Fossil effect on soap

Walking down the cement slabs at a Meditation Retreat late last month, I came across a fossilized leaf impression on one of the slabs. This fired up my imagination and I was ready for the next phase in my soap making experience. - The fossil effect. In the picture on the right, the maple leaf had just been lifted from the unscented soap. (Day 1 of its making) The chlorophyll green left behind is not expected to last. By Day 4, most of the chlorophyll green were gone. The fossilized impression left behind was faint. After the soap was cut, all traces of the fossilized maple leaf impression vanished.

Day 1

Day 3

Day 4

So I moved on to screw pine leaf. Left: Day 0 Right: Day 1  (after some of the leaves were lifted.)

Day 2

Day 3

Air pockets

Day 4

The soap trace in this green tea soap was a few notches below seizure which meant that it was virtually impossible to leave behind any fossilized impression.

Green tea soap embedded with leftovers