{"id":7026,"date":"2011-10-11T19:24:33","date_gmt":"2011-10-12T01:24:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.greatcakessoapworks.com\/handmade-soap-blog\/?p=7026"},"modified":"2011-10-11T19:24:33","modified_gmt":"2011-10-12T01:24:33","slug":"the-highs-and-lows-of-my-soapmaking-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greatcakessoapworks.com\/handmade-soap-blog\/index.php\/the-highs-and-lows-of-my-soapmaking-day\/","title":{"rendered":"The Highs and Lows of My Soapmaking Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today was a marathon soapmaking day, mostly in preparation for the holiday season. I made four batches of soap and each of them was a different recipe. I had melted all the oils last night, and cooked a bottle of beer, but everything else I did today. <\/p>\n

The first batch was another shampoo bar tester, made with beer, aloe, seaweed, nettle, and silk. Thank goodness it wasn’t a very big batch, because it ended up all over the counter! This would be my LOW of the day. I had to seriously contemplate whether or not I wanted to continue making soap after this disaster:<\/p>\n

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This is the photo I took after I scraped all the soap up.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I had this great idea to use my PVC pipe to make round shampoo bars. Only I forgot that when I was making soap in my PVC mold previously, I had a plug of melt & pour soap in the bottom which held the rest of the soap inside. So, today after I poured the soap, I grabbed the pipe to move it just like I had done before, only this time….the soap all came out the bottom! I had to think fast! There was a plastic rubbermaid container that looked like it would hold everything, so I scooped it up with my enormous silicone spatula, and ended up with this:<\/p>\n

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Shampoo bar tester - I believe this is #4 now<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I’ll tell you about the next two batches another time, because I want to tell you about the fourth batch which was amazing! I used the Winter Wonderland fragrance I had from last year because that soap sold like hotcakes. It’s a very complex fragrance. The supplier describes it this way: “A cool, fruity blend that begins with a strong (and irresistible) citrus accord of grapefruit, orange, bergamot, and lemon. The refreshing heart is composed of violet, cyclamen, bois de rose, muguet, pineapple, and a hint of gardenia. The base notes are citronella, sandalwood, jasmine, and musk.” <\/p>\n

I got a wild hair to do a four-color swirl in the pot, coloring the soap with micas: mauve, fuchsia, cyan green, and golden green. The base color was white. Here’s what the pot looked like before I poured the soap into the mold:<\/p>\n

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Winter Wonderland soap pot<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I got a little scared that the soap was too thin to pour into the mold without getting totally muddy, so I took my time getting a photo and waited about 5-10 minutes. By that time, it was at the perfect medium trace. After pouring, I had some color left to make a swirl on top:
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Winter Wonderland soap in the mold<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

What a day!! I’m glad to be done. However, I still have a sink full of soap mess to clean up, so I guess I better go take care of that! Tomorrow should be a fun day…cutting soap and all. There’s a special delivery arriving tomorrow as well that I can’t wait to show you!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today was a marathon soapmaking day, mostly in preparation for the holiday season. I made four batches of soap and each of them was a different recipe. I had melted all the oils last night, and cooked a bottle of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[688,687,686],"class_list":["post-7026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-making-soap","tag-christmas-soaps","tag-five-color-swirled-soap","tag-soap-disaster"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t