#soapchallenge #DNAHelixswirl #coldprocesssoap
Friday, February 6, 2015
Back in January we entered Amy Wardens soap challenge calling for a "butterfly swirl" design. It was a tough challenge and our efforts, which smelled terrific, never quite got us to the "butterfly." Since we were extra savvy and entered 3 challenges at a discounted price, we now have another one for this month. We promise we won't go quite so crazy this time, but it does help that the swirl seems almost manageable after the butterfly swirl last month.
So what is it? It is the DNA helix swirl! Sounds like something you'd find in a science lab, doesn't it?
This swirl involves lots and lots of color, squirting, dragging a skewer back and forth through batter, then finishing with an artsy swirl. We can do this soap in either a log mold or in our larger slab molds, and we will probably do both. Luckily the entry will be a picture of just the surface of the soap, where the design is, so we don't have to worry about a design for the body of the bar.
So here is our first ever....DNA helix swirl.
We decided to mix Litsea Cubeba EO with The Vert (both from +The Lebermuth Company then top them off with a little Sweet Pea FO from +Natures Garden. We combined drops on a paper towel (very scientific) until we found the ratio that we liked. It smelled great, and we are hopeful that the soap will too.
From what we've read, this is a very colorful swirl, so we will pile on the colors. +Bramble Berry is where all our colorants came from today: Fizzy Lemonade, Fired up Fuchsia, Green Chrome, Amethyst Purple, and Titanium Dioxide.
The colors have been mixed with a small amount of Safflower oil, and are ready to go into the batter.
Eventually we will put a bit of uncolored batter in each squirt bottle, then we will squirt it into the batter, but I am getting ahead of myself.
First the oils. We used our Old Faithful mix of Coconut (76 degree), Palm, Olive, and Castor.
We added Tussah silk to the lye/water; it will give the soap lustre.
In the picture above we have just added in the EO and FO's.
We didn't mix the batter much because we want it loose and runny to give us time to pour into all of the bottles, add the colors, and shake them to mix it up. Our fingers are crossed that it won't get too thick before we can do all of that.
We tried free pouring the batter into squirt bottles; it wasn't going to happen.
We used a funnel; that worked.
Using a bit of the Fired Up Fuschia, we colored the remaining batter in effect making the body of the soap pink.
The top will be a different story.
According to directions, we start by squirting colors across the mold, using all the colors, no need to be neat, just work as fast as possible.
Here we have the fuchsia and the amethyst down, we can afford to be sloppy at this point.
But not too sloppy!
The squirting is done, now we pipe wide-ish lines of color, stopping and starting with each line.
After a bit it was obvious that the soap was getting THICKER, we constantly had to shake the bottles, sometimes a squirt would kind of explode, or start curly cueing. We really hoped it wouldn't make a difference.
All layers of soap lines are in, now we do a "linear swirl" basically dragging the skewer up and down and staying as close together as possible. This swirl alone is quite pretty and we've used it several times.
The "linear swirl" is done, now to the helix part.
Starting at either end using a skewer (but not sticking it very far into the batter) swirl lazy S's in the batter, making sure to cross in the middle (notice my junctions are off center). It's supposed to be evenly S swirled. This one, not so even.
This is the finished product.
A close up.
Not bad for the first time!
We learned that Old Faithful sets up too fast, have to find a plan B batter.
Learned that the swirling junctions should be in the center of the soap, not to the side. Also learned that if we want the swirl to look like a DNA/Helix, we need to make sure the S swirls are evenly spaced.
We'll do better next time.
The finished soap.
Thinking maybe a hanger swirl would liven it up, although there is nothing wrong with light pink soap.
This soap will be cured on March 20.
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