Saturday, October 19, 2013

dandelion zebra swirl part 1

Has yet another month flown by without my paying attention? The soap challenge from Amy at Greatcake Soapworks is due so I guess that it has. This month for the  Challenge, we had to create a soap with what is called the dandelion zebra swirl, which is named after the very talented soaper Vinvela Ebony and explained on her blog Dandelion SeiFee. I went to her blog and forgot to turn on the translator, even in German it was informative. much more enjoyable when you turn on the translate.
  So for my soap I used Sugared Spruce from Crafter's Choice. The first thing I smell when is just a hint of orange, then the fresh woody smell of the outdoors.  I grew up a country girl and we always cut our own tree. Which means you cut what kind of tree is growing in your area, so we did not always have the "Christmas pine" most of the time we had a cedar tree. I am pretty sure that my mom was always keeping an eye on the brush that would pop up. sometimes we were allowed to clear it sometimes not. anyway back to soap. I me personally the sugared spruce smells just like Christmas tree that I grew up with.  My color choices are green and orange for my stripe. I added a little titanium dioxide to the base(should have added more).
   It was recommended that we use a slow moving formula. so I went with my formula of
  25% coconut
  30% lard
  35% olive
  10% sunflower
I mixed my oils and lye and proceeded with my soap.
 I used a piece of plexiglass cut to the width of the mold and have it at an angle to pour the green and orange soap alternately. reserving just a touch for the swirl on top.
  Then after removing the plexiglass I gently spoon the remaining base into the mold. drizzle the remaining colored soap along the top for a pretty swirl.
all swirled up and ready to get to gelling.








And here is my soap cut, what did I learn from this challenge? what will I do differently next time? I will bring the base to a little firmer trace, so that the stripe won't sink so far to the bottom. I will use a taller piece of plexiglass so the strip will have more of an angle to it, I will also make sure that it fits a little tighter. and finally I will not make soap while dinner is cooking in the oven above. I always oven process my soap and even though I had my oven temp set to 150, I feel pretty sure that the oven above made mine made the soap oven just a little warmer that I wanted it to be. The top is a bubbly mess. But on a positive note now I know how to recreate my frothy top on my stout soap next time I make it. I was wondering how that happened. To hot of an oven apparently.
    Since it is going to be a nice dry day today I think I will get started on making another dandelion zebra swirl. I am thinking fruit loop scent would be cool for this technique. Thank you Amy Warden for yet another great challenge. now to go look at all the other great entries for this month.
 

3 comments:

  1. Fantastic job, Fraley! Even if it wasn't exactly how you planned it in your head. :) We usually had an artificial Christmas tree, but I do remember one year having a cedar tree that we cut from my grandparent's pasture land. I think we hail from a similar area of the country!

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  2. Oh, yum! Sugared Spruce is fabulous, isn't it? I think this is one of those techniques that I'll have to try several times to really feel comfortable. (I tried a fruit loop scent with my first unsuccessful batch; I think the technique just fits that scent!)

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  3. Agree we learn so much from trying all the challenge soaps!

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