SMF September 2021 Challenge - Weather Event or Life Event Inspired soap

[LynetteO]

@linne1gi I've been in a couple of hurricanes ,without , but can clearly imagine what that would look like. Great job on your representation of

 

[linne1gi]

@linne1gi I've been in a couple of hurricanes ,without , but can clearly imagine what that would look like. Great job on your representation of

Thanks, So far we’ve been through 5 hurricanes. I’m hoping no more this year!

 

[Peachy Clean Soap]

Ok Finally I can attempt my 3rd try on this challenge' I may even have a 4th go at it' but all is well, Hollidays are coming up & Family / Friends Get Soap .

Update: I'm thinking the life event written out has a big impact too? not my strong point, yikes!

 

[ResolvableOwl]

Make sure you sign up on the sign-up list, RO.

Yeah I know! Don't make it even harder for me than it already is, to wait these excruciating 48 hours for unmoulding a water-rich low-INS soap

 

[ResolvableOwl]

.

 

[earlene]

My greatest worry for my thrill-seeking younger son was when he chased a hurricane to Key West back when he was still a young man. Some years later I was in NOLA when they were beginning to evacuate for another hurricane (I don't remember which one it was) & my son had to feel what I had felt while he was in Key West for his hurricane event. I wish I could share the photo my husband took of me that trip, where my pony tail (below waist length hair at the time) was standing straight out behind my head. I'd have to do some real searching to find that photo, it was so many years & so many cameras ago. I think it was the camera that recorded onto mini CDs and I can't even recall where all those are now.

Anyway, nice job, @linne1gi, and I'm glad I don't live in hurricane alley. The recurring stress would be more than I would care to tolerate!

 

[Peachy Clean Soap]

My greatest worry for my thrill-seeking younger son was when he chased a hurricane to Key West back when he was still a young man. Some years later I was in NOLA when they were beginning to evacuate for another hurricane (I don't remember which one it was) & my son had to feel what I had felt while he was in Key West for his hurricane event. I wish I could share the photo my husband took of me that trip, where my pony tail (below waist length hair at the time) was standing straight out behind my head. I'd have to do some real searching to find that photo, it was so many years & so many cameras ago. I think it was the camera that recorded onto mini CDs and I can't even recall where all those are now.

Anyway, nice job, @linne1gi, and I'm glad I don't live in hurricane alley. The recurring stress would be more than I would care to tolerate!

I didn't know which emoji to choose' first scary then funny about your waist long ponytails flying completely horizontal behind you, hope you can find the picture love to see it.

 

[ResolvableOwl]

🌬 ⁓

https://blogs.scientificamerican.co...prize-winner-in-physics-the-amazing-ponytail/

 

[Mobjack Bay]

Thanks Earlene! I appreciated being given the opportunity to re-live and recount the memories.

 

[linne1gi]

My greatest worry for my thrill-seeking younger son was when he chased a hurricane to Key West back when he was still a young man. Some years later I was in NOLA when they were beginning to evacuate for another hurricane (I don't remember which one it was) & my son had to feel what I had felt while he was in Key West for his hurricane event. I wish I could share the photo my husband took of me that trip, where my pony tail (below waist length hair at the time) was standing straight out behind my head. I'd have to do some real searching to find that photo, it was so many years & so many cameras ago. I think it was the camera that recorded onto mini CDs and I can't even recall where all those are now.

Anyway, nice job, @linne1gi, and I'm glad I don't live in hurricane alley. The recurring stress would be more than I would care to tolerate!

Thank you @earlene! Hoping we are done for this year. We are in the process of building a house and there are so many problems - materials they can't get etc, a hurricane would really be bad. Thanks for a lovely challenge, I enjoyed this one!

 

[ResolvableOwl]

@Mobjack Bay
Thank you so much for “taking us along with you on that boat trip”, and taking part in this expedition! You're a great narrator,
We all have some conception of what a beatuiful and rough place the sea is (if you want to call 71% of Earth's surface a “place”), but subjective reality is always a tad more stunning than our imagination. As many explorations humanity will carry out, it will always stay a mysterious and surprising place. I envy you so much for these memories!
(My most emotional experience with a ship on the open ocean was a whale watching excursion off Iceland. No details, I just let this emoji speak for my memories: .)

By chance I'm currently listening to some stunning Alice Coltrane tracks from the 70s, and I'm a bit overwhelmed about how well all this fits together !! Is my monitor rocking like a boat on the sea?

And well, I have successfully not even mentioned the soap itself yet . I'll refer that duty to this emoji:

 

[earlene]

Thanks Earlene! I appreciated being given the opportunity to re-live and recount the memories.

Oh my, yes. I remember how nauseating the diesel fuel made me feel on my one and only fishing trip on a deisel engine boat in Mexico many years ago. We slept in hamacas in the belly of the boat and I swear the diesel fuel was vented there (probably not, but that's what it smelled like.)

I also loved your narrative describing your spectacular adventure 45 years ago, as well as your soapy interpretation of same. Thank you for sharing that experience with us!

 

[ResolvableOwl]

1. Tara_H - wedding bells ahoy
2. Vicki C - going to have to ponder this one…
3. linne 1gi - Hm
4. Peachy Clean Soap's -- I'm In
5. glendam - Need to pick between an Earthquake or a Hurricane
6. catscankim - ok, I have an idea
7. ScentimentallyYours - one or two ideas, need to plan
8. Mobjack - I think I see an idea off on the horizon.
9. ResolvableOwl - Got weak and unmoulded after 46 hours

 

[Mobjack Bay]

@earlene The combination of diesel fumes and the scent of maturing fish parts has always been enough to keep me off any “ for fun” overnight fishing trips.

@ResolvableOwl If your monitor is still rocking, try focusing on the horizon .

Thank you both for the nice feedback on the story. My son has been encouraging me to capture some of my experiences “on paper,“ so I him sent what I wrote along with the photo of the soap.

 

[Peachy Clean Soap]

Well, I cut my first challenge "attempt"...

Normally I would hold back from posting on case I needed it as an entry down the road, but... Yeah, no.

My inspiration is our wedding, which was held in a big old castle, and with a classic red rose style. Think old oak beams and stone walls, red roses and heavy velvet, and just a touch of cream lace and gold.

I decided this would be a good opportunity to try a secret feather design, contrasting a delicate white wispy central motif against a dramatic red backdrop.

Well. I think I was a bit heavy-handed with the SB, and the red wasn't quite what it was meant to be. So I'll be making another attempt, unless I suddenly remember a life event which involved ribcages floating in raspberry jam.

View attachment 61026

Love the color'

 

[ResolvableOwl]

A few more “dirty details” on my “Drought” entry.

First, well, the colours. As beautiful morning light is, it's a pain to shoot reliable photos within it, particularly when natural colourants have a finger in the pie. I've done my best, but the quick snapshot below is still closer to the original than my submission picture.

Just how much glycerin rivers I actually got, I can't say. In any case, there is a lot of things going on with the surface relief, best seen in grazing incidence lighting:

Only in the last ombré layer, the translucent gelling-and-contraction effect is obvious; but even then by far not as impressive as I hoped for (and others like @KiwiMoose regularly succeed with). I have laid out the brown part for, on average, 29% lye concentration – so the darker layers are even below this! Plus the extra glycerol (5%TOW on average), which I seem to need to get anywhere near visible rivers.
I had pre-mixed the TD (0.5%TOW on average) as thoroughly as I could, with a bit of glycerol water and a palette knife. Still those white bumps in the lower layers? Must be glycerin rivers. The bumps in the blue layer? No TD at all, and with lengthy water-bath CPOP at 60°C initial temperature, stearic spots are out of question.
The rationale to choose caramel colouring (E150c) is that it is not a pigment, but a dye (water soluble) and might distribute more evenly within the “neat soap” rivers, than being contracted into the craquelée islands. Since none of these dry-crack islands appeared, it's hard to tell if this actually worked . In any case, an important observation is that undiluted E150c caramel does not dissolve well in soap batter, but “clumps” to form tiny black grains that rather resemble vanilla granules than give an even stain of the batter. Much easier to work with in dilution (I used 5% in water).

I'm quite happy with the recipe so far (15% mango butter + 10% canola “wax” as hard oils). Kept the oils warm & clear in the CPOP oven. Though I'm not confident yet to work with it as low as room temperature, it gave me enough time to mess around with the ombré (it'd been better if I hadn't shaken up the “blue” squeeze bottle in advance, the batter was already at thick trace by then). A previous test batch even gave off remarkably abundant and fluffy lather, just a few days into cure, without CO/lauric oils. (I hate to be the one to remind palm skeptics that coconut palms are palm trees as well)

I'm planning to give a more detailed write-up of the indigo process in the vat dye thread, but I'll give updates here as well, in case something notable happens to the bars.

 

[earlene]

Well done, @ResolvableOwl. I recall what the ground looked like on a sort of island that was formerly marshland when I was growing up. I could not find an image that did justice to my memory of this dry cracked ground that was perhaps a mix of clay & silt. But later in life, I did come to like the crackled look of shatter crackle nail polish, which I can easily find images of. This style, of course is a glamorous interpretation of what I recall of the ground that could not sustain anything but the most persistent weeds and the occasional tomato seed (they seem to be able to sprout up almost anywhere, but of course the fruit would be wanting or non-existent). I don't know what process was involved to turn that marshland into a wasteland, because that was before I was old enough to pay attention to what mankind was doing to the natural beauty of our lands and surrounding habitats. But I do recall that it was a wasteland when my brothers & I discovered we could walk to this 'island' when the tide was low enough and what we found did not look like it had ever been a wet-lands (to our young & inexperienced eyes.)

When you mention "dry-crack islands", that's what came to mind. Not the nail polish, but the dry & curled-up edges and broken surface of that former marshland my brothers & I used to traverse before some land developer added land-fill and turned it into a thriving city, which of course, he named after himself. So I wondered if that was the look you were going for and if so, I begin to wonder how to re-create it in soap.

 

[ResolvableOwl]

Lol, I didn't expect another exciting (and somewhat frightening) anecdote, squeezed out of my clumsy attempt to name the lumps of the solid soap body that is surrounded by glycerin rivers:

(stolen lent from @KiwiMoose's recent showcase post)


The “ideal conception” I was striving for:

Spoiler: sloppy pencil sketch ahead – uncover to see how far short of my expectations I landed

…would have incorporated the crackling look of these “islands” as the “clay floes” of a dried up lake bed



(with the pencil colour = deep brown, paper-coloured “islands” in between = sand-colour)

 

[earlene]

Yes, sometimes glycerine rivers are described as crackles, so I do see what you mean. And if they had appeared in the sandy-colored portion, they would have absolutely looked like the dry cracked ground I was remembering from my youth. Or at least part of it would have. Yes, the parched ground look is what you were aiming for. So now I, too am wondering how to achieve this. I've never really put a lot of effort into purposely creating glycerine rivers or crackles. I do believe I tried once and failed and haven't tried again.

 

[melonpan]

You can sign up for the challenge up to and including the day the entry thread closes. The one caveat is that your entry has to be posted to the entry thread before it closes, which this month will be at 1:00pm GMT on September 28th.

Thank you earlene for the clarification. This has been a busy month with work and I've ordered my ingredients too late, they haven't arrived yet so I won't be able to finish my soap in time now. Such a pity! I'll be cheering from the sidelines!