Mantra Swirl Challenge

This month's challenge for the Soap Challenge Club is the Mantra Swirl!  Just like the Peacock Swirl, I had seen this before, but never tried it, so I was eager to finally learn this technique.  I needed a slow moving recipe again and a fragrance that didn't discolor or accelerate trace. 

This is what I used for my recipe: 

olive oil, 38%
palm oil, 30%
coconut oil, 25%
sweet almond oil, 5%
castor oil, 2%

My fragrance is berries and grapes, sweet and fruity with a hint of mint.   I added the fragrance right into my oils before adding the lye water.

My colors are combinations of pigments, oxides, ultramarines and micas.

I used almost full water and a 4% superfat. I soaped at about 92 degrees.

my colors



my mold with 2 cardboard dividers

 

I added my lye water and pulsed the stick blender to just emulsify the mixture.  Then used a whisk.  I wanted to keep it as thin as I could.  I divided the mixture into three containers and whisked one color into each.  My husband poured the green while I poured the other two colors.  Thank you to him!  That was the first time he poured soap and he said it was fun!  Yay!  I removed the dividers and tamped the soap on the table to get rid of any air bubbles.  I grabbed my hanger to use for the swirl.  I had taped a skewer to the hanger to make it thicker to get a better swirl on the inside.

my hanger for the inside swirl



After doing the hanger swirl, I grabbed a chopstick and did the mantra swirl on the top of the soap.  That was pretty fun to see it turn out!  This was my favorite part!

before swirl

after swirl

 

It looked like green apple, chocolate and berries!  I think the next time I make this I will use those fragrance oils to match the colors!

 

When I unmolded the next day, it looked good except it seemed that parts of the soap did not completely gel which left an odd uneven coloring in the soap.  I was disappointed with that but over all liked my mantra swirl soap.

 

 

cut bars
 

 

I really love these colors!  I will definitely be doing the mantra swirl again!

 

A big thank you to Amy from Great Cakes Soapworks for this mantra swirl challenge!   I really enjoyed it and am looking forward to the next one!

 

Happy Soaping!

 

Candy :o)