Great Cakes Soapworks Challenge March 2017 – Hidden Feather Swirl

A break from exams!

So that means time to soap and better still… time for a challenge!! The first since July 2016!

I’ve done a hidden feather swirl before which had gone really well so figured this would be a breeze! Here’s the first and only other feather I’ve attempted – gonna go ahead and say it was beginners luck!

So onto this challenge. I used my go to slow moving recipe and used a FO that I’d read behaved – Lavender and Cucumber. Achieving emulsion was easy enough but my soap took forever to get thick enough to pour and I made the mistake of pouring my first layer for the feather when it was still too thin so it just sank right down to the bottom of the soap. I left it to get a little thicker before trying again and the rest of the pour seemed to go ok but I wasn’t in love with the result. Plus because I knew I’d done a much better feather in the past I knew I could do it again.

Here is attempt #1:

I like the colours but it’s not a feather

So onto attempt #2

I used the same slow moving recipe as the last attempt but used a different FO this time – Black Raspberry Vanilla from Mad Oils which is a beautiful FO! Turns out this also behaves VERY well and meant my soap took forever to get thick enough to pour again. I was a lot more restrained this time though and managed to hold back from pouring until it was ready to go! I used colours I thought would ‘POP’ and went which black (AC), white (TD), neon pink/orange and a very pale orange base using neon orange with a little TD. On my first attempt the dividers I was using for the feather had started to move so I was careful to keep topping up the sides this time to stop the dividers from slipping outwards. I finished pouring and felt it had gone really well but time would tell. Attempt #2 will be my entry for the challenge.

I’m happy with this one 🙂

But then I had another plan!

I wanted to try something a little different so thought I would try to create 2 feathers within 1 bar – 1 each way up by pushing my tool down through one feather and up through the other. I fashioned myself a set of dividers out of plastic and cardboard so that they were all one unit – I figured it would make them more stable verses having 4 individual dividers. Used my usual slow moving recipe and selected colours – turns out I don’t actually like the colours I chose which is part of the reason I’m not using it as my entry. I decided to stickblend a little longer this time to try speed up the process but as is usually the case my FO (gin & tonic) decided it was going to do that job for this soap! So I had to move quite quickly this time to pour but thankfully I didn’t have to try and control the dividers. Apart from the soap being thicker than I would have liked it seemed to go to plan but I knew I wasn’t in love with my colours – that will teach me not to plan my colours in advance! And here it is:

And that’s the end of this month’s challenge and as usually here are a few more images!!