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.