A Hard Day's Night and Seaside Dreaming
I've been longing to create a beach themed soap since last summer. I've been wanting to try making a hot process soap. And I've wanted to explore different packaging for a spring craft show in May. Soooo, I thought I could accomplish these 3 items simultaneously through this challenge. Welcome to April 2017 Soap Challenge Club!
"Rustic soap" on a rustic beach...mmmm, plain sand and water and shells... close my eyes...smell the salt spray, listen to the ocean ebb and flow...calm simplicity. I had my idea, now I needed time to soap. Work was too busy; I was too tired. Thought I would have time Easter weekend, but I was too sick, flu (not fun). No time Monday or Tuesday after work, but maybe Wednesday :)
I was home from work at 7pm and started prepping for my first hot process soap. Excited, I grabbed my new tall & skinny wooden mold from Kiwi & Company and set upon lining it. That took a little time, since I've only used silicon molds in the past. Then I loaded the oils into my new soaping crockpot with removable crock (very helpful for cleaning), set it on low, and began the lye solution prep. It seemed to take forever for the oils to heat and the lye to cool. Finally at 115℉, I mixed the oils and lye until emulsified. I syphoned off a cup for some embeds for another soap. Then I continued stick blending until medium trace and dumped it into the crock, set it on low and made the embeds. Now onto mixing the colors for the sand layers: cranberry fiber and plain soap with Bamboo Mint fragrance oil from Bramble Berry for the bottom layer; gold and cappucino mica with Bamboo Mint FO from Bramble Berry for the middle layer; and celini blue mica and titanium dioxide with Green Smoothie FO from Bramble Berry for the top layer. Both fragrance oils were listed with acceleration tendencies in cold process so I thought it would be nice to see what happens in hot process.
The soap was still cooking happily away on low, so it was time to clean up a little. It was getting late, 10:30pm now and I checked on the soap, still not gelling...I read and re-read Molly's (Ridgeway Soap) tutorial on HP soaping, still no gel. I read the tutorial on swirling in HP soaps and the helpful tips. I became impatient and checked the temp with my thermometer stuck in the soap, 135℉. Time to switch to high heat!! It was 11:00pm...tick, tock; boy, I'm tired.
In a few minutes, I began to see gel on the side! Molly's warnings of volcanoes were stuck in my head. Another 15 minutes, everything was gellin'. Time to stir it up and distribute about 2 cups for the bottom layer. I mixed in the cranberry fiber and it started to turn green...uh oh, "Algae on the Beach" was not what I had in mind. I kept mixing, the fiber started to turn a dark brown, phewww! Added the fragrance oil after the soap cooled to about 150℉, mixed well and plopped and smashed it into the mold. Next I collected another 2 cups of hot soap mixture and mixed in gold and cappucino micas, a beautiful sandy color, then added the fragrance oil and plopped and smashed it into the mold. And finally I add my beautiful baby blue color mixed with green smoothie FO, which turned into a seafoam green, not quite as blue as I was going for, but truly representative of the aqua sea. Quite tired by now, I unceremoniously smashed the final layer into the mold, textured the top, then sprinkled the top with medium grain Pink Himalayan sea salt. I embedded the salt into the top with a skewer so it would stick on when the soap was hardened. I was very happy to go to bed, it was almost 1am...no more HP at night :)
The soap was ready to pull out of the mold in the morning before work. I made myself wait until after work to cut it. It was as I imagined and a nice clean smell as well. The packaging is minimal, I found some green gnarly jute from an old project, as well as, some raffia ribbon. The scrap paper was just the right shade, and I finished with some mini shells from our trip to Florida in 2004. The new mold performed well and made 16 - 1 inch bars with 2 end trimmings. I took them to work for the photo shoot on Friday, which is done in our appliance store sales area with decent lighting. I had several offers for the soaps already. I am really pleased with my 1st HP soap and can't wait to melt down my soap shavings for the next daytime soapy HP project!
"Rustic soap" on a rustic beach...mmmm, plain sand and water and shells... close my eyes...smell the salt spray, listen to the ocean ebb and flow...calm simplicity. I had my idea, now I needed time to soap. Work was too busy; I was too tired. Thought I would have time Easter weekend, but I was too sick, flu (not fun). No time Monday or Tuesday after work, but maybe Wednesday :)
I was home from work at 7pm and started prepping for my first hot process soap. Excited, I grabbed my new tall & skinny wooden mold from Kiwi & Company and set upon lining it. That took a little time, since I've only used silicon molds in the past. Then I loaded the oils into my new soaping crockpot with removable crock (very helpful for cleaning), set it on low, and began the lye solution prep. It seemed to take forever for the oils to heat and the lye to cool. Finally at 115℉, I mixed the oils and lye until emulsified. I syphoned off a cup for some embeds for another soap. Then I continued stick blending until medium trace and dumped it into the crock, set it on low and made the embeds. Now onto mixing the colors for the sand layers: cranberry fiber and plain soap with Bamboo Mint fragrance oil from Bramble Berry for the bottom layer; gold and cappucino mica with Bamboo Mint FO from Bramble Berry for the middle layer; and celini blue mica and titanium dioxide with Green Smoothie FO from Bramble Berry for the top layer. Both fragrance oils were listed with acceleration tendencies in cold process so I thought it would be nice to see what happens in hot process.
The soap was still cooking happily away on low, so it was time to clean up a little. It was getting late, 10:30pm now and I checked on the soap, still not gelling...I read and re-read Molly's (Ridgeway Soap) tutorial on HP soaping, still no gel. I read the tutorial on swirling in HP soaps and the helpful tips. I became impatient and checked the temp with my thermometer stuck in the soap, 135℉. Time to switch to high heat!! It was 11:00pm...tick, tock; boy, I'm tired.
In a few minutes, I began to see gel on the side! Molly's warnings of volcanoes were stuck in my head. Another 15 minutes, everything was gellin'. Time to stir it up and distribute about 2 cups for the bottom layer. I mixed in the cranberry fiber and it started to turn green...uh oh, "Algae on the Beach" was not what I had in mind. I kept mixing, the fiber started to turn a dark brown, phewww! Added the fragrance oil after the soap cooled to about 150℉, mixed well and plopped and smashed it into the mold. Next I collected another 2 cups of hot soap mixture and mixed in gold and cappucino micas, a beautiful sandy color, then added the fragrance oil and plopped and smashed it into the mold. And finally I add my beautiful baby blue color mixed with green smoothie FO, which turned into a seafoam green, not quite as blue as I was going for, but truly representative of the aqua sea. Quite tired by now, I unceremoniously smashed the final layer into the mold, textured the top, then sprinkled the top with medium grain Pink Himalayan sea salt. I embedded the salt into the top with a skewer so it would stick on when the soap was hardened. I was very happy to go to bed, it was almost 1am...no more HP at night :)
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