Today's (mis)adventures and a slab mold question

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atiz

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So, I finally made some soap this morning, but it unfortunately didn't go very gloriously (to say the least:) ).

First off, I was going to make Genny's shampoo bar recipe a bit modified (I've never made it before but wanted to make a nice mild bar). Then realized I was out both of olive oil and mostly of avocado oil as well. I'm also on a quest not to buy too much new stuff nowadays since I'll have to move again in a few months... Long story short, making an attempt to use what I have, I ended up with a new recipe and no idea how it'll work (Sunflower HO 30%, Apricot kernel 26%, Coconut 10%, Kokum butter 10%, Shea butter 10%, Castor oil 8%, avocado oil 5%, beeswax 1%). I guess I'll see in a few weeks if it works at all.

A few months ago I got a little 1 lb. slab mold from NS. So I thought, why not use that, and even planned some nice swirls I could probably do. Nope. I ended up with a thick pudding in less than like 10 seconds.
Maybe I was soaping a bit hotter than usual; maybe because of the hard butters or the beeswax or the part vinegar replacement; or the (also new-t0-me) colloidal oatmeal? No idea. Anyway, I divided it quickly, poured, then realized I forgot to add the FO, okay fine, let's do it now, so glopped it into the mold and mixed it in with the spatula as much as I could. My swirls were completely gone of course :( I also forgot that my mold was half the size of my usual one, and added way too much rose clay, so ended up with a nice meaty soap...

Unmolded after a few hours. I really like a little beeswax in my soap both because of how it feels and how quickly I can usually unmold it. But this time, there was some soap stuck in the corners so it didn't unmold clean. I probably should have waited an another hour or two.

Well, it's at least soap, and the FO seems to have mixed in enough (no sweeping). It smells nice. It's not pretty, but it's just 4 bars so at least I didn't end up with a ton of them and hope it will still be an okay soap. And maybe I can still use it for the soapcarving challenge :)

And here is my question. Those of you who use slab molds and end up with a thicker batter than planned, how do you smooth out the surface? My batter was thick and I tried to smooth it as much as I could but my soap is still very rugged on one side, which I don't really like. Is there any technique for that?

Sorry for the long-winded post...


ETA: here are some pictures. Definitely beef-looking, and you can kind of see that 2 and 4 are really not smooth (and the other 2 are not smooth on the other side). Maybe I can clean them up a bit once they harden up properly.
And I'll just blame it on DST, it messes me up :)
 
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First off, I think those will be pretty bars of soap with a little clean up. I love the color of the clay. Maybe someone will pop in with an idea for smoothing the tops. It’s easy with a soap planer, but I never found a satisfactory way to smooth a bar without one.
 
I think when the batter gets thick like that about all you can do is smooth it out the best you can and then plane or cut the tops. Or texture it and make it look intentional.
 
Thanks, @Mobjack Bay! Yeah, a soap planer would help (I don't have one right now and that probably won't change for a while....). I feel a little better about them now, even the color mellowed a little bit. Hopefully I can clean them up and they will look a little neater even if there's not much I can do with the rugged top now.
Afterwards I found a couple of posts where people mentioned covering the soap with wax paper and smoothing it that way. Maybe that would have worked better, I guess I'll have to see! Glad this mold is so little, I don't feel too bad about making more batches :p.
 
And here is my question. Those of you who use slab molds and end up with a thicker batter than planned, how do you smooth out the surface? My batter was thick and I tried to smooth it as much as I could but my soap is still very rugged on one side, which I don't really like. Is there any technique for that?

The struggle is the same regardless of the mold type...cavity, loaf, slab...you just do the best that you can.
 
I haven’t tried this, but I wonder if you could run an angled cake spatula or a broad plastic putty knife over the top of parchment paper (the coated kind) to help smooth down the soap a little more evenly. I’ve used both of those “tools,” but without the parchment paper, to get relatively smooth tops on fairly firm batter in individual molds. It works best if the soap is still a little “jiggly.”
 
The struggle is the same regardless of the mold type...cavity, loaf, slab...you just do the best that you can.
Yes, but somehow having a rugged top of soap (that you get with a loaf mold) doesn't bother me as much as having a whole face of it rugged...

I did use a spatula but it was too small for this purpose and no parchment paper; will see how it goes next time. I also discovered (post-factum) that my bench-scraper type soap cutter fits exactly into the little slab mold, so that may be good too for smoothening.
Thank y'all for the input!
 

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