Thanks agriffin for the tutorial!

[newbie]

I made two soaps today after seeing agrif's tutorial. I had tried this some months ago but it looked really crappy; I used turmeric and paprika to color the two sides and it was truly disappointing. After seeing the tutorial, I decided to try again- so thanks for bolstering my courage!

This is a single layer soap, so this will be the top. I also tried the loaf method with the hanger but it's just about to gel, so I'll see how it looks once I cut it tomorrow and will post some pics. This green one is scented with cool citrus basil.

Thanks again, Agriffin!

http://img12.imageshack.us/i/img2427s.jpg/

 

[Traceyann]

WOW newbie, that looks fantastic.....well done , I am looking forward to seeing a side cut.....Definately going to try now

 

[pixybratt]

cool colors I can't wait to try this too

 

[Hazel]

I agree. It does look fantastic. You did a great job. You're going to have to change your username now.

I really want to see your cut pics.

 

[soapbuddy]

Good job!

 

[agriffin]

That is beautiful! The colors are amazing together! You did great

 

[Relle]

You did good, pretty, pretty, pretty.

Relle.

 

[Jezzy]

That is beautiful.. Could you post a link to the tutorial? I would love to try that!

 

[Jezzy]

Found it :wink:

 

[Bubbly Buddha]

Great job! Please post some cut photos!

 

[newbie]

Well, the loaf didn't come out as well as I would have liked. I put a piece of wax paper over it so I could cover it with blankets for gel. It marred the surface, but since that would be the side of the soap I wasn't that concerned about it. I thought the purple really sank in there but it only went 1/3-1/2 way down. My soap was still pretty thin- maybe I didn't pour from high enough- but there must be a way to get it all the way down, right about at the line between the two colors. I coat hangered (new verb) it prior to the purple, but it didn't mix as much as I'd like. I think if I threaded a straw onto the flat part of the hanger that mixes the soap, that part of the swirl would be more pronounced. Also, maybe the contrast isn't good enough between the green and the orange so the swirl I did get doesn't show as well. Not too bad for the first go and now, sigh, I have to go make more so I can try again. Scented with kumquat and pomegranate.

BTW, I have tried to change my moniker- I just stuck it in without much thought because I was a newbie to the forum- but it doesn't seem that I can. At least, I can't in "my profile". Oh well, I guess we're newbies to something forever, right?

http://img707.imageshack.us/i/img2431q.jpg/
http://img255.imageshack.us/i/img2433i.jpg/

PS. I did not put clavamox in my soap. One of my cats, Beetle Black, is on it currently and I had it out trying to sneakily get the pill out when he couldn't see me. He knows every time I have it.

 

[soapbuddy]

Well, the loaf didn't come out as well as I would have liked. I put a piece of wax paper over it so I could cover it with blankets for gel. It marred the surface, but since that would be the side of the soap I wasn't that concerned about it. I thought the purple really sank in there but it only went 1/3-1/2 way down. My soap was still pretty thin- maybe I didn't pour from high enough- but there must be a way to get it all the way down, right about at the line between the two colors. I coat hangered (new verb) it prior to the purple, but it didn't mix as much as I'd like. I think if I threaded a straw onto the flat part of the hanger that mixes the soap, that part of the swirl would be more pronounced. Also, maybe the contrast isn't good enough between the green and the orange so the swirl I did get doesn't show as well. Not too bad for the first go and now, sigh, I have to go make more so I can try again. Scented with kumquat and pomegranate.

BTW, I have tried to change my moniker- I just stuck it in without much thought because I was a newbie to the forum- but it doesn't seem that I can. At least, I can't in "my profile". Oh well, I guess we're newbies to something forever, right?

http://img707.imageshack.us/i/img2431q.jpg/
http://img255.imageshack.us/i/img2433i.jpg/

PS. I did not put clavamox in my soap. One of my cats, Beetle Black, is on it currently and I had it out trying to sneakily get the pill out when he couldn't see me. He knows every time I have it.

I like the colors!

 

[agriffin]

Those look nice!

One thing I did on a batch to push the soap down to the bottom was attach a straw to the squeeze bottle - use tape. Then start with the straw touching the bottom of the mold and squeeze as you run the length of the mold pulling upward. (if that makes sense).

It actually worked really well. But the color I squeezed in there totally faded and blended with the purple base color. :cry: I'll try it again one day but here are some pics of what I'm talking about.

Also...on the messed up surface. When you cut your bars into slices take a vegetable peeler and shave the surface off the top. These were totally covered in ash on the top of the swirls. I cut them to just wide enough so that my veg peeler would still shave the surface. It worked perfectly and the color was beautiful underneath.

 

[agriffin]

I think that's a good idea of putting a straw on the hanger. I was trying to think of a way to make it thicker also. I was going to ask my BF to rig me up a thicker dowel or something similar.

 

[newbie]

Ah yes, I see exactly what you mean. When you did that, did you also have to pour some from the top or did the space created from pulling the straw through fill with that contrast color? I was also thinking of pulling a straw or dowel along the line between the two colors and following right behind it with a pour of the third color, but it requires fair coordination and I still am not sure the color would go all the way down.

Having that third color go all the way down seems like a challenge. I think the thicker horizontal hanger part would make for pretty good swirls there.

Agriffin, I saw one of your soaps while searching and it's from an old thread, which I read, but I can't visualize exactly what you did. Would you consider starting a new thread and re-explaining? Also, what colors did you use? It looks like a fiery red but it may be my monitor. Link is:

http://www.soapmakingforum.com/forum/vi ... 5f5536ec3e

The red, blue and green swirled one (the second) is to die for! Not that the others aren't, but that red one is my favorite.

 

[soapbuddy]

What a great idea on the straw; thank you!

 

[agriffin]

Agriffin, I saw one of your soaps while searching and it's from an old thread, which I read, but I can't visualize exactly what you did. Would you consider starting a new thread and re-explaining? Also, what colors did you use? It looks like a fiery red but it may be my monitor. Link is:

http://www.soapmakingforum.com/forum/vi ... 5f5536ec3e

The red, blue and green swirled one (the second) is to die for! Not that the others aren't, but that red one is my favorite.

Hmmm...those are eucalypta's soaps. I don't remember that thread! Stunning soaps!

 

[newbie]

Oops! Sorry I didn't give Eucalypta the credit right away! I read too fast, I think.

Here's a picture of the device I rigged up to get a thicker horizontal swirl on the loaf mold. It's a wooden dowel (I know we're not supposed to use wood but I wanted to try the size once) with 16 gauge steel wire wrapped around it and then looped to make a handle. It's pretty stiff and I was able to pull it through the thick batter (see below), so it would surely work for the right texture batter really well. It's about the size of a McDonald's straw or maybe a bit larger.

http://img683.imageshack.us/i/img2435e.jpg

I just tried it but I am so ticked! I had everything ready to go and the batter was perfect until I added the FO- Peak's WIld Mountain Honey, which some reported no accel on and one person had slight accel on. My batter went from perfect to chunky cold gravy in about 15 seconds! I poured it anyway. I was trying something different for the center contrast color. Instead of one piece of cardboard to separate the colors, I put two in, lubed with some mineral oil (the cardboard absorbed it-I wanted to maker sure that small amount of batter didn't stick to the cardboard). After I poured the 2 sides, I opened the two pieces of cardboard a bit and injected my contrast color with a turkey baster between them until it was full, then pulled the two pieces. It looked like it worked fairly well, except that I hadn't added FO to the contrast color so it was still really fluid. I stuck the dowel thing in and swirled away and then tried to swirl the top but it was pretty messy and lumpy. Who knows what the heck it will look like? Will post some pics tomorrow. SIgh. Back to the drawing board.

 

[agriffin]

That might come out the coolest soap we've ever seen!

Post a pic when you can.

 

[newbie]

Ha! Hard to imagine that, but I'm hopeful it won't be too bad. Sure smells good! That's an incredible honey smell.