September Challenge- Ribbon Pour

[Sonya-m]

1. AMD - I miss doing challenges
2. penelopejane - I'll give it a whirl.
3. Rusti - I should have time this month
4. dibbles - I've been wanting to try this
5. TeresaT - I'll make time for it this month (if it's not hot & humid again ).
6. IrishLass - I'll give it a swirl.
7. Guspuppy - School is in, vacations are over, work is slow. Time to soap!
8. BattleGnome - many ideas, so little time
9. carlyjones - see if I can't make some time for this one!! IrisLass you beat me to that one...
10. Mx6inpenn - yay! I finally can do a challenge!
11. Misschief - let's try this again
12. TheDragonGirl - I dont think I understand how to take the pictures though
13. Brewer George - I'll give it a shot
14. kchaystack - All my supplies are still packed. Maybe this will give me motivation to tackle that chore.
15. earlene - I will be home in a few days to give this a try; my first attempt a couple months ago was just practice.
16. Judiraz- Love this look. Can't wait to try. Three day weekend!!!
17. doriettefarm - So many possibilities with this technique . . . off to pick a striking color combo and well-behaved FO!
18. SunWolf - Hmmm...hopefully I have some well behaved FO to use.
19. Sonya-m - I WILL soap this month!! It's been 8 weeks since I last soaped!!!

 

[doriettefarm]

Doriette, believe it or not, that soap and the one directly underneath it (Not the one off to the right) were made with the exact same colors in the exact same proportions but they look utterly different. The soap in the video that has the white blobby chunks in it is the third of those soaps, made with the exact same colors in the exact same proportions but the white thickened like crazy.

Anyhow, if my memory serves, that one was poured with the white bowl that has the distinct but wider lip. It looks to me like I poured more of each color at a time so the bands of color were wider as well. That soap was made with a Moroccan Fig blend and I had to hand stir it because it's a mover. The trace was medium but not quite a heavy as the one beneath it; that one had the soap coming out of the spout (the skinny spout) holding it's shape. It was thicker in trace than the blue/yellow/white/black one I showed which poured out but was heavy cream-like but not so thick it was coming out completely formed. I let the soap come out and ribbon itself so I was not moving the bowl fast back and forth but just letting the soap form itself as I moved slowly. Think cake batter. It's hard to describe some of these things!

PJ, if you want any help calculating a batch size, I'm happy to help. I would need to know the dimensions of your mold and how thick you want the bars, or you can use the formula of:

L x W x D x 0.4= the amount of oils (oils, not oils plus lye water) needed for the batch.

Doriette, like this but you'd move the bowl more to let that pattern form over the whole of the mold, instead of letting it pile up in one spot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwBSaFdMTPU

Thanks for the additional info newbie but I do have one last question about your pic#4. How did you load the bowl with colors? In addition to the wider ribbons, it almost looks like the colors were loaded in bands horizontal to the spout position instead of vertically like you showed in the videos.

 

[carlyjones]

I'm think we've had a couple of cross posts and have lost guspuppy and carlyjones from the sign up list. I've tried slotting them in where they signed up but my phone is not playing. Could someone on a computer add them back in please?

Thanks

 

[Guspuppy]

Yes thanks from me too!

 

[snappyllama]

1. AMD - I miss doing challenges
2. penelopejane - I'll give it a whirl.
3. Rusti - I should have time this month
4. dibbles - I've been wanting to try this
5. TeresaT - I'll make time for it this month (if it's not hot & humid again ).
6. IrishLass - I'll give it a swirl.
7. Guspuppy - School is in, vacations are over, work is slow. Time to soap!
8. BattleGnome - many ideas, so little time
9. carlyjones - see if I can't make some time for this one!! IrisLass you beat me to that one...
10. Mx6inpenn - yay! I finally can do a challenge!
11. Misschief - let's try this again
12. TheDragonGirl - I dont think I understand how to take the pictures though
13. Brewer George - I'll give it a shot
14. kchaystack - All my supplies are still packed. Maybe this will give me motivation to tackle that chore.
15. earlene - I will be home in a few days to give this a try; my first attempt a couple months ago was just practice.
16. Judiraz- Love this look. Can't wait to try. Three day weekend!!!
17. doriettefarm - So many possibilities with this technique . . . off to pick a striking color combo and well-behaved FO!
18. SunWolf - Hmmm...hopefully I have some well behaved FO to use.
19. Sonya-m - I WILL soap this month!! It's been 8 weeks since I last soaped!!!
20. Snappyllama - This will be the inaugural soap of my new soaping room! I'm with Sonya in soaping withdrawal!

