| Today’s blog is about how to approach color. When coloring a soap we often think, I want half my soap blue and half white in a lovely swirl. In reality the color is nowhere near half the mixture. True mixtures which are half white and half color look too much color and the swirls don’t appear as vividly.
When swirling soaps think CAKE. If you were never taught to do chocolate swirls in a cake, now is the time to learn. Cakes are a much thicker batter than our soap when it goes into a mold, but the concept is the same: primary color (flavor) in the pan, then place spots of color (flavor) in random positions across the top, swirl with the long handle of a round handled spoon. I use a highly technical piece of laboratory equipment called a drinking straw.
Here is today’s recipe:
White Soap
30 ounces weight Hydrogenated Soybean Oil
25 ounces weight Coconut Oil
20 ounces weight Olive Oil
5 ounces weight Mango Butter
30 fluid ounces water
11 ounces weight sodium hydroxide
Blue Soap
6 ounces weight Hydrogenated Soybean Oil
5 ounces weight Coconut Oil
4 ounces weight Olive Oil
1 ounce weight Mango Butter
6 fluid ounces water
2.2 ounces weight sodium hydroxide
1 teaspoon Ultramarine Blue Color
Mix the lye solutions as set aside. Heat the large batch of soap. This took about 8 minutes in the microwave. Heat the oils for the small batch while you are mixing the large batch of soap. I am using a 2 gallon pail to mix the large batch of soap.
Once the white soap is at a light trace I set aside and then begin mixing the blue batch. When the blue soap is a bit thicker than a plain colored soap batch I rinse my blender and go back to blending my white batch. It only took about 10 seconds more of blending and I poured the white batch into my card board box lined with a plastic bag.
Once all the white soap is in the mold, I added the blue soap pouring in random areas. I then used a straw and not only swirled through the mold but also swirled up and down. The up and down action has the straw mixing across the top and dipping down to the bottom in a circular motion like whipping pancake batter with a balloon whisk in the kitchen.
The soap should appear somewhat colored on the top. Allow to rest. You can see this great picture of the soap going through gel phase. Try very hard not to move the soap while it is gel phase, you may lose all of your beautiful swirls.
Let’s fast forward to the time when the soaps are ready to cut. You can see the soaps from all week. These soaps are our shea butter basic soap, then neem oil, then lanolin and finally our peppermint leaves and blue colored swirl soaps. The only soap that we poured this week that was as viscous as heavy cream (in an unwhipped state) was the colored batch we did today. All others were poured at a water-thin viscosity. All had reached trace and none were over mixed.
The soap today was 5 parts of white plus 1 part color soap. Look at the finished soap. Can you see why we chose the ratio of 5 plus 1? Beautiful!
So, let’s recap today:
1) swirling soap includes mixing in an up and down fashion
2) the best ratios of white background to colored soap is a 5 to 1.
3) anything can be used as a mold, including a cardboard box
Happy soaping! Send pictures of your new batches. We’ll share here in the blog. Everyone should try a new batch of soap with this week’s lessons at hand.
Next week is all about having luscious lips! Join in for the kissable fun!
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