Springtime Shimmies

Time for another Soap Challenge Club batch, and this month's technique is the Tall & Skinny Shimmy.  This was originally presented back in 2015, with guest instructor Tatiana Serko, and it was the first challenge that I had officially participated in.  You can see my Harvest Shimmy here, and the other attempts here.  They weren't the best, but I did love them and the technique.   I've learned a lot about soap over the last five years, so I was hoping to do a little better this time around.  So, let's resurrect this technique and do a few for this spring and summer.

Regular Category

Advanced Category

The pictures above are what we are going for with this challenge.   The one on the left was the one used as the tutorial back in 2015, made by Tatiana Serko.  The one on the right is, from what I've read, the original inspiration for this technique.  It was done by Jabone de Casa in 2013. 

This technique is a wall pour, where you use a tall and skinny mold and alternate the sides you pour from, hopefully with a nice palette of colors arranged in the correct order (this part is challenging for me! ...especially since I use only natural colorants), to give a fluid motion effect of the shimmy.

I was able to get three attempts in this month!

For my first attempt I went with yellow (annatto seed infused oils), purple (alkanet infused oils) and green (chlorophyll) - I am so ready to see these colors growing outside!  The scent is a fruity/floral combination of Yuzu and Lily of the Valley.

The lighting isn't the best in these photos, but I was aiming for a gradient of each color.

During the pour, you elevate one side of the mold.  In the photos below, you can see that I have a pen underneath the mold.  When you switch to the other side, the batter shifts and it provides the "shimmy" effect between the layers of soap.

The pen decided to move on me, so I attempted to tape it down.  Because I already had a bit of a soapy mess going on, that wasn't really working for me, so I ended up using some wood shims I had kicking around.  For later batches, I taped these shims down so it was a good stable edge to lean the mold against.

The pour was done by starting at one corner of the lower leaning edge and slowly pouring as you drag the cup along the long edge to the other corner.  I apologize for not having any good pictures of that...I'm not talented enough to take the picture without an extra set of hands.  (There are many good videos on the web demonstrating this though :)

I just kept alternating yellow, purple and green until reaching the top of the mold.  Each color had four pours ranging from dark to light.  Then I put a bit of swirl on top with a bamboo skewer.

I wrapped this up in towels, let it sit overnight, unmolded and cut. 

I think the batter was a little thicker than it should have been, not allowing for as much fluid movement as I would have liked.  And, the green and purple should have been separated by the yellow...my difficulties with the color design showing here.  But they are nice bars of soap all the same.

 Onto Batch #2...

Again, I attempted a gradient of each color, but went with yellow (annatto seed infused oils), pink (rose clay) and green (chlorophyll).  The scent here was a combination of mint, lavender, lemon, eucalyptus, rosewood and cedarwood.

I moved a faster this time around, being a little more familiar with the technique.

Definitely has more fluidity going for it, and I like the color design a little better.

Now for Batch #3...

I had been playing with the idea of doing all three colors on each side, each time I poured, so this was that attempt - no gradient this time!  I chose to do black (bamboo charcoal), pink (rose clay), green (chlorophyll) and white/natural (kaolin clay).  The scent combination was a mixture of orange, grapefruit, sandalwood and ylang ylang.

Now, these I absolutely love!  I think the contrasting colors really nailed it and I'm thinking I should always leave a bit of white....if I could only remember that going forward!

This was an enjoyable diversion this month.  Thank you Amy for deciding to do the challenge in lieu of the HSCG conference!  Has anyone seen any part of the virtual conference?  I keep meaning to take the time to look...