#i cannot believe how much time i waste trying to be inoffensive and palatable to everyone when i could instead be dropping

[lavellane]

i do have to commend some peoples bravery posting takes on here that they surely must KNOW are going to get them blocked by several dozen followers and possibly some mutuals like goddamn i have to respect it yknow

[confirmation-of-practice]

Considering Innovation within my project and the state of homemade soap making 

Within this post I will be analysing the innovation aspect of this modules criteria. I will be primarily looking at what the current conventions are of soap making and specifically the moulds they use. Through doing this I hope to establish whether my project can be considered innovative in terms of material manipulation and utilisation. If it cannot I will work harder to assure that I am hitting this aspect of the criteria. 

The first aspect I wish to touch upon is the current use of silicone and moulds within the soap making industry and its homemade community. There is a trend within the soap making community to use moulds that closely resemble the dimensions that are found within industrial soap bars, this meaning they are usually small enough to fit in one hand and brick like in form. Within this the soap making community has a propensity to use their own more embellished moulds, that largely keep the same dimensions, above I have evidenced this with a variety of images that demonstrate this trend. I propose that most of the effort towards innovation from the soap makers has been directed towards the scent and colours of the soaps they produce and not as much emphasis has been placed upon the form in which the soaps come. To evidence this, the above images are not only the results of embellished moulds but are instead the findings of my pursuit for complex soap making moulds. To put this clearly the above images are the most complicated soap moulds I could find through the internet (my best resource currently with the lockdown), as well as this I attempted to search for soap moulds that employed to part mould techniques or even 3 part, again I found no evidence of either within the soap making community. There is a clear deficit in the soap making community for three-dimensional soap, all of the soap I could find was 2 dimensional focusing upon one of the soaps faces and making it embellished. This approach indicates that the soap makers are viewing the bars as a canvas and only one side can be viewed/adorned, is is not true of course. The top image I have provided is the only example of a 3D soap cast that utilises more than one side, however, even this example is utilising a single part mould. It is necessary to state I am not criticising the soap making community but instead understanding and realising the potential for innovation within it. I feel as though soap making can be a much more respected form of craft and casting given the proper context, I hope to try and demonstrate the potential of soap in a small way within this project.

  It is now clear that the soap making community is lacking innovation in terms of its mould production, in connection with this I feel that this is a secondary issue that serves to propagate it. This issue being the lack of self-produced masters, what i mean by this is people who are casting in more interesting moulds tend to be using other people’s/company’s objects as masters. An example of this is the unicorn mould I mentioned earlier (1st and 2nd images), after researching I came to realise the mould is sold by a successful Esty shop that mass produces moulds for resin and candle makers as well as soap makers. This is fine but again it demonstrates that soap makers are not necessarily producing their own moulds/masters. I can evidence this again with many soap making websites and videos all of which encourage you to a plethora of sites (amazon and such bog company’s being the most common) that produce mass production moulds, the point being that no one seems to be making their own moulds with their own designs in the soap community. I think that this is a waste of potential and innovation.

  The next aspect I wish to touch upon which I think inhibits the soap making community to achieve wider appreciation is the seriousness and platform they often inhabit or gravitate towards. The soap making community is in its largest part considered a fun pass time of small hobbyist endeavour. Due to this I think it will remain a small hobbyist endeavour until it is able to outgrow its confines and establish itself and being as serious and complex as other forms of craft. To expand upon this soap making is largely fun and small scale meaning the moulds could be considered ‘nice’ or ‘inoffensive’ even ‘passive’ they tend to use forms that are gentle. This is not negative in anyway and is in many senses appropriate as you would not want to be upset every time you use your soap. However, this approach causes soap making to become white noise, unable to command people’s attention. I think that for soap making to become widely appreciated as more than a small hobby it needs to take more risks, through doing this it will demonstrate soaps capacity to become a multi-sensory experiential object, capable of activating people’s sense of smell, touch and sight. Soap cannot remain to be taken for granted unless it wishes to remain in obscurity, like most things they remain unseen until they become too obvious to miss. Again, I think the use of pleasant smells and visuals does not help soap demand or capture attention, it must be brought to wider attention and pushed in terms of what it is capable of technically. During my research I have seen the vast variety of production methods and outcomes possible, examples being a change in oil which causes the soaps rigidity to increase or decrease making it either soft and fragile or hard and robust, it is a nuanced science with no rules or guaranteed results, a playground for creativity I think is untapped.

  Finally, the last aspect I wish to touch upon in this post is how I think I might be able to demonstrate innovation with my project in the context of the soap making world. After conducting my research, I have come to realise that the soap making community has very little risk taking or polarising makers. All of the moulds are similar and don’t surpass single part moulds (from what I can tell) all of the scents are pleasant and enjoyable, providing little to no discomfort, and the colours follow the same pattern (although more explored than the latter two). These patterns and lack of polarisation lead me to believe innovation is not taking place, if there were it would be clear through the changes seen in the community but there is little of this. After having tested soap myself there is potential for it to rival many prototype casting materials in the way it is capable of adapting, for example it can be clear, opaque, semi-transparent, dry, wet, soft, hard, any colour, any smell, large, small, food safe, anti-bacterial, non-food safe, moisturising, drying, dissolvable and the list goes on, as a material it offers far more possibilities in what it can do than both resin and jesmonite combined. I think that it is a shame a material that can be completely eco-friendly and never wasted (able to be melted and reused) and skin safe is not more widely used as a casting material, even if only as a prototyping material. Soap has much to offer a casting professionals/craftspeople/artist as a multi-sensory material that is widely available.

  In my project and chalice, I hope to demonstrate in a small part the possibilities that soap can have for users and the potential it has for people who use casting. The importance of this is now a priority to me and by being more abrupt and considered in the way use soap to communicate sensitive and complex matters I might provide a insight to how soap can be a serious casting material. To do this I will be employing 2-part moulds, pushing what has been previously established by other soap makers, as well as using large amounts of scented oils and other scents to provide a powerful and almost offensive experience. Finally, I will employ a strong and considered colour palate that is gory and striking to viewers. All of these factors serve not only to communicate my conceptual message but demonstrate innovation with soap as a material for craft use and artistic expression. I hope that by outlining this argument I have made the case that my use of soap in a unconventional way is evidence enough to prove I am demonstrating innovation within my practice, not only to meet criteria but as a point of integrity within myself as a maker.