Dark and light…. Chocolate Box Soap for Amy’s Great cakes Soapworks challenge

After entering my Ebru soap into Amy’s challenge club last month I realised just how rubbish I was at actually using social media to its full potential. I used facebook to upload my photos, I had forgotten to take pictures all the way through so just had my finished soap pictures. I didn’t do much of a write up but I had never entered before so it was a little learning curve for me. So this month I’m back with a blog, pictures and a write up😊

I had my entry all planned out in my head, I was going to do Summer/Winter. After making my embeds for the top I looked at them for a long time but I just wasn’t feeling it! The theme, the colours, I just didn’t have that gut feeling so I decided to go with a soap theme I had previously made a few weeks earlier but just modified it to fit the challenge. It is a Chocolate Box made with little soap chocolate embeds on top that reminds me so much of when I was a little girl, I got first pick from my parents chocolates and I always went for the chocolate orange cream first. So there we have the first part, the fragrance, I went for Sweet orange EO for the dark chocolate side and lime EO for the White chocolate side. Chocolate Orange and Chocolate Lime mmmmm.

 

I then made all my little chocolate embeds in white and dark brown to represent dark and white chocolate for the top.

After getting everything organised I had my oils/butters and lye at temperature, I mixed my soap and then split the batter into 2. I mixed cappuccino dark brown mica and a white mica by madoils called Here comes the bride which is a lovely shimmery mica that doesn’t turn soap pure white, more of a cream but with a lovely sparkle. I didn’t want it pure white because white chocolate is cream, not white.

I dont have a mould with a divider down the centre so I just used some stiff cardboard that was cut a little on the large side so that it didn’t flop about, the silicone liner held it in place perfectly.

I poured my white down one side while pouring the dark down the other side simultaneously, then swapped and poured light into dark and dark into light, swapped again and poured again. A drop swirl but with just the 2 colours. Leaving the cardboard in I poured the rest of my soap, dark on one side and white on the other so that it still had the crisp line through the centre before removing the card.

I then took a skewer and went back and forth from side to side to make the pattern in the pic above, I could then breath!!! I think I kept holding my breath for the longest time, trying to get everything perfect. My husband decided to ring me on Skype at that very moment too as he works in The UK, comedy scene commenced, me trying to answer whilst throwing my phone at the daughter whilst trying to pull a skewer through my soap! Phew! It’s fun and games in my house lol

I,m shouting “Husband! Look at my chocolate box soap for the challenge” He is very supportive of my hobby but to him every soap looks the same, even though I use every different colour of the rainbow! he also was saying, well why are you putting chocolates on soap? Oh men!!

With the embeds in place my Light and Dark Chocolate Box was finished and needed to be put to bed before I could cut.

I checked after 24 hours but was still a little soft, I left for another 12 before I unmoulded, that is a record time for me to wait. I am so impatient I usually can’t wait the 24 hours! The cut is my favourite part. So here is the cut and the final piece of the puzzle. Hope you like!

 

Thanks Amy for this challenge club. Even though I get extremely anxious beforehand I still enjoy taking part and seeing all the lovely soaps entered X