Raiders Soap

My friend Stacy is a huge Oakland Raiders fan, so I made this Raiders soap for her Hanukkah present this year:

 

 

 

 

I think it turned out quite nicely!  The "silver" isn't quite as silvery as I wanted it, but that's ok.  I used Japanese Winterberry FO from the ScentWorks.  The little beads on top are sugar beads that I got from a baking supply website.

 

 

 

White Shoulders Type Swirl Soap

I made some swirl soap using White Shoulders type FO from Bitter Creek Candle Supply, because my mother-in-law requested it as a Christmas present.  I think it turned out nice, however you can see the struggle I continue to have with getting white soap as opposed to beige/brown.  I did add 1 oz vanilla FO along with the 1 oz of White Shoulders, so that's probably why it's so brown, as vanilla FO apparently colors CP soap.

 

Also I've noticed, as with my peacock swirl soap from last week, that the less olive oil I use in my recipe, the lighter the coloring of the soap.

 

Anyway, I'm pleased with the swirl!

 

 

Peacock Swirl - Cut Pics

The colors definitely muted a bit, but I still think it's lovely!  And the scent is just right.

 

 

 

My first peacock swirl

I finally buckled down and bought a slab mold - here's my first attempt at a peacock swirl!

 

 

 

 

I have been struggling with getting my soap white as opposed to olive-oil-beige.  I finally tried a recipe that didn't use OO and I like it a lot.  It stayed nice and thin and pourable while I was pouring out into the mold.  I'd recommend it for this type of soaping.  I blended my micas with 1 TBSP sweet almond oil each.

 

12 oz coconut oil (76 degrees)

6 oz grapeseed oil

6 oz safflower oil

2.5 oz shea butter

16 oz beef tallow

16.15 oz water (38%)

6.08 oz lye

2 tsp tangerine wow colorant from Brambleberry

2 tsp mango margarita mica from the Conservatorie

2 tsp strawberry mica from SJSupplies (Etsy)

4 oz Ginger Souffle FO from ScentWorks

 

Will post pics after the cut!

Circle Swirl Tutorial Attempt

Yesterday I tried following this tutorial from Soap Queen.  I had some issues with the Titanium Dioxide - namely, that it wasn't whitening my soap!  I got some good recommendations from other soapers at The Dish - next time I'm going to try putting the powdered TD on top of the lye and then dump it all into the water to mix. 

 

So the soap is orange-turquoise-yellow instead of orange-turquoise-white:

 

 

I mean, it's pretty, it just doesn't look as much like Anne-Marie's as I would like.  The scent is interesting, if not one that I would have picked on my own.  I do like the column mold and will try this technique again once I get some nice new colorants.  I have a lot of lovely new FO's to try out!

 

Check out what my FIL made for me!

My awesome father-in-law made me this mold!  I'm so excited!  As you can see, I've already used it.  This is an orange scented soap with orange/metallic gold swirl.  I'm not sure if the colorants did much as they were liquid colorants from Michael's (I really wanted to soap with my new mold but didn't have a colorant to match the orange FO). 

 

Edited to add the cut pic: