New Soap Design

Christmas Wreath Soap

For two months I have had a vision for this soap design rolling through my head.  For two months I have put off making this soap for fear it wouldn't turn out as I had envisioned.  This past weekend I decided it was now...or never and took the plunge.  

I started mixing the green and exclaimed, "I need to add more green it's not dark enough".  This, after extremely loud and vocal complaining and frustration of ugly blue poop color in the Sunset Dreams soap and my daughter pops up and says..."wait, let me see it before you add any more."  After her agreeing with me  that it needed more color, I proceeded.

My vision and trying to explain it to my daughter were not one and the same.  She clearly didn't see how it was going to look, but in my mind I knew what it was going to look like and proceeded.  She left me alone so I could proceed.  When I was finished I brought the mold over for her to see and finally she understood what I was trying to achieve.

Soap log

Much to my delight, this one did indeed turn out better than I had ever dreamed or imagined.  Two tones of green swirled with white that actually looks more ivory ...even better!  Soap curls added lending just enough splash of color but not too aggressively overpowering...just enough.

And this one is now my most favorite soap design created to date.

September Soap Challenge

Citrus Sunrise & Sunset Dreams 

This month I am participating in another soap challenge hosted by Amy Warden of Great Cake Soapworks. This month the challenge presented was to create a soap using a gradient technique using three colors next to each other in the color wheel.

Citrus Sunrise

Citrus Sunrise was created with the use of neon pigments (pink, orange, and yellow) and I used too much pink and not enough orange to get the effect I was needing in the end result.   The colors didn't have a very defined gradient look in the end result, but it was fun working with the technique and basically tabled the challenge for this month because of time.  Between the extras with school starting up, I am pretty well spent the first couple weeks until all of the extra catering jobs and Open House is wrapped up.

This past weekend, however, I had a renewed and refreshed outlook and decided Citrus Sunrise really needed a companion and I created a custom scent blend that would suit a soap called Sunset Dreams.

Sunset Dreams

Sunset Dreams was created with the use of many different micas (blue, pink, orange).  I was so disappointed when the pink portion morphed into a darker shade of orange.  My daughter heard every minute of my frustration.  Even worse, when I mixed the larger portion of pink into the blue, it turned a horrible shade of blue (it wasn't even remotely pretty...I think my exact wording was...looks like ugly blue poop :/ ).  Plodding on, I continued the process and tucked the soap into bed for the night.

Tonight when I got home from work I was delighted to see the pink was no longer orange, and most of the blue wasn't as bad.  The horrible shade of blue is still just as ugly as it looked yesterday, but it is masked by the beauty of the other colors so my eyes aren't focusing solely on the appearance of that one layer of blue.

I had so much fun creating these soaps and learned a lot.  Thankfully neither batter accelerated on me, and if nothing else, I accomplished what I started out to do and I didn't give up after the first try.