For my third attempt at making a soap to enter in the Soap Challenge Club, I chose a fragrance blend of Acai Berries & Satin. The April 2023 challenge is to create a soap using the Circling Taiwan Swirl. For this, you pour different colors of soap into divided areas within your soap mold, then once the dividers are removed, you drag a skewer, chopstick or other rod through the soap in up and down lines, then circle around the edges of the soap as many times as you want. To read about other attempts for this challenge, CLICK HERE.
I used a heat transfer method to melt the oils and combine with the lye solution. I dispersed the colorants in my fragrance oil. I wanted a deep purple color for the “berry” layer, so I blended some Really Red Mica with some Matt Ultramarine Blue and added a few drops of Matt Black Oxide. The white layers were made using titanium dioxide, and the gray layer was made using a little black oxide in the white.
The soap batter stayed fluid throughout the pouring process. It was almost too fluid to achieve much of a swirl effect when rounding the out edges with a chopstick. I went around four times.
After pouring, I placed the mold in a box and wrapped with a blanket to keep in the heat while it set up overnight. I unmolded 24 hours later. In order to achieve the desired design, I had to cut the soap into 2.5″ chunks and then turn sideways to cut. I am still concerned that this technique does cut away a lot of good soap.
Read about other attempts to create a soap for this challenge.
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