With the pressure off, we make some fun soaps.

Kai scented on left and Baby Powder on the right.

#babypowder #kaisoap #swirledsoap #artisansoap

I think I am having Butterfly Swirl withdrawal!  After having done so many batches it seems almost unnatural not to be swirling.  I know this is a temporary situation, and if I keep it up Alison will hit me in the head....but today, just because, I split a batch in two and swirled both!  

I promise next time it will be HP or something that doesn't involve a hanger or swirling!

By the way - we did not win the Butterfly Challenge.  We DID learn a lot and had a good time trying.

We are completely out of Kai soap and almost out of Baby Powder which is why I decided to make some today.  When we use the 10" silicone molds we get about 10 bars of soap from each mold so this is the perfect size to replenish our stock.

I divided the batter evenly, making the Baby Powder batch first.

The Baby Powder FO is from +Natures Garden; their description is short and sweet - "reminiscent of Johnson's Baby powder scent" which is exactly why we bought it. Nothing smells better than baby powder (well maybe freshly baked bread....but I digress).

The main colorants, Brushed Pink Mica and Cornflower Celebration Mica, are from +Rustic Escentuals.  We added some Diamond Dust Mica (from +Natures Garden) to the TD (from +Bramble Berry).  For these batches we will use a lot of TD to lighten the batter.  See that 2% written on the side of the Baby Powder bottle? It means there is that much vanilla in the FO.  It also means the soap will discolor, so we are hopeful that the TD will keep it as light as possible. 

Here the blue and pink colorants have been mixed into Safflower oil.

We don't like the 2% vanilla, not at all.

In this shot I have just added the Diamond Dust Mica to the TD which I sift into a container.  see the sparkles floating in the air?

TD is usually lumpy and if we don't strain it we find little white specks all through the soap.

Not very pretty.

The lye/water and oils were about 5 degrees apart when we mixed them.

You can see the emulsification beginning.

Now the TD goes in. Yes, we're straining again; it's surprising how lumpy it is.

The batter immediately becomes lighter.

At this point we evenly divide the batter, one bucket for each scent.

We were spot on the Baby Powder batter weighed 59.25 oz.

And the batter for the Kai weighed in at 59.20 ounces, basically that is .05 oz difference!

In goes the Baby Powder FO.

We added about 1/2 cup of batter to each color, we don't need much.

We poured a little over half the remaining batter into the mold and tamped it down.

You can see it's not runny at all and actually has thickened quite a bit.

In goes the pink batter.

Then the blue.

Once both colors were in I added a layer of white batter, then I used the hanger swirl.

No butterflies, just a mystery swirl.

No pressure, we love it!

After the swirl a layer of solid batter goes on.

Then I plopped dribs and drabs of the remaining batter on top and swirled.

Baby Powder is done!

Now on to the Kai batch.

Kai is a popular FO we bought from +Natures Garden. They describe it as follows:  "contains notes of gardenia, jasmine, cyclamen, lilac, hyacinth, mimosa flower, rose and muguet/lily."

How can we go wrong with a FO that smells this good?

I tried to pick colors that would represent some of the flowers in the scent, purple for the Lilac; pink for the Rose and green for the leaves and the muguet/lily.

+Bramble Berry is where the TD, Amethyst Purple and Fired Up Fuchsia came from, and the Enchanted Forest Mica came from +Rustic Escentuals.

With this batch we are trying something different.  We won't be mixing these colors in batter, we are going to drop small amounts of the colorant (mixed in Safflower oil) right into the batter, then we will swirl it.

Because about 5 - 10 minutes had passed since we finished mixing this batter, it had become rather thick and stiff while we made the Baby Powder batch.

After I stirred in the Kai FO it loosened up a little, but it is still pretty thick.

We started by layering about 1/3 of the batter in the mold.

Then began carefully dropping colorant, we started with pink, then added the purple.

Finishing the first layer with the green.

We spoon (no pouring at this point, batter is way too thick) another layer of non colored batter into the mold, then smooth it into all the corners.

And once again we drib and drab the colors onto the top of the batter in a random manner.

At this point we had noticed a bit of ricing going on with the batter, it wasn't horrible so we just chugged along, grabbing the hanger swirl tool and swirling away.

We have no idea what this will look like, but we're hopeful that it will be pretty.

Once we finished swirling, the batter looked a little strange.

We added the remaining non colored batter, once again smoothing it to cover the top of the swirled batter completely.

A few final dribs of color....

And I lightly swirled the top colors, trying not to stick the skewer too far into the batter.

And here is the finished Kai swirl.

I put both soaps into the curing box and will cut them tomorrow.

Alas, when tomorrow arrived the soap was still a bit soft, so we waited until Thursday.

 Finally! Below is the finished soap starting with Baby Powder

No Butterflies in this bar, just a pretty swirl.

We know that more than likely the white background on this soap will discolor somewhat due to the 2% vanilla in this FO.  We added TD to try and keep it as white as possible.  If we can remember we will take a picture of the soap in 6 weeks when it's fully cured and add it to this post.

Now on to the cut Kai

Again, just a pretty swirl, and delightful smell.

The finished Kai bars. We should have no discoloration with this batch as there is just a touch of vanilla.

These soaps will be cured and ready to go on March 10.