Save that Soap! When the "soap fairies" visit, the best laid plans can go awry! I had everything planned for a time consuming, intricately designed soap, but it wasn't to be. Cold Process Soap makes us work with it sometimes, instead of the other way around, and here is a prime example that had to be turned into a modified "In the Pot" style swirl.
It is modified, because the soap fairies visited my soap pot without warning - as usually happens - my recipe should not have accelerated, but it did; Blackberry Sage fragrance behaves beautifully in Cold Process Soap, but trace accelerated; so time for some fast thinking.
Instead of the usual ITP, where you have very thin trace, and don't stir at all, and pour it into the mould, I had a thick trace and it was all too late. Basically, I just dropped blobs of purple soap into the main jug and swished the purple colour soap in small arcs, side to side and then poured quickly into the mould.
So, not so much a tutorial, rather just an example of "just try and make it work!"
What you need:
- 80g Castor Oil
- 320g Coconut Oil
- 80g Macadamia Oil
- 80g Organic Shea Butter
- 240g Olive Oil
- 200g Rice Bran Oil
- 40g/ml Blackberry Sage Fragrance Oil - this fragrance has now been deleted, use your preferred scent.
- 143g Sodium Hydroxide (Lye)
- 270 - 360g Distilled Water - Use the higher amount if you are a beginner
- Royal Purple Liquid Pigment Dispersion and Merlot Mica
- Cactus Green Neon Pigment Powder and Deep Seagreen Liquid Pigment Dispersion
- The usual Cold Process Soaping equipment
- Mini mixer or milk frother for mixing colour - Optional
- An extra jug, to hold around 600g traced soap and still take the stick blender
- Small cups for the colour mixing
Colour Preparation - if using powdered colours:
- Remove 5ml (1 teaspoon) Rice Bran Oil from the allocation and mix 1 teaspoon Fluro Green Pigment Powder into the oil and stir to remove any dry particles. Have the bottle of Deep Seagreen ready to deepen out the Fluro Green to a bright, sagey-lime green
- Place 5ml (1 teaspoon) Distilled Water into a small cup and add the Merlot Mica and mix to remove any little lumps.
- Add the Royal Purple Liquid Dispersion (this batch used 12 drops) to the Merlot Mica mixture to change the deep red mica to a blackberry/mulberry colour
- As you can see the soap is at heavy trace. I just dumped the thick blackberry coloured soap into the green and pulled it from side to side, and then poured it straight into my silicone column mould.
Textured top? Absolutely!
However, nicely distributed swirls in the log, and yes, I couldn't waste any!
Don't waste leftovers - I am currently using the Six Half Cylinder Silicone Mould
