Kudos in advance to everyone doing the Layer challenge. I tried my hand at a 6-layer Pride soap and have a new respect for the difficulty and patience it takes to get perfect layers. Good luck to all!
@JoyfulSudz thank you for sharing your experience! Because I experienced the same with a previous layers challenge, this month's challenge doesn't require any straight or perfect layers at all. Make any ole layers you want: slanted, asymmetrical, shaped, etc.Kudos in advance to everyone doing the Layer challenge. I tried my hand at a 6-layer Pride soap and have a new respect for the difficulty and patience it takes to get perfect layers. Good luck to all!
Much more my style!I probably should have named it Lackadaisical Layers.
Me, too!!!Much more my style!
I had the same experience last month, and finally stopped after my third try. Although I ended up with a lot of soap that isn't visually appealing to me, I have been astonished by friends and family grabbing it off my soap shelves - probably because they love the smell and don't care about how it looks. LOLI broke my "one and done" rule this weekend. The top of my first entry, that I made on Saturday, to quote my husband, looked like "vomit."
Licking my wounds (and pride), I decided to make a second "entry" yesterday. I rushed the process. In my haste, I weighed out the wrong fragrance oil!!! The bottles look identical. I'm usually such a careful soaper. But, like I said, I rushed the process and was frustrated from the get-go. I only realized my mistake when I poured the fo in the first two pitchers of soap batter and began incorporating the fragrance oil...and the trace thickened...!! The fo I intended to use never speeds up trace. As I puzzled this, my brain processed that I was NOT smelling what I was SUPPOSED to have been smelling. So the intended design, thanks to my error, went out the door and I had to improvise.
Grrr!! I will cut my second entry this afternoon. If that, too, is a failure, I either wash my hands of this challenge, and submit what I have, or give myself a few weeks to make another "entry" when I have had some time to regroup.
I have so much soap...I had the same experience last month, and finally stopped after my third try. Although I ended up with a lot of soap that isn't visually appealing to me, I have been astonished by friends and family grabbing it off my soap shelves - probably because they love the smell and don't care about how it looks. LOL
Anyway, I hope that your second soap is pleasing to you, or if not, that you get a chance to try again when you feel up for it!
OH, that is so me. When my shelves get full, I wrap them, put a generic all-purpose label on them, and take them to the local homeless shelter. My generic labels say:I have so much soap...
[Imaginary Audience]: How much soap do you have??
...I have so much soap that I could clean the Taj Mahal from top to bottom, inside and outside, and still have soap left over.
Kudos in advance to everyone doing the Layer challenge. I tried my hand at a 6-layer Pride soap and have a new respect for the difficulty and patience it takes to get perfect layers. Good luck to all!
Well played, @basti, well played!!I'm pretty sure all of my batches this month are going to be Ciaglia (including the challenge soap... I used 9 oz of scraps in that batch!) because I need to cut my scrap collection down I look away for 4 minutes and suddenly my scrap pile is full again. Howwwwwwwwwwww
On the bright side when it comes to a pride soap, if the layers aren't perfectly straight then it's a metaphorical design choice
Bhahahhaaa - totally Gene Rayburn, complete with the skinny microphone. I loved Match Game!I have so much soap...
[Imaginary Audience]: How much soap do you have??
...I have so much soap that I could clean the Taj Mahal from top to bottom, inside and outside, and still have soap left over.
Left turn here - maybe I’m beveling too early - how do you know when your soap is ready?I can relax the rest of the month and let it rest so it can harden up to prepare for planing and beveling.
It’s very much a tactile determination. Too soft and what should be a clean plane becomes more of a smear. Usually, I give my soaps a week before I’ve planned/beveled them after the cut. But it depends on your recipe. And if you’ve allowed them to gel or not. Or even your sf% and/or water:lye ratio.Left turn here - maybe I’m beveling too early - how do you know when your soap is ready?
I'm curious what's the difference between using a water lye ratio or lye concentration or percentage of oils when using a soap calc I still haven't figured this out yet.It’s very much a tactile determination. Too soft and what should be a clean plane becomes more of a smear. Usually, I give my soaps a week before I’ve planned/beveled them after the cut. But it depends on your recipe. And if you’ve allowed them to gel or not. Or even your sf% and/or water:lye ratio.
For the record, all of my soaps go through gel, my sf% is 2-4%, and my water:lye ratio is 1.8:1. All of these factors allow me to unmold and cut after 18 hours.
Water-lye ratio and lye concentration are the same thing, expressed two different ways. I use lye concentration bc it is one number with no colon, so it is easier for me to see, read and accurately record.I'm curious what's the difference between using a water lye ratio or lye concentration or percentage of oils when using a soap calc I still haven't figured this out yet.
No difference really. I just understand it better in terms of ratios.I'm curious what's the difference between using a water lye ratio or lye concentration or percentage of oils when using a soap calc I still haven't figured this out yet.
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