My seventh attempt at a Snowflake Soap

Sometimes I wonder if I am determined or simply stubborn when it comes to certain projects. I do value time, so I usually give up when I feel I am wasting it and nothing seems to be working out. After all, I did abandon a Christmas tree pull screen idea after three or four failed attempts. However, for some reason I kept trying a snowflake pull screen disc and I am glad I did, as I am finally somewhat happy with the result. The pour/pull screen method is tricky at best, and quite frustrating at its worst. You truly never know what you will get until you cut into it. At the beginning my pours were too fluid, then they were too thick, I have yet to conquer the tricky medium point of “medium trace” for them, but I shall keep trying.

My first attempt at a snowflake pull screen was quite simple, I simple made the shape of a snowflake as my pull screen, and I got pretty blue flowers that smelled like peppermint:

Since that did not work out, I thought I would do it in reverse, let the snowflake be a negative image, and the empty space be filled instead:

Clearly that did not work either, I got something that resembled cabbage flowers, or when cabbages are sort of opened and look like roses.

The one below was done with a screen very similar to my last one (the one I settled on) with a very fluid batter which made the colors bleed into each other and get a bit muddy. I thought the result was interesting, but not snowflakey enough. And yes, early on I realized this could take several attempts, so I used different colors and fragrances to avoid having 500 blue soaps.

I remember getting frustrated that there were ovals and circles, when I clearly had straight lines in the pull screen disc, I thought that maybe my soap batter was too fluid, so I started working with thicker batter, but it got too thick for me. I did get more definition, but not even coloring:

By my sixth attempt, I am getting close to something I could be happy with, but my drawing needed some adjustments.

And finally I got these, which are still not as good as they can get, but I feel that now it is a matter of me perfecting the execution of the technique. After doing this trial soap, I went back to the drawing board (literally) and drew the snowflake from scratch. It took a lot of measuring (even using a protractor) but in the end I was able to 3-D print a better disc. I have this snowflake pull screen disc available in the store, if you are interested

Here is the recipe I used for the soap.

Colorants:

• Titanium dioxide from Make your own or Titanium Dioxide from Nurture Soap
• Turquoise Teal from WSP
• Blue ultramarine pigment from WSP

Equipment:

• Equipment and supplies

• Snowflake pull screen disc

Mold:

PVC pipe, cut to desired measure and secured at the bottom with a round piece of plastic, saran wrap and rubber bands.

Here is the video of the making: