# Thanks agriffin for the tutorial!



## newbie (Dec 27, 2010)

I made two soaps today after seeing agrif's tutorial. I had tried this some months ago but it looked really crappy; I used turmeric and paprika to color the two sides and it was truly disappointing. After seeing the tutorial, I decided to try again- so thanks for bolstering my courage!

This is a single layer soap, so this will be the top. I also tried the loaf method with the hanger but it's just about to gel, so I'll see how it looks once I cut it tomorrow and will post some pics. This green one is scented with cool citrus basil.

Thanks again, Agriffin!

http://img12.imageshack.us/i/img2427s.jpg/


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## Traceyann (Dec 27, 2010)

WOW newbie, that looks fantastic.....well done , I am looking forward to seeing a side cut.....Definately going to try now


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## pixybratt (Dec 27, 2010)

cool colors I can't wait to try this too


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## Hazel (Dec 27, 2010)

I agree. It does look fantastic. You did a great job. You're going to have to change your username now.  

I really want to see your cut pics.


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## soapbuddy (Dec 27, 2010)

Good job!


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## agriffin (Dec 27, 2010)

That is beautiful!  The colors are amazing together!  You did great


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## Relle (Dec 28, 2010)

You did good, pretty, pretty, pretty.

Relle.


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## Jezzy (Dec 28, 2010)

That is beautiful.. Could you post a link to the tutorial? I would love to try that!


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## Jezzy (Dec 28, 2010)

Found it   :wink:


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## Bubbly Buddha (Dec 28, 2010)

Great job!  Please post some cut photos!


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## newbie (Dec 28, 2010)

Well, the loaf didn't come out as well as I would have liked. I put a piece of wax paper over it so I could cover it with blankets for gel. It marred the surface, but since that would be the side of the soap I wasn't that concerned about it. I thought the purple really sank in there but it only went 1/3-1/2 way down. My soap was still pretty thin- maybe I didn't pour from high enough- but there must be a way to get it all the way down, right about at the line between the two colors. I coat hangered (new verb) it prior to the purple, but it didn't mix as much as I'd like. I think if I threaded a straw onto the flat part of the hanger that mixes the soap, that part of the swirl would be more pronounced. Also, maybe the contrast isn't good enough between the green and the orange so the swirl I did get doesn't show as well. Not too bad for the first go and now, sigh, I have to go make more so I can try again. Scented with kumquat and pomegranate.

BTW, I have tried to change my moniker- I just stuck it in without much thought because I was a newbie to the forum- but it doesn't seem that I can. At least, I can't in "my profile". Oh well, I guess we're newbies to something forever, right?

http://img707.imageshack.us/i/img2431q.jpg/
http://img255.imageshack.us/i/img2433i.jpg/

PS. I did not put clavamox in my soap. One of my cats, Beetle Black, is on it currently and I had it out trying to sneakily get the pill out when he couldn't see me. He knows every time I have it.


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## soapbuddy (Dec 28, 2010)

newbie said:
			
		

> Well, the loaf didn't come out as well as I would have liked. I put a piece of wax paper over it so I could cover it with blankets for gel. It marred the surface, but since that would be the side of the soap I wasn't that concerned about it. I thought the purple really sank in there but it only went 1/3-1/2 way down. My soap was still pretty thin- maybe I didn't pour from high enough- but there must be a way to get it all the way down, right about at the line between the two colors. I coat hangered (new verb) it prior to the purple, but it didn't mix as much as I'd like. I think if I threaded a straw onto the flat part of the hanger that mixes the soap, that part of the swirl would be more pronounced. Also, maybe the contrast isn't good enough between the green and the orange so the swirl I did get doesn't show as well. Not too bad for the first go and now, sigh, I have to go make more so I can try again. Scented with kumquat and pomegranate.
> 
> BTW, I have tried to change my moniker- I just stuck it in without much thought because I was a newbie to the forum- but it doesn't seem that I can. At least, I can't in "my profile". Oh well, I guess we're newbies to something forever, right?
> 
> ...


I like the colors!


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## agriffin (Dec 28, 2010)

Those look nice!  

One thing I did on a batch to push the soap down to the bottom was attach a straw to the squeeze bottle - use tape.  Then start with the straw touching the bottom of the mold and squeeze as you run the length of the mold pulling upward.  (if that makes sense).

It actually worked really well.  But the color I squeezed in there totally faded and blended with the purple base color.   :cry:   I'll try it again one day but here are some pics of what I'm talking about. 















Also...on the messed up surface.  When you cut your bars into slices take a vegetable peeler and shave the surface off the top.  These were totally covered in ash on the top of the swirls.  I cut them to just wide enough so that my veg peeler would still shave the surface.  It worked perfectly and the color was beautiful underneath.


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## agriffin (Dec 28, 2010)

I think that's a good idea of putting a straw on the hanger.  I was trying to think of a way to make it thicker also.  I was going to ask my BF to rig me up a thicker dowel or something similar.


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## newbie (Dec 28, 2010)

Ah yes, I see exactly what you mean. When you did that, did you also have to pour some from the top or did the space created from pulling the straw through fill with that contrast color? I was also thinking of pulling a straw or dowel along the line between the two colors and following right behind it with a pour of the third color, but it requires fair coordination and I still am not sure the color would go all the way down. 

