Confetti Soap Ideas

[KiwiMoose]

Hi all! @Jersey Girl and I have been talking about confetti soaps recently so thought this might be a good idea to start a thread for posting pics of your confetti soaps so that others can get ideas and inspiration.
I'll kick off with a few of my past efforts:
The first two were made because i had a lot of shavings and offcuts I needed to use up from being a newbie.
The third one was because I had a scent fade in a batch and didn't want to waste it, so I made it into this which smells divine. The last one was a failed 'rim soap' challenge, so i cut it into chunks and made this 'kaleidoscope' soap.
These days, I may very well just pick through some old bars where i have one left, or one that's not very popular, and just grate them up especially for confetti soap.
Others - please post your confetti pics here too so that newbies can get some ideas of what to do.

 

[sarahmarah]

Those are gorgeous

 

[dibbles]

I don't make many confetti soaps, but here are a couple. The first is the first time I used confetti, the second is soap cut into little pieces from a chevron-attempt-gone-wrong, rather than using shreds.

 

[KiwiMoose]

oh they are both lovely @dibbles!

 

[dibbles]

oh they are both lovely @dibbles!

Thank you - this thread is timely for me. I have a bucket of shreds that I need to address.

 

[MarnieSoapien]

I was just thinking about making a batch of confetti soap today! I have a FO that is supposed to be a heavy accelerator and I thought it would make a good base for confetti. And I have a lot of shavings I always love looking at your and @dibbles soaps.

 

[Primrose]

I don't do confetti soaps often, but this is one I make regularly. The scent discolours dark brown, so I intentionally make a small thin slab of unscented white/pink/purple to cut into slivers and drop in

 

[Jersey Girl]

Wow! I love them all! Heres what I’ve made so far. So many scraps so lots more to come! This is a great thread to help inspire design ideas! Thanks for starting it @KiwiMoose

 

[Todd Ziegler]

KiwiMoose please stop making my soap look so bad, compared to yours. Lol hahaha. Just kidding, I get so many great ideas and inspiration from your pictures. You can literally see the passion in your soaps.

 

[lucycat]

I sometimes like shreds for the texture. I spritz the confetti with water and let it soften for about 30 minutes. Then add to my oils and stickblend before adding lye and proceeding. The confetti doesn't fully dissolve but some does and I liked the textured effect.

 

[TashaBird]

I’ve been looking forward to this thread! I haven’t made a confetti soap yet. But, I use a bar from each of my batches when they’re done curing, and I don’t go through them fast enough. So, I’m accumulating quite the stash. Rewatching hadn’t got my interest yet, but this has! Now I’m looking forward to using them!

 

[TashaBird]

Is there anything I need to do to the confetti or shreds or shavings before mixing them into the batter, or pouring batter over them?

 

[Quilter99755]

I have a confetti question: If I no longer like the soap (it makes my skin itch if used regularly) does that come through the other soap? I got rid of OO due to itching but have dozens of bars that I could add into my lard soaps (40-70% lard). Do the shreds come through as a lot or just a bit of the actual soap? Maybe I should ask how much shreds do you add to say a pound of soap? Do you stir in before you pour into the mold or sprinkle layers as you are pouring?

 

[KiwiMoose]

@Quilter99755 and @TashaBird - I would advise that you mix them through the batter thoroughly before pouring your soap to avoid air pockets around the confetti. If you look at my very first confetti soap ( top left, black and white base) you will see an air pocket in the bottom left soap. This is because i poured the black, then added the confetti and 'mashed' it in the mold, I then poured the white, added the confetti and 'mashed' that on top. Also - make sure there are no clumps of confetti as this will have the same effect.
I'm not sure about the using of soap that you don't like - you will of course have a much weaker concentration of said soap, so you mind find it more tolerable. I tend to use about 80% new batter to 20% confetti.

 

[lucycat]

I think you would need to try and see if it is an issue. As a proportion the shreds are not that much and the shreds will have all of your oils. So, it would depend on how sensitive you are.

In the Grey slate bar my normal recipe uses 1225 oils for a log. For this I used 75g of shreds and 1164g of oil. Where I want the shreds to be more noticeable I use up to 250g of shreds in a log.

If you have a large amount of shreds it can be hard to incorporate into the batter and easy to have air pockets. So, I would probably suggest the first time to try using about 100g of shreds for the log. I like to resize my recipe so that I know the amount that will fill my mold completely. I think most people just add shreds to their regular recipe and then plan on an extra amount of batter to pour into an individual mold. There isn't a right or wrong so try and then revise to what you like.

 

[KiwiMoose]

I think you would need to try and see if it is an issue. As a proportion the shreds are not that much and the shreds will have all of your oils. So, it would depend on how sensitive you are.

In the Grey slate bar my normal recipe uses 1225 oils for a log. For this I used 75g of shreds and 1164g of oil. Where I want the shreds to be more noticeable I use up to 250g of shreds in a log.

If you have a large amount of shreds it can be hard to incorporate into the batter and easy to have air pockets. So, I would probably suggest the first time to try using about 100g of shreds for the log. I like to resize my recipe so that I know the amount that will fill my mold completely. I think most people just add shreds to their regular recipe and then plan on an extra amount of batter to pour into an individual mold. There isn't a right or wrong so try and then revise to what you like.

Yes - I just make an 800g recipe instead of a 1kg one. Then chuck in the confetti. I'm not a measurer

 

[lucycat]

No real rules on how to use the confetti. Adding them as is right before pour is a good look. Adding them to the oils before adding lye means you will stick blend them smaller which means it is easier to use more. That is what I do for my garden soap since I want to use as many as possible to reduce my bevel/end stash. Spritzing them water softens them which I like to do when they are old.

 

[Jersey Girl]

Is there anything I need to do to the confetti or shreds or shavings before mixing them into the batter, or pouring batter over them?

I don’t usually do anything to them before mixing in my batter. I think some people may spritz them with s small amount of distilled water but I havent done this.

 

[bookreader451]

These are a couple I have done. One is chunks from trying to cut straight bars from a slab. The other is crumbled soap curls from planing soap

 

[Quilter99755]

Thanks everyone! I also love the looks of the chunks, so maybe the next time I make soap I will divide it into two parts...one for some chunks and another for the confetti. Then I can decide if either of them are workable with my skin. And if not, they will probably work with one or the other of my daughters. First I have to get the bars reduced to tiny bits...that might take a bit. LOL