this year Mardi Gras soap challenge

[green soap]

Every year I make soap in purple, green, and gold to be cured by January 6th. As usual these are created with botanical colors and scented with essential oils (lime, lemongrass, spearmint, basil, petitgrain and coriander). For the colors I used infused alkanet root, infused calendula petals and indigo. I am really happy with the way the colors turned out, the scent is nice and refreshing too.

 

[Obsidian]

Those colors look great. How did you get the splotchy look? Its really neat.

 

[shunt2011]

Those look really cool. I like the textured/mottled look a whole lot too!

 

[DWinMadison]

Wow. They look like crepe paper on a Mardi Gras float. How'd you do that?

 

[JustBeachy]

Great looking soap. Very creative looking soap. Fat Tuesday here we come!!

 

[lenarenee]

What a great idea! The colors are fantastic!

 

[green soap]

Thanks for all the kind words. It is a salt soap! tricky to make. Different color absorptions with different percentages of salt give the look of holiday lights.

 

[newbie]

Do you use a coarse salt? It gives a fantastic look. I can't see the details of the texture but it reminds me of pottery glazes, kind of like this (but better!!!)

 

[AutismArtisan]

Very nice, great texture and colours.

 

[green soap]

Do you use a coarse salt? It gives a fantastic look. I can't see the details of the texture but it reminds me of pottery glazes, kind of like this (but better!!!)

Thank you newbie I love the look of the bowl! I just wanted to clarify that I do not use coarse salt ever, neither sea salt nor himalayan. I buy some of my salt in coarse crystals, but run them trough a mill to get them really fine. I get my himalayan salt in big blocks, and I pound them with a stone mortar first, and then run them trough a fine grinder, so I end up with very fine salt. I used to put some larger crystals on top of the soaps for looks, then realized people can get scratched with them so I stopped doing that.

 

[newbie]

Wow, you are very dedicated to your craft, for which I give you a ton of credit. I don't know how many soap makers hand grind their own salt, but I sure don't. I hope you didn't take any negative from my question about the coarse salt, truly. I was looking at the pattern in your soap and it almost looks like there are reflections from larger crystals.

 

[DWinMadison]

Salt! Brilliant for the texture it gives.

 

[green soap]

Wow, you are very dedicated to your craft, for which I give you a ton of credit. I don't know how many soap makers hand grind their own salt, but I sure don't. I hope you didn't take any negative from my question about the coarse salt, truly. I was looking at the pattern in your soap and it almost looks like there are reflections from larger crystals.

No negative at all newbie, just clarifying for those new to salt soaps NOT to use coarse crystals (see the thread 'salt soap attacks' ...LOL).

I grind the salt just because I got a really good deal on the blocks, it is a bit of a pain, I'll admit. Grinding coarse to fine is pretty easy, just a coffee grinder.

If my memory serves me right, yours was the first salt soap I ever tried and now I am hooked, thank you!

 

[grumpy_owl]

Hm, Mardi Gras soap? I'm in. Rubbing hands together and licking the pencil tip ....