The Making Of the Winter Rose Soap
This is for Donna who asked how I swirled the Winter Rose soap! With comments like “it needs its own museum,” and “If I made that I would be putting one on the mantelpiece and spend all day gazing at it,” how could I refuse?
I wish I had a video of the whole process – or even lots of photos, but I don’t. So you’ll have to settle for the photos I do have and a couple of drawings to help fill in the gaps, ok?
First, I added the fragrance to the oils before adding the lye solution. We’re talking about a fast-moving floral fragrance here! Then, I blended until it was just emulsified. I had three different pink micas to swirl with, plus some titanium dioxide and vanilla bean specks for the base color.
A very strange thing happened when I stirred the vanilla bean specks into the titanium dioxide solution. You can see the oils from the vanilla beans separating, and the whole solution emulsified!
Back to making soap. After I blended the soap, I poured two cups of soap into each container for the pink swirls, and dumped the titanium dioxide and vanilla bean specks into the main pot. After each one was sufficiently stirred (I think I only used the stick blender on the main pot, and just stirred the pink swirl colors with a spatula), I poured a layer of the base color into the mold. It was starting to thicken by then. After that, I poured each of the pink colors over it in a zig-zag pattern, allowing them to sink into the base color a bit.
It looked something like this:
Then I used my bamboo skewer to zig-zag through the mold (really fast!!), first one way:
Then the other way (still really fast!!):
Then I took the rest of the colors, poured them into the pot randomly, stirred just a bit, and poured it over the top. It was getting pretty thick by then. I barely had time to get it all pressed into the mold! I really liked the effect of the swirl in the mold. It was the first time I’ve done this that it actually looked good! Probably because I have previously been afraid of swirling it too much, but I really went after it this time. I’ll definitely do this again. Let me know if you try it!
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Great graphic demonstration! LOL
No, YOU are the one that is too kind. That is a great tutorial and as soon as we move another pregnant sow into her maternity yard tomorrow (nice big house for her and babies plus a fenced in yard) then I’ll be doing some major soaping using this plan. Thanks so much for taking the time to share with (still) a new soaper. Going on 9 months now and I’ve mostly just given birth to a dining room full of soap equipment/supplies.
Wow those florals can be impossible to use but looks like you nailed it, beautiful micas too. Lovely
Cool! I love the final soap. So pretty. I’ve tried a couple different swirling methods. I kind of have an altered in the pot swirl I really like. Going to have to try the layering swirl!
Where do you get your micas?
Amy, you’re such a giving soul. While I’ll probably not attempt this anytime soon (I can get in a frenzy easily enough with 2 colors) , it is so very kind of you to share the specifics of your technique with us all. I’m proud to have you as a friend and “sister” 😉 -Becky
This is a great tutorial Amy. I do a 3 color in pot swirl as well, only using totally different colors, and the effect is very cool!
Oh! I find this soo interesting! One more thing on my list that I would love to try. Yes I am one of those people that has that endless list and never enough time to do it all! I am thinking I will leave that to you, though as you do a great job!
Glad it will be helpful to some of you!! Hope you all have a wonderful weekend! @Jennifer: I just discovered micas at The Conservatorie.
Thanks!
That is such a great tutorial … and I adore the final soap!
I bought some of those micas myself recently, cannot wait to try them out (scared though!)
Thank you, Celine! Not sure why you would be scared – you do absolutely fabulous work with colors! I’m sure you’ll have fun with these!
I love your swirls, I made a Rose soap about a month ago but just layered the colours a bit. Just recently managed to get in the mold swirls that I’m thrilled with but not sure I can do it again as my sister and I sort of just went with the flow. Now we are trying to figure out exactly what we did. Since I have lots of soaps to make I’ll definitely try this out. Thanks for posting this. In the pot and in the mold swirls have always been a challenge no matter what. I can do slab swirls fine but the log method is a bit harder at least for me.