July 2020 Soap Challenge - Rocks

A rock I found today in a nearby creek

July 2020 Soap Challenge - This month's challenge was to make soap the either looked like natural marble or river rocks. We also have the option of making just for fun "snazzy rocks". I have always been obsessed with rocks and growing up I would always collect the ones that I found that had an interesting color or shape. Our family has some land near Jacumba in rural eastern San Diego County. The area is quite dry but not completely a desert. We did have a seasonal stream and the smoothness of the rocks indicated that it may have been wetter in the past. The rocks I made were inspired mainly by the rocks from our land and my childhood. They were smooth but usually irregular in shape. There was a lot of quartz and feldspar. Sometimes we would find garnets and tourmaline but the rocks in the stream were the harder minerals that could survive the tumbling in the water. Some may have been rounded but then cracked open exposing a new surface. Some were iron stained yellow or red. They were always prettiest in the winter when the stream ran and the rocks were wet.

I have lots of soap scraps to use. I first sorted out the scraps with more natural colors. I store my scraps in ziplock bags so most were still wet enough to work with. I tried both chopping the scraps and making shavings with my planer. I mixed in charcoal and brown oxide for color effects. I squished everything together with a small amount of water and wrapped it in plastic wrap so I could squish and shape them.  I polished and smoothed them under water. For some I rubbed the surface with brown oxide mixed in glycerin to create an iron staining effect. I made one attempt at the marble but I only liked one of the bars so the rest became more scraps for more rocks.

Here are some pictures of my river rock soaps and the process of  making them.

 
  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is my marble attempt. It didn't turn out as well as I would like so I turned most of my marble into all natural snazzy rocks. I added some glow in the dark powder to some to make some supper snazzy rocks that remind me of the fluorescent mineral exhibit that they had every year at the San Diego County Fair.

 

 

 

June 2020 Soap Challenge One Pot Wonder

Well I have been doing this for almost a year now and I learn something new each challenge. This time I learned to pay better attention to the directions and I also need to get a better pouring pot since in each attempt, I got a significant amount of soap batter on the table. I usually use funnel pitchers for wall pours but mine are all too small to contain all of the batter at once. I made a total of 4 batches of soap for this challenge, the first two I added the soap to the batter bowl on the back side instead of the front side which resulted in great feathering but the layers were lost. The third batch I made correctly and the fourth batch I tried all natural. On the all natural batch I wanted to see if I could get different colors without adding any colors. I used red palm oil, white palm oil, goat's milk soap and water based soap hoping that if I gelled it, the goat's milk would brown and give a different color. The problem was that i spilled a ton of soap when I first started pouring and had to scrape it up and plop it back into the mold. I like the result but it didn't work for the challenge. Here are some pictures of my soaps:

First batch - poured in pot backwards, no layers but I love the result anyway.

For my second batch, I made the same error as my first batch plus, I chose a really strange color combination. It kind of reminds me of crayon scribbles. Kind of interesting in an ugly sort of way.

My third batch I did correctly and it came out alright.

 

My fourth batch turn out to be just a regular sloppy in the pot swirl but I really like its rustic look. I don't plan to trim or plane it.  I scented it with pepermint so it smells sooo good. It will probably be my favorite soap to actually use. I was hoping the goats milk portions would get browner which would have looked nice with the color of the red palm oil but its ok the way it is.

I'm really having a tough time deciding which one to enter. I think th first one is the most interesting but the third one is more correct. I will decide in the morning.

April 2020 Soap Challenge

This month's challenge was the tall skinny shimmy. It was fun and relulted in some very pretty if not perfect soaps. I made 6 attempts total. As I write this, my 6th attempt is still not ready to unmold and cut. I thought I would be done with 5 batches but my 21 year old daughter talked me into one more batch. I agreed if she chose the colors. It went into the oven at 2:00 am this morning. I'm pretty sure this last one will be the best but entries are due so I will have to choose from what I have.

Family favorite but batter too thick and

colors are not well mixed.

Batter too thick but it was an interesting idea

First attempt. I love the colors but only

bar has any shimmy

Fifth attempt, all bars shimmy but the

pour is sloppy in places

Second attempt. One bar has a good
shimmy but not consistant throughout.

I will come back and insert my sixth attempt later if I don't ruin it by cutting it too soon.










Here is the mold I used for most of my attempts. I really like this mold. I got it from one of our past sponsors, Winding Creek Soap and Supply, for the brush embroidery challenge. I had to modify it with inserts to make it skinny enough to work for this technique.

Here are some pictures from my various attempts:

 

 


For my sixth and unfinished attempt, I used a popsicle box for a mold and let my daughter choose the colors. The colors were inspired by the ocean and coral.

 

Here is the 6th attmpt. Cut a little too soon.

Popsicle box mold bows out quite a lot on

the sides so I end up wasting a lot of soap

trimming the edges straight. I really like these 

colors!

All batches were hand stired while watching episodes of Perry Mason. I am really curious about that strange art piece on his wall. I think I want that in my kitchen.

I definitely had fun with this technique and I think I am getting the hang of it better. I can't wait to see how that last batch came out! I have decided to submit my purple shimmy. I like it because it has a skinny look that I like and the shimmy is consistant through out the whole loaf.