Great Cakes Soapworks Soap Challenge Club.

One of my great joys is making soap. I love to craft with all sorts of mediums but none bring me this imense satisfaction of making soap. I have entered quite a few times and even been successful in placing a couple times., Though I will stand by beginers luck. This challenge was the Dancing funnel pour and I attempted this design 6 different times, only one had come close by my 5th time and I was going to attempt to enter my only successful one that was still not what it was supposed to be as shown here:

But at the last possible moment I thought I would try one more time. Every previous batch got so thick that it was impossible to do what I needed it to. It was like scooping shortening. I even had one harden up so bad in my squeeze bottles that I ended up throwing them away because they hardened so badly I had to go out and buy new bottles.  This final batch used 6 colors (because i am a glutton for punishment) I used activated charcoal for the black and Nurtures soap Neons. I scented in Avobath since I am down to my last bar and went to work. I was soo happy I tried one more time. It stayed super smooth and fluid, smelled fantastic and most importantly let me do the layers I needed to have done for the design. I have no idea why it worked this time and not the others. Possibly my lard was too cold at room temperture, but regardless, this batch came out beautiful. Now I am praying that letting it rest in the dehydrator will let it harden it up fast enough to let me cut into it and get photos before the deadline. I am writing this in advance so that if i am able to cut in time I wont have to write out a blog post and then end up cutting through the skin of my teeth to make it in. I figured if I can have everything ready until the cut then I might have a fighting chance. I look forward to seeing the cut, I love the colors and am just thrillled that it actually turned out. I really got lucky on this one.

sorry for the bad lighting on this one. It was well after midnight and we have pour lighting.

So hooray I got my entry in with literally 2 minutes to spare. It was so soft to cut that I was tearing my soap and I had to wash it to get it to not looked ripped for photos. So unfortunately I think it came off as slimy and I had no time to dry them off or even take a new set of photos. With my computer running slow motion unfortunately that is the way the cookie, or soap in this matter crumbles. I am super pleased with how it came out though and having the house smell like AvoBath is an added bonus. I cant wait to look at everyones entry and good luck to everyone!

Hubby and the kids dubbed this soap Dance of the FireFlies.