#NewYearsGoals #butterflyswirl #coldprocesssoap
January 7, 2015
It does seem a bit strange typing in '15 rather than '14, but like every year we'll get used to it.
Christmas has barreled by in a blur of wrapping paper, ribbon, squealing children, laughing adults, and lots and way too much good food. Now it's time for the real fun to start. You know - eat less, make better food choices, exercise more.
That isn't all we will be doing, though. We are excited about some of Soap Lily's goals for this year: working on our soaps, broadening our expertise, building our customer base, creating more video blogs, and something new. We are in the first stages of building and publishing a web site! More to come as details develop.
We decided to jump right in today, and we entered the Great Cakes Soap Challenge sponsored by Amy Warden of Great Cakes Soap Works. (our second try, the first Challenge we tried was earlier last year)
The soaps crafted in this "challenge" are created by soapers from around the world, some are beginners, others are what we consider masters of the craft. The varied and beautifully unique designs inspire us and push us to be more creative in our soap making efforts. Last year the challenge we entered was the "hanger swirl". Prior to entering the challenge, the hanger swirl technique seemed very complex and struck terror in our hearts, but after several batches of soap, we got the hang of it and now use it routinely when we make CP soap.
The challenge for January 2015 is called the "butterfly swirl" and is a first cousin to our now favorite hanger swirl. As usual, we are VERY intimidated. We've watched several videos on YouTube as well as the instructional video provided with the challenge, several times. Today we decided to take the leap, so we jumped in and tried our first batch.
To "intimidate" us even further we used a new recipe today. It is one that Amy suggested so we thought.....why not? This recipe calls for Olive, Coconut, Shea Butter, Sunflower (which we substituted with Safflower) Castor and Avocado oils, no Palm in this one. Another thing we did differently was to add the FO to the oils then add the lye/water mixture. Yes, we are way out on thin ice today and will be anxious to see how it looks once we cut it tomorrow.
What you see in this picture are some of the ingredients we used, including the Energy FO from +Bramble Berry. It is without a doubt one of our very best sellers; it seems like no matter how much we make we always need more (not a bad problem).
Bramble Berry describes Energy FO as "A stimulating blend of Citrus, including Grapefruit, Lemon and Lime, with hints of fresh Cucumber and Jasmine, and a touch of Pineapple, Blackberry and Champagne".
Our signature Energy soap colors are always the same, and today was no different. Well, maybe just a little. We added a tad of Icicle mica to the TD for sparkle and pizzazz. The Icicle mica was the only colorant that was from +Rustic Escentuals.
The Tangerine Wow, Fired Up Fuschia, Fizzy Lemonade and TD were from +Bramble Berry.
Here are the colors blended with oil.
We lined our log mold with freezer paper.
We took some still pictures, then Alison grabbed my new phone (RIP old one) and began videoing, actually, she started videoing when I was practicing the "swirl" technique....here goes.
As you can see, we were nervous about this technique.
After the "practice" swirling we continued with the soap making.
Something we hadn't tried before (above), adding the FO to the mixed oils before mixing in the lye/water.
Then we added the lye/water mixture; there is no set rule for this so it should be fine.
We used a stick blender, but didn't mix very long. We want the batter very runny, so once the batter emulsified we stopped and just stirred it a bit.
We had four measuring cups ready.
We added a cup of batter to each measuring cup then mixed in the colorant.
The rest of this post is in video form, we hope you will enjoy it!
And here are one of the "butterflies" we created.
When you put two mirror pieces of soap together it should look like a
butterfly.
Obviously we have some work to do on our technique.
Calling these designs butterflies is a stretch, at best.
However, all is not lost, the soap smells great, and the individual bars are fine.
We will keep practicing.......
These soaps will ready in six weeks.
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