Another Great Cakes Soap Challenge is underway!  This month we learned how to create a bas-relief from plants to create beautiful soaps from guest instructor, Elena Nedachina.  This was a multi step process and definitely put emphasis on the word "challenge" for me this month.

The first challenge was to find plant material.  Here in Colorado, it is winter, with a blanket of snow everywhere, so the pickings were a bit slim.  On the other side was the fact that plants that were available tended to have quite a bit of texture, which is what I was going for.  I did want to experiment a bit so I did so by also using a favorite houseplant, and some fresh rosemary and mint found at the grocery store.

The next step was to press the plant material into some clay to make an impression.  From this impression, I made a plaster cast, followed up by making a silicone mold from the casting.  The silicone mold was then used to make a soap bar.  Here is a timeline in pictures.

Several things were learned throughout this journey that I'd like to share. 

The dried up plant material that was available outside worked, but tended to crumble when applying the pressure needed to get the impression - so it took more time to clean up the dried bits out of the clay.  This process compromised the final impression, in my opinion, as I had to work with a toothpick to get the pieces out and left unintended marks upon the clay. 

The fresh items from the grocery store worked beautifully, as they lifted up easily from the clay.  Leaves were a challenge, as you really needed to get them pressed in well to obtain the delicate features.  Some of mine were awesome, some not so great.  My shamrock was an example of this.  The image barely came up on both the clay and the silicone mat, but I decided to complete the process through to the end.  I could just see the shamrock leaf on the soap, but when I added a bit of mica "paint" to the image, it popped!  I was really happy with the outcome, it was perfect.  So, just because the impression isn't the best, it doesn't mean it won't turn out well if you use your imagination.

I absolutely love the plaster casts I made, aside from the shamrocks which were lackluster.  I haven't tried them yet, but would like to see how they would work as a stamp on softer soap.

The resulting silicone mats, although made from the mold I was ultimately using, seemed to be too big.  Some of this may be that silicone on silicone just doesn't slide easily.  The problem that I had was that I could not get the mat to lay flat on the bottom of the mold before pouring the soap batter into them, they kind of poofed up.  This followed through to the final product, in which the soaps ended up being a little domed.  I suppose it worked out ok, as while cleaning up the image, I scraped a lot of that dome out.   In the future, I will trim them down or make them just a tad smaller somehow.  I'll have to ponder on how to avoid this.

All in all, these soaps turned out stunning, and even though this project was a lot of work, and involved quite a bit of time, I really enjoyed the process.  I will definitely repeat it - especially after spring and summer flowers arrive with all of the variety that can be added.  The ideas are limitless for making your own molds and creating a truly unique bar of soap - new ideas are forming in my mind for my garden this year!!!

Amy Warden’s Soap Challenge for the month of October was to recreate a soap that looks like the picture below.

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You are probably wondering why I would write about this.  Well, I haven't washed my hair since September 8th, so for me it was a big deal! 

Now, you must be thinking I am a crazy woman - why  wouldn't you wash your hair?

I've been performing an experiment.  I've had an increase in customers asking about my shampoo bars and about going the "no poo" route, mostly for the reason of not adding all those empty bottles into landfills.  Our shampoo bars definitely solve that solution, as they dissolve away completely and the packaging is biodegradable paper.  However, there are other reasons people do not wish to use what we consider to be "traditional" shampoos and conditioners. 

Some folks want to be more natural, being one with nature and all that.  When I was a teenager, we had a friend of the family that never used these products, saying that all you are doing is stripping your natural oils away only to replace it with other synthetic ones.  He was certainly right, and I have always seen the light in his reasoning.  However, I could never bring myself to actually abandoning the hygiene lessons my parents and grandparents had taught me.

On another note, many people today struggle with health and/or infertility issues and are avoiding certain chemicals found in body care products (not to mention caffeine, sugars, alcohol and all kinds of other things that we enjoy poisoning ourselves with daily).  I have been intrigued by this phenomena, and have done a little research into this, as I do believe that much of what we do to our bodies is unnecessarily harmful.  Because of this, I have been more aware of ingredients found in beauty products.  A season of The Handmaid's Tale is enough to scare anyone :)

In doing my research, I found that many people go without washing their hair with shampoos and conditioners.  They state that after 6-8 weeks, your head will stop producing so much oil, claiming that if you care for your hair the way it was done back in the day - brushing it through with a bristled brush 100 strokes a day - it will distribute the oils properly throughout the hair making it absolutely lovely.  They believe that this was the case up until the 1930's to 50's when the shampoos and conditioners that we so love today came into existence.  People didn't necessarily have horrible hygiene, instead they actually had a much more involved routine when it came to their hair, an art that has been lost.  Interesting thoughts to ponder upon...

Now, before I go even further into this, there is another reason that I went cold turkey on the shampoos and conditioners, instead of switching to my shampoo bar.  I've used my shampoo bar off and on for several years, and I love it.  However, in the soap making world, there is a lot of debate as to whether or not a shampoo bar is good for your hair.  Some believe that it will eventually break the hair, especially if you use an apple cider vinegar rinse or some other "conditioning" agent because it bends the shaft one way as it cleans and then the other way to relax it.  Eventually, the hair becomes weak.  Others swear by their products and have been using them for years with no problems.  The discrepancy here is probably a formulation difference. 

However, my thoughts were, why go through all the fuss?  I'm not the type of person who uses a lot of product in my hair and now my interest was piqued -  I really wanted to see what would happen to let it go naturally.  And, my hair is fairly short right now, so I decided to let it all go completely, so as not to do any damage, but instead, use my natural oils as the conditioning product.

I started off with a good clean, after using my shampoo bar on September 8th.  I always find that my hair lasts a bit longer, meaning that I can go more days without washing, when I use my shampoo bar.  So, when I am using the shampoo bar, I tend to only wash my hair about twice a week anyway.  But, I was about to go on a longer journey.

Now, when I say I wasn't washing my hair, that is really not true.  I did wash it, very well in fact, with warm water in the shower.  I spent an equivalent amount of time on my hair, really getting into the roots.  A good shower comb was extremely helpful!  And, I was still blow drying it.  I found that "washing" it daily definitely made a difference, and I felt better if it were blow dried.  I'm sure this was just my preference, but it felt like it had more lift and I liked the style better.

After five days, I noted that it was at its peak of "oiliness".  However, throughout this entire experiment, my hair fluctuated from being oily and actually being a bit dry.  This is probably due to my lack of diligence in brushing my hair every night.  Brushing the oil through definitely helped to maintain a more uniform consistency, keeping the roots from being too oily and the ends from getting dried out. 

After five weeks, I had an appointment with my hairdresser (who I have to say is a trooper for dealing with my crazy!) and we discussed the properties of my hair.  She felt like it was difficult to really get the roots wet, and I have to agree.  There was also what we both felt was a considerable amount of oil built up on the hair.  The hair looked just fine, and I received many compliments on my hair throughout the experiment, it just felt different. 

Now, there are pros and cons to both of these attributes.  In centuries past, women created elaborate hair styles that are difficult for us to imagine today.  However, while in the midst of this experiment, I could see how well it would work.  I could easily put a barrette in my hair and it would stay put all day.  Today, with nice clean hair, I've had to reattach them no less than ten times.  So, that was certainly a plus! 

I continued on, and got into a new routine, however, I really did not like the physical feel of my hair.  I do realize that it is just what I am used to, but I was waiting for that wonderful, silky hair that people claim to have after 6-8 weeks.  The last couple of weeks, the build up on my hair just seemed to get worse.  And, that is why I washed my hair today.  For me, personally, I like the softer, lighter feel of freshly washed hair. 

I do have to say that it feels amazing today!  Much softer than before the experiment.  I think that if you needed a good, deep conditioning treatment, letting the washing go for a while would be beneficial.

Growing up, whenever I attempted to use a bar of soap on my head, it got....well you probably know, all that film left on the hair.  It was just down right awful!  And, my husband and I have had several conversations about this.  Where I think the shampoo bar is very clarifying and tends to get your hair squeaky clean, he feels that "squeakiness" is a film, as one would expect from a bar of soap.  So, today when I washed my hair, I wasn't sure what to expect.   Would I have to repeat the wash to get all the build up off?  The answer was a resounding no!  A simple wash with the bar did a beautiful job of getting it clean, and once dry, it is as great as it's ever been. 

I think I have found a work around using conditioners filled with harmful chemicals.  In the future, I think that just letting it go for a while will work wonders, at least for my hair and body type.  I may not go two months, but a month or so wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, and the end result is amazing!

Amy Warden's Soap Challenge Club is back after a brief hiatus, and that means another fun soaping adventure.  This month's tutorial is entitled Mini Drop Swirls, and I have tried to create this look before without success.  However, the lesson she provided helped me to understand the process better, and I really like the final product.

So, with Halloween approaching quickly, I thought this was the perfect opportunity to make a slimy, drippy soap to add to the fun we have with the celebration.  Amy showed the drips using various colors, but I really wanted to make a goopy looking soap and decided, for my first batch anyway, to go with a solid purple dripping into an orange background, something similar to the image below. 

I forgot to take pictures during the making of the soap, oops!  Therefore, you will get more words than pics, sorry about that!

The purple was achieved by infusing half of my oils with alkanet root and straining it out before making the final soap batter.  The orange was infused with annatto seeds and, again, strained out to make the rest of the batter.

I added the lye to each of the oil mixtures at the same time, one third purple oil base and two thirds orange oil base.  I stirred and stick blended the mixtures to an emulsion and then put the purple batter into a condiment dispenser.  With this first batch, I just used the tip on the containers, since they are fairly long, and thought I would see how that went before adding more length to it.

I poured the orange two thirds into the mold and got the purple ready.  The idea was to get the tip into the batter at the appropriate depth and then squeeze the purple out slowly as you move the dispenser from one end of the mold to the other, lengthwise.  It is somewhat tricky to get the tip of the dispenser into the base before the purple started to ooze out, but I did it without too much difficulty - once I decided to just do it. 

I did three or four lines, trying to put them at various levels in the orange batter.  When I was done with those lines, I started layering lines of purple on the top, covering up the orange that kept peeping through.  The end result was a solid purple top, which I wasn't sure if I wanted or not - it looked a bit plain.

Unmolded and cut the next morning, and I absolutely love the result, it is exactly what I was going for!  Sometimes I amaze myself :)

The second batch I made using this technique was inspired by the same thought, oozing slime.  These bars were made directly after the orange and purple bars, and I wasn't sure if my technique was good or not, since I couldn't cut them to see the result until the next day.  So, I decided a couple of things.  For one, I thought that the orange bars were too small - the batter did not fill up the mold so I was afraid that I did not have enough space at the bottom to really separate out the drops properly.  So, I added more oils to give it more depth.  And, I changed the colors to green (using chlorophyll at trace) and yellow (using annatto infused oils) drips, hoping to give the "slime" a more realistic look, with the yellow "highlights".  I made the background black this time, hoping the green and yellow would have a nice contrast with the darker color.

The results of this batch were pretty, but not at all what I was going for.  After cutting and looking at each batch, I like the size of the orange and purple bars better.  I may end up cutting these bars in half.  The yellow contrasts nicely, but the green did not get bright enough.  I do have to say that the top of these bars are perfect CSU Rams colors!!!

Now, in this second batch, I used a straw attachment added to the tip of the spout on the condiment dispenser.  The drops probably would not have made it deep enough without the additional length the straw provided. 

 These drops also ended up being quite a bit smaller than the first batch.  However, I think that it has more to do with the amount of pressure applied and the speed in which the line is drawn.

Here are pictures of the final bars from this second batch.

Our philosophy here at ASC Soapworks, is to keep it simple.  We make soaps that are great for all people, including those with skin sensitivities,and the simpler the better..

Most of our soaps, therefore, come in their unadulterated form, generally a cream color.  These unsullied bars will still have some variation depending on the essential oil and/or fragrance used, as well as other ingredients that are sometimes added. 

The basic nature of the soap making process is fairly harsh on many additives making coloring more difficult than one would initially think.  However, if you have a fundamental understanding of chemistry, this can not only be maneuvered around, but used to your advantage.  Alkanet root infused oils are very much like a litmus paper.  It will be red until the base is added, then turning a vibrant purple.  Anything with a bit of vanilla will have a natural brown color, as is the case if there are sugars in the recipe, like honey, milk of any kind, etc.  Beautiful lavender buds will turn brown as they go through the saponification process.  Ensuring that the soap goes through a gel phase will help to deepen the color and to make them more consistent throughout. 

Many ingredients sold for coloring soaps are considered to be "natural" -  titanium dioxide, micas and oxides are some  examples.  However, going with the thought that less is more, these are not added to our recipes.  We prefer to add ingredients that we would naturally ingest, or grow in the garden.  This is just our preference.

Reds and Pinks

It is difficult to obtain a true "American flag" red using natural colorants in soap.  A couple of different clay products give us acceptable alternatives.  The Burlap & Lace soaps that I have made would fall in the red spectrum, but they are more of a brick red, a little on the orange side.  Making this batch utilized Moroccan red clay, added at trace.  The Candy Cane soaps, along with a few other varieties I have created, are made using Rose Clay, and you can get a very nice gradient of pinks, almost closing in on red.  Because of this, rose clay has been my favorite when I need something in the field of red.

In the photos below, you can see the difference in the rose on top of the soap (rose clay) and the background color of the soap (Moroccan red clay) in the Burlap and Lace Soap on the left.  The other three soaps were created with rose clay.

While researching how to make red soaps using natural products, it is apparent that many people use madder root with  success.  It apparently can be added at trace, or to the lye solution.  I have been reluctant to experiment with this material for a few reasons.  I have read that it should not be used in baby products, Wikipedia states that in folk medicine is has been used to induce miscarriages and that it may cause birth defects.  It has not been approved as a colorant by the FDA, and I wonder if all of these facts play into why.  Madder root is not something you will find in our soaps, as there is no need to add anything with a questionable background.

Oranges and Yellows

There are many ways to create beautiful oranges and yellows in soaps naturally - annatto seed, calendula, chamomile, carrots, cornmeal, orange, paprika, safflower petals, saffron and turmeric are all popular.  You can add color through oil infusion or by adding powder or puree at trace, adding it to lye, etc..  Paprika is found in both the Sweet Orange & Cinnamon and the Rose Patchouli bars, and I choose to add at trace most of the time, generally out of ease of use and spontaneity.  Coloring the soap in this manner may add a very light exfoliating effect due to the grainy texture of the powder or larger pieces puree.

Annatto seed is a natural, alternative food coloring that can be found in products such as cheeses or natural macaroni & cheese, crackers, etc.  You can find it fairly cheaply in Hispanic groceries, also known as achiote, as they use it in recipes involving the marinating of meat and chicken, as well as soups and other dishes.  It is available in both a powdered form and whole seeds.  The Clove Bar is a beautiful orange color, achieved by infusing oil with this seed.   The resulting oil is then added to the recipe in varying amounts to obtain the desired color.  Depending on how much is used, the resulting soap can be anywhere from a very pale yellow to a deep orange.  Infusing the oils is preferable if you are not a fan of the grainy texture that arises from adding the powder at trace.

Greens

Although many additives have been attempted, greens have been a bit elusive.  The easiest and most consistent has been using Green Sea Clay.  I like the color, but it is a deeper green, darker and grayish.  This color works for some applications, but if trying for the green of grass, or a shamrock, it just doesn't give the same effect.  It would be reasonable to think that you could combine the sea clay with annatto, but it doesn't really change the color satisfactorily.  Nettle leaf infused oils have been too weak, giving a washed out color.  In order to get a decent shade of green from Spirulina, a fairly large amount needed to be used, and the resulting soap gave off an odor that was not masked well by the essential oils used.  This was not a very desirable outcome.

The most recent foray into creating a green soap has been using liquid chlorophyll.  The first batch was very promising, as the color was perfect, and it was extremely easy to use, adding it at trace until reaching the desired shade.  However, after a few weeks, it faded away to a light brown color.  Since then, I have been playing with a few different things to see if the color will be retained better.  The results are still to be seen.

Blues and Purples

Blues, once again, are difficult colors to obtain.  Indigo is the "go to" colorant in the industry, and it can be added at trace or to the base solution.  Again, you need to add a significant amount to get a true blue.  This then poses another problem - the fact that indigo is an industrial dye that stains.  Not exactly what you want in a soap.  I have used it a few times, trying to add it in various ways, but at the concentrations that I have used, the color tends to fade away quickly to more of a gray tone.

Purples, on the other hand, are easily obtained using an oil infused with alkanet root.  To get a deeper color, substitute 40-50 % of the oils with the infused oil, use less for lighter shades.  Some success has been found with adding small amounts of infused oil at trace to color the soap batter.  The result of this is a much lighter shade, but purple nonetheless.  Easy to use, with a little bit of forethought, alkanet root lends a beautiful shade to your soap color palette.

Blacks and Browns

Charcoal is an effective ingredient to create shades of black and gray in soaps and has been touted as having the added benefit of drawing toxins from the skin.  This is what we use when looking for the sleekness and style that black adds to a design.  Some people use poppy seeds for specks - they are perfectly natural, and I love the speckled look.  Caution needs to be used when using non-soap additives, even though we incorporate lavender buds, cornmeal, coffee and oatmeal into some of our bars.  Since reading about aduki beans growing in people's showers, I try to steer away from anything that will grow or clog up the shower drain.  My husband doesn't like to use the Simply Lavender bar for this exact reason, but customers do like the exfoliating nature of the additives, so I keep a few varieties in the line with that feature.  I may try the poppy seeds at some point in time, as they are aesthetically pleasing, and from where I stand, they are harmless enough.

