Bengal Tiger Puzzle Soap

Some of you may already be familiar with the Soap Challenge Club and Amy W., who owns it. If you are not, you can check it out at Soapchallengeclub.com.

Recently Amy was diagnosed, underwent treatment, surgery and overcame cancer! (Yay!). One of the facebook group admins (there is a group made for the registered members), Lisa C. from “I dream in Soap” (she makes the most incredible soaps, you can see her channel here) emailed us as she and others had gotten together to plan a Secret Soap Challenge for Amy.

This was different than any other challenge as we were at liberty to choose the design, technique, etc. No prices were involved other than the satisfaction to do something to lift up the spirits of someone who has inspired, challenged and shared soapmaking techniques with so many others. The deadline was the same as the date she would go into surgery.

I had been following Amy’s healing journey in her blog and was happy that she had gotten to complete so many puzzles during the course of the chemo treatments. I like doing puzzles as well, so I was inspired to make the soap based on one of the pictures she had shared in her blog.

Side note: Did you know that making puzzles makes your smarter, among many other things? Check it out here.

So I attempted to make it into a soap, I debated whether or not to attempt to make the jigsaw puzzle outline, and decided to try to, with 3-D printed jigsaw puzzle. I am not very experienced using the 3-d printer yet, but my husband and I had bought one about a month ago after almost a couple of years of deliberation so it was worth a shot. There is a website where you can find 3-d printing designs that people share, and I found one of a jigsaw puzzle. It ended up breaking, perhaps because I did not print it in the right settings or used the wrong kind of filament for it, but in the end it worked somehow.

*Update: After several months of practice, I have been able to make a jigsaw puzzle stamp, I have listed it in the store, you can see it here.

Below you can find the videos of the making and the recipes I used.

Supplies used:

For the mold, I used the 11 lb slab liner  listed in the Equipment page. I only filled it halfway.

Fragrance:

For the bottom portion: 3.24 oz of Sun and Sand (it smells very nice but it caused ricing/chunking and accelerated with my recipe and water discount)

For the top: Forest hike from Nature’s Fragrance

Colorants:

1 tsp Winter White Mica (I used this in 8 oz of soap batter)

1 tsp Black Pearl Mica (which I used in 4 oz of soap batter)

(The above two are affiliate links)

Jigsaw Puzzle Stamp

You can click on the image or here to view listing for purchase.

Recipe for the main body of the soap

You can also find it here

Liquid Required	11.58 oz	328.2 g
NaOH Weight	7.23 oz	205.01 g
KOH Weight	0.59 oz	16.82 g at 90% Purity
Lye Weight	7.82 oz	221.83 g
Oil Weight	54 oz	1530.87 g
Fragrance Oil Weight	3.24 oz	91.85 g
Superfat		5%
Total Batch Weight	77.02 oz	2183.62 g
Lye Concentration		40.33%
NaOH / KOH Ratio		95% / 5%

Recipe Oils, Fats and Waxes

Oil	%	Ounces	Grams
Olive Oil	30	16.2	459.26
Tallow Beef	30	16.2	459.26
Coconut Oil, 76 deg	25	13.5	382.72
Castor Oil	8	4.32	122.47
Shea Butter	7	3.78	107.16
Total	100	54	1530.87

I chose a fragrance that I knew could accelerate, and boy it did! I would use a slower moving recipe if I was to do this again, and I would not do such a steep water discount, I had it coming!!! (You will see in the video what happened). I also used some soap (shredded), but this only complicated things with the accelerating fragrance oil.

Also, I did a dual lye recipe, just a small percentage of potassium hydroxide to experiment and see if this increases lather like a I read here. This is totally optional.

Also, I used EDTA (mainly because I have a large bag that I want to use up), this created interesting results in the lye water solution, it changed its texture and became opaque.

Painting (Top) Recipe Totals

You can also find it here.

Liquid Required	5.68 oz	161.16 g
NaOH Weight	2.8 oz	79.38 g
Oil Weight	20 oz	566.99 g
Fragrance Oil Weight	1 oz	28.35 g
Superfat		5%
Total Batch Weight	29.48 oz	835.87 g
Lye Concentration		33%

Recipe Oils, Fats and Waxes

Oil	%	Ounces	Grams
Olive Oil	39	7.8	221.13
Tallow Beef	26	5.2	147.42
Coconut Oil, 76 deg	23	4.6	130.41
Castor Oil	6	1.2	34.02
Shea Butter	6	1.2	34.02
Total	100	20	566.99