Soap Dough Cold Process Soap

Great Cakes Soap Challenge Club 2017

We are making Soap Dough Creations !!!

"My Lil Sheep"

Hmmm, What is Soap Dough you ask?

Soap Dough is a moldable, plyable dough that is made from a specialial formulated Cold Process recipe. Anything you can create with polymer clay (or fondant!), you can create with soap dough. After you create your Soap Dough creation, you give it some time and  it will harden just like any bar soap does.

Ever since I spotted Bea Iyata book "Enchanted Book of Peculiar Ideas and Soap Potions" and purchased it long ago, I knew I really wanted to give the Soap Dough creations a try but then I never got around to it. If you would like a good read, I sugest that you head on over to https://sorcerysoaps.com/collections/books  and pick you up one. You will be glad you did for sure, it's a fabulous book. I also had to have her second book of "Light and Shadow" as well!

Oh, ok back to the challenge.

Our guest teacher for this months challenge is Tatiana Serko of Creative Soap by Steso. Tatiana is a great Artist, Soap maker and Soap Teaher, that is just to name a few things amoung all the other things she does so well. If you haven't seen Tatianas' work go on over to  her website and check her, she does very impressive work to say the least!

For this Soap Challenge we don't have to create a practical soap, Amy told us to just create whatever is beautiful!

The Guidlines for this challenge were as follows:

1. We were to use a bar of Cold Process Soap that we had already made months earlier and use that as the base for our Soap dough creation. Soap bar was able to be any size or shape that we wanted and we had to make the Soap Dough ourselves.
2. We could use small non soap embellishments (for eyes) if needed.
3. Everybody could submit one entry into voted or juied categories.
4. The Soap entered must have been made after registration for this contest opened.
5. Entry photo must be from one batch only and have neutral background. No props, people in it and the only adjustments that can be made is lighting and color may be made only to the point of getting the best pic of what your soap looks like in real life. No other adjustmentsare allowed.

We could mimic Tatianas' Dragons Eye soap (Which is beyond Impressive) she created for the class but there was no way that I was ready for something like that, so I set out to figure out just what I though I just might be able to do.

I really wanted to create something that was truely my design instead of trying to mimic anybody so the thought process took me like forever. I though of so many things but I decided to try to create a "My Lil Sheep" so thats what I did and this is what I entered into the challenge.

Soap Dough:

For Soap Dough: I used Ronda Scorpios' recipe. It is listed in her Facebook group "Soap by Kick it up a Notch" and on her blog https://rondascorpio.blogspot.ca/2017/05/how-to-make-play-dough-cp-soap-videos.html if you would like to give it a try. It's a very good recipe but I had a little problem with it being sticky but I am sure that was an error on my part somewhere. It's very nice soap though!Dusting it with cornstarch would of helped I am sure.

I didn't have the ingredients for Tatianas' Soap Dough Recipe #4, but when the ingredience came in I rushed to my Soap Room and made me a batch. Then I came down sick and didn't get to play with it much yet except for rolling it into balls and fiddling around just a smidge. I am loving the feel and the suds of the Soap Dough though!
                                  
                                     Tatiana's Soap Dough Recipe before rolling into balls

Tatiana's Soap Dough Recipe after rolling into balls, They are nice White in color, but my lighting was not cooperating with me.

Colors :

I used Activated Charcoal from Brambleberry for the Black face.
Titanium Dioxide for the locks on the body.
Light Blue Mica for the Eyes
Pink Mica for the Bow.

I started my project out with an experimental bar of  un-coloured Ghost Swirl Soap that I just had to make after reading about it on Auntie Clara's blog . Totally love her blog, it's so hard not to spend hours and hours there reading all the interesting, Kool things she does.

I smeared a little soap dough over the un-coloured Ghost Swirl Soap bar and rolled me some little peices of the white soap dough until I thought it kinda looked like locks of wool. Next I glued the tiny pieced down with Distilled water/soap paste mixture, Boy was that ever a lot of pieces LOL.

I then rolled a ball of Black soap dough and formed her head the best that I could.
Then I finished placing pieces of white around the neck, face area until that was all done.
I let her dry for a day, then I gave her a little pink bow on the top of the ear. (Now, that I look at her in the picture though the bow looks like it could of been a bit smaller even)

I had a lot of fun with this project and will be doing a lot more with soap dough in the future. I haven't played with Play dough in so many years so I am a little (ok, A lot) rusty. I guess that just gives me an excuss to play more !  * NOTE TO SELF, Hide this blog post from my Dear Husband !!!

