Cuppa Jo Sunrise Challenge

I have been neglecting the challenges for WAY TOO LONG.  I have to offer my sincere apology for the major delay in fun.  Mad Oils has exploded and not only are we understaffed, but between seasonal colds and unforeseen employee childcare issues, we have had quite a time keeping up with the floods of orders (which we love!  Thanks to all our loyal customers!)  So having been a bit overwhelmed at work and tirelessly navigating my personal life and continuing to improve on myself....I have been a very bad blogger, and I am sorry.... :(

So I challenge you up, baby!

Since I've moved into my new place, I often wake up before sunset, take my fresh coffee and walk, in my pajamas and slippers, to the Intercoastal Waterway/Lake Worth Lagoon, which is only one block from my new place.  I love the salty breeze that wafts into my face and through my short hair..... while I listen to the small waves slapping against the concrete ledge I sit on.  Within minutes, the black sky turns twilight blue and from the horizon, emerges orange and pink colors.

It has been a new experience living near the water and enjoying the sunrises I get to witness when I sit out there and ponder life's curves, dips and surprises.

This one may be hard because I'd really like you to tap into your creative mind and try not to be too literal in your interpretations  (if you CAN).

I want all of you to design and interpret in your own way, my morning cup of coffee at the Lagoon.

If I were to participate in this challenge, I'd start of with a layer of soap mixed with sea clay or mud with superfine coffee grounds (this would represent the concrete ledge I sit on). I'd then make an orange to pink ombre technique.  Ombre is a gradual GRADIENT change from one color to the next.....

{You can see the tutorial that was posted here on The Soap Bar Blog in 2012.  The tutorial was written by Emily Shieh of Shieh Design Studios.}

I think I would take  some dark mica and mix into a cup of soap batter and pour it in blips and plops from high up, so it reaches close to the bottom of the first layer.  One of those bloops would represent me, a figure.  In the photo below shows some designs from the soap I "blooped".

So I suppose even if I did a tutorial, everyone's soap design would end up being unique because of the haphazard way of the plop/bloop "technique".

So there you go.  Challenge has been assigned.  Please post your final creations on our Facebook Group, Soap Challenge Gallery.  PLEASE tag your post with #cuppajosunrise

Challenge starts now and all soap entries (entries are posted photos) are due by April 9th!  The grand prize winner will receive Mad Oils Micas ~ FOUR Mad Oils mica samples of your choice!

Good luck and soap on!

xoxo

jo

Into The Woods

Woodland Handmade Soap Bar by Elegant Rose Boutique

"These bars are reminiscent of a walk in the woods on a bright sunny day, the smell of

pine blended with cedarwood creates a wonderful scent."

Riverlands by Elysian Organics

"Sudsy, creamy, soap that leaves you freshly cleansed and invigorated, and

gives you the sense you just bathed in a river tucked in a spicy forest"

Evergreen Woodland Soap by Aquarian Bath

"This is a mild soap for lovers of woody scents. It was made with pure essential oils of Black Spruce, Fir and Pine. These are hard, long lasting bars with a gentle lather. It was colored naturally with french

green clay and cocoa powder."

Cedarwood Cypress Organic Soap by Mirasol Farm

"Whether or not you go to the northwoods to find solace, this soap will take

you there with its grounding woodsy essential oil blend"

Ponderosa Pine Vegan Soap by Mountain Girl Soap

"A wonderful replication of the woodsy grandeur of Ponderosa Pine reminiscent of a walk in the Southern Cascades. This is a very pleasant, unisex, upscale fragrance"

Happy Camper Soap by Pigeon River Soaps

"Happy Camper is a refreshing woodland escape. Close your eyes and you will

experience a forest of towering fir and cedar trees. A warm,

woody, fresh and spicy scent that is good for her or him"

Gypsy Woods by Blushie

"Mysterious and darkly sexy, Gypsy Woods is an

intoxicating blend of cedarwood, amber, vanilla, and just a titch of musk"

500 Acre Woods Soap by Blackbird Soap Company

A confectionery blend of delightful childhood memories buzzing in adventurous tales of silly bears, sticky jars of sweet hunny, and grumpy rabbits with scrumptious carrot gardens.

The Aroma: Lightheartedly scented with newly bloomed orange blossoms and freshly picked carrots folded in a pot of savory golden honey and a pinch of wondrous imagination.

