Peacock Swirl

I joined Amy Warden‘s Soap Challenge Club because I so enjoyed learning some new swirling techniques through participating in her Soap Challenge 2013. In fact, I even designed a soap that is shaping up to be a real keeper in my regular sales line.

I’ve watched tutorials on how to do the peacock swirl, but I had never tried it. I made three soaps in an attempt to learn how to do this swirl. While I’m not 100% happy with the look of any of them, I do think it was a valuable learning experience, and I would not rule out trying this kind of swirl again some time.

The first one I made had a gorgeous blue and green paired with black and white and was scented with Celestial Waters by Bramble Berry. It smells absolutely divine, but my black soap ran a little and the resulting soap looks a little smeary to me: more like streaks of gray instead of defined black and white.

Still, even though it didn’t turn out with the perfectly defined swirls I have seen other soapers produce, the results are nice. I am in LOVE with the Celestial Waters fragrance, too. It smells absolutely gorgeous.

I decided to try again to see if I could produce more defined swirls. I chose some brighter colors this time.

The swirls are still not as defined as I had hoped.

I scented this one with a scent described as “base notes of raspberry, cantaloupe, and watermelon, middle notes of jasmine and violet, and fresh top notes of grapefruit and kumquat.” It smells amazing, and the colors are a perfect match for the scent. I’m going to call this one Yummy.

I put the glitter on it because my daughter Maggie happened to comment when she saw it that she liked when I put glitter on soaps. I think the glitter kind of “makes” this one. But like I said, it still wasn’t quite right. So, I thought maybe I could try again and get it perfect.

Well… not so much. I even tried a different recipe. No luck. The soap just seems to want to run together too much. And it was at a fairly decent trace before I dragged the comb through.

You can see it sort of starts out defined.

It smells AMAZING, by the way. I used 10X orange essential oil for the base layer, and I used litsea cubeba essential oil for the orange and yellow parts and peppermint essential oil and spearmint fragrance for the green and white parts. It actually smells really, really fantastic, and I like the colors for this soap. Maybe with a different design next time.

And there are spots where it stays defined. I’m liking the look of this bar after a little while in the fridge.

In fact, this whole half is not too bad.

But the swirls are not defined throughout like the others I’ve seen.

I admit I’m stumped.

So, I feel frustrated at this point because I feel like there is something obvious I am just not getting. It took me quite a while to learn to swirl my soap, and someone pointed out to me that I shouldn’t discount the water if I want to swirl. Voilà, I was able to swirl just fine. Now I very rarely have any trouble swirling.

But I am stumped. I watched about three tutorials. I soaped cool. I chose tried and true recipes that have worked for other soapers using this swirl. I used colorants that other soapers have tried and that have worked for me before. Perhaps I need to let the soap sit and get to a thicker trace.

So what’s the verdict?

I don’t think that this technique is worth the trouble for the effect. It is really gorgeous, but so are other types of swirls. I am not saying this just because I wasn’t happy with my results. I think I’d be saying it anyway for cleanup alone.

I plan to submit my Citrus Mint batch, the third batch, for the contest because I think it turned out the best, at least on half of the bars.

I really wish you could smell that Citrus Mint. Oh, it’s incredible. Mmmm! That mix of essential oils and fragrances is a keeper, for sure, but I think a different design next time.

Ooooh, I so had my eyes on that 18-bar birch mold! Oh, well. There is always the next challenge. Bring it on!