Another try at a brine loaf

[Dawni]

And I deem this one loads more successful than the previous one hehe

Inspired by the henna and indigo soap by @Meena, I wanted to try my non-blue indigo, that's probably mixed with henna, and see what color it'll end up as.

I dumped a lot of salt in, filled the bottle with water and shook it every once in a while. I strained out any remaining salt that could not be "absorbed" by the water anymore after a day.

Lye ratio is 1.7:1 so let's see how ashy this still gets. My previous soleseife had a thick layer, about a millimeter (that I could scrape off with my nail, that thick), completely hiding whatever swirl I had underneath.

I stick blended until emulsion and separated some batter for the color and blended that until it thickened somewhat for applying on the silicone sheet, which went on the bottom of my loaf mold. I'm glad that part went well.

Upon hindsight I probably should have separated less, because the excess became too thick to do any swirls with by the time the white layer set a bit. So the last layers look weird, almost like cheetah spots lol

I am happy I was able to cut this before it hardened up completely like my previous attempt. What I'm not happy is how I can never measure and cut straight lol I probably need to save up for a miter box. Here's the whole loaf already cut.

And a close up, just because.

Thanks for reading!

 

[Clarice]

Dawni - this looks amazing! I LOVE that lace on the top / bottom

Can you tell me more about how you did that - and show the silicone sheet that you used? I don't understand how the color differential happened?

EDIT - Hang on - is the silicone sheet the pink thing above soap? I still don't understand how it yielded the different color in the soap itself. Also - where did you find the silicone sheet?

Thanks much! Clarice

 

[Appalasia]

And I deem this one loads more successful than the previous one hehe

Inspired by the henna and indigo soap by @Meena, I wanted to try my non-blue indigo, that's probably mixed with henna, and see what color it'll end up as.

I dumped a lot of salt in, filled the bottle with water and shook it every once in a while. I strained out any remaining salt that could not be "absorbed" by the water anymore after a day.

Lye ratio is 1.7:1 so let's see how ashy this still gets. My previous soleseife had a thick layer, about a millimeter (that I could scrape off with my nail, that thick), completely hiding whatever swirl I had underneath.

I stick blended until emulsion and separated some batter for the color and blended that until it thickened somewhat for applying on the silicone sheet, which went on the bottom of my loaf mold. I'm glad that part went well.View attachment 36996
Upon hindsight I probably should have separated less, because the excess became too thick to do any swirls with by the time the white layer set a bit. So the last layers look weird, almost like cheetah spots lol
View attachment 36998
I am happy I was able to cut this before it hardened up completely like my previous attempt. What I'm not happy is how I can never measure and cut straight lol I probably need to save up for a miter box. Here's the whole loaf already cut.
View attachment 36995
And a close up, just because.
View attachment 36997
Thanks for reading!

Wow, that looks amazing!

 

[Dawni]

@Clarice, thank you! I have some links for you!

This is the mat I used but bought locally. There's TONS of choices on Amazon alone, big n small, intricate and simple. Deep grooves or shallow like this one. I'm actually jealous lol some of the patterns I haven't seen here.

I got lucky with this one. I cut off the bottom part and it fits exactly on the bottom (and sideways too) of that 1,200 gram silicone loaf mold with the wooden box. I should make my cuts neater though..

And I should clean it too lol. I hate cleaning up after CP haha

The batter I used in this was thickened up from stick blending coz when I tried at medium trace it was just too thin and kept coming off with the spatula. Imagine spreading a chunk of butter on toast, and then scraping off the excess with your knife.

The rest is normal procedure I guess.

Not sure if that came through clear, so I paused typing and looked for more links with pictures lol. This is the one that inspired this soap, and here's one in german, and one by Soap Queen.

Thank you @Appalasia!

 

[Clarice]

WOW - v cool -

So to be sure I understand:

You took a bit of your soap, colored it, then spread it on your silicone mat - like spreading butter on toast.

Then, you put this in the bottom of your mold, and poured the rest of your batter over it, and it looks like you also did some texturing / coloring to the soap at the top of the mold?

Did I get it right? Thanks for the link to Aunty Clara =- cool stuff there!

Your soap is really pretty!

 

[Dawni]

Yep, that's right!

You'll read in all those links about the consistency of the soap that has to be spread. And I think it was Soap Queen who made two different batches.

The problem with the way I did it is, I had too much of the thick darker color, so when it was time to use it on the top to swirl it was almost impossible so it got glopped on.

Thanks again, and I hope to see your version some time

 

[Clarice]

I especially think it is cool that your stencil did not go the full width of your mold - so you ALSO got that depth to the soap - Today I am working on cream soap, so it may be a bit before i get to this.

Five batches under my belt and I swear every single one of these dogs has its own personality. GRRRR

 

[Dawni]

I especially think it is cool that your stencil did not go the full width of your mold - so you ALSO got that depth to the soap - Today I am working on cream soap, so it may be a bit before i get to this.

Five batches under my belt and I swear every single one of these dogs has its own personality. GRRRR

I did my spreading separately, on top of paper, then transfered the silicone into the mold. Because of the cut, if I had done it their way I'd have darker soap on the bottom of the silicone loaf mold as well.

And oh, that bit was inspired by this, another page by the same German site above, and slightly modified. I saw the soap on Instagram and hunted for her website to see how she did it hehe..

 

[penelopejane]

Dawnii,
Great job!
Did you put salt in all the recipe water with the method you described?

 

[Dawni]

Dawnii,
Great job!
Did you put salt in all the recipe water with the method you described?

Thank you!

All the water used had salt but I can't say how much, sorry. Upon hindsight I should have measured but I didn't think to at the moment.

I just dumped a handful of salt, like maybe 1/4 of the bottle and filled it with water. After a day (about 16hrs I think) some salt stayed at the bottom even after intermittent shaking so I strained that out and figured this should be saturated enough.

I was worried the water wouldn't dissolve anymore but I still was able to add rice powder and coconut milk powder, about 2tsp each.

So I'm now not sure if the water was saturated with salt but can still hold other stuff, or the water just needed more time n shaking for the remaining salt (about a tablespoon) to dissolve.

Hope that helps?

 

[penelopejane]

I think it will be fine.

 

[SaltedFig]

That looks amazing Dawni!

I really like the colour you achieved with the combination of the dye and the salt ... it's beautiful

 

[midnightsoaper]

I love it! I think I need to go shopping for silicone mats

 

[KristaY]

Very cool effect Dawnii! I have a couple of silicone lace type mats I haven't tried yet. This makes me want to fire them up!

 

[Paulie]

Looks great! Love the lace you did with the mat.

 

[Dawni]

Thanks all!

 

[szaza]

Beautiful! I love the honey-gold color you got! And maybe after Tiger stripe and Leopard spots cheetah soap will be the next big thing[emoji6]