This month's Soap
Challenge offered by Amy Worden of Great Cakes Soapworks is called the "Dancing Funnel". This technique was introduced by Tatsiana
Serko of Creative Soap by Steso. She is
so talented and I never get tired of looking
at all of her awesome creations. I am so grateful that she would share
with us just how to make this soap design along with the helpful tips. Also I
would like to thank Amy for all her information and the video tutorial of her making the soap.
This technique
requires that you have a very fluid soap
batter and it is recommended that we do not use our stick blender to bring the
soap to a light trace, and instead stir
the soap enough to establish an emulsion so the oils and water/lye mixture will
not separate. I was very nervous that I
would not mix it long enough, and was
not really sure just how the soap should look to ensure that it would not separate.
The first batch I made is the one I feel that I was the most successful with. I
am happy with the results and will submit for the Challenge. It is scented with Lavender fragrance oil from Bramble Berry. The color I used for the rim is a dark purple mica, the other two colors were a pink and a lavender mica (used the same purple as the rim and added some white mica to lighten it).
My color choices.
Starting to add my colors in the mold.
Almost done with the colors.
The finished soap in the mold.
Here it is unmolded and ready to cut into bars of soap.
I will plane the bars in a few days.
Here are some pictures of the bars of soap after they have been planed.
I tried 3
other soaps batches and had different results making each of them:
Attempt #2 - I used "Almond"
fragrance oil, I added the fragrance to
the oils before adding the lye as I did with batch #1 and started to stir it
and within a few minutes the soap started to quickly get really thick. I hurried
and separated out some of the soap and colored it white, and colored the rest
yellow and globed it into the mold alternating colors and mixed it a bit to
make a swirl and stuck it into the warm oven to gel. I did get some nice bars
of soap so was happy with that, and they smell really nice.
Almond Scented soap bars.
Attempt #3 - I used "Energy" fragrance oil. The
colors I chose for this one was a red for the outer ring, black for one center
color, and red for the other center color. At first everything was going great as
I was making all the different colored centers, then the colors seemed to be taking on a
shape of their own, and that is when I noticed that the soap oils seemed to be
seeping to the top of the soap and the colors were traveling away from the
design. I decided to just add the rest of the colors try swirling the top layer that had seeped the oil
and put it into the warm oven and see what happens. The oils did absorb back into
the soap batter as it gelled....whew. I went ahead and planed the bottom part
of the soaps just to see what the dancing funnel colors looked like, and I could see that the colors were actually traveling away from the design. Looks like we have us some soap to use for our family, and it really
smells awesome.
Color choices for the Energy Soap
Here is the beginning of adding the colors into the mold.
Here I gave up on trying to continue the rest of the dancing funnel pour
and adding the rest of the soap colors to swirl.
Here is the swirled top ready to go into the warm oven
to gel the soap.
On the left is the soap that I planed to see what the colors looked like,
and the right side picture is the other side of the soap where I swirled the top.
Attempt #4 - I
used "Pearberry" fragrance oil. The colors I chose for this one was a Teal for the outer ring, White, Yellow and Orange for the different center
colors. This time the soap stayed together for the entire pour and I decided to
see how it would turn out if I did not gel the soap. I was a softer soap than
the ones that I gelled and I had to wait longer to plane the tops but other
than that all went well. I am pleased how it turned out, the colors remind me of candy corn (except for the teal)......now that has me thinking of a possible soap to make if a vendor has that fragrance oil.
My color selection, for the white I use a mica instead of Titanium Dioxide.
Here is the soap just after finishing the pour.
Here are the cut & planed bars of the Pearberry soap.
