July 2021 SMF Soap Un-Challenge - Confetti/Cubes

[Mobjack Bay]

I just spent 3(!) hours making a layered confetti soap. I was aiming for a sandy gold color in one of the layers, but what I ended up with is definitely darker than intended. In case I try for a beach sand color in another soap, can anyone suggest a good Nurture mica to use to get a light gold sand color? Looking at the NS website now (too late…) I can see that Sahara Gold, which is what I used, is darker than what I wanted.

 

[dibbles]

I haven't used honey blush, but I've seen others that say it works. I have used (sparingly) black walnut powder, and I have used a tich of Nurture's bronze brown. Use very sparingly - it gets too dark very easily. But those give a more tan sand color rather than gold, so I don't know if its what you want. I think I used both bronze mica and black walnut powder in this one.

 

[Mobjack Bay]

Thanks @dibbles and I love your beach soap!

 

[Mobjack Bay]

Confetti soap #1 for me. I’m calling it Interstitial.

The gold turned out better than expected. It’s a bit more orange than planned, but I think it works okay with the teal and blue. The confetti is from an almost soap on a stick batch that I made a few months ago with leftover batter from another soap. The round embeds were made from rehydrated confetti. I put it in a plastic bag, added some distilled water and let it sit/hydrate for a couple of weeks. I was inspired to try rehydrating the scraps after making my soap dough for last month’s challenge. It was on the sticky side, but moldable. I planned a weight of confetti for each layer in advance, but not everything goes as planned. I also have an issue with my countertop not being level that I forgot to correct for because it’s been so long since I made a layered soap.

 

[SPowers]

Confetti soap #1 for me. I’m calling it Interstitial.

The gold turned out better than expected. It’s a bit more orange than planned, but I think it works okay with the teal and blue. The confetti is from an almost soap on a stick batch that I made a few months ago with leftover batter from another soap. The round embeds were made from rehydrated confetti. I put it in a plastic bag, added some distilled water and let it sit/hydrate for a couple of weeks. I was inspired to try rehydrating the scraps after making my soap dough for last month’s challenge. It was on the sticky side, but moldable. I planned a weight of confetti for each layer in advance, but not everything goes as planned. I also have an issue with my countertop not being level that I forgot to correct for because it’s been so long since I made a layered soap.

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love that! I really like the idea of rehydrating some of the scraps for embeds.. what ratio of scraps to water did you use, if you don't mind me asking.

 

[Mobjack Bay]

love that! I really like the idea of rehydrating some of the scraps for embeds.. what ratio of scraps to water did you use, if you don't mind me asking.

Thank you! I really can’t say an exact amount of water. I put small cubes of confetti in the bag and added enough water to get it all wet, but not dripping wet. After it sat for a bit, I smooshed it around with my fingers through the bag, added more water and smooshed it around some more. The amount of water is going to depend on how dry the confetti is. If you add too much I imagine you can let some of it evaporate. The rehydrated soap was quite sticky when I made the balls, but the balls were not sticky the next day after leaving them out over night.

 

[Mobjack Bay]

Confetti #2 I want to call it Blah Blush but posting it because I learned a few things

It answers the following questions:

1. Did I use TD in the original soap? Yes, it sure looks like it, and I better start remembering to write it down! eta: actually, I did write it down. It was on the back of my worksheet… so, I almost have a comparison of TD vs white clay in this recipe, see #3.
2. What happens if I use soap made with indigo and madder teas as confetti? Will the colors stick? Yes! And the indigo colorant is actually a beautiful navy/admiral blue IRL, but I can‘t get it to show up that way in a photo.
3. Does kaolin clay at 1 tsp ppo help to whiten my whitest palm recipe? No, not really… This recipe is usually whiter on it’s own. It’s also possible that the mid-oleic sunflower I had to use in lieu of HO sunflower played some role in the color outcome.

The original soap was a OPW fail due to significant acceleration of the indigo colored batter. For that soap, I added concentrated colorant teas as water splits. The indigo was a bit darker than intended and the madder was a bit lighter, but I consider it a “proof of concept” success. One other thing I noticed, which seems counterintuitive, is that the indigo layer of the soap was a little softer than the madder layer when I was dicing it. Given the acceleration of the indigo soap, I would have expected the reverse, but maybe I was a little off in my water split calculations.

I’m hoping the base of the current soap will lighten up a bit as it cures.

edited a bit for clarity…

 

[SPowers]

Thank you! I really can’t say an exact amount of water. I put small cubes of confetti in the bag and added enough water to get it all wet, but not dripping wet. After it sat for a bit, I smooshed it around with my fingers through the bag, added more water and smooshed it around some more. The amount of water is going to depend on how dry the confetti is. If you add too much I imagine you can let some of it evaporate. The rehydrated soap was quite sticky when I made the balls, but the balls were not sticky the next day after leaving them out over night.

Thanks... I'm going to try this.

 

[VikingChick]

Sign up list:

1. Spowers - this is right up my alley - love 'unchallenges'!
2. KimW -awe man - With summer in full swing I was going to sit out July's, but can't resist a chance to lessen my load of soap shavings!
3. Phoenix - I have just the design in mind!
4. Tara_H - Confettipalooza!
5. Mrs. Z - I have a little confetti waiting for me too!
6. peachymoon - I recently got a bevler/planer and have been saving shavings for confetti. Perfect
7. The_Emerald_Chicken - Mine's already on the heating pad
8. Misschief - it's time I used up some of my odds and ends
9. bookreader451 - I was just thinking of making another soap curl drop swirl
10. Vicki C - Yes! Maybe I’ll attempt Tara Trees with all my scraps.
11. MarnieSoapien - I do love a good confetti soap!
12. glendam - perfect, have lots of scraps
13. MysPhoenix - yay! Now I will finally stop procrastinating on a confetti project I've been meaning to get around to for about a month now!!
14. ResolvableOwl - ConfettiConfettiConfettiConfetti, let's see how far we can nest soap recycling!
15. heartofnebraska - also been procrastinating a confetti soap!
16. Future_Ghost - this will be my first challenge here, and I need to use up some soap scraps so it feels perfect!
17. Mobjack Bay - I’ve gathered up the bits and pieces. Now all I need is an idea…
18. VikingChick - I tried one today. The colors are and i hope the rest of it worked (I may be looking at my first ever failed batch ). We’ll know in a day or two!

 

[Catscankim]

Confetti soap #1 for me. I’m calling it Interstitial.

The gold turned out better than expected. It’s a bit more orange than planned, but I think it works okay with the teal and blue. The confetti is from an almost soap on a stick batch that I made a few months ago with leftover batter from another soap. The round embeds were made from rehydrated confetti. I put it in a plastic bag, added some distilled water and let it sit/hydrate for a couple of weeks. I was inspired to try rehydrating the scraps after making my soap dough for last month’s challenge. It was on the sticky side, but moldable. I planned a weight of confetti for each layer in advance, but not everything goes as planned. I also have an issue with my countertop not being level that I forgot to correct for because it’s been so long since I made a layered soap.

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Love the colors!!!

 

[ResolvableOwl]

Heinz’ Special: Alternating Wall Pour



Actually a by-product (M&P scrap utilisation) of my primary project, this is based on M&P base I've made, according to the rules, 9 days ago (in July). It's a hard, pretty and clear base, still I decided to “ruin” it with shreds of a soap that is rich in red palm oil (orange-brown colour). I then decided it needs a somewhat more reddish hue, so I added tomato paste – which works pretty fine, except that, when molten, it looks and smells (?) like rosehip jam for some reason.

In lieu of “mica lines”, I sprinkled beans on top of the inclined soap surface, that I had previously shaped from soap dough – that itself is kind of confetti-ish, since it is made from moistened soap scraps. The size of the beans makes it difficult to see the alternating inclinations of the mould between pours; the triangular layers are better distinguished by the colour. It's a fun technique, I'll probably do it more often in the future, maybe with a beautiful hombré transition (I'm not so much a fan of the look of mica lines).

