Once I figured out the scent, I needed the colors to go along with it. So I stared at my collection of colorants, lovingly, and went back and forth between a color wheel and my overloaded shelf. I may take a picture of it one day and share but I kind of enjoy hoarding all of my lovelies to myself! I digress. I didn't want to go with black and white as that is the obvious combination for this theme and Red and Green is too Christmasy for Rose Geranium. Blue and Orange didn't really work either. I chose to go with bold and bright! Yellow and Purple. I used Lemon Cupcake mica and You're Turning Violet, Violet mica, both from Mad Oils. I also decided to do a bit of contrast with some Snow White mica, again from Mad Oils. I think this combination works great with the scent.
I disperse my micas in a bit of olive oil to help incorporate them in the soap. They are so pretty! I went through my bank of swirling techniques and decided to use the Hanger Swirl but not do as much as for the Butterfly Swirl. I wanted to keep it fairly simple. The trick to this theme is getting the opposite colors together but not too together (does that even make sense?!) I divided my mold in half using a piece of cardboard and some tape. It's more difficult than it looks, trust me.
I mixed my soap batter using my standard recipe of olive oil, coconut oil, and avocado oil. Once I reached the right consistency, I separated it out and colored each portion. Unfortunately I did not get a picture of this process because I was too busy concentrating. I tend to get lost in what I am doing and sometimes forget to document the steps since I don't do it every time. It's a good thing that I had read the description of the Lemon Cupcake mica before using it. It turns bright orange when you add it to the soap! I was really hoping that it would turn back to yellow as stated because purple and orange are not opposites! Now the really hard part, Pouring two colors in the mold at once. Now, I am not very coordinated and so this step kind of scared me for a minute. I have tried before, unsuccessfully, to do a pour like this. Since I have to remove the partition, I can't tape it to the bottom. You have to pour both colors exactly the same so that the divider stays in place or else it wants to move to one side or the other, making your line uneven. Once I got that part over and done with (without too much trouble), I added most of the white to the purple side, removed the divider, and poured the rest of it down the middle.
And I drizzled some over the top too.
Now the fun began! Okay, it's all fun to me but I really like the swirling process. Like I said, I chose to do the hanger swirl, or at least a variation of it. I pulled out my handy dandy tool, a wire hanger with a piece of plastic tubing over it. Us Soapmakers have them fancy tools!! To achieve a nice swirl, you have to start at one side and work your way over in small circles. It may seem like that's what you are doing but it doesn't always turn out that way. I think I was fairly successful this time. Once I was done with the hanger, I grabbed my other fancy tool, a chopstick, and made pretty swirlies on top of the soap to finish it off.
You can see it is still orange.
24 hours later, I pulled a beautiful yellow and purple soap out of the mold. I had to exercise patience (not very good at that) because the soap was a little too soft to cut without absolutely destroying it. I like a nice straight bar but I can never cut a nice straight bar and it's even harder to do that when the soap is soft. So after a couple of excruciating days, I finally cut a bar. It is beautiful and what I had imagined.
Oh, and it smells divine!!
