Help with soap technique

[soapSuds]

hi,

I’m keen to have a go at creating something similar to the above but unsure as to what technique is used. I first thought it could be in the pot swirl but now not so sure. Do any of you with lots more experience now how to recreate this effect? I think it’s a northern lights soap and i love the look.
Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Loran]

Wow that is cool looking! I too would like to know! I’d guess that all the different colors were made in separate containers, then all poured back into one container in a certain way, swirled, then poured into the mold. I’m new to this so my post can be totally disregarded

 

[GemstonePony]

I notice that the bars are mostly white, with colors coming over the side in one bar. I suspect what you're looking at is actually a bunch of colors drizzled into the bottom of a mold, possibly with squeeze bottles. The white would be carefully poured over them to smooth things out and moved them around, and as with "broken layers" the colors on the bottom moved up the sides in response to the weight of the white layer. The trace would have to be very, very light to get the colors to blend together like that.

 

[AliOop]

I notice that the bars are mostly white, with colors coming over the side in one bar. I suspect what you're looking at is actually a bunch of colors drizzled into the bottom of a mold, possibly with squeeze bottles. The white would be carefully poured over them to smooth things out and moved them around, and as with "broken layers" the colors on the bottom moved up the sides in response to the weight of the white layer. The trace would have to be very, very light to get the colors to blend together like that.

Funny, I thought just the opposite: pouring the white layer first and letting it set up. Then doing an in-the-pot swirl of colors and pouring that over the white. I guess either way would work.

 

[GemstonePony]

Funny, I thought just the opposite: pouring the white layer first and letting it set up. Then doing an in-the-pot swirl of colors and pouring that over the white. I guess either way would work.

The only reason I'm thinking white is on top is because the colors seem to be coming up the sides and wrapping around the corners. That's awfully hard to do with colors on top.

 

[AliOop]

Could be... depends on the trace and height of the pour.

 

[DeeAnna]

It reminds me a lot of the May 2017 "Acrylic Cell Pour" Challenge where we flowed thin layers of fluid, multicolored soap over a plain soap base. While the soap was still fluid, we embedded separate "cells" of soap into the multicolored layer. It doesn't look like this soap has the embeds, but I could see how the design in Post 1 could be created with this technique.

The challenge was an adaptation of the "acrylic pour" method that people do by pouring and dropping acrylic paints on a stretched canvas and then tilting and rotating the canvas to create unusual patterns. Some of the paint usually flows off the edges of the canvas. If you made a plain slab of soap and used it in the same way that people use a stretched canvas, the colors would flow down and coat the sides of the slab. That would create this waterfall effect.

https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/may-2017-smf-soap-challenge-fluid-acrylic-cell-pour.63463https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/may-2017-challenge-entry-thread.63681/

 

[soapSuds]

Hi everyone,

thanks for informative replies. I suppose my take away here is that it’s a very light trace andmulti coloured pour. I shall study the acryllic challenge as you suggest DeeAnna. Personally I’d like the effect on top to be all the way through the bar. If I ever get close to the effect I shall post results
Thanks again all for your input

 

[KiwiMoose]

Hi Soap Suds - made one with just three colours that is similar, but not as swirly. The batter was medium trace and moving quite fast so it was an abridged version of my initial plan. It was essentially a funnel pour type effect (circles of colours poured and then other colours poured alternatively in the centre of those circles) and then I swirled with a chopstick all the way through.

 

[soapSuds]

Hi kiwimoose,
They look lovely and thanks for the tips. Will try that and see how it turns out.
as always so much helpful advice here on this forum!

 

[DeeAnna]

...Personally I’d like the effect on top to be all the way through the bar....

I don't think you'll get that with the acrylic pour technique as done in the challenge, because the swirly-ness this technique creates is only a surface effect. I suppose a person could build up the thickness with multiple "acrylic pours" stacked on each other - pour and swirl one layer, let it set up, pour and swirl another layer over the first, let it set up, etc. I don't think I"d have the patience for that, but I can see how it could work.

 

[earlene]

To me it looks like the white layer was probably already firm enough to be removed from the mold & may have been smoothed a bit on the outer edges, then put back into the mold with a bit of space at the outer edges. Then very fluid soap poured over top.

