Mantra Swirl Challenge

This month's Challenge from Amy at Great Cakes Soap Works was to do a Mantra Swirl Challenge. I had tried this once before but without much luck. The top was alright but the inside swirls were not so great!

Amy put out a "how to" video along with some recipe suggestions. The video was very helpful along with a link to another soap maker (Amathia) who also does a nice job explaining the process.

I gave myself lots of time to complete the challenge. I knew it would take more than one try to get this one right!

The first try for the challenge was scented with Blackberry Sage and the colors were ultramarine pink and a burgundy pigment. The recipe included olive, coconut, palm, and rice bran oils with a little shea butter and of course goat milk. I love making the top mantra swirl on the wet soap. The inside is a bit more tricky. I chose to use the hanger technique, going side to side rather than top to bottom as in some other swirl patterns.

Blackberry Sage Mantra Swirl

I was pleased with the initial look of the wet soap in the mold. Hmmm... not as pleased with the final outcome. The inside swirls just weren't as obvious as I had hoped they would be. I think the hanger was too thin to get a good drag going across the soap. The top seemed to fade some so that was a bit disappointing. The photo isn't the greatest (sorry). I usually use my front porch in the morning to get some natural lighting and forgot that I hadn't taken a photo of the insides... and it was evening. Thank goodness I have a friend who likes doing product photography for the website! She is much better at this than I am!

Blackberry Sage Mantra Swirl

Next try was a Cucumber & Melon Scented soap... color choices? I decided to use some new mica's samples I had recently received - Pearl Green and Emerald (which morphed to that grey green color). Again a slower moving recipe of olive, coconut, palm and rice bran oils with the goat milk (all my soaps have goat milk in them!) The center portion has a little titanium dioxide to get a whiter color.

Cucumber & Melon Mantra Swirl

Cucumber & Melon Mantra Swirl

I liked how this one turned out much better since the mantra swirls on the inside show up much better. I forgot to take a photo of the wet soap! oops. I added a wood skewer to my hanger that I used to create the swirl. Unfortunately, it was rather messy to work with as the skewer was shorter than my hanger and kept slipping and sliding even though I thought I taped it down well. But I am pleased with this result.

Time to stop or should I go for more Mantra Swirls??? Of course, since I had planned ahead earlier I still had a couple days left before downloading my entry.

This time I wanted to use some essential oil blends I had prepared a few weeks back and I wanted to try a brighter color pattern. I decided to use a Clary Sage, Virginia Cedarwood and Tangerine blend. I had been playing with a color scheme of orange, yellow and bright pink using some neon colored pigments and thought this would be a good combo. I was really happy with the original wet soap in the mold! I love this combination of color. I am thinking a whole line of various patterns of it now. The scent is great too!

Neon Pigment Mantra Swirl in the mold

So what did the inside look like? I was rather impatient to unmold and get those bars cut. By the way, this mold was made by a friend's dad for me. It holds a bit more soap than I am used to working with so I was glad to use a slow moving recipe.

Reflections (Mantra Swirl)

I am more than pleased with these results! Pretty sure this will be my challenge entry! For some reason this batch had me singing an old song, "Reflections" by the Supremes. "Through the mirror of my mind/Time after time/I see reflections of you and me/Reflections of The way life used to be..." funny how a song can just pop into my mind and get those memories going (by the way, I am a Motown fan!). I think this one will be called "Reflections"! 

I enjoyed this color combo so much I had to try another pattern!

Mirror of My Mind

What do you think? This is another blend of essential oils using Lavender, Patchouli and Orange. I think this one will be called "Mirror of My Mind"!

Since I still had a couple days before the challenge was over before uploading my entry I thought I would do one more Mantra Swirl.

Lavender Patchouli Mantra Swirl out of the mold

This one is fresh out of the mold, you can see the unfinished edges. And I am not as fond of the way the colors came out. I used Emerald mica and a Cancerian Heat mica along with a small amount of Crucible Gold for the center line. The Emerald morphed to a blue grey, the gold has almost disappeared and morphed into a steel blue grey and the Cancerian Heat... well its definitely not as bright as I had hoped it would be.

Lavender Patchouli Mantra Swirl

This one smells awesome. The swirls turned out ok and the color morphing is not what I expected but the colors are ok too. One big issue with this batch... a mighty nice swiss cheese type hole along the top line on most of the bars. Yep, an air hole that didn't collapse with my banging of the mold on the counter. These are the only bars without the hole! So I'll need a name to for this batch to go along with that hole, scent and colors.These bars are bigger than my normal size bars... should be a good 5 ounces plus when cured.

So what did I learn from this challenge? Expect the unexpected! Use a slow moving recipe to have time to move those swirls inside the mold. Use a thicker hanger... Oh, I ended up cutting another hanger and wiring two together to get a thicker swirl line. Using a plastic chopstick instead of a wooden skewer helped to pull those Mantra Swirls across the tops. And yes I will make some more Mantra Swirls! 
 
Thanks again to Amy for organizing another great challenge. I know there are a lot of soapers all over the world that are enjoying them and learning new techniques or improving upon their own. Want to read about this months challenge and take a look at Amy's version of the Mantra Swirl? visit her blog at http://www.greatcakessoapworks.com/handmade-soap-blog/index.php/who-wants-to-learn-the-mantra-swirl/

PS... these soaps will be ready sometime in August for purchase!

I really appreciate all the nice comments!