Lilacs in Bloom

I recently joined a bunch of other soapmakers from around the world to learn something new.  I joined a Flower Power soapmaking challenge hosted by Amy Warden of Great Cakes Soapworks.  This challenge was to make a new type of floral soap with Cold Process soap.  I love floral soaps!  So I thought that would be fun.  We could do anything we wanted to do.  But were encouraged to try something new.  I have always wanted to learn to pipe raw soap with cake decorating tips.  But to me it was a bit scary to pipe raw soap.  But I will never learn it if I don't just jump in and try.  I am not ready to do roses yet.  But maybe lilacs...

My makeshift slab mold. 
It is a freezer paper lined Kirkland Maranara Sauce box from my last Costco trip. 

I'm afraid the whole process was just a bit overwhelming to me.  So I didn't get any pictures during the process.  I will try it again sometime soon and get pictures.  But for now you will have to be satisfied with my description and with finished pictures. 

I used my normal soap recipe.  It is a good recipe and usually moves slow enough, as long as I don't add a fast moving fragrance oil.  Floral fragrance oils are notorious for moving fast and seizing.  So I decided to make a solid colored slab and to fragrance it with a nice Lilac fragrance oil.  I soaped cool, with only a slight water discount, and I poured at thin trace.  It only barely starting ricing, and stayed pretty smooth.  I used Lilacs in Bloom from WSP.  It smells soooo good!!  I love lilacs!  And it is pretty realistic fragrance oil, at least out of the bottle it is.  We will see if it holds in soap.  So far, now three days old, the soap still smells amazing!

I left the soap unscented for the blossoms and leaves.  I didn't want to risk it seizing on me.  The base slab has enough fragrance to make the blossoms smell really nice.  For the blossoms, I used a large condiment bottle, and just did a bunch of dots in two different colors of purple.  I was hoping the two colors would add a bit more dimension to the flowers.  For the leaves I used a leaf tip in the corner of a large Ziploc bag.  Making leaves was actually pretty fun!  I got better as I went along.  So some of my leaves were better than others.   But all together I think they look nice. 

I am very happy with how these turned out.  They do need to cure for at least a month, and these will be for sale then.  But if you would like me to reserve one for you, message me, or email me.