#coldprocesssoap #butterflyswirl #lavender #litseacubeba
Monday, January 19, 2015
The end is in sight! The soap challenge closing bell will be ringing tomorrow, then we have until the 24th to decide which soap to enter (http://greatcakessoapworks.com/scc/). Neither of us think we have a butterfly yet, many other things (uterus, goat, angry dog, angry cat, happy fish....) but so far not a definitive butterfly. The good thing is we are perfecting our technique. We both feel comfortable doing this type swirl, whether or not we make a butterfly is beside the point. The soaps we've made are truly beautiful, like little mini works of art.
Yesterday was a holiday, and Alison's husband had the day off so she and her family had together time (difficult with 2 teenagers in the house - every one goes in a different direction). I finished up some not so much fun cleaning and then decided to make a batch of soap.
Since I was working by myself there wasn't time to take many pictures - with this type swirl you have to keep moving. I hope I took enough photos to give you a general idea of what I was doing.
Color combinations had been on my mind: What looks good? What will pop? What is complementary? Etc etc,
I ran multiple scenarios through my head, and I began feeling blue. The color blue. What I came up with for this batch was blue, light blue, dark blue, aqua blue and bright blue, oh and white.
The colors for my swirls came from +Bramble Berry, they are TD, Aqua Pearl, Antique Blue and 1982 Blue. The base color of the soap will be Cornflower Celebration from +Rustic Escentuals.
When I said blue I wasn't kidding.
Both of us have been reading up on using Essential Oils and we will be using them more frequently in the next year. We love the scents we can create with them, and they are very easy to work with.
Today I mixed Litsea Cubeba (a crisp, citrus smell that has been compared to Lemongrass and Lemon Verbena. It is sweeter than Lemongrass without the musty note.) and Lavender. It's hard to explain the scent other than by saying that it is truly a fabulous combination.
I mixed the oils (coconut, olive, palm and castor) with the lye/water, then I added the EO's, and finally I divided the batter into the colors.
Here are the colors right before I added the soap batter. Once I had the colors mixed, I added the Cornflower Celebration to the remaining batter; this will be the base color.
I poured in the various colors from high above the mold; this causes the batter to drop deep into the base batter.
In the above photo, I've gotten most of the soap into the mold and am ready to do the Butterfly Swirl.
And here is what I piled on top of the swirled batter; I scraped every possible drop of remaining soap. I had no pattern in mind; I just spooned batter onto the top. As you may be able to see, the batter was thickening a bit.
Another view, although the batter was getting thick, it was still very workable, in this picture you can see the pale blue that is my base color.
And yes of course there was swirling , lots and lots of it.
After 24 hours in the curing box the top of the soap looked a little less shiny.
We cut it on Tuesday afternoon with our handy dandy homemade cutter.
One of these days we will get a nice cutter, but for now this works.
The remaining pictures are the cut soap. There are so many combinations and so many visualizations
An owl on drugs?
Somehow this reminded me of an angry fish.
This may sound dumb, but I see Woody Woodpecker, or at least his head with a black beak. Obviously his feathers had been ruffled.
Multi colored eyebrows, over two sad looking eyes, and little pointy elf ears that stick straight out.
This is the same pair (two sad eyes) flipped over.
Turned into a cat with very large ears.
No clue.
Small beady eyes, with blue eye shadow (way too much eye shadow) especially because there is a modified white mustache.
Beady eyes flipped over.
Drawing a blank here, maybe a crab, maybe not.
Not sure but maybe black eyes, blue nose, and a snout like a lion.
I think we're back to fish.
Need help with this one.
Here it is in a different position, now I see swans with little dark blue elves riding (ok it's abstract, I get that).
???????
Maybe a butterfly with out a body, it's a stretch.
Now these actually look like a butterfly, but a side view, not what we want.
Out of all the combinations, this one seems the closest to a butterfly, granted it's a husky one, but we have wings, and a body and little wispy tails on the bottom.
The soap will be cured in 6 weeks.
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