SMF June 2020 Un-Challenge - Half & Half

[msunnerstood]

Holy carp! This is HP??!!!! It's stunning. and so smooth. I'm in love and a tiny bit jealous of your HP skills. (OK alot jealous.)

Thank you! Its me being stubborn. I hate when people call HP Rustic so I have to prove them wrong.

 

[KimR]

My 1/2 & 1/2: Goat Milk base with Vibrant Grape mica & BrambleBerry FO. Used a divider and attempted ITPS of opposite colors on each side. Pretty but not 100% fruition of my thought process.

Working on my photography and soap finishing. Any advice? How do you get your soap pretty and shiny? Definitely need help on the pictures!

 

[dibbles]

@KimR I think you were successful with the ITP swirls. Love the purple! Your picture is nice, but since you asked...the best advice I ever got is to keep it simple. Choose a plain background and keep the soap the star of the photo. You can add interest with texture or some color. If adding a prop, keep it small. A good example is the little duckie msunnerstood used to add a little color. Maybe use one plant instead of two. Think ‘less is more’.

 

[amd]

My half and half entry. This is made with half aloe vera juice and half water (not intentional for the challenge that's just how I do my avj soaps), NG Eucalyptus Spearmint FO, and I colored one half with charcoal and the other with french green clay. I use twice as much clay (1 tbsp poo) as charcoal (1/2 tbsp poo), and I think I could have used a bit more, or added just a bit of a dark green mica but I wanted to keep the colors natural. The green is very white tone in person, so I will be surprised if it doesn't turn white as it ages. Anyways, I kept it simple and poured the green first, layered the black on top and swiped my hanger tool down, over, up, over, down, over and up, to create simple curves in the soap.

 

[msunnerstood]

View attachment 46901
My half and half entry. This is made with half aloe vera juice and half water (not intentional for the challenge that's just how I do my avj soaps), NG Eucalyptus Spearmint FO, and I colored one half with charcoal and the other with french green clay. I use twice as much clay (1 tbsp poo) as charcoal (1/2 tbsp poo), and I think I could have used a bit more, or added just a bit of a dark green mica but I wanted to keep the colors natural. The green is very white tone in person, so I will be surprised if it doesn't turn white as it ages. Anyways, I kept it simple and poured the green first, layered the black on top and swiped my hanger tool down, over, up, over, down, over and up, to create simple curves in the soap.

Beautiful! I love your swirls and very cool soap stamp!

 

[dibbles]

Elegantly beautiful @amd

 

[Jersey Girl]

These did not turn out as envisioned. I’ve had a very rough couple weeks with some health issues and life in general so my head has not been in the soaping game as fully as it needs to be when making soap.
I wanted to do opposite colored swirls. I used Koi mica from MM and TD for color. Half Grapefruit from NG and half Satsuma Orange from NS I may try again when things calm down around here.

 

[Mobjack Bay]

These did not turn out as envisioned. I’ve had a very rough couple weeks with some health issues and life in general so my head has not been in the soaping game as fully as it needs to be when making soap.
I wanted to do opposite colored swirls. I used Koi mica from MM and TD for color. Half Grapefruit from NG and half Satsuma Orange from NS I may try again when things calm down around here.View attachment 46917

I hope you start feeling better soon. I love the way you reversed the color scheme/pattern and the fragrance choices sound wonderful together and compliment the color scheme for the soap.

 

[Jersey Girl]

@msunnerstood

I hope you start feeling better soon. I love the way you reversed the color scheme/pattern and the fragrance choices sound wonderful together and compliment the color scheme for the soap.

Thank you @Mobjack Bay I appreciate it. I’ve had two visits to the ER in the last two weeks. Non stop heart palpitations. They are blaming stress but that’s what they do when you are a 50+ year old woman. Write it off as anxiety...but I know something isn’t right.

 

[Mobjack Bay]

Thank you @Mobjack Bay I appreciate it. I’ve had two visits to the ER in the last two weeks. Non stop heart palpitations. They are blaming stress but that’s what they do when you are a 50+ year old woman. Write it off as anxiety...but I know something isn’t right.

I sent you a private message.

 

[Mobjack Bay]

Only the middle soap from this one meets the rules, unless I count the entire loaf as a “soap,” but I had other goals in mind when I was making this batch. My cousin in Arizona has been asking for AC soap for months, but I didn’t want to make an entire batch until I did a test batch. I also wanted to test a new FO for acceleration and discoloration. So I did half and half and just poured from opposite ends of my NEW Nurture TS mold. The soap from the middle smells very interesting .

p.s. I think I will need to adjust my oil weight up a little for this mold. I went with some pre-weighed oils I had ready for my other mold and the soaps look a little shorter than the 3.5“ height I was aiming for.

 

[msunnerstood]

Only the middle soap from this one meets the rules, unless I count the entire loaf as a “soap,” but I had other goals in mind when I was making this batch. My cousin in Arizona has been asking for AC soap for months, but I didn’t want to make an entire batch until I did a test batch. I also wanted to test a new FO for acceleration and discoloration. So I did half and half and just poured from opposite ends of my NEW Nurture TS mold. The soap from the middle smells very interesting .

View attachment 46933
View attachment 46934

I love the way the loaf looks and your bars turned out beautifully

 

[Mobjack Bay]

I love the way the loaf looks and your bars turned out beautifully

Thank you. The next time I do black and white I’m going to try something like what you did, which looks very cool. (And amazing HP, too!)

 

[StarChild]

Only the middle soap from this one meets the rules, unless I count the entire loaf as a “soap,” but I had other goals in mind when I was making this batch. My cousin in Arizona has been asking for AC soap for months, but I didn’t want to make an entire batch until I did a test batch. I also wanted to test a new FO for acceleration and discoloration. So I did half and half and just poured from opposite ends of my NEW Nurture TS mold. The soap from the middle smells very interesting .

View attachment 46933
View attachment 46934

p.s. I think I will need to adjust my oil weight up a little for this mold. I went with some pre-weighed oils I had ready for my other mold and the soaps look a little shorter than the 3.5“ height I was aiming for.

Classy!

 

[dibbles]

@Jersey Girl Great design idea, and the soap turned out beautifully. I'm sorry you haven't been feeling well, and hope things improve soon.

 

[dibbles]

@Mobjack Bay That's one nice looking soap loaf!

 

[szaza]

@Jersey Girl I hope you'll feel better soon.. your soap looks amazing though

 

[Jersey Girl]

@Jersey Girl Great design idea, and the soap turned out beautifully. I'm sorry you haven't been feeling well, and hope things improve soon.

Thank you.

 

[Jersey Girl]

@Jersey Girl I hope you'll feel better soon.. your soap looks amazing though

Thank you.

 

[Jersey Girl]

Th

Only the middle soap from this one meets the rules, unless I count the entire loaf as a “soap,” but I had other goals in mind when I was making this batch. My cousin in Arizona has been asking for AC soap for months, but I didn’t want to make an entire batch until I did a test batch. I also wanted to test a new FO for acceleration and discoloration. So I did half and half and just poured from opposite ends of my NEW Nurture TS mold. The soap from the middle smells very interesting .

View attachment 46933
View attachment 46934

p.s. I think I will need to adjust my oil weight up a little for this mold. I went with some pre-weighed oils I had ready for my other mold and the soaps look a little shorter than the 3.5“ height I was aiming for.

I love how this looks. Really cool.