My First Ever Soap Challenge - Teardrop Soap
Cal Petrusma
I seriously don't know why I entered this challenge! One of the reasons I don't do wedding cakes anymore is that I have a little monster inside of me that insists that I do everything perfectly, especially if its for someone else or for a competition. Drives me nuts! However, I loved the look of this pattern & couldn't wait to try it, so off I went & entered.
Following are a series of pictures of the process & some of the results. I ended up making 6 different soaps, two ended up looking like spaceships, one like a mountain, one like a strange sea creature, & 2 kinda like teardrops.
My first attempt shown above, & my first spaceship. Love the colours but the batter was the wrong consistency, so the bottom didn't curve around like it was supposed to. Try again...
I had run out of a critical ingredient but didn't want to wait for delivery so I tried again with different oils. The first one of those was the mountain - actually it's kinda cool, scented with Thai Lime & Mango, it looks like a volcanic island so I'll probably keep that as a regular soap. The batter for the third soap, also pictured below, was way too thin, so while I got a teardrop, I also got some interesting off-shoots. This is the one I think looks kinda like an odd sea creature.
Fourth try almost worked, I had the right oils & everything seems to be going well. It's not bad, but here's where the perfection monster raised its little head & told me I could do better.
Decided to try once more. All was going well, then <bam> the batter thickened suddenly & I got my next spaceship. *&$%@*
Last try... if this didn't work I was going to have to go with my fourth batch....deep breath...
I didn't take any pictures of the rest of the process as I was too busy trying to keep the batter from thickening too much. That involved frantic stirring whilst trying to pour thin, even, straight lines. I was sure this wasn't going to work either, so was with a heavy heart that I unmoulded & cut the soap this morning...
Drum Roll Please.....
Not perfect... there's that little tendril heading off in a sideways direction... but I'm quite happy with it. I've decided to call it "A Drop in the Ocean" 'cause its scented with one of my favourite Essential Oil blends - Lime & Lavender - which is supposed to smell like the ocean.
There are a lot of very talented soap makers who enter this competition, who will probably blitz it. However, I've learned a lot with this challenge, about the different blends of oils and about 'trace', & how the batter behaves. So it's been fun.. Thanks Amy for organising it :-)