 

[BattleGnome]

Thanks for the additional info newbie but I do have one last question about your pic#4. How did you load the bowl with colors? In addition to the wider ribbons, it almost looks like the colors were loaded in bands horizontal to the spout position instead of vertically like you showed in the videos.

That's how mine look right now. I used a 20oz disposable cup and the colors pooled on the bottom. There was a lot of layering with my bands and part of it came out looking more Clyde slide than ribbon.

 

[Guspuppy]

I amazingly found a long-spouted pouring cup at Goodwill today for $2! I'm excited to get to try this now!!

 

[newbie]

For pic #4, I loaded the bowl with the bands in parallel with the spout but it's not a perfect thing. Because of the curvature in the bands, there will be a bit of layering and mixing but also I use taller thinner containers so the colors do end up layering, not just going into one line after the other. I think you can see in the loading the bowl video that the colors start stacking somewhat.

If you load the bowl with lines perpendicular to the spout, you get a different effect, more feathering, (and yes, it could look more Clyde Slide-y) and you don't get the long stripes of colors. I've done that; I don't think I saved the picture but it's very different.

I was looking at the picture and I think the effect you mean is caused by the stacking effect. The way the colors come out is going to change throughout the pour, some of which you can see in the pouring video when I pour the first two passes of the blue/yellow/white/black one- the very start of the video. Even the black and white pour changes a lot from thicker bands of white to very thin and that's because of the curvature of the lines and because the loaded colors will start sitting on top of the lower ones (the layering or stacking effect for lack of better terms.)

BattleGnome, are you loading by pouring just small amounts of colors down the sides? If you pour enough to cover the bottom of the cup with even a full layer, all that will come out at the end and give you little variability. You could try pouring very small amounts of your colors down the wall so that there is just a quarter of the bottom colored with the first pour and use about the same amount for each color until you can see it's starting to sit over the lower batter. Then see if you get a better effect. If you are pouring from a height, the batter is pretty thin, or you see your pour dropping through the prior poured soap, the striping won't be nearly as obvious. This is one technique that you need trace for. Too thin doesn't work well.

 

[CTAnton]

21. CTAnton....the heat and humidity has abated..time to get soaping!

 

[BattleGnome]

I did load the cup more than I should have and ended up drop swirling a bit on my pour (I only had my t&s mold clean so I poured over a base). I'm still waiting to cut though ainced I used a lot of oo for the slow trace

 

[Sonya-m]

Oh dear! I've just made my ugliest soap to date! Bad colour choices and a bit too much stick blending has resulted in this!!



2 months off soaping, this wasn't what I was hoping for to get me back in the game!!

 

[Sonya-m]

I don't plan on it for this soap but can our entry pic be of a bar that's been cut in half? Say I did a double thickness batch in my slab then cut each bar in half?

And can we pick if we enter the top or bottom?

 

[TeriDk]

Sept soap challenge

Not sure how to sign up but I'll give this one a go.

 

[earlene]

1. AMD - I miss doing challenges
2. penelopejane - I'll give it a whirl.
3. Rusti - I should have time this month
4. dibbles - I've been wanting to try this
5. TeresaT - I'll make time for it this month (if it's not hot & humid again ).
6. IrishLass - I'll give it a swirl.
7. Guspuppy - School is in, vacations are over, work is slow. Time to soap!
8. BattleGnome - many ideas, so little time
9. carlyjones - see if I can't make some time for this one!! IrisLass you beat me to that one...
10. Mx6inpenn - yay! I finally can do a challenge!
11. Misschief - let's try this again
12. TheDragonGirl - I dont think I understand how to take the pictures though
13. Brewer George - I'll give it a shot
14. kchaystack - All my supplies are still packed. Maybe this will give me motivation to tackle that chore.
15. earlene - I will be home in a few days to give this a try; my first attempt a couple months ago was just practice.
16. Judiraz- Love this look. Can't wait to try. Three day weekend!!!
17. doriettefarm - So many possibilities with this technique . . . off to pick a striking color combo and well-behaved FO!
18. SunWolf - Hmmm...hopefully I have some well behaved FO to use.
19. Sonya-m - I WILL soap this month!! It's been 8 weeks since I last soaped!!!
20. Snappyllama - This will be the inaugural soap of my new soaping room! I'm with Sonya in soaping withdrawal!
21. CTAnton....the heat and humidity has abated..time to get soaping!

