Dancing Funnel Technique

Whew! It’s been forever since I posted a blog entry! It’s about time. This month’s Great Cakes Soapworks Challenge Club technique was the Dancing Funnel by guest teacher Tatsiana Serko. I LOVE her soap! This lady rocks. She and Amy co-taught the tutorial and it was very informative. There are two category options this month, all natural and synthetic. I opted for the all-natural. I made two soap batches:

Indigo Dancing Funnel Soap

I was brainstorming ways to make my soap different and eye-catching while still staying in the guidelines, and thought maybe I could do an ombré effect on the inside colors. I was picturing water and how the light hits it, causing slight variations in the blue. I thought I could add some additional texture to the blue by adding finely ground oats. Luckily for me, indigo powder creates a lovely blue and is all natural! It can also bleed a bit, which would be great for a gradient look. Unluckily for me, in the contest, there are no variations in color allowed for the inside color. Well, I went ahead and made this batch before I understood that rule, so, while it is not permissible as a contest entry, it was a great practice batch. Here’s how it turned out:

And here is the “making of” video:

Juniper & Cedar Wood Dancing Swirl Soap

I liked the look of that soap, especially the variations in the inside color, but I really needed to make a soap that followed the rules. So, I got out all my natural colorants to see if any ideas came to mind. I finally settled on these colorants:

1. Activated charcoal mixed with a smidge of red clay and some ground acai berry for the background color
2. Rhassoul clay for a creamy color
3. Sea clay for a greenish color
4. Purple Brazilian clay for (you guessed it) purple
5. Red Brazilian clay for (surprise) red

I also wanted to add some cranberry seeds to the soap for two reasons. 1) I keep getting requests for exfoliating soap, and 2) cranberry seeds turn black and look really cool in soap.

This one was a lot of fun to make. I was already comfortable with the technique, thanks to my practice batch, and the only thing that was new was deciding where to put the colors. I finally decided on a random approach. I made around 20 dark dots, then filled in 5 each for the four other colors. Sometimes I had fewer than 20 dots, and I had to rotate in the colors to even things out.

You’ll notice in the video that a lot of the cranberry seeds floated to the top of my soap. I guess the soap was too liquid to hold them in place. Some of them stayed put, though, resulting in some interesting black dots in the soap. There was also some oil left on the top of the soap after 24 hours, so I planed off the top layer. Here’s the video:

And a few pics:

 

This technique is so cool! I love the way it turns out and it is not very difficult compared to some of the Soap Challenge Club techniques I’ve tried. I especially like how the sides of the bars look. I will be using this one again and again. My husband says it reminds him of cucumbers. (Of course, now I’m planning a cucumber batch, with a gradient of light to medium green for the inside color. I’m still working out how to get the look of the seeds . . . ) Thanks Amy and Tatsiana!

Complete ingredient list for Juniper and Cedar soap:

lard, water, olive oil, coconut oil, lye, activated charcoal, red Brazilian clay, purple Brazilian clay, sea clay, rhassoul clay, acai berry powder, cranberry seeds, essential oil blend (juniper berry essential oil, cedar wood essential oil, patchouli essential oil)