Sunday, January 6, 2013

Leopard Spotted Soap






I think I’ve shared with you before that I also love to bake and decorate cakes. What does that have to do with soap, you ask? I find that designing and baking cakes, and designing and making soaps, are actually quite similar arts. The techniques used in baking and decorating cakes quite often carry over to soaping, and vice versa. One of the fun cake techniques I’ve come across lately is a leopard spotted cake. I thought it would be fun to try to replicate that leopard spot technique in soap, and I found a video that demonstrates the cake-design process fairly well here: Leopard Sponge Cake

Treating the soap batter as if it were the cake batter in the video, I basically followed the instructions given in the video; except I did straight lines instead of curved, because I was using a straight loaf mold. I separated my soap base into 3 portions; smaller pink and brown portions (both colored with micas), and a larger uncolored portion.



As you can see from the picture below, you actually have to pipe stripes to make the spots, if that makes sense! If you have watched the cake video, you will know what I mean :)


The trick is to have your soap batter at a thicker consistency so that the ‘spots’ can hold their shape. If the batter is too thin, the colors will just sink into each other; but if it’s too thick, you will end up with air pockets, like I did. To start out with, my pink and brown soap batters were much more fluid than the uncolored portion (most likely from the sweet almond oil I used to dissolve the mica)….in fact, I had to stickblend those colors to get them as thick as the uncoloured batter, and by then my uncoloured batter was way too thick. Next time, I will need to be quicker about separating the 3 portions and bringing the pink and brown portions to a thicker consistency right away. Of course, make sure you use a fragrance oil that doesn't accelerate either, you don't want any surprises :) 

One thing I should mention too, is that you would want to try to stagger your leopard spots throughout the soap by layering your stripes in different heights throughout your soap. In the video, they show just doing one layer of stripes, but I would try to do stripes at different layers of soap, so that the spots are staggered at different levels throughout your cut soap.

Next time, I would also cut smaller tips in my piping bags, so that I could fit more leopard spots into the soap.



Anyway, I think it’s a cute technique and has potential....you could do so many fun color combinations with this! Happy soaping everyone! 

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37 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Thanks Emily, it's a pretty simple but effective technique!

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  2. I think you did a great job and love the colors. I can't wait to see your next attempt! :)

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    1. Thanks so much Linda! I'm definitely going to try to get more spots in there next time ;)

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  3. Super cool idea! There is a lot of potential in this idea and I love the neapolitan colors you used. (I've also noticed that a cake decorating background is invaluable, as well...it's an easy transition!)

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    1. Thanks Amy! It is a very easy transition, and I definitely tend to look to cake decorating sites for soapy inspiration :D

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  4. Oh Cee Gee, this is such a gorgeous soap, love it. So whimsical and cute, lots of potential color ideas running through my mind right now! Thanks for the link to the cake decorating, that helped me understand what you meant. Great correlation between cake decorating and soap creating that you made. Lots of inspiration on your blog!
    Anna

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    1. Thanks so much Anna...you could really have a lot of fun with some wild color combinations! I'm so happy you are finding inspiration here, if you get a chance to try this technique, I'd love to see some pictures!

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  5. Thanks so much for sharing your technique! I see a Soap Challenge in the future!! :)

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  6. Oooh, I love your Soap Challenges!!! I'll keep practicing then ;)

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  7. This is really beautiful. I like that you chose pink, such unique and fancy leopard!

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  8. Fabulous look! You got a stunning soap!!!
    Thanks for sharing, Cee!

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  9. I love it,so inspirational! Looks like some baby's stuffed leopard! Or,like a strawberry-chocolate cake! So lovely,Cee!

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  10. Very cool, Cee Gee! I like to bake, too, and it is interesting how baking and soapmaking share similarities. It is very clever how you took a baking technique and translated it into soap. The leopard spots look great. Thanks for sharing!

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  11. Totally awesome design! I love the pink and brown together!

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  12. Wow! That is a fun soap. I would have never guessed that you made multicolored spots.

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  13. Thank you so much Gordana, Natalia, Maja, Jenny, Holly and Marika..I really appreciate all of your nice comments everyone! =)

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  14. Excellent idea! I just did my first piping project (cupcake soaps) and found it to be so much fun. I think I am going to start playing around with piping my soap a lot more!

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    1. Thanks Sarah! Piping takes a bit of patience and practice, but it sure adds a special touch to the soap. I'm still learning and working on my piping technique too :D

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  15. OMG, I love this look. It's so super cute. =)

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    1. Thanks so much Anne-Marie, I was lucky it worked on the first try...lol!

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  16. Can you come and bake for me? Oh and make some soaps too. :)

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    1. Of course! Although, I should warn you that I always seem to end up soaping the foods I should be baking! :D

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  17. Cee, I keep peeking at your soap in your blog and FB page! I just love it! It's beautiful!

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  18. Aw, thanks so much Roxana! =)

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  19. I love this, such a fantastic technique. Thank you so much for allowing it to be used in the 2013 Soap Challenge. I'm really looking forward to trying this...

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    1. Thanks so much Lindy, I was thrilled Amy included it in her challenge and I can't wait to see everyone's interpretations!

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  20. I loved this soap the first time I saw it! And now I get to try the technique out! Thanks for being inspiration for Amy's challenge :D

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    1. Thanks Jennifer, I can't wait to see yours! I have to admit, I'm a little nervous wondering if I can pull it off a second time...lol!

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  21. Omg I normally don't do cp soap or fu fu type soaps, but I was bored today and tried it. Lol. It came out perfect! I love it, I may incorporate the spots in regular cp bars from now on :)) thank you!

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    Replies
    1. You're most welcome, I'm glad you had fun with it! =)

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