Saturday, September 21, 2013

Dolphin Soap, Miami-Style



My husband, Ken, is a lifelong Miami Dolphins fan. Being from Florida, his penchant for the Dolphins began in childhood. He fondly recalls how they had a perfect season in 1972, going undefeated and winning the Super Bowl. And he suffered through their nearly winless 1-15 season in 2007. He is loyal through both good times and bad, his affection and devotion to his beloved Fins evident with the start of each new football season.

And the new football season has now begun. I am not a sports fan myself, but I thought it would be fun to combine my passion for soap with his passion for football. Specifically Miami Dolphins football. Actually, Ken suggested that I make a Dolphins soap a while back, but I didn't think of it again until the season started.

So here it is! A Dolphins soap using Miami's team colors: aqua, orange, white, and navy.

And the scent? Energy, of course. It's fresh, clean, and sporty. Perfect for sports-themed soaps. Because the word "sport" is right there in "sporty." Can't have the sporty without the sport.

I envisioned a white soap with orange and aqua swirls and a navy blue dolphin embed in the middle. As I've mentioned, I'm pretty lazy when it comes to making cold process embeds. So, I decided to do a cold process soap with melt-and-pour dolphin embeds.

Making the melt-and-pour dolphin embeds.

I bought this silicone dolphin ice cube tray several years ago - I don't even remember where I got it. Each dolphin weighs about a half-ounce, making it a perfectly sized embed. I chopped up some clear melt-and-pour soap base, melted it in 30-second bursts in the microwave, and colored the soap with a few drops of ultramarine blue liquid colorant. Then I poured the soap into the mold cavities and placed them in the fridge to set up while I got the rest of my soap ready. (I was a little sloppy with a couple of the pours, but no worries. I just used an X-Acto knife to tidy things up after unmolding the embeds.)

Preparing cold process soap.

For the cold process soap, I used a slow-tracing recipe of olive, coconut, palm, and avocado oils so I could make swirls. And Bramble Berry's Energy fragrance oil behaves beautifully and doesn't accelerate trace at all. I mixed it into my cooled oils before adding the lye solution. Once I reached light trace, I poured two 8-ounce portions of soap into separate plastic measuring cups.

Colorants mixed with glycerin.

For the swirls, I used hydrated chrome green pigment with just a few drops of the liquid blue and a bit of titanium dioxide to get an aqua color. For the orange, I used orange mica with a bit of titanium dioxide to soften the color and make it a bit more coral. I added the aqua color to one of the eight-ounce portions, and the orange to the other. The base is colored with titanium dioxide to whiten the soap.

Coloring the soap and making swirls.

I poured the base of white soap into my slab mold, and then poured the orange and aqua from up high to make sure it penetrated through, reserving some for the swirls on top. I poured the remaining aqua and orange close to the surface so it would stay on top, and then dragged my skewer (my thermometer stick worked perfectly) through the soap vertically and then horizontally. After I placed the dividers and let the soap set up a bit, I gently pressed the embeds into the center of each bar. I decided that I liked the bottom of the embeds better than the tops. The bottom had more of a dolphin shape, I thought, and I could make the dolphins lay flush with the tops of the bars by embedding them bottom-side-up.

Swirling and adding embeds.

Then the mold went into the freezer overnight so that the soap wouldn't gel and melt the embeds.

I'm pretty pleased with this soap, but I think I can improve upon it. Mainly, I wish that I had held back less soap for the swirls. I always hold back too much. I should have either used maybe five ounces of soap each for the aqua and orange, or reserved less soap for the surface swirls. I was going for something a bit more subtle, although I think the end result is still pretty good.

And the scent is fabulous - lots of citrus with a bit of effervescence from the champagne notes.

I think it's a fun soap, sure to please any Dolphins fan. Or at least my husband.

It's only the beginning of the season, but so far so good for the Fins! I hope that they have a good season. No matter what happens on the field, though, at least we know that we'll have good soap.

Any Dolphins fans out there? Sports fans in general? Have you made or bought any sports-themed soaps?

37 comments:

  1. Your hubby must be so happy! :) At least mine was when I made a soap with green and white stripes like the soccer team Celtic shirts. That is what he has been using after that. We both like ice hockey and I have been thinking for ages how I could make a soap with the team colors that does not look like a 4th of July soap, because the colors are red, white, blue (and a little bit of yellow).
    But back to your soap. I think the swirls look very shiny like there would be glitter on them. And the cute little mp dolphins really pop. They look much better like this than if they were made of cp soap.

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    1. Thanks, Marika! I remember seeing your Celtic soap - it turned out beautifully! Melt-and-pour soap is nice for making colorants pop. I don't know if I could have gotten such a brilliant blue with cold process. Micas are also great in M&P. They sparkle like jewels!