I have no idea why that M&P soap behaves differently at different pours. I literally just blitzed the hardening base in the microwave for a few seconds to melt it up again, besides evaporation no change in composition. Sometimes (like bottom and top layer) it becomes quite opaque; but at the middle pour, it is nearly fully transparent, hence it appears darker, and you can see the palm chips floating around in there.

You'll have guessed anyway, but this is dedicated to a fellow red palm oil user whom I'll not mention by name (we'll have to spare his nerves). Now I'll only need some toast …

 

[KimW]

Soap scraps from a failed lollipop swirl challenge, cut into triangles. I’ve been holding on to these, waiting to figure out what to do with them. Bottom layer has some grated soap “confetti.” And then a few strands of “confetti” near the top.
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I don’t know what to make of it, honestly. It was one of those “Let’s do this and see what comes of it.” I really like the triangles and using them gave me an idea for a fun soap design.

Sailboats!!

 

[VikingChick]

@ResolvableOwl i think it looks like a caramel and peanut candy bar!

 

[VikingChick]

This is a soap i made while going through scraps. My husband’s favorite soap is scented with orange, patchouli, and ylang ylang EOs. The original soap was kind of a camouflage pattern that was intended to be blue & white, but still being new I didn’t anticipate what orange EO would do to TD and indigo. It became gray-green and cream and it reminded me of his old uniform so I called it “camo.” I didn’t realize I’d planed them so much, but this weekend I thought, well, I’m in the spirit of confetti soap - and we both hate waste- so camo confetti soap was born! He doesn’t really care how pretty it is, only that he likes the smell and it gets him clean, so the main soap is just army green due to some leftover predispersed indigo I had on hand. I like how the curled scraps showed up in some of the bars!

Here’s my soap (not my “entry” as that’s still in the mold) along with the original soap:

 

[ResolvableOwl]

@VikingChick Both are great! I imagine that layering in the original pour to become even more impressive when the bar gets used up and reveals annual-ring like patterns all over. Its confetti descendant somehow reminds me of microscopic views of algae/plankton, or fossil plants.
These holes appear to be cavities from (more or less inadvertent) soap curls?

Regarding the baked beans soap: You might not be aware how this adds another level of escalation to what has happened in the thread Latest alternating wall pour . That said, peanut caramel is a a fine treat on itself. But there is little danger I'll make it in the next time (as a soap replica, at least), since I'd be ambitious to make it from a peanut oil-based soap – something that won't happen in the next few months due to self-imposed oil purchase limitations .

 

[VikingChick]

Regarding the baked beans soap: You might not be aware how this adds another level of escalation to what has happened in the thread Latest alternating wall pour .

I’m going to have to go back and look. I’ve missed a lot on here the last couple of weeks. Regardless, I like it!

Its confetti descendant somehow reminds me of microscopic views of algae/plankton, or fossil plants.
These holes appear to be cavities from (more or less inadvertent) soap curls?

This is what I see too! Thank you for verbalizing it.

 

[glendam]

@SPowers not sure if you tried it yet, but I once did some embeds with a similar process, I added 2 tsp of water to a handful of scraps and covered them with plastic, in retrospect @Mobjack Bay method of doing all in the bag seems better because they do become sticky.

something that worked better was to mix the scraps with soap dough, well, at least if you plan to make embeds with more details. I was making chameleons

 

[SPowers]

@SPowers not sure if you tried it yet, but I once did some embeds with a similar process, I added 2 tsp of water to a handful of scraps and covered them with plastic, in retrospect @Mobjack Bay method of doing all in the bag seems better because they do become sticky.

something that worked better was to mix the scraps with soap dough, well, at least if you plan to make embeds with more details. I was making chameleons

Thanks so much!

 

[The_Emerald_Chicken]

Finally I got around to taking pictures of my batch. This is scented with Amazon Lily & Rain from BB; I made use of the slight acceleration when doing my layers. (Sadly the line between the blue and orange got a little bumpy, plus some of those seemingly unavoidable glycerin rivers appeared.) This batch was inspired by this soap on Etsy and it contains some shavings from my March challenge soap

 

[Zing]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Not with the beans again??!! What is Heinz doing to you people??!!