Decision time, we never figured it would be this hard!

#Butterflyswirl #makingatoughchoice #greatcakessoapchallenge

Friday, January 23, 2015

Today we were supposed to quickly pick a Butterfly Swirl entry for the Great Cakes Soap Challenge. Who knew it would be so hard!  We never got around to making any soap today because between cutting, steaming, and trying to match the perfect "butterfly" the day was gone.

The following pictures show you some of the journey we took today. It was fun but frustrating at the same time because we had hoped to have many, many more choices.  As it turned out maybe it was better this way because if we'd had many more choices we probably would have wound up splitting a bottle of wine while we whined!

So here is how we picked our entry....

To begin with we spread ALL 165 bars of soap out on the counter.

Wow, it didn't seem like this much when we had it stacked in the curing room.
This is a lot of soap!
If you could only smell them...

We signed up for the Challenge on January 7th and began making soap that day.  Unfortunately we discovered that only soaps made on or after the 12th (the official "start"day) are eligible!  So the first three batches shown above were out of the running. 

We started with Angel Wings, we liked this one.....

And this one, but eliminated it because there aren't enough swirls in the blue part.

We moved on to Litsea Cubeba EO mixed with Calabrian Bergamot and Violet FO, and found three combinations that classify as "maybies"

In the meantime we had looked at the Soap Challenge entries that were already posted and realized people were putting 4 bars together to achieve their butterflies.  This gave us more options, but didn't help much in the long run.

The soaps shown above are scented with Sweet Orange Chili Pepper FO, and as you can see putting 4 together didn't work out too well.

These are the 3 possibilities from this batch.

This batch is made with Lavender and Litsea Cubeba EO's, as you can see we were trying the 4 corner approach again, didn't work out.

This would have been great if there had been a center, we loved the "wings" in all four bars, but couldn't quite make it work.

We tried several senarios, no luck.

Same configuration as above only flipped over,  which didn't help.

Now on to another EO Litsea Cubeba and Peppermint (it's amazing!). We had several "maybe" combinations, but they looked more like a moth than a butterfly.

One configuration, 

Same one flipped over.

We came away from the Litsea Cubeba with three possibles.

This is another batch made with EO's - Lemongrass & Orange Valencia.

Unfortunately there weren't any combinations in this batch that made the final cut, a shame as it smells great and looks so nice.

We won't start with the Rorschach descriptions this time, just use your imagination!

The four pictures above are of the Rosemary Orange EO soap we made yesterday.

We tried to get a good butterfly, we really did, but all we came up with were some very strange looking owls.

Now we will get tough and start narrowing it down drastically (Alison has to leave in 1/2 hour)

Chopping block, stay go, which ones.....

And after all that it's down to three.

Then one.....

Here is our Butterfly!

Hope you see it, we do.

This is it, the deadline try at the Butterfly Swirl

#butterflyswirl #coldprocesssoap #ourlastbatchbeforethedeadline

Thursday, January 22, 2015

So this is it, the last Butterfly Swirl we will make for the soap challenge.  Next we have to choose which one to send in, and quite honestly, we don't think we hit a home run butterfly on any of the soaps.  That's not to say they aren't great looking soap because they definitely are great looking (a little bragging never hurts), and they all smell wonderful. The issue is the perception of a butterfly..... not so much.

Today I got started before Alison got here. The plan (and you know what they say about plans) was for my batch (CP butterfly swirl) of soap to be almost finished when she arrived.  While I cleaned up she could begin a HP batch of lanolin/goats milk soap.  And of course it didn't work quite as planned. While Alison was combining the goats milk recipe with the lanolin recipe our computers decided to take a break and not communicate with the printer.  After trying every imaginable fix, Alison decided that time wasn't on her side and the lanolin/goats milk soap would be made tomorrow.

So without further ado here is briefly what the making of the last butterfly swirl looked like.

I am duplicating one of our popular scent combinations.  The last Rosemary/Orange soap had goats milk in it, but this batch doesn't.

The EO's are from +Lebermuth Co and smell fresh and clean.

Not so much color today. I knew the orange EO will tint the batter a light yellow, so I decided to use +Rustic Escentuals Aborigine Amber (stems of the rosemary plant) for a brown color,  and from +Bramble Berry I will use the Green Chrome and TD.

This is the Orange EO; the aroma makes me feel like I'm in the middle of an orange grove!

The Rosemary EO is clear, no color.

Here are the colors mixed with a few teaspoons of oil. I will add the batter to them then pour colored batter into the base soap batter.

Above you can see how dark the Orange EO is just after I added it to the mixture.

Once the batter has emulsified it reaches a pretty light yellow color.

I poured about a cup of batter into each measuring cup and stirred well to mix the colors off the bottom.

First I added a good bit (about 2/3) of the base batter, colored only with the orange EO to the mold.

Then I poured colors in, alternating them several times.

Once I had the majority of the colors in, I used our Hanger Swirl tool and swirled the soap.

The photo above is what the soap batter looked like after I had finished swirling.

Next I spooned all the remaining base (colored only with Orange EO) batter over the soap in the mold.  After that I dribbled the remaining colors on top, starting with Chrome Green.

Aborigine Amber is next.

Finally I added the remaining white batter and was ready for the fun part.

After I piled all the colors on top, I swirled. This is such fun because I never know quite what will happen.

We let the soap will cure for 24 hours before we cut it. We wondered, will we have a butterfly? We had no idea about the butterfly, but we knew we would have a great smelling soap.

We apologize for the quality of the following pictures. Today was a rainy, gloomy day here in NE Georgia, and we had to snap the pictures in the kitchen, obviously the lighting wasn't so hot.

Unfortunately none of the following were even remotely close to a butterfly, but all is not lost. We have a really pretty batch of Orange Rosemary soap that smells fantastic!

Mermaids, coming to the surface of a brown ocean.

Looks like said Mermaids are having a bad hair day. Love their tails though.

This is an older Mermaid; she's having a bad hair day as well, plus her scales are all white and wrinkly.

Finally we are off Mermaids, but we're not sure what this is, maybe a giant green Grouper headed into the opposite corners of the soap.

Oh, this is easy, a reappearing theme. This is an old Grouper, you can tell by the wrinkles and white scales; he looks determined though.

If these were reversed, it would be a cat with white ears, but it's not reversed so, no clue.

Some kind of prehistoric raptor bird. Alas, he's old, you can tell by the wrinkles and the white feathers!

Now the square-headed seals are getting into the act back at the brown ocean. Guess they are following the Mermaid and Grouper's lead.

All I can see is 2 (really old) Woody Woodpeckers both going for a white blob at the end of their beaks.

And here are 2 (really young) Woodpeckers, you can tell because their feathers aren't as white as old Woody's are above.

A baby Woodpecker??

I know, we're getting desperate!

No more Woodpeckers, now I see a green rooster with a brown comb

(under the brown ocean for some dumb reason)

Here is the first cousin of the Rooster above, this is Glam Chicken, unfortunately her shoes don't match, one is beige the other brown.

We are the fashion police!

Same picture as above only now it's an owl with different colored eyes. Aren't we having fun?

Kind of easy - green Peacock with no head.

Gosh, looks like we're back at the edge of the brown ocean again; I'm going with a Porpoise getting ready to jump out of the water.

It's a stretch, I know...... 

And last (thankfully) a little green and brown bitty (baby chick) trying to peck his brother!

The end.

Again, sorry for quality of pictures, we hope you have enjoyed our Butterfly Swirl trials and tribulations.

This Orange Rosemary soap will be cured and available on March 5