Swirling Soap Series: French Curl Swirl

So, the second swirl in my series begins with the nonpareil swirl that we did two weeks ago. Head over to that post to catch up if you need to. This swirl starts off as a nonpareil swirl, then adds a little twist!

A few things to remember...

Basics:

You will want to start off with a slow moving recipe (recipes with 70% olive oil or above work well for me) and a fragrance that does not accelerate trace. Mix your lye and oils together until you reach emulsification, which is where the oils and lye are mixed together, but not thickening. You will want your mix slightly runny. Once you reach emulsification, add your fragrance, then set aside a few ounces of soap into separate containers to color. When choosing the colors for your soap, remember that bright, contrasting colors work great! The addition of black, white, and brown can make a very dramatic effect. 

Tools:

You will need a combing tool, which can easily be made at home. I made my combing tool using cardboard and chopsticks. I attached my chopsticks to my combing tool using a hot glue gun. It works great!  

Now, let's get started!

1. First, start by drizzling your colors left to right in your mold until you run out of color. Toward the end, make sure that all the colors you chose are showing on top.

2. Now, use your combing tool and drag downward on one fluid motion to create the nonpareil swirl. For the first tutorial, this is where we stopped. Today, we are going to take it one step further.

3. Using a chopstick (or similar tool), start at the upper left hand corner of your mold and draw a small to medium sized curl. Keep drawing curls in your soap until it looks similar to this:

Curls!

You're done with the french curl swirl! I made my french curl soap with Pomegranate Vanilla fragrance oil in shades of pink, magenta, and white and topped it off with a little glitter.

The french curl swirl

Swirling Soap Series: Nonpareil Swirl

After finishing my first attempt at a peacock swirl, I became obsessed with different swirling techniques. I worked on my swirling while watching videos on youtube and talking to my friend Michelle, who makes amazing marbled and swirled paper (shout out for Michelle and her shop DynamiteFibers!) After realizing how few tutorials there were online, I decided to start documenting my swirling on my blog. So here we go with our first swirl in the series: the nonpareil swirl.

Gorgeous, Simple, Beautiful!

Basics:

You will want to start off with a slow moving recipe (recipes with 70% olive oil or above work well for me) and a fragrance that does not accelerate trace. Mix your lye and oils together until you reach emulsification, which is where the oils and lye are mixed together, but not thickening. You will want your mix slightly runny. Once you reach emulsification, add your fragrance, then set aside a few ounces of soap into separate containers to color. When choosing the colors for your soap, remember that bright, contrasting colors work great! The addition of black, white, and brown can make a very dramatic effect. 

Tools:

You will need a combing tool, which can easily be made at home. I made my combing tool using cardboard and chopsticks. I attached my chopsticks to my combing tool using a hot glue gun. It works great!  

Start off by pouring the base of your soap, which should be the majority of your batter. 

Next, color your soap batter that you set aside and drizzle that soap on the surface of your base. You will want to drizzle side to side, rather than up and down.

Soapy lines from left to right

Once you have drizzled your lines back and forth, now is the time to use your combing tool. Insert your combing tool at the top of your mold, then pull down in one, solid stroke. Your comb will create the nonpareil swirl as it pulls down.

That's it! You are done! Super simple, yet really gorgeous! 

My lovespell soap!

Come back next Wednesday when I break down the peacock swirl!

First Attempt at a Peacock Swirl

I've seen the peacock swirl around in the soaping world, and while it is gorgeous and produces amazing looking bars of soap, I've always been a bit hesitant to start such a complicated-looking technique. I love beautiful, bold swirls on the tops of soap (so much that I bought a mold just so I could do them!), so yesterday, I decided to bite the bullet and try a peacock swirl.

First, I watched this video by LovinSoap about 10 times in a row.

Then, I attempted the swirl using my 9 bar mold from Brambleberry.com and Blackberry Sage Fragrance Oil  from AromaHaven.com. I chose this mold because it gives me lots of room to swirl on the top of my soap, and I chose this scent because it does not accelerate, giving me plenty of time to work.

And here are my results:

I like the swirl and it is very pretty, but it is not in the classic peacock, or bouquet.

I think I have identified two problems with my first attempt:

1. My lines of soap in the beginning were more thick than I have seen others do. I think I need to thin out my lines, which will give me more room to have more lines and more swirl.

2. I drew my S-curve very wide. Next time, I am going to tighten up that curve, hopefully giving myself more swirl per inch.

All in all, I am pretty happy with the soap, I love the colors and the scent, and the swirl isnt terrible for a first timer. The soap gelled overnight, so the green and purple really pop next to the white and black. I have some new fall and winter scents coming in next week, so I'm looking forward to practicing this advanced swirl a few more times! Plus, I am going to get some help from a friend of mine who is an expert at swirling and marbling paper! Go check out her Etsy shop here: DynamiteFibers