Thank you Tatiana for teaching this class and for the fabulous Tutorial and recipes.
I also want to

Thank You as well Amy for hosting the Soap Challenge Club and all that you do for us, You are totally Awesome! x

2017 Greatcakes Soap Challenge Secret Feather Swirl

March 2017 Secret feather swirl, hosted by Amy Warden

~ All Natural Soap ~

Hello fellow Soapers & all,

Well since I missed the last two challenges, I was determined to get a soap made to enter this month. Sometimes things just get a moving a little to fast and I'm left to wander where did all that time go. Anyway, I'm always up for some fun and learning new swirling techniques!!!

Below are the Soap Challenge Rules for this challenge:

1. Soap must be made in a log mold and made using the Cold Process method.

2. Soap design should feature the secret feather swirl or the reverse feather swirl (or both)

Non-soap embellishments  limited to natural or synthetic colorants and body safe glitter.

We can use additives that enhance the performance or recipe of our soap that may not be seen such as an alternate liquid for your lye solution, sodium lactate, silk etc. but not the texture of the soap.

3. It was our choice  to submit our soap into the all-natural or the synthetic category.

If we entered our soap in the all-natural category, it could not contain any synthetic ingredients at all. 

A list of the ingredients as you would list them on the soap label is required for all entries in the all-natural category.

4. Our soap must be made after the registration has opened.

5. Soap photo you choose to upload to the link-up should feature soap from one batch only and picture should have a neutral background. No people or props in it. The only adjustments that can be made is lighting and color can be made to better represent what the soap actually looks like in real life. No editing photos to alter the soaps appearance.

Category:
I decided to make an All-Natural soap

My choice of oils were:

Avocado oil, Coconut oil, Palm oil, and Castor oil.

Additives used:

Sugar, cream, Kaolin Clay, paprika and cocoa powder

Color Pallet:

I used Cocoa Powder for the Brown color and for the Orange color I used Paprika.

Essential Oils:

Orange and Patchouli

Mold used:

BB's Tall & skinny log mold, with handmade cardboard dividers

Secret Feather swirl technique

The “secret feather swirl” - Was named this because the swirl is not revealed until the soap is cut. There are several different variations that can be created  by changing  the colors of the feather and the thickness of the pour

I chose the variation that keeps the feathers all one color.

1. I brought the soap batter to an emulsion and started to soap at around 90 degree F.

2. Poured a little Brown colored soap base into the bottom of my mold

3. Then I put the dividers in the mold so it was divided into 1/3rds.

4. I then poured 2 stripes of orange soap batter, then I poured another layer of the Brown base color over the orange and continued in this manor until my orange colored soap was almost gone. After that I poured a top layer of Brown soap batter.

5. ,I then took my hanger tool (well, gear tie in my case) and pushed it straight down in the middle of the mold (touching the bottom.)  Next I pulled the hanger tool towards me straight across the bottom and straight up the side of the mold and out the top.

6. I then finished the top of the soap loaf, Taped it to release any air bubbles, lightly sprayed it with alcohol and put it to bed to rest.

7. after 24 HRS I cut the soap into bars. I should of waited a while longer though because the soap was a little too soft still and left drag lines.

I am trying to ignore those tiny white spots (Soda Ash)  on the soap bars.

Soap Label Info: 

Avocado oil, Palm oil, Coconut oil, Water, Sodium Hydroxide, Castor oil, Cream, Essential oils: Orange & Patchouli, Kaolin Clay, Sugar, Cocoa Powder, Paprika

My thoughts:

1. Next time I will start pouring the soap batter at just the slightest sign of a trace. (to avoid the soap batter  thickening up so much while I pour).

2. It also may have worked out better, had I had a smaller diameter of hanger tool as well.
3. I also would like to get a taller, Tall & Skinny Mold too, I think a longer bar would look great with this technique.

 If any fellow Soapers used a Tall & Skinny mold for this technique, I would love to hear your thoughts.
Over all I am pretty please with my first “secret feather swirl” soap. I don't think it turned out all the bad but needs some more practice for sure. I have found that it's a little more harder than it first appeared.

