#BlueSoap #Terrazzo #SoapforMen
Monday, March 16, 2015
So, sometimes making soap gets complicated, things don't work exactly as planned, and you have to quickly create plan B. The blue soap shown in this post is a direct result of something that didn't go as planned, but more about that later.
We have been working on another Soap Challenge. This month a landscape soap with embeds is the challenge, and we are challenged. Please look at our "Landscape Design Challenge" blog entry to see what is the sister to the soaps in this blog.
We had to make all kinds of "things" for the "landscape" - grass, trees, leaves, rocks, dirt etc. for the soap and had plenty of bits left over. Our Terrazzo for Men is basically a batch of Old Faithful (coconut, palm, olive, & castor oils) mixed up with all the leftover bits and pieces of soap from the "landscape." The FO was the same one that was in the Landscape soap, Cool Water from Natures Garden.
We chopped up some of the leftover "grass" and "leaves" in the Cuisinart.
The soap pieces were still a little wet and had to be de-clumped.
Because the soap really was still pretty wet, we decided to just throw it all into the batter. We also included the brownish and green curls from the vegetable peeler.
The bits and pieces will give us enough color variety so we left the soap batter uncolored.
In go the green and brown curls.
Then all the little chunks of green and brown.
Oh yum, doesn't this look good?!
Thankfully it smelled great.
We gave it a thorough mix.
We plopped/poured half the batter into the mold.
(yes it is pretty thick)
Oh! We forgot to mention that we slammed it numerous times at this point - anti air bubble measure.
We stuck a few of the longer pieces into the soap and slammed it again, then we used the remaining batter to fill up the mold.
Then we slammed it again and again, (and again). We did NOT want air bubbles!
This is a close up of the soap; it reminds me of a green bean casserole!
Ready to go into the curing box for 24 hours.
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Tuesday, March 17, 2015 (Happy St. Patrick's Day)
We love this soap. It reminds us of the popular flooring in Florida called Terrazzo, which is what we will call this soap - Terrazzo for Men!
Now on to the Watery Blue part of this post....
The photo above is what the batter in the next picture was supposed to look like - loose and pourable. As you can see in the picture below, what we had was neither of those things - this created a big problem!
Obviously while we were working on the body of the landscape, the batter for the sky got way too thick, so we improvised. Alison mentioned that she'd read somewhere that you could add distilled water to thick soap batter and it would help.....why not try it!
We added water, then more, and more and before we knew it the soap began to separate. Seems we knew to add water, but not how much.
In an instant we decided to call it quits with the "sky" batter and quickly make another batch (that would pour).
We poured all the wet batter into our 10" silicone mold and set it aside. We had another 1/4 batch of soap to make STAT.
You can see the rest of the sky pouring in the "Landscape Design Challenge" post, but now for the rest of the Watery Blue (challenge).
We let the soap cure overnight. As soon as it slid out of the mold we could see the moisture on the sides and bottom. It wasn't dripping water, but it was clear that it was a damp bar.
My gloves were wet, in fact it was hard to hang on to the soap to cut it.
We proceeded because at this point what did we have to loose?
And actually, after all is said and done, it's quite a pretty little bar of soap, and it does smell great. (And, as of March 18, with another day of drying and curing, it is actually drying into a nice little bar of soap.)
So another thing to add to our ever growing list of "things we've learned":
Don't add too much water to a stiff batch of soap.
This batch of Watery Blue (and yes, that is what we are going to call it) will be cured on April 27th.
Watery Blue and Terrazzo for Men!
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