I just can't Swirl!

[Donee']

I got side-tracked yesterday, watching foreign soap video's (again ), and one of them was for a very fine design, using a bit of soy wax and a pre-made 45% lye solution, poured over frozen milk ... so that recipe wasn't all soft oils, but the temperature probably stayed quite low for a while because of the frozen milk and the pre-made lye solution. They used a whisk for most of the mixing too.

Maybe try cooler than room temperature, and mostly switch to a whisk?

Are you too a youtube addict figgy?

 

[Hendejm]

Try in the pot swirl. It’s easy and always works....unless your batter is lumpy!

 

[zanzalawi]

Oh! Charcoal does?

thats been my experience. in the dancing funnel challenge last year- the portion colored with activated charcoal was thickening much quicker than the other colors which stayed a really great consistency

https://www.soapmakingforum.com/attachments/img_3970-jpg.31756/

 

[SaltedFig]

Are you too a youtube addict figgy?

@Donee' - When I'm researching an idea, or I find a new soaper who is doing something I haven't seen much of, I might indulge in a little late-night binge-watching (but other times I'll go days without watching a single video )

@SaltedFig Thanks! I can do cooler than room temp... I'm addicted to my stick blender, though! lol I suppose I can whisk after emulsion, however...

@Deborah Long - I hope it works for you!
(That spin swirl is not one I particularly like (the visual payoff isn't worth the effort IMHO), but once you master that one, you will be able to swirl anything!)

 

[Deborah Long]

@SaltedFig - I totally understand what you're saying. I've seen some I like and some that make me go - meh... Now it's like a challenge! I may not ever do it again after doing it once, but, in the meantime, I'm learning just oh-so-much about soaping in general that it's all worth it to me!

 

[shunt2011]

I can't do a ITP swirl well. I think I'm ITP challenged. I still try once in awhile though. I like to just pour lines of color in my mold. Then I take a chopstick and start at one end and do a circle swirl with it from one end to the other. I get pretty decent swirls that way. I also don't have a lot of luck with drop swirls but that may be due to me pouring at really thin trace. Just past emulsion. So my strong point is just using colors and how I swirl the tops. I perfectly happy with it too.

 

[Deborah Long]

Yay! So this weekend I attempted it again - with success! I'm so excited that I actually did it and can't wait to see the bars, but - I gotta say - I'm on @SaltedFig 's side and am going - that was a lot of work for this little bit of payoff! LOL I'm happiest with all that I learned during this experiment! I can definitely recognize emulsion vs trace, I know what discounting water will and won't do for your recipe, I've learned a little more about which oils to use when I just wanna move sllllllloooooooowwwwwwwww...
All in all, a success no matter how you look at it!

 

[KiwiMoose]

Way to go @Deborah Long ! When will we see the pics?

DH made me a slab mold yesterday so I spent the evening watching you tube videos on different swirl techniques, I decided the spin swirl was not for me. I ended up pouring a whole bunch of lines in different colours and then using a stick, similar to what @shunt2011 described above.

I was very happy that I managed to get a thin enough batter - usually due to the use of soy wax I don't have much luck with that, but this time I used more water, and a bit less soy. I also used ALL citrus EOs which are known to slow trace.

Found a cool video from a Chinese woman that might be worth a shot:

 

[SaltedFig]

Yay! So this weekend I attempted it again - with success! I'm so excited that I actually did it and can't wait to see the bars, but - I gotta say - I'm on @SaltedFig 's side and am going - that was a lot of work for this little bit of payoff! LOL I'm happiest with all that I learned during this experiment! I can definitely recognize emulsion vs trace, I know what discounting water will and won't do for your recipe, I've learned a little more about which oils to use when I just wanna move sllllllloooooooowwwwwwwww...
All in all, a success no matter how you look at it!

@Deborah Long - Awesome!
I'm so glad for you that you persisted! Totally counted as success (we need a 1,2 AND 3 !