February 2022 Soap Challenge Club Entry- Complex Embed

Experienced category entry: Peace, Love & Oranges

I had a lot of fun letting my entry for this month’s challenge evolve! For starters, I did not see the ‘complex’ embed part coming! Reading through the requirements, I was suddenly struck with fear. I had never done a complex embed! As defined in the guidelines: “a complex embed is created by joining two or more formed pieces of soap dough”. The most complicated embed I had ever tried was mixing some colors together and extruding swirly rounds for ‘planets’.

I purchased a lovely large extruder from I Dream In Soap (tools and materials list with links below) as a Christmas gift to myself, but I had barely had time to practice using it. I dug through all of the extruder discs I ordered to go with it, and found but 2 sets that were meant for a complex embed- the pumpkin and the orange. My lightbulb went on. I had also recently purchased Orange Patchouli fragrance oil from Nurture Soap. Patchouli is not a fragrance I’d choose for myself, but every. single. time. I do a market someone asks for Patchouli, and so it was on my list to make before my first spring event.

So there I was staring at the orange extruder discs and sniffing the Orange Patchouli fragrance bottle in desperate hope of inspiration when it hit me. I could use the orange extruder disc to make a peace sign as well! I just needed to trim out the two extra ‘legs’ and voila!

Once I knew I would have an orange and a peace sign, the flower crown for the top was a no-brainer. Blue sky, puffy clouds and hearts rounded out the plan. I made some soap dough and started extruding. I ran out of white before cloud number 3 was done, so I rearranged the design a tiny bit.

The pour went mostly as planned. There was one little heart embed that I just couldn’t seem to place where I liked. I also left more space between embeds than my sketch showed, so my soap was taller that it was supposed to be. That left me mounding soap on top of the last embeds and trying to build the top up high enough to cover everything. It was quite a mess, but it all worked out. 

The flower crown top was fussy and time consuming, but placing soap top embeds and piping leaves are already in my wheelhouse, so that part was fairly easy. (Thankfully!)

I can not even put into words the relief I felt when it was time to cut the soap and things actually looked mostly how I planned! 

You can watch the whole pour on YouTube here.

Bonus category entry: Feeling Lucky

I had intentions of pouring another complex embed for the bonus category, but I spent so much time on my main entry that I was pressed to design and finish a second. 

I poured Feeling Lucky before Peace, Love & Oranges as a way to get some more practice with the extruder and placing cane embeds. These clovers are extruded in one piece, with discs from I Dream In Soap. I did a simple two color ‘one pot wonder’ pour- something else I had never tried and wanted to practice. This one is scented in Irish Spring from Wholesale Supplies. I just happened to have fondant cutters that were the perfect size to stamp the little gold embellishments on each clover. 

 As always, huge respect and thanks for those who put together these challenges and tutorials! As well as the sponsors who make it all possible! This was only my third challenge, but I think it’s fairly safe to say I’m hooked. 

Tools and Materials Links

All colorants and lye from Nurture Soaps, as well as the Orange Patchouli fragrance Oil. Using my affiliate link to shop doesn't cost you anything, but is a nice way to help cover my materials cost. Cold process colorants here.

Irish Spring fragrance oil is from Wholesale Supplies.

All of my oils come from Soaper's Choice.

Extruder and discs from I Dream In Soap.