Winter Soap Challenge - April

Finished Soap

Here in Utah we have had a few weeks of beautiful spring weather. Enough to make the horses start shedding and the robins sing. Which has resulted in a bona-fide case of Spring Fever here at the office. Well, winter has decided to make a grand reappearance. Everything is now white. The enormous mountains that scrape the sky are white, the roads are white and even the orange cat that slinks through the nearby field is white. It is the perfect day to sit with a cup of hot chocolate and make winter inspired soap.

Making the fence

April has shared what a picture of our winter frosted Cache Valley inspired her to make. It is amazing to watch as she builds her soap. I will let her tell you all about it!

This is my first soap challenge. And boy was it! For some reason I decided the fence was a good place to start. Of course I wanted water, snow, mountains, and sky but the fence was my crazy launching point.

Three bars of soap were sacrificed in the making of this soap.

Setting up fence

*Attempt number one:*
I forgot the oils in my second batch (I used small separate batches of oils/lye in the making of each layer) of soap while making the water…I
had to dig my fence out of the gooey mess and start all over again. Scrap number 1.

*Attempt number two:*
I reused the fence (which was unreasonably small for a whole loaf of soap). I waited all night to un-mold this loaf only to find my sky was too green, mountains too grey, my fence off kilter, and worst of all my snow was YELLOW! In addition I could see the error of choosing the mold I did (it was far too short). Scrap number 2.

Pouring in Soap

*Attempt number three:*
Beginning again, I changed molds to allow for more room. I cut up two more bars of soap to make a fence that would span the length of my mold. (Might of been less but I was still trying to be creative, hand-carve fence? NO.) Then once again, I began with the batches. 5 batches later I had – snow layer, water layer, mountain layer, and two batches for the sky layer.

Installing the fence in the snow layer proved more difficult that I’d
imagined! Even though I waited for a very thick trace before pouring, and did so carefully, my fence started floating all over. Sticking (my gloved) hand in the soap I coerced the fence back into place for several minutes…each time I moved, the fence did too…eventually I was satisfied the fence was built.

Adding Soap

Carefully, I chose new colors to compliment my goals. This time I thought maybe I should stay with the exact same blue just use more or less and add some black into the mountain layer. This helped even out the overall color of the whole soap. Yay.

Scenting proved difficult but I managed to find a couple of things in my closet to work with that turned out well. In soap number two I had mixed the two scents together in the whole soap. After smelling it the next day, I thought something needed to change a bit. I like both scents individually and even a bit together but for an overall scent I should try something different.

Adding Soap

*The scent:*
If I were sitting on the side of that lake on the bank, I imagine I could
smell a soft earthy, mossy, grassy scent coming from the dried foliage,
softened by melting snow. I scented the snow layer using an oak moss scent.

Next, I imagine the scent of the blue water being brought to me by a light wind. I scented the water layer with a beach type scent.

Un-molding Soap Loaf

Then I imagine the mountain layer, watching over the lake, has been around a long time and could use both scents. I combined them in this layer.

I left the sky layer unscented so I would not overwhelm the rest of the
scents. Each layer offers something significant that blends well with the next.

Smelling the soap from the top (the sky layer) my daughter says that
somehow there is a scent coming up from the bottom that she says is
“breezy” and I believe she is right!

Finished Soap

I had so much fun creating this challenge soap! I hope you like it! I do 🙂

April

This is just incredible. I hope you know how much each one of you inspires me to set outside of my comfort zone when I soap. Each photo I receive is inspiring. If you want to join in on the fun, remember that you have until March 15th to submit your photo and description! Read more about the challenge here!

Finished Soap