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What's up Love Buds?

So, I've been soaping for several weeks now, loving it and learning a lot. It's been a blast, even with some of the awesome failures I have had. So what have I learned this month when it comes to making soap?

Lesson 1: Swirls are not as hard as I thought

The tops of my soaps are swirl tastic and the insides are looking sw irli cious! When using a well calculated, slow to trace soap recipe, the possibilities are endless. I've been swirling my heart out since the blueberry soap fiasco with my first attempt soap making.

Lesson 2: Know your mold, start small

The above soap came out gorgeous, except for one thing, I didn't calculate the batch pro perly and was not able to completely fill the mold with my batter, which means the soap had to be cut wider than I wanted to give the same amount of soap. I'm using silicone molds at the moment because I'm not feeling the lining of wooden ones . It may be something I need to do if I becom e a seriou s soaper, but I'm not c rossing that bridge un less I really need to . * Si licone molds are fl imsy and easy to unmold, but if you plan to relocate it from where you made your soap to a different curing location while the soap is still s om e what liquid, use caution and soap on something sturd y that you can use as a base to relocate the mold (I found a cutting board works well). I have f irst hand knowledge of the gut wrenching after effect of c reating a beautiful soap and then sloshing it all over the floor trying to p ut a flimsy mold on the curing rack.

I started making soap using a 40 oz mold I received with my kit from Bramble Berry, but that is way too much soap to experiment with. I purchased a couple of 1 pound molds as well as some individual soap bar molds so that I ca n make sm aller ba tches. By cutting my batches in half, I can make twice the attempts with the same amount of materials. It makes a HUGE difference.

Lesson 3: Be up to the challenge

Challenges like th e tear drop swirl by Great Cakes Soapworks are great ways to test your skills an d try something new. I wasn't a part of the official challeng e, but see in g Yout ube videos about it prompted me to make an atte mpt and I did a pretty good job!





Lesson 4: Don't be discouraged





rdrop swirl wound up looking like this: The beautiful creation above was my second attempt at this process. You can see my first attempt at cold process soap in about seven years here . My first attempt at a teawound up looking like this:





Now, it still turned out to be a great soap, but the batter seized up on me pretty quickly. Which brings me to next lesson....





Lesson 5: Research, plan ahead and be ready for it to all go left!





If I had refreshed myself on this fragrance oil prior to starting, I would have known it has a tendency to accelerate trace. Read up on the properties of all of the ingredients you are going to use, plan and prepare. But, stay calm when something unexpected happens and work with what you got.





I was trying wheatgerm oil in my soap and planned on trying a hanger swirl (which is not something you should plan to do with an unpredictable recipe) - the batter seized immediately, I could barely plop it in the mold and twirl the end of my spatula through the batter a couple of times before the soap set up and the colors were not as vibrant as I wanted, however this soap came out gorgeously.









5.0 0. Each batch is only 2 to 6 bars of soap and as I continue to say, my journey is about exploration so re-doing batches probably won't happen (maybe for the holidays...we'll see). I'd appreciate your support as I continue this journey and of course I want your feedback on anything you choose to acquire. All of my creations can be found There are several things I've noticed that I need to work on, but that will be a story for the next soap chronicle! In the meantime, as I produce and cure soap, it will be made available for sale. The bars will be between $3.99 and $0. Each batch is only 2 to 6 bars of soap and as I continue to say, my journey is about exploration so re-doing batches probably won't happen (maybe for the holidays...we'll see). I'd appreciate your support as I continue this journey and of course I want your feedback on anything you choose to acquire. All of my creations can be found here





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Until next time,





Peace, Love & loads of glorious, gorgeous Bubbles!





A.







