Amber Waves of Soap: Spoon Swirl Soap Challenge, learning to spoon swirl

The Great Cakes Soapworks Challenge has been a wonderful learning experience. When I first signed up, I had never made the spoon swirl prior to it. I (luckily) had seen the swirl done before on this soaping 101 video. After realizing I needed to not only attempt the spoon swirl for December's challenge, but I indeed needed to practice it, I began brainstorming.

1) I had just received spirulina in an order, and having never used it, I thought it a great time to experiment. I did an alternating pattern of spirulina and titanium dioxide batter, with one layer of aqua mica mixed in sweet almond oil in the middle. I accounted for the extra oil in soap calc. The total layers ended up being 6.

I swirled down both sides of the soap: Down to the bottom in the upper left corner, and up three swirls of the spoon (see the video for better visual of swirling up). I did this 4 times, from top to bottom down the left side. Then I repeated down the right side of the mold, but only did it 3 times instead of 4.

The end result became slightly muddy in the middle. I now had a feel for using the spoon as a tool (and realized too much mica drizzle in a middle layer can create air pockets!).

OOPS!

2) The next attempt was a three layered soap, with the hopes the swirls stayed crisp and separate.

I used activated charcoal for the bottom, titanium dioxide for the middle, and merlot mica on top. I spooned from left to center (down and then winding up three rotations), and I did this 4 times down the left side. I did the same thing again, but this time beginning in the center and going towards the right, and went down the mold 4 times as well. Then I used titanium dioxide and activated charcoal left overs with mica drizzles to decorate the top.

The lye I had was a bottom of the barrel lye. My soap wasn't real happy. It remained so soft, I could barely unmold it 48 hours later. Once it was out, I had to shave quite a bit off of it to clean it up. The good thing was I had a better feel for this swirl. Armed with a little more experience, I set off for soap #3.

3) This next one was a trial run of the final. I used everything I planned on in the final except for the fragrance. I poured activated charcoal soap batter, and began to slowly pour titanium dioxide on top. Lo and behold, I spent too much time pouring the TD on the right side of the soap, and it created a perfect tilt layer! Not my intention, but I had to roll with it. I then sprinkled a heavy amount of merlot mica on top and finished it off with another layer of activated charcoal soap batter. I used the spoon in three "bottom to top" circles, and I worked my way down the mold on both sides (4 times on the left, and 4 on the right). From the outside of the opaque mold, I could see it didn't seem quite swirled enough. I proceeded to do a final left to right large swooping swirl. The final soap was swirled more than I wanted, unfortunately, and it was darker throughout more than I had envisioned. I was ready for my final go at it!