The Experience: A playful lather of moisturizing avocado oils and shea butter sweetened with honey to help retain the moisture, and calendula flowers for a light scrub.

Aren't these gorgeous??

Like the new BIGGER picture layout?

ha!

The Soap Bar Flickr Group Porn

A few months ago I set up a flickr group for us to share our soaps with each other, and I'm really pleased with the outcome. I am happy to see beginners, experts, people I've seen for years, and soapers I've never heard of yet. It's a new experience every time I visit and there is always a sense of excitement for me when I check out the newly uploaded soaps.

The collection that I've pulled together is from The Soap Bar Flickr Group. Please go and browse the pages and pages of soaps that have been so generously shared by soap makers from all around the world. This is an international industry and I am proud to provide a place for us all to share. These images moved me today:

Gardener's Soap - First try by Pienovonios

Gardener's Soap second try by Pienovonios

Amber by Seifechuchi

Budleigh Salterton Pebble Soap by SoapChick UK

Pure Dog XL by Seifenzwerg

Honey Soap by Тонкая Материя

Orange & Lavender by The Soap Trail

Satsuma Soap Cake by Mountain Farm Soap

Mugwort Mud Soap by Bie's Junkyard
I love green!

Follow Up On My Day From Hell

My post "Burning Joanna" was sort of comical as I read it back to myself today. Yes, when one steps away from a flame, it's not so hot anymore, is it? I really appreciate the time you all spent writing your comments. I know it takes energy, but I felt the warmth come right out of the monitor.

Thank you for being so supportive and sweet... and thinking it was humorous, because it was, in retrospect. That first experience in the morning:

Pour.

Stir.

KABOOM.

Clear "burn your skin off" liquid.

Pooling.

Dripping.

Everywhere.

Screaming, "BRAD! Brad! Brad!"

Charges in.

Barefoot.

"GET OUT!"

Fumes.

Toxic.

Spreading.

To the sink.

Lava.

Destroying.

To the sink.

Burning.

Stinging.

To the sink.

Kill. Kill.

Focus.

Clean.

Soak it up.

Soakkkkkk.

Open cabinets. Wet.

Open drawers. Wet.

To the sink.

Skin stinging.

Shower.

Ahhhhhh.

I'm not even going into the second part of my day. It's too exhausting to even think about it. I have good news, though! I took all that lumpy bumpy weird volcanic ugly soap into a crock pot because I knew the calculations were correct and I cooked that sucker for a long while, then I added some color later on, did the zap test and shoved it all into a fat mold. This morning, I cut it all up and this is what I found:

Hot Process Fresh Linen

FROM MY PERSONAL HELL DAY

Yielded 30+ bars. One of my wholesale customers (private label) has already claimed them as hers for the taking. Something good came out of the day, at least.

I haven't gone in the lab today. My crock pots are still needing to be cleaned and my lab sink is filled. I couldn't pull it together to go in there today. I worked administratively today. All day. I'll get back on my horse tomorrow.

I still feel stingy...

Burning Joanna

Today was the stupidest day.

Scratch that. Today I am the stupidest soap maker on the planet.

I know I had plenty of coffee but not too much too make me jittery, I don't have a head cold, I'm not on drugs, I am clear headed, and was raring to go with some major soap production this morning and - W-H-A-M-! Disaster.

I have a number of heavy duty plastic pitchers to mix my lye and water in. Well, I needed to make an extra batch, so I found a nice thick glass container I could use and I started adding my water, doo doo dooooo, then I pour in my measured lye and start stirring. Explosion. Lye water goes everywhere. Did I say everywhere? Uh-huh.

First thought, was you stupid cow, of course the heat would break it! But before that I was thinking oh, it's natural and thick and what could go wrong....with music in the background and my head all going back and forth, doo doo dooooo. Happy go lucky me. Not anymore. So my lab is like this. Formica top, shelves in front of me, but no wall, so anything that spills, goes straight down and on the floor behind it. And pools and poisons, god only knows what's behind and underneath those shelves. Nothing important, I'm thinking. Thinking too fast... clean it up, clean it up. I scream my husband's name like 5 times. Where the hell is he? He runs in barefoot. I scream GET OUT! I'm like a lunatic at this point. I have a half gallon of lye water in a pool on the counter top, dripping behind, in front of and in my cabinets....let's not even mention (no, let's) the drawers! All this time, I am thinking, cow, cow, cow. Stupid head!

