SMF October 2021 challenge - butterfly hanger swirl

[earlene]

This is ALL FAKE NEWS!!!! I have only replaced mere 96% of the oils in the recipe, yet my soap is already 24 hours overdue right now – still far enough away from decent hardness that unmoulding is still way out of question. I've hidden my actual batch so that I don't constantly touch and squeeze it to test if it's hardened up yet.

What lye concentration did you use and what SF? Was your Faux Seawater made exactly as directed? And did you soap as warm as directed?

I used [38% Lye] and 0% SF. My Faux Seawater may have been shy or heavy on the salt & the Sodium Bicarb, though, because I did not have a Tablespoon (per se) with me, so had to guestimate. The heat and extra SBing helped speed trace, so I expect gel to be quicker than usual. Still, it will CPOP in the trunk of my car tomorrow if the sun shines brightly while I drive. So I am optimistic about the early cutting possibilities. But, we shall see.

 

[Peachy Clean Soap]

What lye concentration did you use and what SF? Was your Faux Seawater made exactly as directed? And did you soap as warm as directed?

I used [38% Lye] and 0% SF. My Faux Seawater may have been shy or heavy on the salt & the Sodium Bicarb, though, because I did not have a Tablespoon (per se) with me, so had to guestimate. The heat and extra SBing helped speed trace, so I expect gel to be quicker than usual. Still, it will CPOP in the trunk of my car tomorrow if the sun shines brightly while I drive. So I am optimistic about the early cutting possibilities. But, we shall see.

Update: .

 

[Primrose]

The October entry thread is now open

https://www.soapmakingforum.com/thr...ge-entry-thread-butterfly-hanger-swirl.85802/

 

[ResolvableOwl]

Just successfully unmoulded my first leftover batter soaplet/hardness canary (some 58 hours after pouring). It went out of the mould without troubles, and was easy to cut. Non-zappy. The slight horseradish smell is still present, but it doesn't seem to stick to skin. And it already gives off some remarkable lather for its young age. Guess who will dare unmould the BS loaf tonight!

The soap is not soft/sticky like when it hasn't fully gone through saponification. Rather it has a gummy/stiff gel/flexible texture that is somewhat reminiscent of silicone rubber or hot-glue sticks. I blame the erucic acid; this is in fact quite similar to my abyssinia soap (that still feels this way after half a year).

ETA:
@earlene I took the liberty to move the ZNSC-specific discussion into a new thread.

 

[Peachy Clean Soap]

View attachment 61935
Just successfully unmoulded my first leftover batter soaplet/hardness canary (some 58 hours after pouring). It went out of the mould without troubles, and was easy to cut. Non-zappy. The slight horseradish smell is still present, but it doesn't seem to stick to skin. And it already gives off some remarkable lather for its young age. Guess who will dare unmould the BS loaf tonight!

The soap is not soft/sticky like when it hasn't fully gone through saponification. Rather it has a gummy/stiff gel/flexible texture that is somewhat reminiscent of silicone rubber or hot-glue sticks. I blame the erucic acid; this is in fact quite similar to my abyssinia soap (that still feels this way after half a year).

ETA:
@earlene I took the liberty to move the ZNSC-specific discussion into the ZNSC thread.

I love your butterfly & swirl very pretty.

 

[Orebma]

The soaps are still WAY too soft to even think of trying to unmold the test bars from the leftover batter. Meanwhile I have plenty of time to collect the wisdom of SMF and the WWW about mustard soap:

• Mustard oil soap | @Nanditasr mentions 10-20% in Indian recipes, no updates from @Adi5 and @LiLiSoapz
• mustard seed oil | Consensus was more or less that the chances of mustard oil to be too irritant aren't worth the risk for soap (though, there seems to be some confusion between the fatty and the essential oil of mustard). @Fragola wasn't quite as skeptical – no updates though.
• mustard oil? | Optimistic feedback from @Sauboon at 25% and @minaldoshi at 30%: yet nothing for the impatient! No follow-up from OP @soapsydaisy.
• Mustard or Mustard Oil? | Mustard Oil & Sesame Oil | Can I swap for Camelina? | Dutch style Beldi | Some, not unnecessarily specific, hints. Mentions of beldi soap, which makes some sense when you consider mustard as a type of/close botanical relative to “coleseed”.
• What did YOU do today? | @earlene did NOT buy a bottle of mustard oil “for external use only”.
• Soapee Next | Soapee database entry (with a seemingly worrying FA total of 45%) | SAPONIFICATION CALCULATOR - HANDCRAFTED SOAP MAKING calls it “INCI: brassica nigra seed oil”, mentions a very similar K-SAP of 0.175, as well as a erucic acid content of 42.30% | PlantFAdb: Brassica nigra - Black Mustard largely agrees (also for brassica juncea/alba species). I myself do have a bit of experience with high-erucic oils (via abyssinia oil bar soap, as well as LS that I haven't added to LS dilution test series yet), so I'm optimistic that it'll move somewhere … just a matter of patience.

Although my skillbase in in Maori Medicine - I did use Mustard Oil in a salve. (Pain relief / warming). My issue - and those who used it - was never about skin irritation but rather the smell

 

[Cat&Oak]

I thought I might post the other two butterfly swirls I didn't enter The first one is a wild and crazy butterfly and the second was an idea I had for a dark background.

