It's been awhile since I have done a soap challenge but this month was very enticing to me. Amy Warden of Great Cakes Soapworks hosted a Collaborator Challenge. When I read this, I knew exactly who I wanted to work with. My great friend, Shonna, has always been interested in my soaps and when she recently moved to the country, she needed a hobby! So why not teach her how to make soap?! With so many choices of scents and colors, I am sure she was overwhelmed at first but quickly found her footing and picked Electric Lemonade Cocktail fragrance oil from BrambleBerry and Twilight, Lemon Cupcake, and Snow White Micas from Mad Oils. We decided to do a hanger swirl since it is one of my favorite techniques and fairly easy to master, so we needed the loaf mold and the silicone ones work great.
Since this was a new fragrance oil for me (sample that came in one of my orders) we quickly read up on how it behaves in cold process soap so there would be no surprises. Turns out, it soaps beautifully. We put on our safety gear and got to work. We decided to use my regular recipe because it's tried and true, and again, we didn't want any surprises. This was Shonna's first time making soap and all. We measured out all of our ingredients, mixed the lye, melted the oils and then waited for everything to cool down. In the meantime, I showed her several great resources for soap making and did my best to instill all my soapy knowledge in her. Haha!! Actually, we practiced the hanger swirl technique a few times.
Once we got everything cooled down, we seperated out a little of our soap making oils to mix the mica's in because it helps incorporate them easier into the batter.
When the time came to combine the lye solution and the oils, it was as if she was a pro! Shonna had done her research and already knew what trace was, how to pulse the stick blender and alternate with hand stirring. I was amazed! I could have sat back and just watched. But that wouldn't have been any fun, now would it? Once we got the batter to a very light trace, we split it into 3, with the yellow being our main color. We were going with whispy swirls of the blue and white.
The thing to know about using Lemon Cupcake mica is it will turn orange at first but then turns a beautiful vibrant yellow. So here is our batter seperated out and colored. The blue (Twilight) is so pretty.  |
| One more practice run with the hanger |
She then just continued alternating the colors until we had almost reached the top. Shonna made sure to reserve some so we could do a pretty swirl on the top of the soap. I didn't get a picture of her using the hanger in the soap but the practice paid off! We topped off the soap with the rest of the orange and then made lines with the remaining blue and white. Then swirled away with a chopstick.
Just look at that smile! I am so proud of my friend!!
I did put it in the oven to force gel so that the colors would be bold and brilliant. Unfortunately, Shonna had to go home (she lives quite a bit aways from me) so she didn't get to see the unmolding or cutting but I did have my wonderful husband's help on that part. You may get a good laugh if you have the volume up. He likes a production...
And finally, the last photo. It is such a gorgeous soap. I am truly proud of Shonna and what she accomplished. I am so thankful that she indulged me by coming over and letting me "teach" her this fabulous passion of mine. I hope I was able to pass on at least some useful knowledge. Thank you, Shonna, for being a part of this challenge with me. And even if we don't win one of the fabulous prizes, it is still a win in my book because we got to spend some great time together having a lot of fun, doing something enjoyable. Well, at least I enjoy it... I hope y'all like the final product!
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