Not sure how to sign up but I'll give this one a go.

Copy the above and add yourself as number 22.

 

[TeriDk]

1. AMD - I miss doing challenges
2. penelopejane - I'll give it a whirl.
3. Rusti - I should have time this month
4. dibbles - I've been wanting to try this
5. TeresaT - I'll make time for it this month (if it's not hot & humid again ).
6. IrishLass - I'll give it a swirl.
7. Guspuppy - School is in, vacations are over, work is slow. Time to soap!
8. BattleGnome - many ideas, so little time
9. carlyjones - see if I can't make some time for this one!! IrisLass you beat me to that one...
10. Mx6inpenn - yay! I finally can do a challenge!
11. Misschief - let's try this again
12. TheDragonGirl - I dont think I understand how to take the pictures though
13. Brewer George - I'll give it a shot
14. kchaystack - All my supplies are still packed. Maybe this will give me motivation to tackle that chore.
15. earlene - I will be home in a few days to give this a try; my first attempt a couple months ago was just practice.
16. Judiraz- Love this look. Can't wait to try. Three day weekend!!!
17. doriettefarm - So many possibilities with this technique . . . off to pick a striking color combo and well-behaved FO!
18. SunWolf - Hmmm...hopefully I have some well behaved FO to use.
19. Sonya-m - I WILL soap this month!! It's been 8 weeks since I last soaped!!!
20. Snappyllama - This will be the inaugural soap of my new soaping room! I'm with Sonya in soaping withdrawal!
21. CTAnton....the heat and humidity has abated..time to get soaping!
22. TeriDk - I tried it when I first saw the video so will give this another try.

 

[BrewerGeorge]

Big fail today. I layered everything in the pouring vessel correctly, but when I went to pour into the molds, everything just mixed together. I think the trace was too soft. I used my long-worktime variant, and it was too soft to keep its color variations. I hope to try again in a couple days.

 

[newbie]

I have made some extremely dreadful soaps with this technique because of color choices. What might work just fine with a different swirl can look really unattractive with this pour. If you have a thicker trace, it can work better to move move slowly while pouring it out, to the let the stream fold more, which it looks like you did, Sonya.

Yes, if you pour a double thickness bar, you can cut horizontally and present any of the faces.

BG, sounds like you found your problem! Too thin and it all blends together. I hope your next go is more successful.

 

[Guspuppy]

Boy I could not have done more things wrong!
1) new FO, for which I didn't bother to look up reviews. (Yuzu Cybilla- bottle said behaves well, and after-the-fact looking at the reviews on Brambleberry say the same, but I think it MAY have accelerated just a hint)
2) wanted more salt bars which as everyone knows set up like lightning anyway.
3) stick blended the colors to mix, which caused them to set up right in the cup, I barely got them plopped into the mold.
Well, this soap won't be my entry, obviously, but I like the colors together and I LOVE the smell of the Yuzu, I hope it comes through the cure ok! AND, regardless of appearance, I have my salt bars. :mrgreen:

 

[newbie]

Interesting! I have never tried this with salt bars and not sure how the graininess from the salt would alter the pour, if at all.

 

[Guspuppy]

Well during pouring (I did try to do the technique at first!) I could definitely see the grains, so I suppose it would have widened the ribbons. I'm going to cut them in a few hours and will post a pic if it came out at all interesting.

Also, I forgot I made a pie for a picnic I'm going to later and had set it on the hearth in the living room to be out of the way of soaping. Luckily my dog does not go for people food because I forgot all about it when I let him back in the house! lol