Now let me say this about lye water. It does not want to be absorbed that readily. It wants to do damage. It likes to destroy. Because I normally use SO many paper towels while I make things in the soap lab and I need them to work, I can't buy the cheap crap because it's like using copy paper which is useless, I buy Bounty select-a-size. Well, my selected size today was three feet. Luckily I had kitchen gloves and my goggles on when this explosion occurred, but because it's 90+ degrees F in Florida, I was wearing a tank top and short shorts. A little lye here and a little drip there. The clean-up took me 90 minutes with two rolls of paper towels and a bottle of vinegar. I also had a huge sink load of stuff I had to sanitize because lye water got on them.

So AFTER the clean-up, I needed to get the lye burns off of me. No direct splash, which I'm thrilled about, but I felt little stings all over, like a little drip got here there and as I was cleaning up perhaps and drip got back there , oh and there.... dreadful morning to say the LEAST.

After my shower and utter disgust with the whole thing, I went to one of the super mega shops and got myself three more super duper plastic pitchers for mixing my lye and water. No more glass. If you didn't get this great piece of knowledge from my story: Do not mix lye and water in a glass container, no matter how politically correct and non-plastic-ey you are. Be safe and don't put everyone and everything at risk for chemical burns. What a horror.

Damage to items that got touched by the lye:

1. Laminate counter top got a few raised lesions.
2. Hand blender's cord got a superficial burn. A brown mark.
3. Me. A few superficial chemical burns (it has been my week for chemical burns).
4. Scale has some visual marks...can't read any of the buttons and the tare button doesn't work, but the scale still works! Need a new one.
   

Later in the afternoon, I go back to making soap. I have my lye mixtures ready for me from before my accidental glass breakage situation, I get my oils weighed and ready to go. I make my first batch of Orange Lemongrass soap. Ahhh, success. I get my second batch ready to start, pour my lye mixture into the oils, and just when it usually goes to trace I pour my fragrance in, but then I notice that it looks really white and it doesn't seem to be going to trace. Hmmm. Straaaaannge.... Getting nervous because this has never happened to me before. I keep blending, and blending, and stirring and blending, and then it occurred to me that maybe I never put lye in that batch of water. Oh lordie! I took my glove off, dipped my finger in the pitcher to see if my finger starts to burn (what?! I had been burned so much already, how brave is that really? Not.) Then, since it didn't burn, I licked it. Nothing. I just poured water into oils and fragrance and now what? More mistakes, what?!

So thinking quickly on my feet, I thought to add another batch into this one, but add 3x the lye amount. I certainly thought it would work. Why not? Seems logical to me, doesn't it? I had 2 batches in that one and was adding one more. That makes 3! Well, the chemical reaction it created made it sort of lumpy and then it turned pasty. Then I thought I'd just fill a wooden mold to see how it would come out. And within 3 minutes that soap turned into a volcano. That was crazy. My husband came in and asked me why I was baking bread in the soap molds (ha ha, not funny).

All that soap is now in a crock pot, hopefully turning into hot process soap. I don't have crazy notions that the soap will end up okay, but I am hoping for it. I need a little magic.

I'm a bit grumpy right now. And stingy. And more grumpy because I can't stand the words, "Mom, I'm bored, what am I supposed to do?" It's summer vacation, go find friends and figure it out. My son has camp for the last 3 weeks of the summer. He's going to kill me if the first 8 weeks will be like this.

Yesterday, my daughter got sunburned so she asked me to buy her an XL soft shirt from Walmart, and I did. Just now she walked in with the shirt. She cut it all up to make it like the old movie, Flashdance, and cut the bottom, too.

I'm burning now in more then a few places.

Get me out of here.

I'm done soaping for the day, too.

Salt Bar Multi Colored Swirl Tutorial by Grumpy Girl

Grumpy Girl's "Acid Trip"

This Acid Trip Soap Bar is NOT a salt bar.

This is what inspired me to ask Sharon for a multi swirl tutorial

When I first saw this bar 2 years ago, I was blown away to the enth degree. How could anyone put that many colors in without making grey? I asked Sharon if she had any hints to share with us and guess what?!?! She offered a SALT tutorial for this type of swirl! I LOVE Grumpy Girl soaps!! I want to thank Sharon, of Grumpy Girl Candle and Bath Company, for sharing this tutorial with us. She is incredibly generous to share such a prized trade secret. Soap makers continue to amaze me with their generosity.

