A Breath of Spring

#greenismyfavoritecolor #freshoutdoors #coldprocesssoap #DNA/Helixswirl #greatcakessoapworkssoapchallenge

Thursday, February 12, 2015

Today while Kathy is out birthday partying with her beautiful cheesecake, I am making a batch of soap and using the DNA/Helix swirl technique as challenged by Amy Warden with Great Cakes Soapworks  and her Soap Challenge Club.

I like for the colors in my soap design to "go with" the fragrance of the soap.  Probably weird since I don't really get stressed out if my lines are straight or my designs are exact.  I'm more of an abstract person - at least that's what I tell myself, but that could be to justify what I see as a lack of artistic talent.  But back to colors...

Green is and has always been my absolute favorite color, so I wanted to use shades of green for my design today.  What better fragrance to use with all green than Fresh Outdoors?  This fragrance oil is from +Natures Garden who says, "You'll smell the air, the grass, the dirt, and all of nature's beauty. This crisp fragrance creates a natural sensation. Breezy tones of fresh ozone and bright orange oil highlight a floral blend of jasmine and lily at the heart of the blend. Clean woody elements of cedar and pine balance with a hint of spice to accent the floral accord. A clear musk undertone envelops the outdoors sensation with shimmering sweetness."  

The blog is in video format today, so please enjoy.  If you just want to see the soap, scroll down and enjoy the final photos.  When you scroll down you can also see what the soap went through when the video camera wasn't rolling.

Thanks for reading and/or watching!

Following are a few shots of the soap just after I swirled it and just before I put it into the curing box (a large cardboard box that we put our soaps in for the first 24 hours).

Love the optical illusion here.  The surface is actually flat and smooth!

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Friday, February 13, 2015

From the look of my soap today, I can definitely attest to its being Friday the 13th.  Why can't soap-making just be simple?  I know...this is part of what makes it fun.  It really is. But, oh, that moment of panic when you think you've just wasted time and resources...

When Kathy opened the box to take the mold out, she could still feel some warmth from the soap.  She noticed something around the edge of the top of the soap that looked like oil or water.  So, I came running, worried that there was seepage or separation.  We took the soap from the mold and noticed that the freezer paper was wet on the bottom and sides, then we noticed that the soap looked like it was weeping.  Check out the following photos:

See?  It's crying, and I was about to be.

Here if you look closely, you can see that the freezer paper is wet close to the bottom edge of the soap, and you can see a few beads of moisture on the soap itself toward the bottom.

This photo shows exactly how wet the freezer paper was.  I was about a paper's width away from completely freaking out.

Again, see how wet the paper was?  It's never like this.

One more shot, just to please the evil Friday the 13th spirits.

This is a great close-up (if I do say so myself). You can clearly see the droplets on the end, and if you look closely, you can see a few toward the top edge on the longer side of the soap, too.

A little deep breathing to calm my soap anxiety followed by a lot of Google-ing.

After reading as much as I could find about weeping soap, I kept only coming across things that didn't seem to apply to my situation.  Things seemed to point to overheating, but most explanations involved soaps that had added sugars or honeys or were made with milks.  My soap had none of those ingredients.  GRRRR!!  I wanted to know what happened, how it happened, and WHY it happened.

Finally I came across a post by the Soap Queen.  It didn't directly address my questions, but as I read through the comments and replies, I came across what I think was the answer.  Wooden molds are great soap insulators, and they really help the soap to heat up as they go through the gel phase.  I also put the soap into the cardboard box then covered it with towels.  I was concerned with how watery my soap batter was so I wanted to be certain that it went through the chemical reactions and processed completely.  I wanted it to go through gel phase to be sure the colors would really pop because my research has indicated that gel phase really make a difference in that regard.  In my zeal to insulate, I think my soap got very hot.  Overnight the outdoor temperatures really dropped.  The room is heated, but not over 63 degrees at night, so there was a big contrast between the heat of the soap and the temperature in the air around it.  It seemed that we were seeing something like condensation on the soap!

We had taken the soap out of the wooden mold,  but while I was doing all of this reading I still had it wrapped up in the freezer paper and a towel.  When we took it out of the mold, we weren't sure what was going on and if it was separating we didn't want a mess everywhere, thus the towel.  With the condensation idea in mind, I removed the towel and the paper and found so many liquid droplets still on the outside of the soap.  I left it completely exposed to the air and after 10 minutes went back to check on it.  It was completely free of droplets once its temperature equalized with the air around it!

Whew! Yay!

After it cures for 6 weeks, we will perform a Ph test on it; we have a really beautiful soap that smells tremendous!!

See the photos below of the cut soap.

We put the soap that was left over into our silicone "bug" mold.  These made some really super cute soaps!

Fresh Outdoors will be ready after March 26.