Soaping Saturday August 5th, 2012

You know that feeling where it all seems to come together without a hitch or hicccup?  That was my Saturday of soaping.  Last weekend was a disaster, so it was a good thing yesterday was smooth sailing or I might have sold the entire lot of soaping supplies online and never looked back!
Last weekend I had a mica go errant on me.  Cancerian Heat from TKB Trading foamed up and over the batter cup and puddled on the kitchen counter. It was the closest thing to a volcano I've seen.  The amount of foam and the speed were fun in a way, but there went a large part of the batch I'd  mixed for a slab mold.  I decided to let it simmer down and see if it wasn't usable.  The color was sooo beautiful in the bag, but turned a rusty reddish-brown when mixed.  It's now on the M&P side of my soaping room and won't be used in cold process again. Two other TKB colors were just fine mixed with the very same oils and fragrance, so it had to be the Cancerian Heat.  Lesson learned.
My teacher, Cathy McGinnis, advised me to always mix a small amount of colorant with lye solution first to gauge the reaction.  She has a great video on this...which I promptly forgot in my excitement to use this beautiful iridescent burgundy/purple color - almost a duo chrome mica.  Last weeks batch didn't have the air pockets I thought it would, but the color is ....ugly.
So, that brings me to yesterday.  I made three batches:  One for the Minnesota State Fair, a beeswax and honey combination with Tussah Silk and a gold mica swirl top.  It will eventually be decorated on top with calendula and a honeycomb.  I'll post pictures right before it heads over to the fairgrounds.

The second batch was leftover batter from the first - Minnesota produced beeswax and honey, fragranced with Rosemary Herb and Peppermint.  I'm hoping the peppermint fades a bit - whoa, it's strong and overpowers the Rosemary.  I used hot pink and teal blue micas for this batch and did a hanger swirl.  I'll cut it tomorrow and revise this post, but wanted to get a few pictures posted at least for the record.

It's still pretty wet, so I hope it's not a fail.  If it's a fail, that means my State Fair soap will be too and I'll be back to square one next weekend!

The third batch uses a new fragrance I've been waiting to soap with. It's Pink Sugar from soapsupplies.net and is advertised to be a non-darkening fragrance.  Now, common sense tells me that if it contains vanilla - it's going to darken - but I really had a white and purple design I wanted to try with this fragrance, so I purchased 4 ounces.  Here are photos from Day 1 and Day 2 (today).

Day 1 (above).  So far, so good!  The white is white and the purple is staying true to color. The top is decorated with three lines of ...what else?...pink sugar !!  

Oh NO!!!  Day 2 (above).  Pink Sugar is now Yellow Sugar.  Ugly Yellow Sugar.  It's the oddest yellow, almost a neon.  I've heard that it will darken to a brown, just like any other Pink Sugar or high vanilla content fragrance oil. So, don't believe the hype.  Know that it turns brown and use that within your design and you won't be disappointed!!

I'll follow this up with photos of the cut bars tomorrow.  Let me know what you've been working on, I'd love to hear.  What's your favorite fragrance for Fall?  Applejack Peel is still one of mine and I'll be soaping with it next weekend if not before.   xx  Suzy

Here are photos of the cut soap:

 It needs some cleaning up, but I like it !

 Pink Sugar - the top is still that odd yellow, but the inside hasn't darkened in 24 hours.  Hmm (?)

 Another shot of Pink Sugar and my hanger swirl attempt - try, try again!

 Beeswax and honey with a coffee line.  The line is a bit thick and I'm worried the two parts will separate, so I'm going to remake this one.

I WILL get this hanger swirl down !!