June ‘26 - Mountain Stream

River Soap - Advanced Entry

For months I struggled to dominate light trace for all the beautiful swirl soaps, then this challenge flipped the script for me. My patience was tried as I waited for my light trace to become thick enough to use.

Each try, I waited and waited for the trace to get thicker and so I could finish the soap. It was useless. I then discovered accelerating scents, which I knew existed, but I had never used, and the whole game changed. The amount of control you can bring over each layer with a well-behaved accelerating scent is incredible. That’s when I loved this challenge, despite my lack of interest in confetti soaps. I loved this challenge!

Here we go! First try.

I had too much faith in the light trace of the middle layers and the lack of contrast…now I know why she said “contrasting layers.”

Second Try.

Loved the color contrast on this one, but my colors were not standing out enough in the center.

Third Try.

Still too light trace and contrasting colors got muddy. My lack of patience showing here. I was not using accelerating fragrances or essential oils in any layers at this point.

Fourth Try!

More contrasting colors but went too far with the accelerating scent in the middle layers. I couldn’t control them.

Fifth Try.

Flipped the script on this one. I got tired of struggling with 2 layers of confetti, and what I felt was not enough room in the middle of the soap to showcase the contrasting layer. So, I worked inside out…also, I thought it’d be a good time to try wood grain for the first time, as a way to use a few colors for the contrasting pattern.

Struggled with the light trace as I was too impatient to wait and the colors came out too muddy…I decided in the next try, I’d use an accelerating essential oil but one that would give me time to work, and I’d adjust the colors slightly.

Finally.

I finally got the contrasting layers right! What was more obvious than actually imitating what inspired this challenge in the first place?

Well, there you have it. What started out being a challenge I was not really into, became another mountain of learning for future explorations!