Wednesday, March 18, 2015

New Brambleberry Birchwood Mold

Sorry for the hiatus (again)! I've still been making soaps the last nine months, I just haven't had time to post about them.

I recently caved and bought the 9 bar birchwood mold from Brambleberry. I have to say, it's much higher quality than I expected. It comes with a wooden lid and plastic dividers. I'm excited to be able to try a bunch of new techniques that I haven't been able to with my log mold. Here are some pictures of my first time breaking in the mold!

Before inserting dividers:


After inserting the dividers:



I essentially did a funnel pour, just without the funnel. Since the recipe I used had 50% olive oil, I waited 3 days before unmolding. Unfortunately, it was difficult to separate the soap from the dividers. I had to slowly push the soap bars out so as to not mess up the sides. However, the soap stuck to the dividers pretty well, so there are now a lot of fingerprints all over the tops and bottoms of my bars. I still really like this mold, it is just critical that you wait until the soap is firm enough before attempting to unmold!!