. I think it's going to be a while before I fool around with black soap again after this lol.

 

[Steve85569]

You guys I'm four tries in, have not gotten my desired result for the idea in my head, and the package of activated charcoal is taunting me from the other room. I think it's going to be a while before I fool around with black soap again after this lol.

I had a funny feeling when I watched the tutorial for this. It looks sooo simple.
I have 3 tries down and I'm learning a new set of soaping skills. Less is more sometimes.
Must not listen to the AC in the soaping room. It lies!!

 

[amd]

Unmolded my first attempt. It's right on the edge of grey. It definitely did not go according to plan but I like it outside of the challenge. I'm going to take a go at the plan in my head again this weekend - now that I know how it plays out.

 

[SweetBubbleTreat]

Where do we post our entries?? Will there be a separate thread or do we post them here??

 

[DeeAnna]

"...Must not listen to the AC in the soaping room. It lies!! ..."

Naw, Steve -- it lyes!

 

[jules92207]

^^^ha ha ha!!!