Funnel Pour Design - 2nd Attempt

Slab cut into logs

Following on from my natural colourants experiment, I poured the remaining batter into a slab mould using the funnel pour technique.

To do this technique, you need to slowly pour one colour into the mould from one spot.  Repeat this with another colour and pour directly in centre of the first colour.  Keep repeating this with the other colours.  To add variation to your design, pour different amounts of batter for each layer.

Below are some pictures of the cut slab.  Colourants used are: Cocoa Powder, Powdered Strawberry, Alkanet / Brazilian Purple Clay, Alkanet and Indigo (Last two failed to produce colour and thus appear as pale cream)

The Purple Brazilian Clay has turned out as a
 soft lavender colour

Tiny Little Seeds Just Waiting To Be Used

After watching MyCherriCola's video on Youtube that uses cranberry seeds as decorations, I've been inspired to incorporate them into a soap design.  Unfortunately, cranberries are not a native species to Australia and with their tough quarantine laws, it is hard to get botanicals, etc. from overseas.  The strict laws are a good thing as it protects plant and animal life against pests and diseases.  I thought all of my Christmases had come at once when I found some seeds for sale.  

I had to order as many packs as I could and sat about waiting for their arrival making my husband dutifully check the letterbox every day.  Finally, they arrived and upon opening the package, my husband turned around and said 'this is what you have been making check the letterbox for every day?  They aren't very big are they?'

You know what?  He is right.  I don't know whether there is another species of cranberry that produces larger seeds or clever photography on behalf of other sites? The species of seeds I ordered were: Vaccinium Macrocarpon. 

Can anyone point me in the right direction for the better species of cranberry for decorating soaps with, any advice would be greatly appreciated?  TIA

Can you believe there are 250 seeds?

Compare the size of the seeds with
 the matchbox!

If you are interested in watching MyCherriCola video the link is: https://youtu.be/pSa_-1oIqUY

Or access it through my post from 22 August 2015

Experimenting With Colour

Left to Right:  Powdered Strawberry, Indigo, Alkanet and Brazilian Purple Clay,
Alkanet, Cocoa Powder

These are the results of my experiment on the weekend using natural ingredients to colour my cold processed soap.

My soap batter was made up of the following base oils.  Olive Oil, Coconut Oil, Rice Bran Oil & Cocoa Butter.

Into 500 ml of batter I added:

1. 2 tsp of Strawberry Powder - Initially there was a faint smell of strawberry. Four days later, there is no indication of the smell of strawberries, and the soap has turned a light tan colour.

2. 4 tsp of infused Indigo - Initially, there was a pale blue tint to the soap.  However, after four days, the soap appears white.  I don't think this will deepen in colour but will check back in a week.  Most likely, I will need to increase the quantity of infused oil.

3. 1 tsp Brazilian Purple Clay mixed with 2 tsp Infused Alkanet - I'm really loving this colour and I'm hoping this won't deepen too much.

4. 2 tsp Alkanet - Initially there was a very pale pink tinge to the soap but it seems I have completely missed the mark and used too little Alkanet infusion.  At the moment, I can't see any colour tint to this soap.  Back to the drawing boards for this one :-(

5.  2 tsp Cocoa Powder - This is a nice brown colour to the soap.  This one I think will darken over the next few days as it is exposed to the air.

Even though some of the colours haven't turned out how I thought they would, I am really happy with the colours produced and how creamy and complimentary they look all lined up together.

Heavenly Scent

I'm so in love with this essential oil blend of Ylang Ylang, Rose Geranium and Vanilla; I first made this just over 2 years ago.  The sultry, seductive blend compliments the natural colourants of cocoa powder and Australian Pink Clay.

For this batch, I used 2tsp of both cocoa powder and pink clay per 500g of soap batter. I wonder what the colour will be like after it has finished curing?  Originally I had planned to make even lines between the colours (sort of like neopolitan icecream) alas, for some reason, the uncoloured batter thickened up quicker than the other two and it resulted in more ploops instead of nice straight lines.  Next time I'll have a serious chat with the soap pixies and tell them to behave themselves :-)  Initially, it sort of plopped itself over the place and during the initial saponification process, it looked like a very sunburnt ......... well I'm not really sure what it looked like :-)

Not looking too pretty at this stage

Glycerin Rivers

Glycerin Rivers Coursing Through the Soap

I didn't mean to get a 'tiger' pattern in this soap, but I really like it.  You see, this pattern was created by rivers of glycerin forming in my soap during the saponification process.  Glycerin occurs naturally in cold processed soap and is part of the reason that soaps made in this manner tend to be very moisturising and nourishing for your body. So why did this occur?  During the saponification and curing process, my soap got very hot and basically, little rivers of glycerin formed in between other oils which had started to solidify.  It is still fine to use; the translucent parts just happen to be a little bit softer.

In fact, often when people comment that soap is very drying to the skin and that their skin is left feeling tight, what they are referring to is commercially produced soap. Large-scale commercial production of soap often deliberately remove the glycerin and add it to moisturising products such as lotions marketing the lotion or cream as a moisturiser to combat the 'dried leather' feel associated with soap.

Poor soap, it gets such a bad wrap at times all because people are led to believe soap has to be drying.

If you regularly use cold processed soap full of moisturising oils, you will find over time the need to use moisturisers diminishes.

You can see in this photo how the parts of soap with
Glycerin Rivers are more translucent

Rainbow In My Kitchen

My natural colourant infused oils have finally been removed from the water baths after 6 hours.  Yes that's right, 2 hours later than I had planned thanks to me forgetting to turn the hob on and not realizing for 2 hours that the water baths were not getting any warmer!

Anyway, here are the results which my husband think are pretty cool

Infused Oils left to right:
Spirulina, Australian Bush Tomato, Alkanet,
Madder Root, Indigo & Turmeric 

Infusing Natural Colourants

I love using natural colourants in my soap making, not only can you get a gorgeous Symphony of colour variations, you also have the added bonus of knowing that they have been derived from nature.

So what's on the soapmaking menu today?

Clockwise from the top.
Spirulina, Paprika, Alkanet, Madder Root
Indigo, Turmeric, Australian Bush Tomato
Centre: Chlorophyll

I am infusing these colourants in light olive oil. As it is winter and I don't have alot of shelving space alongside windows, I'm opting for the warm infusing method.  This involves gently warming the oils slowly over 3-4 hours in simmering water using a double boiler.  It is important when using this method to not "cook" the oil.

What colours might I expect the infused oils to produce?

Spirulina - blue-green colour

Paprika - Salmon to orange colour

Alkanet - Pinkish red through to purplish blue

Madder Root - Light pink to earthy red

Indigo - Blue

Turmeric  - Lemony yellow to earthy gold.

Australian Bush Tomato - I'm not sure what to expect.  Perhaps an orange to red colour.

Chlorophyll - Pale green

Colourants waiting to be infused. Left to Right:
Spirulina, Australian Bush Tomato, Alkanet,
Madder Root, Indigo & Turmeric

You can see in this image that some of the colourants started to infuse themselves without the need of the water bath.