DNA/Helix Swirl, Great Cakes Soapworks Soap Challenge

I was a tad reluctant to do this challenge. I find myself overly critical of every soap I make for the challenges. This of course leads to numerous batches of soap, which, if selling would be a good thing, but when not selling means too much soap, not enough dirt! So to make this fun and not quite as left brained as I seem to make it, I decided to cut myself off at a 2 soap attempt this month.

Well, I made 4, but that's way better than the 7 last month!

So for this month's challenge, I had narrowed down my favorite DNA swirl soaps to two.

I had a very hard time choosing, and then a thought popped into my head. I had worked extremely hard at attempting to make a proper technique last month's challenge, and so for this month I should embrace the creative spontaneity that is the essence of soap making.


The Rise of the Lotus

Scented with Lavender Forest by Bramble Berry 
Colored with Red Raspberry, Teal, And Spring Green, by Nurture Soap
titanium dioxide with activated charcoal added

My pour. As you can see, it became quite thick. The fragrance behaves beautifully, so I'm thinking cooled fats (I soaped cooler than my usual) and too high tallow and castor were the culprits.

kitchen lighting is giving an off color.

No bother. It wasn't going to hinder my concept. I had used wider spaced lines my first DNA attempt and decided to go ahead and try them wider this time as well.

Doing the mantra and S pattern here.

Final photo of the freshly poured soap. I went outside the front of the house (with the setting sunlight) to get the most accurate colored photograph I could.

Darn the soda ash! I tried and tried to prevent it. I find wrapping in saran wrap and leaving under a towel the first solid week helps tremendously in the cold months. I just couldn't stop it this time.

Won't lie, a tad disappointed at the ash, but it is what it is.

I love how the in ITP swirl turned out! I'm excited to try this again in the near future!!

This challenge was so much fun! To see my other attempts (including one that needed the tops completely scraped off!!!), see THIS post.

DNA Helix Swirl Soap, (the ones that didn't make the cut for the soap challenge)

I spoke with Amy B, second place winner of the Great Cakes Soapworks combing swirl challenge, and she suggested trying a DNA swirl, with a twist! I poured the rows free handed from disposable cups, and laid out the colors beginning on the sides, and going in towards the center. The color rows were thick in width. Having never done the mantra swirl before, I made a go at it. I was disappointed in that I made the width too far apart. I then twisted the entire soap in a forceful spin multiple times to get the batter to turn in the mold. I liked the results, but it was not quite what I had envisioned.

I then decided to use teal, blue, pale blue, sea moss green, black and white for an underwater theme. I put dots on with squirt bottles, and made tails with a skewer. The end result was really cute, and I got the technique down much better, but it didn't "pop" as much as I was hoping.

My next attempt was a failure. I tried to prevent soda ash by laying saran wrap on top, but unfortunately the mold was filled pretty high and the saran dipped into the pretty fuchsia, teal, black and white DNA swirl, and it blurred it.

Before (bad lighting, sorry!)

After

Completely out of soap at that point, I tried to color glycerin and use it to redo the tops. Well it pulls into itself when used in high amounts. Lets just say I had to scrape off the tops and drizzle a very small amount of colored glycerin onto the tops, and swirl texture them too, to make it look like descent soap. Sigh. Lesson learned.

Now...

On a side note, I really, really love how this turned out! The ash and the glycerin leftovers, as well as the glycerin drizzles of popping colors, made for a rocklike organic feel. I also am in love with the scent- Toffee Sugar Crunch by Daystar as well.



So all this means I had to crank out a last minute DNA swirl the day the link up began. See here for final result.