Ocean Sunrise Soap

Ocean Sunrise

This is called Ocean Sunrise and is my entry into the Sculpted Layers Challenge this month which features a method of soaping created by Claudia Carpenter.  Thank you both Amy and Claudia for putting this month's challenge together.  What a challenge it has been, a challenge of design, colors, preparation and most of all patience!

I chose this picture of several singles because the waves were best in this photo.  The sun and the birds are embeds, I sprayed them with witch hazel and then rolled in a mixture of Sister Golden Hair, Goldfinger Micas and Bamboo Extract Powder.  The birds were coated trying to get a reflection of the rising sun..  The sky is different colors to reflect how light the sky would be closer to the sun vs farther away and there are clouds of course, what would an ocean sunrise be without clouds and birds???

The soap is pretty consistent throughout the loaf.  

 I have enjoyed using some wonderful butters in soaps lately.  I love murumuru, tucuma and shea butters together.  The added bubbliness of murumuru and tucuma butters is wonderful, you do not need a whole lot and as they are more expensive that is a good thing.  I also like using multiple butters.  This soap is made with Sunflower, Avocado, Coconut and Camellia Oils, Shea, Cupuacu, Tucuma Butters, Babassu Oil and Palm Kernel Flakes and Murumuru Butter.  It stays relatively thin. The fragrance oil is Deviant from Mad Oils and all of the micas are from Mad Oils as well.  The Bamboo Extract Powder is from Brambleberry.  I went with a 6% super fat discount and 33% water discount.  I am happy using either 6 or 7 % super fat lately.  I cooked in oven at 145 degrees for a little over an hour then kept it in there for another 6 hours, then wrapped it up in towels till the next morning.  It came out of the mold easily.

The tops I sprinkled with the gold, yellow, orange and blue micas mixed with alcohol to represent the fading night sky colors.

These were not the first soaps I tried.  I would put pictures up but my phone died and all my other pictures were on it.  I have few pictures of this one and none of the soaping process because of the phone going to black and nothing else, sad, very sad.  I attempted a beach scene with two palm trees and a hammock, I think I will call it Pablo's Island Abstract.  Then two attempts at lighthouse scenes, one had the lighthouse cut in half and the other was built right, just not right, could not wait long enough between layers, definitely a patience problem. I also tried a princess crown, which,  is okay, but again the patience problem. The soaps in the beginning and early stages just would not thicken up like I needed and I added too much detail.
 
I tried using Castor Oil and Sodium Lactate in one of my first batches and the batter ended up getting very thick before I could finish.  This was on one of the more detailed soaps so I learned to lessen the details some.

As frustrating and disappointing my first batches were, I enjoyed this challenge.  I reflected a number of times on how to make the next batch work better.  I had to think a lot about designs that would work better.  Some of the early ones required more layers than 2 1/2 inches of height could handle so trying to simplify the design was important.  Of course, I had to keep telling myself to be more patient and even planned what I could do while waiting for the soap to be ready for "scraping".  Thanks again Amy and Claudia!

Below are my failed soap attempts for this challenge.  I almost did not add them but, oh well.