Having that third color go all the way down seems like a challenge. I think the thicker horizontal hanger part would make for pretty good swirls there. 

Agriffin, I saw one of your soaps while searching and it's from an old thread, which I read, but I can't visualize exactly what you did. Would you consider starting a new thread and re-explaining? Also, what colors did you use? It looks like a fiery red but it may be my monitor. Link is:

http://www.soapmakingforum.com/forum/vi ... 5f5536ec3e

The red, blue and green swirled one (the second) is to die for! Not that the others aren't, but that red one is my favorite.


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## soapbuddy (Dec 28, 2010)

What a great idea on the straw; thank you!


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## agriffin (Dec 28, 2010)

newbie said:
			
		

> Agriffin, I saw one of your soaps while searching and it's from an old thread, which I read, but I can't visualize exactly what you did. Would you consider starting a new thread and re-explaining? Also, what colors did you use? It looks like a fiery red but it may be my monitor. Link is:
> 
> http://www.soapmakingforum.com/forum/vi ... 5f5536ec3e
> 
> The red, blue and green swirled one (the second) is to die for! Not that the others aren't, but that red one is my favorite.



Hmmm...those are eucalypta's soaps.  I don't remember that thread!  Stunning soaps!


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## newbie (Dec 28, 2010)

Oops! Sorry I didn't give Eucalypta the credit right away! I read too fast, I think. 

Here's a picture of the device I rigged up to get a thicker horizontal swirl on the loaf mold. It's a wooden dowel (I know we're not supposed to use wood but I wanted to try the size once) with 16 gauge steel wire wrapped around it and then looped to make a handle. It's pretty stiff and I was able to pull it through the thick batter (see below), so it would surely work for the right texture batter really well. It's about the size of a McDonald's straw or maybe a bit larger.

http://img683.imageshack.us/i/img2435e.jpg

I just tried it but I am so ticked! I had everything ready to go and the batter was perfect until I added the FO- Peak's WIld Mountain Honey, which some reported no accel on and one person had slight accel on. My batter went from perfect to chunky cold gravy in about 15 seconds! I poured it anyway. I was trying something different for the center contrast color. Instead of one piece of cardboard to separate the colors, I put two in, lubed with some mineral oil (the cardboard absorbed it-I wanted to maker sure that small amount of batter didn't stick to the cardboard). After I poured the 2 sides, I opened the two pieces of cardboard a bit and injected my contrast color with a turkey baster between them until it was full, then pulled the two pieces. It looked like it worked fairly well, except that I hadn't added FO to the contrast color so it was still really fluid. I stuck the dowel thing in and swirled away and then tried to swirl the top but it was pretty messy and lumpy. Who knows what the heck it will look like? Will post some pics tomorrow. SIgh. Back to the drawing board.


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## agriffin (Dec 28, 2010)

That might come out the coolest soap we've ever seen!    

Post a pic when you can.


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## newbie (Dec 28, 2010)

Ha! Hard to imagine that, but I'm hopeful it won't be too bad. Sure smells good! That's an incredible honey smell.


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## Bubbles Galore (Dec 29, 2010)

That looks great.  :wink:


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## newbie (Dec 29, 2010)

Okay, I am going to humiliate myself with this picture. It is so nondescript, which would be fine if I were making a simple natural soap, but I was going for something completely ornate and wonderful and elegant- white on one side, golden yellow on the other with a streak of 24 carat gold down the middle. This is the one I did with the dowel. You are allowed to laugh out loud.

http://img80.imageshack.us/i/img2445e.jpg/

Now, people on this forum are pretty much unfailingly supportive, but seriously, if anyone says that it's really nice, I'll scream. There are times that it's okay to be honest and honestly, this is a bomb of a soap for a mantra swirl. Admit it.

However, to redeem myself, this is the other soap I did last night which came out like a mantra swirl is supposed to. I did a variation, with teal on one side, blue on the other, white in between and then a gold strip between the blue and the white and an orange strip between the teal and the white. So teal, orange, white, gold, blue in order from the bottom of the bar to the top. Some sort of effect like this is what I wanted the top bar to have, which will help you see why I said it's a bomb.

http://img691.imageshack.us/i/img2442w.jpg/


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## soapbuddy (Dec 29, 2010)

Oh well, I bet the first one still makes a good soap.
Very nice on the second one!


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## newbie (Dec 29, 2010)

I sure hope so! I have to get something from it. It's my first 75% CO soap so I'm eager to see how it is once cured.


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## Lynnz (Dec 30, 2010)

Newbie great thread, soap is so unpredictable at times.....especially when it comes to colour :0) thanks for sharing. Wild Mountain Honey sounds so yum!!!!


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## newbie (Dec 30, 2010)

Amazingly enough, I asked two people to smell the honey soap because I think it's an incredibly accurate honey smell. I didn't tell them what it was and they both said "lilac". What?


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## Hazel (Dec 30, 2010)

Isn't it funny how people can smell something and describe the fragrance as a different scent? I had one woman who described Vanilla Bean Noel as marshmallow.

I think your second soap is gorgeous and I'm sure your first soap will...umm...get you clean.


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