Spinning Swirls? This months soap challenge from Amy, of Great Cakes Soapworks, involved spinning the slab mold after pouring it into the mold. The mold is turned by hand around and around until the soap has swirled. The motion of turning the mold makes swirls similar to marbling. The bars are cut on the horizontal to see the marbling.
Hmmm..... I discovered spinning swirls can be rather messy. I needed an extra pair of hands to take photos of the process. The first batch sort of slopped over the edge. Left a really pretty swirl on the counter top though.
I like the results of the spinning swirls. Thank you Amy for sharing your slow moving recipe and it works really well when I don't over mix the colorants into the soap. And now you know why three of my recipes did not work so well. The soap wasn't fluid enough to get those spins. But it was fun and I improvised when the soap thickened.
Hmmm..... I discovered spinning swirls can be rather messy. I needed an extra pair of hands to take photos of the process. The first batch sort of slopped over the edge. Left a really pretty swirl on the counter top though.
I like the results of the spinning swirls. Thank you Amy for sharing your slow moving recipe and it works really well when I don't over mix the colorants into the soap. And now you know why three of my recipes did not work so well. The soap wasn't fluid enough to get those spins. But it was fun and I improvised when the soap thickened.
Above is my first try in the mold, a blend of lemongrass, orange and clary sage essential oils. The colorants are micas. The mold is for 18 bars but I pulled out two dividers to have bigger bars. And for the soapers who are also doing this challenge you can see I was not satisfied with the top. I got out the chopstick..... Below is the result after removing from the mold. The bars were bigger than I expected so I cut them in half and then cut the horizontals. Now they are a perfect size for guest bars. The marbling is quite interesting reminding me of agates.
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The next batch was a blend of blood orange, clary sage and eucalyptus essential oils with micas and a bit of kaolin clay. Above is the batch in a smaller 9 bar mold. Next to the mold is the tops of the bars after cutting. Hmm, cannot seem to leave those tops alone! But you can see the directions of the soap swirls after being spun. I really liked the inside swirls of this one and how the colors settled down.
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Well here is where I started getting into a bit of trouble. The next three soaps won't be considered for the challenge since I improvised on the design. Same recipe but with the addition of activated charcoal, titanium dioxide and kaolin clay which helped to bring it to trace pretty quick. This one has orange and peppermint essential oils. It smells wonderful! Since the soap thickened quicker than anticipated the soap didn't want to move much with the spinning. So out came the chopstick where I made several small circles through the soap and then as long as I was at that.... yep, got to that top again! Really liked how these came out! Most of these will be guest sized bars.
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A blend of lavender and orange essential oils, micas, titanium dioxide and kaolin clay. Not much spinning here either.... out came the chopstick. And the results!
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Last batch and whoa - this one got thick so fast it was more like plop and drop! So yes, the famous chopstick came out again, which turned out to be a very valuable tool after seeing the results of the horizontal cuts. A blend of bergamot, lavender and rose geranium with mica, pigments and neons.
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