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  2. The aqua color and the coral swirls are really amazing!The dolphins are so cute and make a lovely soap!
    Your husband should be proud of you!
    I also thought once of making a soap of the colors of my husband's favorite team but it's never got there! Maybe for his birthday :)

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    1. Thank you, Natalia! I think the aqua and orange came out pretty close to the official team colors. Making a sports soap for your husband is a wonderful idea for a birthday present!

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  3. A winner, Jer -- and Energy is the perfect scent to go with a sports-themed soap! Ken (and all Miami Dolphins fans) should be pleased with your new soap!

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    1. Thanks, Mom! Ken and I are both happy with how this soap turned out!

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  4. Am I the only one who is mentally watching Ace Ventura in her head while you talk about the Miami Dolphins?? LACES OUT, DAN!!!

    Okay. Sorry.

    I love those little dolphin embeds - so pretty against the swirl of the rest of the soap. What a good wife you are, lady!

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    1. Thanks, Lindsey! I loved Ace Ventura, too! This is my little Snowflake soap.

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  5. Awww, your dolphin soaps are so cute. Your husband must be touched by your sweetness and thoughtfulness. :-)

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    1. Aww, thanks, Silvia! Ken and I are both really happy with how this soap turned out!

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  6. Awesome Jenny! My husband is a die hard 49ers fan, and I've been trying to come up with a good themed soap for him

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    1. Thank you, Deirdre! A 49ers soap would be fun. Red and gold look so striking together, and I'll bet they'd look really cool in a soap!

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  7. Such fun soap Jenny! Would love to make this in a Redskins theme for my grandsons.....would make wonderful Christmas stocking stuffers!

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    1. Thanks, Gloria! I'll bet your grandsons would love to find some Redskins-themed soaps in their Christmas stocking!

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  8. Such a nice color combination perfectly in line with the embeds! I like how this soap turned out and moreover I really enjoyed reading this post!

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    1. Thank you, Gordana! I'm glad that you enjoyed the post! I'm happy with how the soap turned out, too.

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  9. Hey, you need only 'M' on the dolphins' heads for complete look! I had to Google a bit, to he able to say that,though! I think you nailed the colour scheme and your orange portion amount doesn't really matter,it's still beautiful! Now, Ken must be proud, showing off among his friends :-)

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    1. Thank, Maja! I was happy with how the aqua and orange turned out, too - pretty close to the official colors! Thanks for the compliments. Ken also likes the soap. We have a friend who is a Dolphins fan, too. I'll have to save him a bar!

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  10. What a fun idea! The Dolphin mold came in handy. Your soap turned out so well too!

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    1. Thanks, Kate! I'm glad that I happened to buy that dolphin mold all those years ago!

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  11. Yours came out great, Jenny! Your colors are spot-on. As I read your post, I was thinking that there must be some soaping ESP, but it's probably just us soapers combining the beginning football season with our endless soap ideas. I just polled my husband on a scent for a Green Bay Packers tribute soap this afternoon. 'Tis the season!

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    1. Thanks, Amy! It's that time of year! I can't wait to see your Packers soap!

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  12. My, Jenny, you are a good wife. I don't know if I'd have it in me to make a Cleveland Browns soap. Just like your husband, mine is a die-hard loyal fan no matter how bad they do. Your soap is really pretty. Love those colors together.

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    1. Thank you, Cindy! I was happy with how the colors turned out, too. I think they're pretty close to the official colors. Making a Cleveland Browns soap could be fun!

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  13. Wow, those are way cool! I would never have thought of making a sports themed soap, so that's brilliant! The soaps turned out beautifully and I love the energy scent. I think you could approach the team with a new sales idea. :)

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    1. Thanks, Monica! Energy is one of my favorite FOs - it smells great and behaves beautifully.

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  14. What a great soap Jenny! I loooove those little dolphins...so cute! The team colors are perfect too, very cool idea! :)

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    1. Thanks, Cee! I had nearly forgotten that I had that mold until I started thinking about making this soap. It certainly came in handy!

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  15. Greet soap Jenny - i like the dolphins, they are cute - im make a football feeld with green soap and plastic football players for a friend from my workmate :)

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    1. Thank you, Krissi! Your football field soap sounds so cute! I can't wait to see it!

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    2. http://sprudelspass.blogspot.de/2012/10/noch-2-platze-frei-und-seifiges-grun.html

      The foto isn´t the best ;-))

      lg Krissi

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    3. Oh, how neat! The football field soap is so cool! I didn't realize that you had already made it. Thanks for sharing this, Krissi!

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  16. Super great soap! The colors turned out fabulously and the embeds worked perfectly with your design. =)

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