 

[ResolvableOwl]

Sign up sheet:

1. The_Phoenix - What could go wrong?
2. Peachy Clean Soap
3. dibbles - the elusive butterfly...
4. ScentimentallyYours - Lepidoptera
5. earlene
6. The_Emerald_Chicken - 'Tis in the mold already!
7. Jersey Girl- My very favorite design!
8. Vicki C. Love this.
9. SideDoorSoaps - I'm heading to make this soap NOW!
10. Catscankim - probably going to be unscented lol
11. Cerelife
12. SoapDaddy70
13. Violets2217- 2 birds one stone… Christmas soap, new design, new fragrance….what could go wrong!?!?!
14. melonpan - going to try and do my first challenge here on the forum!
15. linne1gi -I hope I’m not too late, I have been away visiting my son and baby grandson.
16. Cat&Oak- also my first challenge on the forum let's see how this goes!
17. ResolvableOwl - Major design outtake, but I'll submit it anyway, lol.
18.

 

[Mobjack Bay]

Those are some awesome soaps in the entry thread!

 

[Orebma]

I thought I might post the other two butterfly swirls I didn't enter The first one is a wild and crazy butterfly and the second was an idea I had for a dark background.

Just so darn beautiful!

 

[Cat&Oak]

Just so darn beautiful!

Thank you so much! ❤

 

[Peachy Clean Soap]

I thought I might post the other two butterfly swirls I didn't enter The first one is a wild and crazy butterfly and the second was an idea I had for a dark background.

Beautiful

 

[ResolvableOwl]

With my submission, I had intended to honour this fuzzy dude, with beautiful iridescent wings to disguise between blackberry leaves! But, as already pointed out, I would have done him injustice if I had claimed my actual swirl to portrait him (or any other real butterfly/moth, in fact).

Most butterflies have very different inner and outer wing colouration, and so it was a natural aim for ambition to make a bar of soap that has two different BSs on its sides. So I mixed six colours in total (base, two greens, two browns, and another brown for the outer contour), and poured the green (for the ventral wing side) and the brown (for the dorsal wing side) separately over half of the mould each.

Technically, this operation was successful (I placed it in front of a mirror, so that you can see both sides at the same time):


Compare to the Callophrys rubi specimens:

Concept: works fine. Colours: okay. Shape: meh.

After filling the mould half with base batter, the streaks of colour batter decided to flow sideways instead of fusing into the ovoid blob I would have needed for adequate hanger swirl manipulation. Further praticing needed, thicker trace needed, possibly a thicker hanger wire would help too. It all looked so easy in my drawings!


In the end, the lazy spoon swirl pucks from the leftover batters again stole the show from the actual butterfly swirl:

 

[The_Emerald_Chicken]

With my submission, I had intended to honour this fuzzy dude, with beautiful iridescent wings to disguise between blackberry leaves! But, as already pointed out, I would have done him injustice if I had claimed my actual swirl to portrait him (or any other real butterfly/moth, in fact).

Most butterflies have very different inner and outer wing colouration, and so it was a natural aim for ambition to make a bar of soap that has two different BSs on its sides. So I mixed six colours in total (base, two greens, two browns, and another brown for the outer contour), and poured the green (for the ventral wing side) and the brown (for the dorsal wing side) separately over half of the mould each.

Technically, this operation was successful (I placed it in front of a mirror, so that you can see both sides at the same time):
View attachment 62007

Compare to the Callophrys rubi specimens:

Concept: works fine. Colours: okay. Shape: meh.

After filling the mould half with base batter, the streaks of colour batter decided to flow sideways instead of fusing into the ovoid blob I would have needed for adequate hanger swirl manipulation. Further praticing needed, thicker trace needed, possibly a thicker hanger wire would help too. It all looked so easy in my drawings!
View attachment 62008

In the end, the lazy spoon swirl pucks from the leftover batters again stole the show from the actual butterfly swirl:
View attachment 62009

Maybe the swirl isn't as detailed and butterfly-ish as you would've liked, but you certainly deserve extra brownie points for such a creative idea---making the front and back wings different colors! That's really fantastic.

 

[The_Phoenix]

I thought I might post the other two butterfly swirls I didn't enter The first one is a wild and crazy butterfly and the second was an idea I had for a dark background.

Well done! Very beautiful.

 

[ResolvableOwl]

I went up and down on the inside to create antennae

I thought about antennae too. But mine weren't quite as sophisticated as yours! Still they are elusive body parts and very difficult to find the right balance between fluidity and hanger motions. @melonpan's antennae would actually have been the best ones, had only there been a bit more “flesh” for the hanger to stay within batter.

I signed up to make soap, not draw lol.

 

[Peachy Clean Soap]

Could I change out my butterfly photo? Apparently I don’t know what a butterfly looks like.

@Primrose
Can we change our soap entry picture? i'm thinking about trying one more time.
Thank You...

 

[earlene]

Well, I waited too long to cut the 4th batch. True to Zany's word, it would have probably been better to cut it yesterday, rather than waiting until tonight. It was hard hard hard. And a bit beyond its optimum cutting time, whereas batch #3 made a bit earlier the same day was perfect for the cut. #3's bars cut smoothly, whereas #4 was harder to get the wire through & will require some planing to smooth them out.

I used the same pattern with both #3 & #4, but they don't look at all the same to my eye, so maybe I only think I duplicated the swirl in #4 that I used in #3.

In any case, I'll let them sit overnight & clean them up tomorrow or the next day & then photograph. I'm pretty sure I'll be submitting #3, as it is more what I had in mind than any of the others. I do actually want to make one more batch, but with a slight twist that I'll describe later if I get around to it and if it turns out as planned.

ETA: I forgot to mention that batch #4 has looks a lot like soap made with full vinegar replacement for lye water.

 

[Primrose]

@Primrose
Can we change our soap entry picture? i'm thinking about trying one more time.
Thank You...

@Peachy Clean Soap and @linne1gi unfortunately entries cannot be changed once submitted. If you do make any further attempts you are welcome to post them here on the general thread, we would still love to see them

 

[The_Phoenix]

@The_Emerald_Chicken Beautiful soap! Do you like Bali Breeze? I’ve considered purchasing it a few times.