Sharktopus

A co-worker graciously lent me one of his chinchillas to take care of before I dove face first into getting my own.  I promptly renamed the 3-year old male white mosaic "Sharktopus" because I vowed to name any future pet that after I saw that awesome, awesome movie.  Of course I thought my future pet would be a cat (get it Sharkto-puss?).  Hah I know, I make myself laugh.

Sharktopus lived in my spare bedroom aka soap supplies room and had free range to run and explore a couple hours a day (as well as take some chews out of the door and baseboard when I wasn't looking).

King of the Room

I've since returned Sharktopus, and decided to wait before getting my own chinchilla - as I think my place gets too hot during the summer.  He's just too cute to not talk about - and there's soap curing in the background.

Holly Swirl - Great Cakes Soapworks Challenge

Amy Warden of Great Cakes Soapworks has been hosting a monthly Soap Challenge at her blog.  This month's challenge is the "Holly Swirl" or swirl-in-a-swirl.  I'm all for trying new techniques, and the prize is pretty awesome as an incentive.

I made 2 loafs but only managed to take final shots of the loaf I'm submitting.  The challenge was a lot of fun and there's a nice satisfied feeling when I realized I'm getting better at something.  This swirl is one I'm going to be trying out again for sure.

Holly swirl

 This one is scented with rosemary, peppermint, and citronella essential oils - reminds me a little bit of Lush's Demon in the dark soap... but looks more like "Elves lost at night or on crack" or something.

Sure, let's go with "Elves, lost at night".

I'm really happy with how these swirls came out - mixing the white and green together in a separate bowl mixed a lot better than adding one to the other (which is what I did with the first one - those pictures below).  And my black soap batter was much less traced than the first swirl.


Photos of the first loaf after the break.

Tiger stripes

There are several techniques I've noticed that trend through other soaper's projects.  One that is very catchy is the tiger stripe where alternating layers of coloured soap are poured; so after a couple of youtube tutorials I tried my hand at it.

I'm pretty happy with how this one came out.  There's definitely a fine balance of how thick the batter needs to be (medium) and how fast you need to pour so that the batter is still at medium trace when you get to the top layers.  There's no real theme to the soap balls on top... I just had extra balls that I wanted to do something with.  The red top was an unexpected colour - I was going for more of a red hued purple (Note: don't need much of the red mica at all).

Most videos I saw poured in a "back and forth" layer - so from one side of the mold to the other and then back again.  The very thin lines in the middle was the result of going from only one side to the other (while the white was a back and forth).

In the second attempt, I totally forgot about the back and forth as seen by the thin lines.  The white soap was getting pretty thick by the end too.  In other news I think the oil mica top is great for people like me who don't have patience or the foresight to leave extra soap for a textured top.  Plus it's a quick and easy last minute decorating technique.

I like the look of the thick stripes much better.  Once I finish with the Holly swirl (swirl in a swirl) challenge, the plan is to make a tiger stripe soap that is actually tiger themed but scented like chocolate because I really want to use that fragrance oil.

Let's try this blog thing

I got into making soap last August after some hobby hopping (watercolour painting, computer building, photography, snowboarding, cake decorating)... through Soap Making School run by Rene Whitlock who has a curriculum of making cold process, hot process, and liquid soaps along with tons of other bath and body products. 

I've tried making lotions, bath bombs, and sugar scrubs, and I've got the supplies to make parafin candles and lip balms (just haven't gotten around to it) but soap is definitely my preferred medium.  

Of course my first couple of batches I jumped in too quickly and tried to make everything fancier than I knew how.  Then I slowed down after building up a collection for the Xmas giveaway season - most of which I didn't even have time to test myself.

Christmas soaps

After a couple months off (finally used the rest of the Xmas soap), I got motivated to make some more when a co-worker showed interest in buying some of my soap and inspired when I found such blogs as Shieh Design Studio and Amathia Soapworks which both have some incredible CP soap.  So after a couple hundred dollars worth of new scents and supplies I set about trying some more advanced techniques:

Haven't quiet gotten the hang of layering (Fir & Bamboo scent)

Swirling is still kind of iffy too.

I had a few "Ohhhhh yeah..." moments especially with the drop swirl technique I was trying to do.  So now I know - don't add powdered honey to soap batter; it won't melt by it self.

Wonderfully hard bar with nice fluffy lather... just ugly (black raspberry vanilla)

Then things start to come together - I get the feel for when to stop mixing with the stick blender, what the difference between "light" and "medium" trace is, what happens when you try to pour layers when the soap batter is too thin (you don't get layers).

The watermelon soap is the first one that turned out exactly as I had imagined, and the tiger stripe is a close second.

Smells like watermelon candy

Could be a better but okay for a first try (Bergomot/jasmine)

So the plan is to keep photos of soap, results of experiments, and improve my photographing skills a bit.