December Soap Club Challenge - Column Swirl

Hi everyone and welcome

The December Soap Club Challenge (SCC) organised by Amy Warden of Great Cakes Soapworks is underway, with 107 entrants from all over the world. This month's SCC technique is the column swirl, a technique originating from popular art in painting (see here for a video of this technique). Soapmakers are an artistic bunch, and have employed this technique with star-shaped blocks and multiple colours.

Not having tried this technique before I thought it would be a good idea to limit myself to three or four colours.  I decided to do two batches in one soaping session, one in my slab mould and the other in a log mould.

For the first (slab) design, I chose to use red, pink, grey and white.  I used Strawberry Champagne fragrance oil from Big Tree Supplies, a local supplier here in Brisbane.  

Five wooden columns (one in each corner and one in the middle) were used.  The corner columns were offset 45 degrees so that they appeared as triangles in the mould.

The batch was split into four equal portions and coloured.  The fragrance was added, and it was time to pour!

The fragrance oil behaved quite well, although it did accelerate trace just a little.

The only thing I wasn't happy with was ending up with so much grey on the top layer.  Next time, I'll have to think about the order of colours a little more carefully!

I had a little red left over so I added this to the centre of each 'flower'.












Not one to do things like everyone else, I used a skewer to pull the soap from the centre outwards, rather than inwards.  Kinda funky, don't you think?

A quick spritz with alcohol, dividers inserted, and this baby was off to bed ... in the fridge overnight!

The next day, the dividers were removed.  Hmmm, not bad ...

Unfortunately, my slab mould is not deep enough to double the batch and slice through each bar horizontally, otherwise I would have.  Using a slab mould for this type of design (like mantra swirls) limits the effect to the top of the bar.

For my second attempt, I chose shades of blue and white (although the Cellini blue morphed on me into a dusky pink - I had a suspicion it would!) because the fragrance selected - Mystic Orange Moonstone (again from Big Tree Supplies) - reminded me of an expensive men's cologne.

This one was to be made in my standard acrylic 2.5kg (5lb) log mould.  This time I used three wooden columns, the same size as before, only this time wrapped in cling film, and all offset 45 degrees.

I wasn't sure how the fragrance would behave, so I enlisted the help of my partner Dave to stir the soap portions as I was pouring to keep the soap 'loose'.

The pour went very well and I quite liked the colour combo!

Again, a little leftover white was added to form the centre of the flower at the end.

This time I went for a 'one pull inwards, one pull outwards' method of swirling with the skewer. 

A quick spritz and this one went into the fridge overnight too.  It was cut the following day ...

I cut this one into 6cm chunks then sliced it into bars horizontally so you can see the pattern inside.  This way, instead of layers (like you can see on the side of the bar of soap at the bottom), you get what you see on the top of the log on the top and bottom of each bar.  Lovely!

Many thanks to my talented daughter Samantha for the photographic work, and to my wonderful partner Dave, who is always there when I need help!  You guys rock!

Well, that's the column swirl.  I hope you like it.

Bye for now

Gail