Have you done a “secret feather swirl” or one of the variations ? If so, I would love to hear about it.

Thank you for stopping by to read my blog and commenting !

Greatcakes Soap Challenge Cosmic Wave Redemption 2016

Cosmic Wave Redemption

Soap Challenge Club- November 2016

 I was so excited to see that Amy is giving us another chance to do the cosmic wave all over again and make it work and see success. Boy do I ever need this!!! I have this burning desire to get this thing right, so yea I will practice until I get it for sure!
More great news is that since this isn't the competition anymore, there are no guidelines. This totally allows me to try something new, like filling  my Slab mold with the base soap and then creating the Cosmic Wave technique on just the top surface of my soap. Well we shall see how this goes !

So off to my soap studio I go.....

The first thing I did was line my slab mold with freezer paper.
Next, of course since I was only doing the cosmic wave on the surface of my soap top, I had to adjust the ratios of  my contrasting colors to use with my base color.

I decided to use the slow moving formula below for my soap:

Olive Oil   27%

Coconut Oil   30%
Palm Oil   33%
Sweet Almond Oil   10%

6% Super fat    30% Lye Concentrate

 I safety geared up with my gloves and my pretty Pink goggles then I added Silk to my distilled water and stirred it well to dissolve, then I measured out my lye and added it into my distilled water, stirred it until it was dissolved and clear and sat it off to the side to cool.

 I measured out and melted my solid oils, when they were melted I added in the liquid oils.
I then added Kaolin Clay, Colloidal Oatmeal and my Essential oils into my soaping oils and stirred them in well.
When my Lye solution was 88 degree F, I stirred in some Sodium Lactate.

Time to get Soaping !!!

 I slowly poured my Lye down my stick blended into my oils, stirred it a little then gave it a few bursts until I reach just the lightest trace.
Divided my soap batter out for my 2 combination colors (Red in one cup, white in the other cup) poured them both into squeeze bottles. Then I colored my base soap Black with 2 TBS. Activated Charcoal.
I poured most of my Black base soap into my slab mold.
I then grabbed a long spouted container to layer my colors. I put about an 1/8 cup base soap in the bottom then took some red and squeezed zigzags over top of the black, poured in a little more black and then put white zigzags on top of the black and started pouring my top layer very slowly and as close to the surface of the soap as I could. When I ran out of color I would do the same method as explained to fill my container but altered colors here and there.
When I was finished with the pour I (CPOP), Preheated over to

170 degrees F. Put my soap into the oven for 15 minutes and then turned off the oven and turned the oven light on over night.
I ended up with tiny bubbles on the surface of my soap again so I had to plane it some.

What I will change next time I do this technique:

I will only fill my Slab mold half full of base soap and leave more soap for my contrasting colors so that there is a thicker layer of cosmic wave on the top surface. I also had very tiny bubbles on the top of my soap after (CPOP) so I did need to plane the top of my soap some, which took some of my detail off of the soap.
This technique would look much better if it doesn't need to be planed. The next time I do this technique, I will do it without oven processing and hopefully avoid the need to plane it at all. I just haven't found the sweet spot to (CPOP) in my oven as of yet.

Here is another batch of my practice Cosmic Wave soaps !

For this soap I used a 1 cup glass measuring cup and layered the colors in the cup and then poured into my slab mold. The cup was hard to get down low and maneuver in my small mold.

These ones I also ended up with tiny bubbles that I had to plane off  of the top surface of the soap.

I will continue this technique for sure, I am aiming for the really fine lines all over like Tatsiana creates in her cosmic wave soaps.

Thank you Amy for doing a Redemption for this challenge. I sure have had a really hard time with this one for sure. You have helped clarify the technique for me to better understand. 

Thank you all for stopping by and reading my blog ! 

Greatcakes Soap Challenge 2016, Wood Grain Soap Technique

Wood Grain Soap Technique

October 2016 Great Cakes Soap Challenge Entry 

 The goal of this months soap challenge was to get our soap to look like a natural wood grain pattern. 

We could chose to enter into the All Natural or the Synthetic category.
I always make all natural soaps so I decided to do a soap for the Synthetic category so I could play with some new colorants.

I used 36 oz. of oils    Superfat at 6%
The method I chose to create the wood grain effect was achieved by putting different colors of soap batter in squeeze bottles and then I put a line of soap batter down and then I went over that line with the next color, and then the next color and continued until all of my soap batter was gone.

The oils I used are: Tallow 33%, Olive oil 33%, Coconut oil 30%, and 
Castor oil 4%.
I melted my oils and stick blended my soap batter to an emulsion. I added a bit of Kaolin Clay, pulsed a bit with my stick blender just to incorporate the clay. Next, I divided the soap evenly into separate containers and mixed in the color/colors. I then mixed in the Fragrance blend and then poured it into 5 different squeeze bottles and then I started designing my soap in my 9 bar Birch wood mold.

Before I got a quarter of the way done, my soap batter really thickened up on me (I am thinking due to the Rosewood/Vanilla F.O.???) I was able to work right through it though, the layers just wasn't able to spread out very well on their own. I gave the mold some shakes and jiggles a little here and there. Ok, maybe a lot! :) When I was done, I gave it some good taps so hopefully I wouldn't have any air bubbles. 
I then thought it may pop a little if I CPOP, so I put it in the pre-heated 170 degree F oven for about 1 hour.
The next day I had some really nice hard soap, with an Awesome scent!
I was worried that I may get some soda ash on top but luckily I did not!  

The colors that I used:
Color #1- Soap batter with no color (Added: .5 oz. Rosewood/Vanilla F.O. from Bramble Berry)

Color #2- Soap batter with Regular Cocoa Powder
  
Color #3- Soap batter with Special Dark Cocoa Powder
  
Color #4- Soap batter with Regular Cocoa Powder + Orange color (created by mixing some Electric Bubble Gum with Fizzy Lemonade and just a touch of Blue Ultramarine) Electric Bubble Gum, Fizzy Lemonade and the
Blue Ultramarine is from Bramble Berry.

 Color #5- Soap batter with Regular Cocoa Powder with just a touch of
Electric Bubble Gum and Fizzy Lemonade. 

Scent: I used .05 oz Patchouli, .3 Sweet Orange, .35 oz. Lavender Essential oil with .7 Rosewood/Vanilla Fragrance oil.  Smells amazing, such a wonderful blend, I will be using it again for sure.


I loved working with the Bramble Berry colors they are so amazing and I was able to create many different colors with them.
I really enjoyed this challenge it was really fun, Thanks again Amy for a great challenge!!!

Greatcakes Soap Challenge 2016, Piped Soap Cupcakes

Great Cakes Soap Challenge Club Entry– September, Piping

Chocolate Orange Soap Cupcakes

Piped with: Russian ball tip
Colors used: Cocoa Powder for the base and the soap frosting. I used Titanium dioxide for the white and Electric Bubble Gum/Fizzy Lemonade for the Peach color.

Oils used: Extra Virgin Olive oil, Coconut oil, Cocoa Butter, Shea Butter and Castor oil

I Melted the (Coconut oil, Cocoa Butter)
When oil & butter was melted, I added the Liquid oils and the Shea Butter.
Mixed my Lye solution until it was clear, then I poured the   Lye solution  into my oils and stired with a spatula for a few minutes. I then began stick blending/pulsing   the soap batter to light trace.
I then divided my soap batter into containers to add color.
I used 3 tsp. of Cocoa Powder to color my base.
For the frosting, I colored my white with a little bit of Titanium Dioxide . The Peach color was a mix of  Electric Bubble Gum/Fizzy Lemonade.

After my colors were mixed up, I poured the base color into the silicone Cupcake liners and set them off to the side.
I left the frosting colors a lone and kept going back to check on them here and there, gave them a stirring and repeated that until they were all ready to pipe. (It took about an hour for this recipe) I think next time a will stick blend pulse them a little longer before letting them sit.
When my batter was thick enough I added 1 oz. Orange Essential oil stirred it in well with spatula. I then started spooning the colors (white, orange/make 4 rows) in lines on to some plastic wrap. I then folded the plastic wrap around the soap frosting (twisted the end closed) and slide it into my piping bag. Then I began to pipe!
The recipe was great without any ricing or anything.

My thoughts:
  Piping was a lot of fun and definitely a learning curve for me, if you are feeling adventurous give it a try !!! :)
The Russian tips will be nice after I get the hang of them.

Thank you Amy for giving me the opportunity to participate in this challenge.  I had lots of fun with this process and will be practicing more with the Piping technique for sure.