Tuesday June 10, 2014
Today we took what is for us a giant step. We entered the Great Cakes Soap Works Hanger Swirl Challenge for the month of June. (take a peek - http://www.greatcakessoapworks.com/handmade-soap-blog/index.php/category/making-soap/soap-challenge/), we promise you will be awe struck.
The challenge isn't really a contest, well, maybe it is, but the bottom line is we probably don't have a prayer of being noticed. It is making us challenge ourselves and try new things. This time it's called a "hanger swirl", both of us have seen youtube videos and read tons about the "hanger swirl" but we hadn't tried it.
Tuesday Kathy (blogger in residence for this post) tried one, and Wednesday Alison gave it a try. I will show you almost all of what is involved. As we both learned, it's hard to make soap and take action shots at the same time.
I've gotten a little ahead of myself. This morning I made a cold process (CP) batch of Lemon Verbena soap because this scent has been very popular.
When we made a HP batch last week we discovered the flash point was 133 degrees. Not great for hot process soap, where temperatures range around 175 - 190. We came to the conclusion that while using the Rustic Escentuals lemon verbena we'd have to use the CP method.
I decided to use Old Faithful. It's tried and true, and the combination of olive, coconut, castor and sustainable palm oils make such a great bar of soap. The coloration was easy, white and yellow.
After I mixed the oils with the lye/water solution, I used the stick blender and mixed until the batter reached light trace. I mixed the lemon verbena scent into the batter, then evenly divided the batter into two measuring cups. I added TD (titanium dioxide) to one and the fizzy lemonade yellow colorant to the other.
I poured all the white batter into the mold, covering the entire bottom, then tamped it down to release any air bubbles.
I carefully spooned the yellow mixture on the white, trying to be as gentle as possible because I did not want the yellow to break through into the white layer.
It was starting to look like cheesecake with lemon topping!
I inserted the plastic dividers, and this step of the soap making was done. I put the lid on the mold, wrapped it with towels to insulate, and left it overnight.
You can see how much brighter the soap was after it cured; it is truly LEMON yellow! The smell is out of this world (lemon verbena is a favorite). All that is left to do is remove the soap from the mold and take a few pictures.
In the photo above, the soap looks completely yellow, but it's not. The bottom half really is white, but I will say this, the yellow is really yellow. Maybe next time I will dilute the yellow with some white. I'm not sure it needs to be quite this bright.
Now you can see the white. This soap will be cured in 6 weeks or about July 22.
As the day progressed I started to think about the soap challenge, could we do it, how do you do a hanger swirl, and so on and so forth. Before I knew what had come over me I was pulling out oils and deciding what scent to use on my first hanger swirl.
I scrounged through my closet and found a wire hanger, untwisted it and used a pair of pliers to shape it so it would fit in our log mold. I wrapped it in blue painters tape and viola! I had the proper equipment for the hanger swirl.
I decided to use essential oils, Lavender (3/4) and Litsea Cubea (1/4) which is like lemongrass but has a softer scent.
I used ultramarine violet colorant along with TD (titanium dioxide).
I split the batter into three sections, white, light purple and dark purple. (sorry the picture is not in focus)
The first layer was white, the batter poured nicely, it was still fairly runny. The two hues of purple were a little thicker because I had to mix them to incorporate the color. In the picture above I am adding a light purple layer over the white one.
Next I added the darker purple layer
Then another layer of the light purple and finally ending with a layer of white, 5 layers in all.
Now for the part that I couldn't photograph, the hanger swirl.
Placing the length of the hanger into the outside edge of the mold you push it all the way to the bottom. Slowly you raise the hanger to the top while moving across a small section at a time. It is up, down, across, up, down, across until you've gone from one side of the mold to the other. With the size of our mold 3 - 3/4" wide, I was able to swirl about six or seven times.
Once the swirling was done
With the batter is thickening up nicely I put the remaining white and a some of the darker purple on the top, then feathered the edges and swirled the top.
This is what the soap looked once I finished the top, off to the curing box it goes.
On Wednesday Alison and I took the soap out of the mold, not having any idea what it would look like.
This is what the end of the soap log looked like, hard to tell if this is going to look good or not.
This was the first cut! We like it!
The swirling pattern isn't exactly vertical looking, but it does swirl. We keep cutting bars.
The swirling pattern isn't exactly vertical looking, but it does swirl. We keep cutting bars.
This bar is from the middle. Each one is completely different.
It's really quite pretty, and the scent is very nice - lavender with a kick of lemon.
This is one of our formal pictures, the ones we use for Etsy.
And today because it's so pretty we will leave you with two single shots, which one do you like better? This one or ....
This one?
We like the hanger swirl. Alison is planning on making one on Thursday, and I can't wait to see how pretty it is.
The lavender litsea cubea swirl soap will be cured in six weeks, July 22.
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