Feather Swirl Finally!

Very rarely can I perform a whispery feather swirl as delicate as this one!

My recipes trace at average speed, perfect for someone impatient like me.  To make feathering swirl requires very thin and slow trace soap recipe.  Rule of thumb  is to use high contain of olive oil in the recipe, but I dislike the slimy feel and the long cure time.  I like hard bars of soap, decreasing saturated fat is not an option for me either.  The only way I can achieve this is by using beef tallow in the recipe.  I know quit a lot of people find soap made with animal fat to be considered not environmentally friendly.  On the contrary, as a meat eater, I feel it is actually greener to use animal fat for soap.  If you would like to know more about using beef tallow for soap, here's my old blog post: myth about Beef Tallow Soap

This is Ume Blossom Soap, Ume means plum in Japanese, it's the first bloom of the spring followed by Cherry blossom.

 

I used a small cookie cutter to make these tiny flower using melt and pour soap base ahead of time then "glued" some sugar pearls with cold process soap in the center of each blossom.  It is time consuming and detail oriented but it's worth the effort, don't you think?

Pipping Soap Poppy Flower

Soaping is very much like cooking, to be more specific, very much like baking.  Whatever you can pipe onto a cake for decoration it can be done in cold process soap also.  I'm not much of a baker, why make it myself when I can just buy all kind of yummy treats out there easily?!  I confess, my very first pipping experience is not for food, it's for soap... that's serious soaping addiction, LOL.

Pipping cupcakes is actually pretty easy as long as you get the thickness of soap batter under control.  Pipping flowers is a totally different story.  All the youtube clips on pipping flowers make it look so easy and effortless.

These are my first pipped flower, they are supposed to be poppies but... oh well, good enough, LOL

It was no piece of cake for me!  I had to pipe it again and again, scrap the failed ones, throw it back into the bag, do it again until it looked decent.  The last 2 flower petals started to crack all over the place because the soap batter had gotten way too thick and dry for pipping.

Oh well, next time will be better I tell myself!  Hey, at least they look like flower!

If you want to give this a try, take a look at this video first: 

Thank you Kim from Alamo Candelaria for showing us how to pipe poppy flower!!

Soap Top Colored Sugar Crystal Obsession

I told you I get obsessed from time to time!
I'm going to show you a simple last minute trick to spice up soap top!  This item is very common in supermarket or any baking supply store.  It is cake decorating sugar crystal, yes, the eatable sugar, just in bigger crystal size than regular white granulated sugar.  However, if you live in tropical high humidity place this might not work for you, you don't want sugar water on top of your soap!  You can use it as is, just sprinkle wherever you want:

Or you can color it lightly first then sprinkle all over:

Or, you can color it intensively then sprinkle:

Tip, do not use water or oil base colorants!  Colorants should be powder form, best to be shimmery or sparkly but don't use dye!

How to Fancy Up a Plain Soap

Does plain soap have to be boring?  Absolutely NOT.  If you soap one color plain soap what else can you do to make it more eye catching?

Last month I talked about using oil mica swirl to jazz up soap top, read this one: Soap Top Oil Mica Obsession  But that's not the only other technic you can play with shimmery sparkling micas.  Here is my story:

More and more often I found myself soaping with fragrances that either discolor or accelerate trace or both.  Any fragrance that has sweet notes usually contains vanillin which is the synthetic duplication of vanilla scent.  Vanillin oxidizes and turns soap to different levels of brown depending on how much is in that specific fragrance.I'm pretty sure I'm not the only soaper tired of dealing with browning soap.  There's only so much you can do to brown color!  Because of this I hit a soaper's block due to frustration, was going to give up and just soap it plain jane looking.  But part of me refused to cooperate.  Then a light bulb lighted up in my head, I can paint shimmery mica on top for some bling bling!

Stage 1: make the plain soap and pour into the mold with peak top

This is made with deflated California Cabernet Sauvignon and Australian red clay and scented with Apple Berry Picnic (oh so yummy...)

Stage 2: paint mica on the top once the soap is harden up and ready to take out of its mold

I just used a cheap small soft paint blush so I can deliver mica into any tight nook.  That was fun!

Now look at them shine under sunlight!

 3 color gold mica gradation effect, from light gold to pure gold then copper gold!

Soap Top Oil Mica Obsession

I admit, I have obsession on certain style of soaping from time to time.  There was a period when all I wanted to do was layering, from simple one color gradient to complicated tri-color alternating 11 layer gradient, I was totally obsessed for awhile!  It seems like lately I've switched my obsession to the soap top decoration, to be more specific, the use of sugar pearls and oil mica swirl.  What is oil mica swirl you ask?  It is simply mixing body safe mica or glitter with little oil to drizzle over the soap top then either swirl it with a stick or spoon.  After soap sets up hard, the oil you use to mix the mica gets absorbed into the soap and creates a trace of shimmery mica or glitter behind for some bling bling!  Normally when you mix shimmery mica into soap batter you get the coloring  but not the shimmer or glitter.  By doing oil mica on soap top you can add a lot more visual interest to the look.

Pumpkin Chai

Badedas

Full Moon

Ume Blossom

Lemon Verbena

Dark Kiss

Strawberry & Champagne