Great Cakes Soapworks - Spinning Swirl Soap Challenge

April’s soap challenge hosted by Amy Warden at Great Cakes Soapworks is the ‘spinning swirl' seen here, a technique that creates (ahem ... should create) a marbled effect in soap. I made two attempts at the technique and if time allowed I would probably have given it a third go to see if I’d finally get the kind of distinct marble swirls I was longing for!

Snapshot taken after spinning and 'tidying up' the top.

Two days later ... voila!

The first batch traced a little too fast, so the spin didn’t create swirls as clearly defined as I’d hoped for. I believe this happened because I used pomace olive oil ... yes, pomace! This, because I have loads of it and it often works OK in my regular recipes, even those with swirls. I ALSO used a fruity ‘berry’ FO custom blend which has never accelerated trace in the past, but who knows ... maybe it contributed to that this time. Another interesting thing is that some of my colours morphed! I wanted ‘berry’ shades to match the FO and used micas ranging from purple to dark red/maroon plus some TD for white and activated charcoal and a little brown mica for some contrast. I ended up with a salmon pink/coral colour and an olive green colour in some places instead of some of my colours! Strange behaviour, but I quite liked the surprise outcome.

I thought it turned out too 'unrefined' and there weren't enough swirls. So I decided to try again. This time I chose to go with yellow, green, brown, black, white and grey and a LOVELY lemongrass EO & cedar wood EO blend. I changed the recipe (used olive oil AND added sweet almond oil and shea butter) and despite the extra solid fat ... it was nice and slow BUT it took forever to set up!

after a few spins ...

I got anxious and started spinning when the soap was still a little too liquid, and after about 12 or so spins, I was sure it would be one BIG gooey, grey mess inside, so I stopped - despite the fact that the sides were all mushy grey and the middle had hardly budged during the spins.
My soap mould was rectangular and I think that makes spinning even less ‘even’. The top looked terribly messy! 48 hours later, once I cut the soap, I heaved a sigh of relief because it was quite nice inside. Again, no really distinct swirls and mine aren't nearly half as pretty as most participants' soap swirls, BUT they are so unique! Each piece is so different from the other. I love them!

    

I did not submit my soap - didn't think it made much sense seeing the awesome results of other participants :). I think this has been a fantastic challenge and so much fun to do! Fact is: I need to get more practice at achieving the perfect consistency for this technique, learn how not to spin the mould TOO hard and perhaps research more on how to combine colours (probably just looking at the other participants’ beautiful soaps will be enough). I’m REALLY looking forward to trying this out again. Warm thanks to Amy for providing us with yet another fun challenge to learn from. Looking forward to what lies in store next month ...

Congratulations to all participants who submitted their soap - they're so gorgeous! Voting will not be an easy task.