__________________________________________________________

Advanced Soaping

9 Color Salt Bars

Recipe:

70% Coconut Oil

30% Shea or Mango Butter

Lye and water according to your Soap Calc

Salt (Iodized Table Salt equal to the amount of oils in your recipe)

Colors (One or 20, it’s up to you)

Okay, so to begin we’ll gather up the cooled down lye water and melted and cooled oils that we did last night. We’ll also make sure the oven is turned on to the lowest setting you have, generally about 160 to 170 and let it preheat. Also set out the following ...

Slab mold:

As many containers/cups as you have colors.
A little water for mixing ultramarine colors, or oils from the batch for Mica’s.
Colors (I did 9 but you can do as many or as few as you’d like).

Measured out salt
Stick blender/Whisk
Spatulas, sticks for swirling etc.

This is my set up at home, before I begin and how I lay out my work flow. For sake of doing everything together, just pretend the cups are there but they are empty.

I can’t get my mold into the oven since its too large, so I improvised with heating pads and towels I put one heating pad under the bottom of the mold in a towel before we begin. When you get to the step you put your mold into the oven you’ll skip the heating pad step.

Heating pad sandwiched in a towel

Mold on top of it

Set out your cups for color. Add per cup one color up to the number of colors you plan on using. Here you see 9 cups because I like to live on the dangerous side and did nine colors. You can do this colorless if you want to, just omit the scary part later.

I used a mix of ultramarines, select shades and silver mica for this batch. For my mold I used about a tablespoon of each ultramarine and mica powder. You'll adjust your amounts accordingly, but remember you do not want to have colored bubbles in the end result.

Here are all the colors mixed with water/batch oils and ready for soap batter. Put them back to the side, we'll get back to them in a short while. I leave my sticks in so I can stir and not get confused on what stick belongs where. I'm blonde rooted and found this is fool proof if they are where they need to be to begin with. Grumpy likes easy.

Make sure all the lumps are out!

Again, this is my setup when I make soap at home, and how it looks before I begin to mix the lye and oils. It’s a nice work flow for me, but you set up in whatever way is familiar to you. I like having all my colors close to the mold as I begin to add them in a bit later.

I'm a systematic no nonsense soaper, so I try not to stress over the small stuffs and think how you set up the flow is key for this particular multi-color swirl process to go smoothly. You'll have to work quickly, but if you used fragrance oil that doesn't accelerate, you should be just fine.

Remember, it's just soap and if you screw it up, they can't take away your birthday.

Now that your colors are mixed an off to the side, put your gloves and glasses on, roll up your sleeves and get ready to rumble! (Small sip of wine or bourbon if need be to steady the fingers and crank up the ipod!)

I always put my pot of oils into the sink because I always make a mess, but you can soap per your usual method. Here we add lye water slowly. Notice the whisk. I don’t use the stick blender for a multi-color that often, and if I do it’s just in the early process before any color is added.

You can see it’s starting to turn from clear to opaque. Just mix this enough to get everything incorporated well. You want a thin mix through most of the early process.

Add in your fragrance of choice.

I used a total of 5oz of FO for the weight of my oils only not including the weight of the salt. My oils totaled 80 ounces.

If you miscalculate and use enough fragrance oil for the TOTAL weight of the batch, not just the weight of the oils.... you’re going to have seeping bars that are totally oversaturated with fragrance oil.

Add the salt at a slow steady stream while continuing to mix with the whisk slowly. The batch will feel as though it's starting to thicken on you, but think how hard stirring gets when you add flour to cake mix or chocolate chips to cookie batter, same thing. It doesn't move the process that quickly, it just feels like it due to the addition of salt and the resistance of the stir.

You should be at a super light trace and the salt will sink to the bottom at this point.

You want to keep mixing till you get something like thin pudding consistency and the salt starts to suspend a bit in the mixture. It’ll look a little bit like this in the pot if you can notice the faint lines drawn from the whisk.

Keep it moving, but don't let it thicken up too much on you because now we're going to start mixing your colors!

Take an empty cup or ladle and start adding soap batter to each color in your cups. I usually use about 8 ounces of soap mix for each color in this size mold but don’t weigh it out; you don’t have the luxury of that kind of time!

Mold size will dictate how much soap batter you use per color. Make SURE you save enough for the base of the soap and don’t get carried away here. A little goes a LONG way.

All colors with soap batter added, but not yet mixed...

