I’m jealous! I wish I could get them here. Also, I’ve looked at those mixing bowls but it says they aren’t microwaveable. Maybe you melt your hard fats separately or don’t use the microwave?
I’m jealous again! The Tesco ones look nifty too and again I don’t think I can get them here. Also, £0.70? That’s it! I’m moving to the British Isles or New Zealand
I don't use the microwave - I melt my hard oils in a pot on the stove. I got the 'gorilla grip' one from K Mart - which I'm pretty sure you have in the US?I’m jealous! I wish I could get them here. Also, I’ve looked at those mixing bowls but it says they aren’t microwaveable. Maybe you melt your hard fats separately or don’t use the microwave?
I’m jealous again! The Tesco ones look nifty too and again I don’t think I can get them here. Also, £0.70? That’s it! I’m moving to the UK.
But no pressure! 
.)
Many of them have gone out of business. They are few and far between. There are only 21 stores left in the US, and 3 of those are scheduled to close the end of this month/early June. Only 4 states have more than one store & only 2 other states have even 1 store left. All the others are gone. The last one near me closed 5 years ago. None of the ones I shopped at in California even exist anymore. I thought they had gone completely out of business already. I'm surprised they are still hanging on at all.
Wow, a removable handle! I wonder what that's going to be like. I await reports on your experience using that product!
Wow' most impressive on your creative ideas put into actions. About this deep frozen Butane Gas!! Which I know nada about' however Ü just kicked up "Soaping To A Whole New Level" Freezing Soap In A Nano Second Between Layers!!! Wow exciting. I'm gonna go out on a limb & guess your degree is in Chemistry of one form or another?.Photos finished, awaiting entry thread…
Let me share my shenanigans I came up with. First I had a flash of genius how to “circumvent” the at-least-three-colours rule: preparing two colours and not adding either all at once, but alternating for many layers (though only two pouring pots to clean afterwards). But since I don't want to risk trouble, I finally went with four individual colours (one split, so I have five layers that OPW-blend into each other).
I was really curious how the OPW swirl would look like when cut not perpendicularly. But in case it didn't look decent, I didn't want to put my single try on OPW to risk. So I came up with this principle:
View attachment 57375
A strange effect of the diagonal cutting is that the photographs look distorted, since our eyes are so used to interpret soap bars as cuboids, and would rather blame photographic optics for aberrations than question their prejudices towards right angles.
- OPW pour 1: Cast a OPW, but tilt upright quicker, and stop when the mould is only half full.
- Intermediate quench: Spritz some deep-frozen lighter fluid (butane gas) on top of the free surface. It'll cool the soap batter down, and create a layer of false trace (maybe even ice). This will hod the underlying OPW pour in place, when we tilt the mould again for a
- OPW pour 2, this time lifted at the short axis of the mould. The shock-frozen “floor” in between provides us with essentially another cuboid mould for this. (Unfortunately, my recipe was really prone to false trace, so that the second layer of my specimen is a lot thinner than the first, and much of the beautifully patterned batter stayed in the pot
- Diagonal cutting: Instead of the standard loaf cut (right angles everywhere), I chose about 70° of an angle for cutting, so that I cut through the OPW axis of pour 1 roughly perpendicular at 70°, but nearly parallel to the streaks (20°) through pour 2 swirl.
- Combining end pieces. The nearly triangular end pieces are not trash. I wetted the sides that were the perpendicular sides of the loaf with water and excess half-cured soap scraped from the mould, and “glued” them together to form another bar of soap of roughly the dimensions of the others.
And yes, it's not an accident that this cut pattern resembles my suggestion in the “hanger swirl” thread, that @soapmaker demonstrated that it not only is a theoretical idea, but turns into to be beautiful in reality!
Regarding OWP, the effect of cutting in a grazing angle is less impressive than it sounds. The patterns really look best in perpendicular cuts.
Thank you!Wow love them colors
I had #3 colors in separate containers' I then poured each color into "One Container' pouring dwn the side w/ each color poured in same location of first pour, one right after another. I Took Snapshot Of Bowl W/ All Three Colors' post pour. Then continued to complete The Main Pour In Soap Mold' sliding the bowl from side to side tell mold was full. ( I'd Forgot To Tilt Mold ) Post Pour Ugh. but turned out
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Hmm, I interpreted that to be a specific rule, otherwise I would have poured in different places also...
It is both a rule for the challenge and the way the OPW technique is done. That is why one of the entry photos requirements is that you have a pic of your soap in the "one pot".
Oh, Oh! I know this one!!
In The Pot Swirl.
Gold star for me!
Gold star for @KimW - In the Pot Swirl = ITPS.
LOL - I was just thinking of Vinny Barbarino the other day too!
KMart has shrunk considerably in the US, I thought they were completely defunct but I guess there are a few. @earlene gave you much more thorough info, looks like.
I did not see this part of the rules - I’m going to do one more effort so I’m glad I see it now! I had planned to pour the color I wanted to be on top at the back of my pouring container, and the one I wanted to be on the bottom at the front. Yikes. This changes my plan.
