Time for some CP soap!
Two of these I showed a peek of in the January Challenge thread, but I made the ciaglia soap last night
Batch #18 - 6 Oil Blend with Red Stripe Beer
The first soap of the new year! I had some leftover beer that was burning a hole in my freezer from my
Red Stripe Soap that I decided to use up. Since I was making an embed soap, I figured the acceleration wouldn't hurt.
My lesson from this soap batch was next time I make a terrazzo soap (and I will!) I will use chunks that are a little bit older (aka planning ahead). They got a bit smeary while cutting them and it was a bit of a headache cleaning my knife off that frequently haha. Also to not second guess myself on color! I wanted the base shade to be darker but at the last moment I decided against adding another 1/4 tsp of black mica.
FO is WSP's Lavender Woods & Honey, the only lavender FO I can stand
Skipping Batch #19 for now, since that's my challenge entrant
Batch #20 - ZNSC (w/ 10% CO and 5% CAS) with Local Seawater
Another attempt at the January Challenge to see if I liked it better than my previous soap. I opted to finally try ZNSC since I knew it would be a well behaved recipe for a Taiwan swirl. I used a 16 oz recipe in my 10 inch mold to use it a little like a slab mold. I did cut one of the bars in half to see the pattern within, but I find the top of Taiwans so pretty
My lesson from this batch was I need to do another Taiwan swirl! I had such a good time with this recipe.
FO is Nurture Soap's Seven Isles. I don't hate it but I don't particularly like it either. My best descriptor for it is it's 8th & Ocean's grandfather. Well, at least it performed nicely and I got it on sale
Batch #21 - 6 Oil Blend with Heavy Cream
Ciaglia time! This soap was one that had quite a few firsts in it! I used a bit of Grapeseed Oil, as I've never tried that before. I kept it in a small amount since I know it has a lower shelf life. I also used some heavy cream, which I've had in my freezer for months now, as a partial replacement for my water. I added those to my oils. And my last first was I split my oils and lye solution into 6 parts to do layers. I was TERRIFIED to do this and read a zillion threads and watched a zillion videos before I was like Yes. I Can Do This.
FO is WSP's Goji Berry Bliss. Very fun smell. I added it directly to my oils since it was all getting divided up anyway.
Before I made this, I took my baggies of scraps and divided them all by color. Then, I weighed them to see which color I had the least amount of (Yellow! must make more yellow soaps) and then adjusted the other containers to have the same weight (putting the rest of the scraps back in the baggies). So every single layer of my rainbow has (mostly) its own color scraps inside
Super time consuming? Yes. Do I love these? Absolutely!
I was inspired by this lovely landscape:
