timing, embeds, confetti question

Soapmaking Forum

Help Support Soapmaking Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Joined
Apr 5, 2018
Messages
3,672
Reaction score
12,738
Location
Minnesota
I'm workin' on my landscape soap with shredded confetti for snow and a mini cylinder moon. I made the white soap (snow) and moon this weekend. I want to wait a couple weeks to shred the snow. In 2 weeks will the embedded moon be okay or should the moon and the final soap be done within 1-2 days? Know what I'm saying? Thanks,
 
I'm not an expert in these things, but i wouldn't think it would matter? But you know those little 'halos' we get around the embeds? Perhaps that is caused by too much time difference between the embed and the new soap? I dunno.
As you know Mr Zing, I am a fly by the seat of my pants soaper - a maverick shall we say, a maverick who hates faffing around. I do what I want, when i want, and my embeds have to just do as they are told. 🤠
 
I'm not an expert in these things, but i wouldn't think it would matter? But you know those little 'halos' we get around the embeds? Perhaps that is caused by too much time difference between the embed and the new soap? I dunno.
As you know Mr Zing, I am a fly by the seat of my pants soaper - a maverick shall we say, a maverick who hates faffing around. I do what I want, when i want, and my embeds have to just do as they are told. 🤠
Mavericks GIF by UT Arlington
 
I'm workin' on my landscape soap with shredded confetti for snow and a mini cylinder moon. I made the white soap (snow) and moon this weekend. I want to wait a couple weeks to shred the snow. In 2 weeks will the embedded moon be okay or should the moon and the final soap be done within 1-2 days? Know what I'm saying? Thanks,

I concur with the Owl; the more soap cures, the harder it is to cut. Another option is to go ahead an shred your soap and then spread it out and put a fan on it so it dries out faster.
 
I'm not an expert in these things, but i wouldn't think it would matter? But you know those little 'halos' we get around the embeds? Perhaps that is caused by too much time difference between the embed and the new soap? I dunno.
As you know Mr Zing, I am a fly by the seat of my pants soaper - a maverick shall we say, a maverick who hates faffing around. I do what I want, when i want, and my embeds have to just do as they are told. 🤠
... and you are really CHUFFED about it, too, arncha?? ;)
 
Wrap the embed column in cling wrap to slow down water loss, that makes the fresh batter stick better to the embed, and eases the cut afterwards.
I concur with the Owl; the more soap cures, the harder it is to cut. Another option is to go ahead an shred your soap and then spread it out and put a fan on it so it dries out faster.
This hasn't been my experience when the embed is inside of the soap.
At least I should say this hasn't been my experience when I gel my soaps with fully embedded embed within the soap.
The gelling of the soap softens the cured embed and when it comes to cutting it cuts exactly the same as the rest of the bar. I've used a column embed that was over a year old cured as a moon embed, and made my other soap the same as I always do and didn't have any problems cutting the soap, or having the soap not stick.
 
This hasn't been my experience when the embed is inside of the soap.
At least I should say this hasn't been my experience when I gel my soaps with fully embedded embed within the soap.
Fair enough. I had less luck with these cube embeds, but that was also a trickier geometry than a single column embed would be. They had been just above two weeks old, and already firm to the touch and agreeable lathering. I CPOP'd the mosaic soap as thoroughly as I could (even gave it an emergency CPOP after two days, since I didn't dare unmould it earlier), but still the adhesion of the matrix batter to the embeds was not very satisfactory.
It was a somewhat spontaneous scrap utilisation project; if I've made the cubes deliberately as embeds, I'd better tried to avoid cure/drying, be it only to lessen the mechanical tensions due to uneven shrinkage. HTH.
 
Would somebody explain "faffing around" and "chuffed" please?
Faffing around - doing bits of things, annoying and/or fiddly work and not making progress, probably in a way not even likely to make progress.
Chuffed - pleased, content, maybe with a small side order of smug.

(Now to see if the linked definitions are close to mine 🤣 )
 
Faffing around - doing bits of things, annoying and/or fiddly work and not making progress, probably in a way not even likely to make progress.
Chuffed - pleased, content, maybe with a small side order of smug.

(Now to see if the linked definitions are close to mine 🤣 )
Pretty good Tara! Mind you - you DO live over that way so you bloody-well should know!
 
Thank you everybody for your help.
Those with English as their first language might not realize how hard it may be for a non native speaker to understand when people start using informal expressions. Bilingual dictionaries register informal expressions only after longer use, and although there are many places on the internet explaining informal talk I am primarily interested in making soap and not in studying (informal) English.
Which, however, does not mean I expect anybody to stop speaking informally and use the 18th century novel English :)
 
Thank you everybody for your help.
Those with English as their first language might not realize how hard it may be for a non native speaker to understand when people start using informal expressions. Bilingual dictionaries register informal expressions only after longer use, and although there are many places on the internet explaining informal talk I am primarily interested in making soap and not in studying (informal) English.
Which, however, does not mean I expect anybody to stop speaking informally and use the 18th century novel English :)
You are most welcome my dear. Have a good day. ;)
 
Thank you everybody for your help.
Those with English as their first language might not realize how hard it may be for a non native speaker to understand when people start using informal expressions. Bilingual dictionaries register informal expressions only after longer use, and although there are many places on the internet explaining informal talk I am primarily interested in making soap and not in studying (informal) English.
Which, however, does not mean I expect anybody to stop speaking informally and use the 18th century novel English :)
@Ladka dear, you are so gracious! 💙 What is probably not apparent is that this all started because SOMEONE (sounds similar to MiniGoose) started using phrases that, while ostensibly consisting of English words, were totally unfamiliar to some of us native English speakers from certain countries.

"Faffing" and "chuffed" were among those terms. They are unknown to most in the US, as they are primarily used "across the pond," i.e., in Great Britain, Ireland, Scotland, and apparently New Zealand by at least one of its residents. ;)

All that to say, you were not the only one who didn't know those terms.
 
Last edited:
Pretty good Tara! Mind you - you DO live over that way so you bloody-well should know!
And also - notice how it is fine to say 'bloody' on here whereas anything else gets changed to 'kitten love' or some other more visually/audibly appealing word. When I was growing up, 'bloody' was a really bad swear word. Nowadays it seems to have fallen out of favour and people use the f word instead.
Back to embeds: @ResolvableOwl I think your mosaic embeds may have suffered from lack of sufficient soap batter between them to hold them together. If you are only doing something simple then I don't think that would happen? I'll post a couple fo mine here that have plenty of soap batter around them:
A5E875E8-D8FE-41FA-A79A-370BF446F164_1_201_a.jpeg4DAC20B2-D8E9-4187-95A9-696298E2FE73_1_201_a.jpeg
 
Back to embeds: @ResolvableOwl I think your mosaic embeds may have suffered from lack of sufficient soap batter between them to hold them together.
Yes, I do very much think so. The cubes are just too many (and too large) for the batter to properly embed them. Worked much better with smaller embeds (though this wasn't CP), cutting went like a breeze through >1 year old soap (that had been blocked from curing through a cozy M&P coat).

If you are only doing something simple then I don't think that would happen?
Hmm. What might this elusive “simple” be, that everyone is recommending to keep?
 

Latest posts

Back
Top