Or it could also have been the reverse where the white soap slab was put down on top of a very fluid pour so the colored portion rose up on the sides from the weight as it sinks into the wet soap. In which case, the colored portions got somewhat muddied and hence sort of look like the bottom of a soap slab (which some of the soaps do look like as bottom as GemstonePony mentions).

I have done both ways of adding another layer to soap: Placing set-up soap into a fluid batter on the bottom of a mold, and it sinks down, displacing batter, which then rises up along the edges. And pouring fluid soap over top of a set-up soap, where the pour slips down to coat the outer edges. In fact I combined both methods in order to completely coat an already set up soap with a single color. The soap I did that with was my intaglio challenge entry.


In either case, IMO, very fluid soap for the colored pour. I have seen at least a couple of videos on youtube where a soaper pours fluid soap double-handed to produce swirls (2 vessels at a time - 1 in each hand), that would/could produce similar looks to some of the soap in that image, but probably not the stripes on the bottom left. If one used a ribbon pour technique to fill the vessel, then poured smoothly and evenly, the straight lines of the one soap on the bottom left could be the initial result. As the fluid soap in the vessel gets toward the bottom, the lines would be less defined during the pour & with a little movement of the pourer's hands, those blurred edges are more likely. And/or you could use a straw and blow on the soap (I have seen this technique borrowed from paint artists applied to soap) to create movement & blurring of the colored edges. Of course blowing on very fluid soap through a straw would put you at risk as you are so close to the soap and could possibly blow too forcefully & create a soapy mess beyond the confines of the soap mold.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on possible ways to obtain this look on this soap.


It's not a fast and easy soap when doing either of these methods of adding layers to soap, so I wouldn't suggest it to someone just starting out. And I definitely would not suggest blowing on soap to a brand new soap maker. So SoapSuds, maybe it's best to keep this as a 'soap for the future' after you've mastered simpler soap designs.

Unless someone else can find a less complex method for obtaining the same look. Sometimes I over-complicate things.

 

[AliOop]

Clyde Yoshida gets some similar all-through-the-bar swirls with one of his trademark ITP swirls where he layers the batter into the bowl a certain way, and then pours into the mold. His YT channel is Vibrant Soap.

 

[Cheeky Goat]

I was coming in to mention Clyde, as that’s how I would have attempted a pour like this one. Lovely soap!

 

[MGM]

It looks a bit like my spin swirl, which goes all the way through.

 

[amd]

I was thinking spin swirl as well. Interesting that some bars look like the colored is poured on top of white, while some bars show the colored on the sides as well. I wonder if it was a combination of techniques - perhaps multicolors layered into main white in the bowl, poured into the mold and then spun. That might give the chunky effect of the white and the more fluid effect of the multicolors - especially if TD was used in the white portion, as it may have thickened up more and not swirled as well.

 

[AliOop]

@amd that sounds very likely! The neon micas add to the "northern lights" effect shown in the original post, so those would definitely be in order if one is trying to get something really close to that pic.

 

[MGM]

If it were me, @soapSuds , I would isolate the one thing I liked best about this soap and then try to replicate that one piece, then perhaps add others.
So if you like the semi-swirls, go for ITP swirl.
If you like the lines, do a spin swirl.
(Both of these will have swirl all the way through).
If you like the white on bottom and colour on top, pour a white base, then start spin swirl or ITP swirl on top. You may have a bit of bleed-through (although TD [or clay] in the base would thicken it, I think), but it would be easier than doing it in two discrete steps.
AFAIK, all of these techniques will require thin trace though, and spin swirl takes a long time to get through and you need to stay super thin all the way through, so I'd go with just one approach for now.
TBH, I find the white base weird. Having seen plenty of aurora borealis, I can say that a more realistic base colour would be black, not white! (Better contrast with the neon, too).
Anyway, go do it quick so we can see the results, please!

 

[soapSuds]

Thanks for the informative answer @MGM i shall try an in the pot swirl and see how that goes

 

[TheGecko]

My three cents: Obvious slab mold. White bottom layer poured. While it is setting up, other colors are layered in a bowl and then carefully poured on top of the white and then the mold is spun around in different directions and then an insert in place in the mold. Some of the bars have been planed, some have not.