Design for dark&dull base batter – Swirl suggestions

ResolvableOwl · Sep 3, 2021

These days, many of the fancy swirl designs are either based on a multitude of different colours (ITP, ombré, Taiwan), or they play off their brilliance best with light background/base colours (mini drop, hanger).
Some swirls (OPW, wood grain, secret feather) work well in principle, but are sensitive to low contrast IMHO.

Imagine you'd be challenged to make an appealing soap with at least 75% of a base batter that has a dark brown/green/grey/slate colour with not much brilliance by itself. Add one or two accent colours, inside the soap body, not just on the top. Sounds like the job for – which swirl technique?

One way to go there are variations of tried-and-tested swirls with asymmetric amounts of batter. My asymmetric Lollipop as an example. I could also imagine to this similarly with tiger stripes, spin swirl or the dancing funnel. There are also some gems hidden at places like in the SMF challenge March 2017 Black Background Soap Entry Thread (worth browsing the archives at any time

).

But I'm sure there is someone out there whose favourite design technique works best with dark base colour, and I'll hear for the first time about it here.

(I have considered making this an unofficial challenge, like @FragranceGuy's wildly popular grocery store challenge. But I'm undecided since I'm not exactly asking without reason, and I'd be uncomfortable with just copying a great design in the end.)

Rsapienza · Sep 3, 2021

I would go with a traditional drop swirl. While not exactly what you described, (75% of base batter) I think you get the drift.

dibbles · Sep 3, 2021

I love hanger swirls, and with a 25/75% color split a drop swirl with a hanger would be very pretty. My mind always goes to white or natural with a dark color base, but it wouldn't have to be. The Dancing Funnel will work, as you have already mentioned. A Secret Feather design would use even less colored batter most likely. You could do a version of a pipe divider swirl or a faux funnel pour and swirl with a skewer. Mini drop swirl is also a favorite of mine and would work well for those ratios, I think.

Tara_H · Sep 4, 2021

It needs to be a swirl? My recent Dirty Hippy soap would work with that kind of background - I was actually intending it to be more dirt-coloured behind the flower.
Otherwise I think a secret feather with bright yellows and/or reds could really pop against a dull background.

I'm not entirely sure from the question if the colour has to work in the dull base. I.e I get the impression you have a particular ingredient in mind which will produce this dark/dull background, so maybe you don't want to make another batch of batter which will allow for lighter and more dramatic colours?

There's also plenty of elegant and understated options you could try, like a subtle confetti and/or mica lines. And if you're open to darkening the base further that opens up a world of possibilities...

ResolvableOwl · Sep 4, 2021

Tara_H said:
I'm not entirely sure from the question if the colour has to work in the dull base.

Yes. I just didn't want to block imaginativeness with being too suggestive. And it'd be more universal, maybe of help for someone else too, when I don't disclose if it's a dark clay that I'm adding, an oil strongly coloured by infusion or naturally, or a discolouring FO.
The second batch with only light ingredients is inevitable anyway for light/bright accents. On the other hand I'm very open to dark accent colours (they might just suffer from low contrast if the matrix is on the darker side).

I opt for swirls for the challenge, the thrill of unpredictability, and the abstract “lightness” that it adds to soap (unlike soap dough embeds or confetti snow). But confetti still is a thing I'll keep in mind (might help to trick around the “two different batters at the same time” dilemma).