Mindful Meadow Series: Design 2

And it's a hidden flower!!

And it's a hidden flower!! So we are back for design two in our Mindful Meadow series - if you haven’t yet read the blog post for design one why don’t you pop over there and read that one first! Just to give you a quick overview of this series, in honour of #nomowmay I thought it would be the perfect time to redesign this meadow inspired bar. So throughout May I am using 4 different pour techniques to achieve four different designs of our Mindful Meadow soap - and then I want your help to choose the best one!

So this week it is time to share design two - for this soap I went for a hidden flower design. I created two different shades of pink using the Madder powder - if you remember in the UK we have to stick to our recipe exactly if we want to be able to legally sell our soaps - so my recipe allows for 3g of Madder root powder for an 1000g soap recipe. So to make the two shades of pink soap I dispersed the Madder root into 10g sunflower oil and then I added 9g to 250g of soap batter and 4g to another pot containing 250g of soap batter. I was quite pleased that the two pinks look different enough to add some contrast in the pour.

So for this pour I made sure my soap batter was pretty fluid and to begin with I laid down about half the plain batter straight in the mould. The remaining batter I split into three and coloured two portions using the madder root and left the third plain to add a bit of contrast within the design and between the two shades of pink. And all I did was pour the pinks and the white down the middle of the mould - up and down the length of the mould a few times alternating between the plain and the different pinks, trying to keep as close to the batter below so the soap batter didn’t break through the batter below, it just pushed the batter below out.

However, it turns out I am not that great at pouring with my right hand (I am a lefty) so as you will see from the short video over on my Instagram account the first few lines I put down of the lighter pink were definitely not in the middle of the mould!! This is ok as I poured some of the plain batter down the side of the mould to push these rogue lines back into the centre! And then once all the coloured soap batter was almost all used up I took a hanger and pushed it right down the centre all the way to the bottom of the mould, along the bottom to one side and then back out of the mould to try and create a flower bud and stem in the middle of the soap.

For the soap top I poured what was left of each of the pinks, with the plain batter in the middle and then used a skewer/chop stick to create the design on top - which actually ended up looking a lot like a flower. I would love to say that was what I had planned but it was entirely by chance!!

And here is how the soap turned out - I think it is a really cute flower which works really well for this meadow inspired soap bar! I think if I did it again I would lay down a bit more white between the pinks to help differentiate between them - and I would also just pour with my left hand to ensure I poured all the batter straight down the centre of the mould!

What do you think? Let me know in the comments below. Right that is it for this week - I’ll be back next week with the penultimate design!!

Until then take care

Love Kelly xx
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I am Kelly Townsend and this is the Small Kindness Blog. I am a scientist, a bee lover, a rewilding obsessive, and I want to spread Small Kindnesses through the medium of soap. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for your daily dose of kindness (as well as to see how the soap making is going!)