Browns can be created many ways, as much of what you start with will turn brown when added to the basic soap batter.  However, for intentionally creating brown, our favorite is cocoa.  We also use cinnamon in our shampoo bar, and of  course the coffee bar utilizes its namesake for its brown shade.  Have you ever had a chocolate body wrap at a spa?  It's supposed to be an awesome experience, as is washing up with chocolate!  Love it :)

This article should  provide insight into some aspects of design for our artisan soaps.  If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to comment below.

  This entry is the last Great Cakes Soap Challenge, and I will miss these dearly!  I will need to find a way to self motivate myself to keep up the challenge of making something new every month :)  I like sharing my adventures in soap making, so check back each month to see what I'm up to.

The challenge this month was making soap with straight lines, guest instructor Toni Watt of White Milk Soap and Candles.  I have some experience in this realm, as I have made my Candy Cane soaps and the Colorado Flag soap using this technique in the past.  However, while making these, I wasn't entirely concerned with perfectly straight lines.  So, I wanted to play with tiny lines and lots of layers to see if I could pull it off.

I was inspired by this op art photo I found on the web, and was wondering if I could do something similar, but it ended up being a bit more time consuming than what I had this week.  All kinds of holiday things going on today :)

However, I started with this idea in mind, and got a good way along in the design.  When I realized how tired I was and that I was at a point in which all the layers were light colored, I decided to just put a darker swirl layer on the top to finish it off.

My recipe was not a quick mover, which was problematic, as well as trying to figure out the angles and calculating out the amount of soap batter for each layer.  But, this was a real challenge for me, and I enjoyed it thoroughly.  Here are some progress photos.

And, then I stopped taking pictures...this was a long process...

I put the mold in a 175 degree F oven, and turned it off to leave over night. It did not really gel well all the way through, in my opinion.  And, since my broiler element went out this week while baking cookies, I'm not sure if it was that or me. The oven did get warm, but I'm not sure if it was up to temp.  I've never done a real CPOP soap before, so it could totally just be me, will have to try it again now that the element has been replaced.

And, here is the final product - I absolutely love how they came out!  Scented with my Stress Relief blend, they remind me of skiing at night - something I did years ago during one of our Tenth Mountain Hut trips.  Gotta love Colorado!!!  Certainly something everyone should get the chance to do once in their lifetime - if you like skiing!!!

Another superb soap making challenge was made possible by Amy Warden of Great Cakes Soapworks this month - and what a challenge this one was!  I am generally able to get the challenge done on the first try, but this one was tricky for sure, and I gave it four attempts.  To be fair, I didn't do it exactly as demonstrated the first or the fourth time :)

With Acrylic Paint, I have seen many ways of doing this, but the simplest is to pour different colors into a cup and then quickly tip it upside down onto your canvas, creating interesting combinations of colors and oftentimes creating "cells" in the mix (silica is added to the paint in order to maximize this effect).  Soap doesn't react with itself in the same way, so the cells are elusive at best.  And, with the caustic nature of the soap batter during this part of the process, there is some concern about tipping the cup over and splashing the rest of the room :0  So, our guest instructor this month, Joanne Watkins from Nature's Potions Handmade Soaps,  demonstrated a safer way to get similar looking works of soap art.

Because of my previous unsuccessful batches, I decided to use a very small, six bar mold.  It actually was perfect for the size of the implements used here and I place much of the success here with the ratio as well.  I put the columns in the center of the mold, fixing them down with a bit of melted cocoa butter.  I poured alternating colors into each column.  With the brown (made with cocoa powder) I filled until I ran out of soap batter.  With the blue/purple (alkanet root, I do think it will turn purple as it cures...) I filled to the top of the very small tube.  I decided I wanted more blue so I shored up the edges a bit by pouring along the wall at the corners.

After pulling the columns up, and letting them drip a bit (helps to give the illusion of those "cells"), the mold is tilted back and forth until you get the look that you are satisfied with.  No spinning!!!  Just gentle motion back and forth.  This was where the problem began with my previous batches, but the consistency was right on here and the color actually moved a bit, which didn't happen in my previous attempts.

These bars turned out pretty nice - a little thin, as I had calculated to use more of the blue/purple, not thinking about the small volume of the center tube.  But they are certainly a beautiful addition to my line of organic bath soaps.  The scent I chose is ylang ylang and orange with a touch of mint.  There is also a bit of cocoa scent coming through, so with my fourth batch I switched the position of brown and blue, which resulted in a sweeter scent.

Overall, these are great!  And, my customers are sure to love them!  Thank you Amy and Joanne!  Learned something new - again!!!

Coconut Oil has been greatly talked about in recent years, promoting many benefits - digestive health, anti microbial properties and scar healing just to name a few.  If you want to get technical, it is comprised of 49% Lauric, 19% Myristic, 9% Palmitic, 8% Oleic and 2% Linoleic Acids (found at www.lovingsoap.com).  Here at ASC Soapworks, with the majority of our shelves being filled with Vegan friendly soaps, we use coconut oil in nearly all of our recipes.  In addition to possessing a high cleansing power, it helps to produce the thick, stable lather that everyone loves about our soaps.  

Along my soap making journey, I have read numerous times that you are not to use more than 30% coconut oil without risking the chance of creating a bar that dries out the skin.  Susan Cavitch has a 100% liquid coconut oil soap recipe in her book The Soapmaker's Companion, that she calls Seafarer's Soap.  She provides a caution that this soap, although the most effective liquid soap, may be a sensitizer for some people.  We make a similar pure liquid coconut oil soap, which I use regularly for our laundry, and I feel it is a wonderful product.  But I do, along with others, relate the squeaky clean feel that it leaves with a sense of drying out the skin.  This is why I choose to use it for laundry and other cleaning products that I make.  I believe that using a mixture of oils in making hand soap would serve the skin better.

Researching this topic now, I see that there are many people out there that love pure coconut oil soaps, and more contemporary soap makers couple it with a 20% superfat to temper the drying effect.  We actually use just over 30% in our bar soap recipes, coupled with other oils and a fair amount of superfatting.  I am intrigued by this, and will be experimenting with making this pure oil bar of soap.  It will be a wonderful addition to the Pure Olive Oil and Pure Avocado Oil soaps that are available today.  So, come back and look for our Pure Coconut Oil Soaps in the future!

In addition to coconut oil soaps, if you haven't sampled our Apricot Sugar Scrub, made with Coconut Oil, Apricot Seeds and Brown Sugar, you are truly missing out on a wonderful treat for your skin!

To purchase any of our bar soaps, of which coconut oil comprises a full third, you can check out our full line of Signature Series and/or Artisan Series soap bars.  If you are interested in giving our Liquid Coconut Oil Soaps a try, you can purchase them here.  The Apricot Scrub can be found here. 

Yay! for Coconut Oil Soaps!!!

This month the Great Cakes Soap Challenge by Amy Warden has a theme of Rainbows and Unicorns.  This is my entry.  It was made by piping the design in layers and pouring soap batter in and around.

The soap is unscented, and uses all natural colorants - annatto seed, paprika, rose clay, alkanet root and sea clay. 

Lots of fun to make this one!

I wasn't sure if I would get this in on time this month.  I had carpal tunnel surgery a week ago, and although I got the soap made before surgery, I was resigned to the fact that the carving would not get done.  However, with a week of inactivity, I found that fine motor movements did not hurt my hands.  So, with no restrictions from the doctor, I began on the journey of creating my intaglio soap and participate in this month's Soap Challenge Club by Great Cakes Soapworks.

I am planning for fall, needing to get everything made before the surgery, so of course the theme ended up being fall leaves.  This soap is scented with a combination of fig and cedar.   I poured the bottom of the soap in fall colors, tried to create a bright backdrop for the purple top, but it didn't really pan out exactly as planned.  As I carved it, I wished it had greater contrast. The purple top layer was about 1/8-1/4".  Could have been a little shallower, but it worked.

I found an image of all over leaves the right size for the project, placed it over the soap and traced the image hard enough so that there was an imprint on the top of the soap.  I then proceeded to carve, creating new kinds of leaves as I went.  It was fun to play with the various carving tools and discovering new shapes and designs.

I was afraid that the design would be harmed by the cutting, but the soap was still soft enough that it cut beautifully.  Otherwise, I'm sure I would not have made the deadline, as I was cutting these bars half an hour before it was due :) 

I'm really pleased with the way these soaps turned out.  In reality, after they were cut, the contrast was a lot better than I originally thought.  A lot of work for twenty bars of soap, but I really couldn't do any other soap related duties this week, so YAY! for trying something new!