Documenting my progress

[Tara_H]

Usually I take crappy random pictures with my phone but I was all inspired by @Mobjack Bay's backdrop thread to get the camera out and take some proper photos.

Not so artistic, I'm afraid! But a documentary-style warts-and-all picture of each soap so I can look back on my soaping journey

First, this is my studio setup

 

[Tara_H]

First solid soap! Uncoloured, unfragranced.



After I got bored of looking at this it was followed by my first rebatch!

 

[Tara_H]

Trying out alkanet for colouring. (Also trying out a different way of adding the picture, hope it doesn't do something mental!)

This marks the point where I got my hands on some micas! I tried my hand at a Taiwan swirl and failed spectacularly.

I was so disappointed with that one that I made another batch the same day and tried a drop swirl, I was much happier with this!

The remains and scrapings from those two batches got pressed in my bar press.

 

[lsg]

Great idea for photo shooting.

 

[Tara_H]

Great idea for photo shooting.

Thanks! I had to steal lamps from all over the house, and there were about 80 deleted photos before I got the camera settings right but I'm liking how they're coming out now

 

[Tara_H]

Inspired by

these trees are scented with a blend I call 'forest walk'. They were my first CPOP soap and I definitely overcooked them! There's a lot of tiny bubbles throughout which blur the design.

This was a slab poured spin swirl, and the start of my woes with batter being cold and lumpy... I despaired of this one at the time but it's grown on me a lot since. Colours inspired by dead sea landscapes, scented with a blend I call 'spice market'

 

[KimW]

Loving this. Gives me encouragement that I can make a simple photo box that works.
I'd say you nailed that tree design, btw!

 

[KimW]

ummmm - "Bar Press"? What is this magical tool of which you speak?

 

[Tara_H]

Loving this. Gives me encouragement that I can make a simple photo box that works.
I'd say you nailed that tree design, btw!

It was a very high-tech setup as you can see! The miracle of cardboard and hot glue...

ummmm - "Bar Press"? What is this magical tool of which you speak?

It's technically meant for food, I got two of these when I was trying to eat more healthy, to make granola bars and things like that...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B06XB77CSH?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

 

[KimW]

It was a very high-tech setup as you can see! The miracle of cardboard and hot glue...


It's technically meant for food, I got two of these when I was trying to eat more healthy, to make granola bars and things like that...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B06XB77CSH?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

Ohhh - I GOTS to get me one of those!

 

[Tara_H]

Next phase of soaps I started getting braver and formulating recipes from scratch using the calculator.

This one was made to be an extra luxurious bath soap for my mum, using Shea butter and cocoa butter. It's another attempt at a circling Taiwan swirl, still not quite correct but getting a lot closer!

And for myself a low cleansing gardener's soap for the days when I have to wash my hands about a million times. Includes a top layer of dried, used coffee grounds, for scrubbing.

I also discovered soap dough, and started getting interested in the Dutch pour challenge which was kicking off.

 

[Tara_H]

I made four versions of the Dutch pour soap, but I had a lot of trouble with it because the high tallow recipe that I use tends to set up very suddenly when it gets too cool, and it's plenty chilly around here. Two batches are still being worked on, but these are the ones that are 'finished'.

This has semi-transparent jellyfish made from very thinly rolled soap dough, and the pour was a transparent layer over the base, with mica in oil drizzled on and then blown with a straw.

This one was part of a monster batch, one foot on each side. It's the closest I got to executing an actual vision using this technique.

After all that messing around, and having got a real silicone mould for the first time, I made a batch of Zany's no slime Castile by way of a palate cleanser!

I used turmeric directly in the batter for the colouring, which I'm now slightly regretting since the small orange dots make me think of DOS...

 

[Tara_H]

The reason for wanting to make transparent soap in the first place:

And then while still in a crystalline humour I made these from the leftovers of that project and the soap dough pebbles.

Continuing the soap dough theme, I tried applying some polymer clay techniques and was happy with the results.

 

[KimW]

The reason for wanting to make transparent soap in the first place:
And then while still in a crystalline humour I made these from the leftovers of that project and the soap dough pebbles.
Continuing the soap dough theme, I tried applying some polymer clay techniques and was happy with the results.

YES!

 

[Corsara]

And then while still in a crystalline humour I made these from the leftovers of that project and the soap dough pebbles.

Somebody posted one of these yesterday(?), I think it was you, and it send me down a major youtube rabbit trail! But I can't find anything similar. What's the basic process behind making these? I'm so curious!

 

[Tara_H]

Somebody posted one of these yesterday(?), I think it was you, and it send me down a major youtube rabbit trail! But I can't find anything similar. What's the basic process behind making these? I'm so curious!

Well, it started out by trying to use up leftovers! I had a bunch of chopped up transparent soap from the purple crystals, and grey soap dough from the pebbles, and it struck me that they could be combined into a geode.

I got a bunch of reference pictures together and dug in. Basically I made rectangles of all the different layers I wanted, stacked them on top of each other, spread over the chopped up crystal bits, and rolled the whole thing into a sausage. When it was set enough I sliced it up. Then later on I added the rough edging; it's old soap dough in a few shades of grey chopped up in the food processor and stuck on by the handful.

The second ones I made were a lot better, rather than stacking all the layers at once, I wrapped them one at a time. This gave a lot more control and I didn't have all the joins in the same place. I also spritzed with alcohol in between to help them adhere. When the whole thing was done I squished it gently up and down the length, which helped the layers to stick, made the whole thing thinner and longer, and gave an interesting unevenness.

 

[Corsara]

Well, it started out by trying to use up leftovers! I had a bunch of chopped up transparent soap from the purple crystals, and grey soap dough from the pebbles, and it struck me that they could be combined into a geode.

I got a bunch of reference pictures together and dug in. Basically I made rectangles of all the different layers I wanted, stacked them on top of each other, spread over the chopped up crystal bits, and rolled the whole thing into a sausage. When it was set enough I sliced it up. Then later on I added the rough edging; it's old soap dough in a few shades of grey chopped up in the food processor and stuck on by the handful.

The second ones I made were a lot better, rather than stacking all the layers at once, I wrapped them one at a time. This gave a lot more control and I didn't have all the joins in the same place. I also spritzed with alcohol in between to help them adhere. When the whole thing was done I squished it gently up and down the length, which helped the layers to stick, made the whole thing thinner and longer, and gave an interesting unevenness.

Thank you so much for such a thorough reply, this is great info!!

 

[Tara_H]

I had a week off work around Paddy's Day, and it was a soap extravaganza!

First there was this pull through that wasn't:

I had high hopes for it, but the batter was freezing up in the straws I was using to pour through from the squeezy bottles, so the whole thing was a nightmare in the end. Lovely fruity smell though.

Then I got a delivery of a bunch of new stuff so I tried the pull through again. This one also was not successful but smells great. Scented with plum and rhubarb from Bomar.

For Paddy's Day itself I made this green Kryptonite soap by request.

It went through a couple of iterations before reaching its final form, but I think it does justice to the reference material:

 

[KimW]

The pull through that wasn't might be sad on the outside, but it's happy on the inside!

Still can't get over that green crystal soap, lady. That might be a soap I'd really have to talk myself into using!

 

[Tara_H]

The pull through that wasn't might be sad on the outside, but it's happy on the inside!

Still can't get over that green crystal soap, lady. That might be a soap I'd really have to talk myself into using!

If it's any consolation, the crystal parts are not at all sharp, in fact it was a lot of effort to try and make them look intimidating since they had a tendency to get rounded edges and go bendy if I wasn't careful!