Great Cakes Alternative Liquid Challenge

As usual, I'm trying to beat the deadline, and I'm running out of time as I'm writing!  This month it took three tries to get something worthy of the challenge.

My alternative liquid is coconut water.  I'd been wanting to try it, but hadn't gotten around to it, so now was the time!  I wasn't able to find much out other than it is hydrating and contains lots of potassium when you drink it, so I'm hoping it can do the same for our skin!

For my first soap, I decided to also try calendula petals in the lye water, as it imparts a slight fragrance and is skin loving.  The other colorings are madder powder and spirulina powder and I decided to use Bergamot Essential Oil for the fragrance.  It soaped like a dream, maybe a bit too liquid, and I tried a swirl.  Although it did come out way better than I thought it would, it didn't have the contrast and bold coloring I was looking for.

Second try:  Same oils and coconut water, but this time I decided to use Karma Essential Oil blend from Bramble Berry, even though it  discolors the finished soap to brown.  Since I knew that, I decided to color it with darker colorant, alkanet powder, in a large enough amount to hopefully be dark purple.  For a lighter contrast color, I used a combiation of Kaolin clay and annatto seed powder.  Since I wanted to use my column mold again and had seen others make a yinyang with plastic, I thought I'd try that, putting alkanet on one side and the other would be kaolin colored and annatto colored in a faux funnel pour.  With so much planned, I forgot the essential oil, so this one is unscented, but I like the design!

Third time's the charm!  I repeated the same recipe, including the Karma Essential Oil for fragrance this time, although I didn't have another cylinder mold, so used a loaf mold and did a swirl like I did the first time.  The difference was that this time the soap batter was a bit thicker from the fragrance (and a little more stick blending) and the top was sprinkled with cranberry seeds and strawberry seeds for a little additional color.  This is my favorite!  I never thought I would be able to get such a beautiful soap with all natural ingredients!