Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Peacock Swirl, or something like it

I have signed up for Amy Warden's Soap Challenge Club (Click on the link to learn more about it).

Out first challenge is the Peacock Swirl.  I was pretty excited and could not wait to get started.  I picked my colors and fragrance and was set to go!

I wanted some nice bright colors, so I decided to go with the following:

 
 
Now I did make a change to my standard recipe.  I used more Olive Oil, took out my Palm and Palm Kernel Oil and made sure to go with Mango Butter instead of Cocoa Butter.  I thought I would be safe, but little did I know I was headed for my first failure. 
 
I think I may have over blended my soap.  By the time I added the fragrance oil I was already at medium trace.  My soap moved fast and here I thought I was going to have enough time due to the high content of olive oil.  I could not even squirt my soap out of the condiment bottles, much less mix them.  It was pretty bad!
 


I decided to give it a go one more time. I just keep going back for more punishment :)

This time I took off the Castor Oil and used more Olive Oil and decided to add Rice Bran Oil.  Wouldn't you know it...I almost did it again.  Over blended my mixture again.  This time I was able to barely mix the colors in my condiment bottle and little by little added the soap to the mold.

 
I used my made up little tool and dragged it down the soap
 

 The soap was pretty thick.  It certainly did not look anything close to what I was suppose to have :(
I finished by creating the "8" pattern, and I am thinking that maybe I should have made my swirl a little smaller.


So here are the final bars.  I can't say that I am completely happy with them, but at least they are a lot better than the first batch.
 
 
I think this will be it for me and the peacock swirl for some time.  I need to come up with a nice slow moving recipe before I decide to try it again. 
 
In the end I would say that I did have fun with this project...sort of.  I did allow me to try a new technique and play with colors.  All is not lost after all.
 
Thanks for checking out my blog!!!
 
HAPPY SOAPING!
ROXANA

 

12 comments:

  1. I think your soap came out very pretty and your colour combinations are great! Your figure 8 gave it a subtle, but different look to it which is really cool! I'm glad you stuck with it.

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    1. Thanks Monica! You were my cheerleader all along. Thank you :)

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  2. Oh,Roxana, don't worry,your soap looks great! And I like its textured top! Colours are great,too.Yes,you could have made narrower swirls,but it's still beautiful.I've never used RBO, but it's said to be a really fast mover. So, leave it out next time. What temperature did you soap at? I prefer my L/W really low! You didn't show what your first soap looked cut,but I hope you saved your precious ingredients by swirling it some way!

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    1. Thanks Maja! I am not going to tell you what I did with my first soap...:(
      Not pretty. Maybe I will leave the RBO oil out next time. My L/W were in the mid 90s. I always get worried that if I go too low that I may have some false trace.

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  3. Aww Roxana :(

    That's why I didn't sign up for this challenge, haha. I figured something like that would probably happen to me too.

    The colors are very pretty though!

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  4. The soap is still beautiful, Roxana! I love those bright, happy colors! I still haven't tried the peacock swirl - I'll have to give it a go someday.

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  5. I would say those bars are still a success Roxana! I love the bright colors and texture on top, and I can definitely see the peacock swirl in there, beautiful!

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    1. Thanks Cee! I feel a little better now :)

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  6. Your soap reminds me of hot air baloons. Pretty cool looking.

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  7. Your colors turned out so vibrant and intense -- I love it! =)

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