Mix up your colors and leave the sticks in or out. I usually leave mine in till I get ready to add that particular color to the mix.

Colors all mixed and ready and the trace should still be like thin pudding. Don't mix too much when you do this, you can speed up the trace of the colored soap if you're not careful.

Back to your pot now. We're going to do a little bit of an ITP (In the pot) swirl to make sure you get color throughout most of your bars.

Add about ¼ to ½ of each color into the pot in a circular pattern. You’ll be doing a combination

of ITP (In the pot) and ITM (In the mold) swirling for this particular batch.

Remember, pour high to get the colors down into the batter and pour close to get them on top. You want a combo of this method to get the color thru the mix. At this point, you should still have a fairly thin trace.

Use your stick of choice (I used a chopstick) and give it a quick little swirl in the pot. Think minimal here and don't give it more than a quick pass thru. You're going to have grey mud if you play around with this too much at this point.

Pour the pot of oils carefully into your mold. I like having a little bit of a blank canvas of non-color in the center of mine, so I usually try to make sure my ITP swirls push out to the edges of my mold by pouring mainly in the center of the mold.

Be careful and pour slowly and scrape the pot with the spatula when you're done.

Now the fun part! Crank up the ipod just a little bit higher and lets start rolling!

In one direction start adding each color in strips to the base color you just poured. I usually always pour lengthwise. Pour close to the top of the mold, you want to be able to see these colors and not have them sink into the mix but float on top. Each layer will push the last layer further down, so don’t worry.

Remember that the last color or two is what you’re going to primarily see!

Pour the next color the same way, just layering over the prior one in the same direction.

Repeat this with all the colors you are going to use.

End result after adding all of my 9 colors.

Now, take your chopstick or stick and start drawing the stick through from the top edge of the mold running at a sideways angle like so.

Alllllll the way to the opposite end.

Get down to the far corner and reverse it and move back up in the opposite direction.

The end result will look like this.

You can also do some circular swirlies at this point if you’d like to break up the pattern. You have to be careful not to play with the swirling too much or your colors will start to blend and you’ll end up with a totally awesome shade of muted grey.

Cover your mold with either saran wrap or the lid or both. Here I just used the lid.

Put your mold into the oven and set a timer for about 45 minutes to an hour to start, and keep checking back, sometimes it can take up to 3 hours to get a full gel. Gel is really important, but if it doesn’t gel after about 3 hours, no biggie, it’s still soap and they can't take your birthday!

Here I just put the heating pad on the lid and began layering towels over it. You don't have to do this but I do since I can’t get this mold in my oven.

Once your soap sets back up after gel, remove it from the oven and let it cool just to the point of where you can handle it. It should be set up nicely and still be sort of soft at this point but no longer opaque from gel but back to the normal color. Even if it doesn't gel, get it out of the oven within 3 hours or so. Gel or not, it's still soap and I'm just not patient like that.

The colors do fade and aren't as vibrant as they were going in, but it still looks way cool.

I put gloves on and flip my mold over onto the lid like I was flipping a baked cake out of the oven and remove the liner. It's going to be upside down, but it's all good. Be careful or you could break your slab of soap and I can promise you that you’ll not be happy about it.

If you have dividers, this process is much easier for you because you'll just remove the dividers and clean them up. For those of us using an upland or Misty Creek mold or other divider-less mold, we're going to have to cut them by hand.

Start cutting your bars while they’re hot. I can’t stress this enough. If you wait till they are cool, you’ll have a crumbly mess.

I wear rubber gloves when handling them, first because they’re hot, and second because of the raw soap burns like nobody’s business. You can get a better idea here of the swirl pattern from the back of the soap as seen here.

With my particular batch, I left it on the heating pad and wrapped overnight. They were very warm when I started cutting but had started to cool considerably as I was moving through the process so I didn't get a perfectly smooth edge to them as usual. I should have gotten up a few hours sooner.

If you want to bevel them, now is the time while they're hot. I didn’t bevel this batch. Note how the color is mostly all the way through the batch. This is a good thing as the top part is more for dramatic presentation and it carries through throughout most of each bar.

The end result!

You could polish these with a nice soft cloth if you like, but I personally prefer a more rugged look. My particular bars will be between 8-9 ounces each finished.

Please, please make sure you cure these just like regular cold processed soap. They need a full 4-6 weeks to really be mild and conditioning to your skin, and to bring out that awesome lotiony lather that salt bars are known for.