Friday, February 1, 2013

Breaking out my old mold...

I was sorting and cleaning out my "soaping closet" the other day and happened to spy my slab wooden mold.  I have not used this baby in a while and decided to give it a go.  It was sort of nice and kind of neat at the same time.  I found myself lining it and remembering my first soaping experiences with this mold.  You see when I first took on this crafting addiction I went a little crazy and started to purchase everything under the sun....

I bought large molds, thinking...I am going to make tons of soap!  Little did I know that it would take me many soap batches before I was comfortable and happy with my soaping recipe.  Little by little I have learned that in the soaping world when you are just learning small batches is not all that bad :).

So there I was, remembering my little disasters and "oily/soft" soap when I realised...hmmm...did I just weight all my Goats Milk with my regular water???!...The plan was to split them in half.  Add my Goats Milk to my oils and mix 40% of the water with my lye.  Well, so much for that!

I had all my ingredients sorted and spread out.  I really did not want to freeze the Goats Milk/water, so I decided to risk it and prayed that the lye would not scorch my milk!  I placed my lye container in an ice bath and added the lye little by little.  It actually was not bad.  It did turn a little goldish brown, but not very dark, so I think I may have gotten lucky!

Here is a picture of the final bars.  I used "Butterfly Hugs" fragrance oil from Natures Garden.  A mix of apple blossom, lily of the valley and rose petals. It's really nice and soaped very well. 

 
I must also mention that I really had a different idea for the design.  I saw this cookie and cupcake decorating set at a store recently, and I got so excited by all the things I could do with it!  Not to mention that I found it in the sales area :). 


Only problem was that I did not wait long enough for the soap to firm up and as a result it ended up a runny mess all over the top of soap.  That did not go very well...so I had to improvise, and here are the results once I was able to pour it in the mold.

 
 
Not bad...I must say that I enjoyed working again with this mold.  It was fun to take a walk down memory lane.  I may just try soaping with it again on my next try :)
 
Thanks for checking out my blog!
 
 
 
HAPPY SOAPING
Roxana
 


10 comments:

  1. I love this soap Roxana, great colors and textures on the top! And what a cool cookie decorating kit...so many things you could do with that!

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    1. Thanks Cee! I thought I was going to have trouble cleaning up the decorating set but I managed to clean most of it out and just stuck it in the dishwasher and it came out squeaky clean!

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  2. That is lovely Roxana! I am so jealous of your wooden slab mold! (maybe one day) The colors are so pretty and go so well together. And that last photo is adorbs!

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    1. Thank you Laura! I don't use it as much since I have trouble with top swirls :( I always manage to over mix my soap and it ends up too thick to do any kind of fancy swirls :)

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  3. I love all of the pretty colors of the swirls, Roxana! And I love slab molds with dividers. I know what you mean about wanting to buy every little thing you see that might be useful for soapmaking. You can find some great soaping gear in the baking section of a store!

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    1. Thanks Jenny! I have discovered that and I have managed to blow my soaping supply budget very quick at times!

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  4. They still look really nice to me! Love the bright colors.

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    1. Thank you Sarah! I must admit that I may have gotten a little carried away with the color mix...I am curious to see what will happen once I start using the bars :) he he he

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  5. Isn't it fun when you find old tools and start playing with them again? I am totally digging the swirls and color of this soap, it's gorgeous. =)

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    1. Thank you Anne-Marie! I keep going back to your blog to get some ideas and attempt new color schemes!

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