2015 Soap Challenge Club -- Spinning Swirl Technique

I have been quite the scatterbrain recently. Totally forgot about this month's soap challenge until I checked my email and found out that the link up has been opened -- for the past 3 days! Yikes! I checked the timer on the link up and it yelled to me that I had 1 day and 7 hours before the link up closed. Good luck to me!

So inspired by this colourful floor installation made of candy! 

Crazy colourful saccharine art by Tanya Schultz of Pip & Pop.

These are the colours that I have chosen for this soap challenge: Bramble Berry's Fired Up Fuchsia colourant, Hydrated Chrome Green pigment, 1982 Blue mica, Ultramarine Lavender pigment and Fizzy Lemonade colourant; and Orange Heaven mica from The Conservertorie. I did not use a slow-tracing recipe as I wanted to be sure that I would be able to unmold and cut the soap in time. I used Blackraspberry Vanilla Fragrance Oil from Bramble Berry as I knew that this fragrance oil would help slow down trace in my soap batter and give me sufficient time to complete the swirl.

The fragrance oil was first mixed together with the oils so that I will not forget to do so later on. I gave the stick blender 2-3 short pulses to combine the oil and lye mixture to a slight emulsion. The emulsion was then divided equally into 6 pitchers with the prepared colour pigments. I used a whisk to gently incorporate the colour pigments into the soap batter.

The coloured soap batter was poured into the slab mold at 6 different points.  The colours were alternated randomly. I was pretty pleased that the soap batter remained fluid enough for me to complete the pour, although it did thicken to a medium trace towards the end. I then spun the mold clockwise, following Amy's slight jerking motion. I found that this really helped to push the soap batter around in the mold. By the time I was satisfied with the swirl, the soap batter had thickened significantly and I had difficulty removing the air bubbles. 

(Photo was taken at 3am with a camera phone. Apologies for the poor lighting)

I managed to unmold and cut the soap after 15 hours. Phew!

Candy Swirl Soaps

Candy Swirl Soaps

Candy Swirl Soaps

 

I really enjoyed the spinning swirl technique and will definately use it again, but with a slow moving recipe. It is a very fun soaping technique and produces amazing results. Thank you Amy! I am already looking forward to next month's soap challenge -- dessert soaps! My favourite! YUMMY!