SMF April 2021 Challenge - Lollipop Swirl

[ResolvableOwl]

While pouring this one I realised that I've consistently had a problem I don't recall anyone else mentioning - once I've gone around once, the next pours want to bend to follow the existing paths rather than breaking new ground. Sometimes they go drastically off course, not just impinging on the stream to one side or the other, but often leapfrogging them entirely! Naturally this results in all sorts of mess in the design. Basically the first half of every pour gets ruined by this issue, and it's not until all the walls are coated in batter that I get any level of control over what's going on. So that limits me to half the soap to find some good bars in

Does this ring a bell with anyone else, or are the physics in my house just broken?

It might be a good idea to decide beforehand how many pours per revolution you might want to do. I didn't, but in the end it turned out well with 12 pours (4 pours for each colour). Drawing markers can be helpful. When you divide the circumference into a number of segments that is a multiple of the number of your colours, after each revolution you end up pouring the same colour at the same place. This is super practical, and also helps keeping the colours clean. (left photo)

 

[Tara_H]

Yes but it's not that. They literally veer off course and jump to a different location, even if I start them off in the same place as last time.

 

[ResolvableOwl]

Hrm. Maybe another part of the conversation deserves to be 'ed as well:

Once again, I'm amazed how fast the pour is. Yes, it needs a lot of preparation, putting everything at hand, adjusting/waiting for the ideal fluidity. But the pouring itself is done in a minute or two, and has something … umm, meditative … to it.

Says you!

My last attempt the pour took an hour, not counting any of the prep, just getting it into the cylinder!

I'm lining up one final try today which will probably take even longer...

@Tara_H @KimW : You see my “time trophy”. Overbid 5 minutes for four lollipop swirls. (It was actually a few seconds less, since I was a bit hectic by the end, and halting the timer wasn't the very first thing I thought of.)

 

[Tara_H]

Hrm. Maybe another part of the conversation deserves to be 'ed as well:

Hmm, yes good point - I did play around with the velocity and it did have an impact to some extent.

Problem is it's a trade off between speed and accuracy, and with a high-velocity pour it's more difficult to judge the passing volume and react to it. I'd be very curious to compare videos of different people in the challenge completing this pour, to see the similarities and differences!

 

[KimW]

Ok, my very last actually final, no more lollipops this month, I mean it soap is in the oven now, looking like some kind of ridiculous dessert.

While pouring this one I realised that I've consistently had a problem I don't recall anyone else mentioning - once I've gone around once, the next pours want to bend to follow the existing paths rather than breaking new ground. Sometimes they go drastically off course, not just impinging on the stream to one side or the other, but often leapfrogging them entirely! Naturally this results in all sorts of mess in the design. Basically the first half of every pour gets ruined by this issue, and it's not until all the walls are coated in batter that I get any level of control over what's going on. So that limits me to half the soap to find some good bars in

Does this ring a bell with anyone else, or are the physics in my house just broken?

UGH!!! Yep - I found that happened to me too. That's one reason, on my second "non-melting mold" attempt, I aimed the pour with a mini-spatula and started the second round of pours lower, rather than from the top. I don't know what made me think of pouring lower, and it didn't work perfectly, but it helped a good bit. I put the problem down to not pouring aggressively enough. But, I had to be timid with my pours because my column mold is pretty short so I was working with only 100g of batter for each color.

See @ResolvableOwl This is what happens: NOW that I'm done with challenge I feel I "need" a new column mold!

 

[Tara_H]

I had to be timid with my pours because my column mold is pretty short so I was working with only 100g of batter for each color.

I think this is the crux of the problem alright! Particularly since I had quite a few colours; only 70ml each in the last attempt. I was thinking that the best outcome would be to use syringes for a consistently measured quantity in each pour, but that's probably not in the spirit of the challenge..

 

[KimW]

I think this is the crux of the problem alright! Particularly since I had quite a few colours; only 70ml each in the last attempt. I was thinking that the best outcome would be to use syringes for a consistently measured quantity in each pour, but that's probably not in the spirit of the challenge..

Hmmmmm - well...I did use an aid to pouring with the spatula thing. It was either that or soap batter was going to get slung onto the walls (you understand). I wouldn't say using syringes violated the spirit of the challenge. They're just delivery vessels.

 

[Tara_H]

Hmmmmm - well...I did use an aid to pouring with the spatula thing. It was either that or soap batter was going to get slung onto the walls (you understand). I wouldn't say using syringes violated the spirit of the challenge. They're just delivery vessels.

I think you're fine with the distilled spatulas, it's still pouring... But syringes give a whole extra level of control which felt unsporting.

(Edited to remove an erroneous 'distilled'...)

 

[KimW]

I think you're fine with the distilled spatulas, it's still pouring... But syringes give a whole extra level of control which felt unsporting.

Ah - yes, I do understand what you mean now. Well done. I agree.

 

[Vicki C]

Ok, my very last actually final, no more lollipops this month, I mean it soap is in the oven now, looking like some kind of ridiculous dessert.

While pouring this one I realised that I've consistently had a problem I don't recall anyone else mentioning - once I've gone around once, the next pours want to bend to follow the existing paths rather than breaking new ground. Sometimes they go drastically off course, not just impinging on the stream to one side or the other, but often leapfrogging them entirely! Naturally this results in all sorts of mess in the design. Basically the first half of every pour gets ruined by this issue, and it's not until all the walls are coated in batter that I get any level of control over what's going on. So that limits me to half the soap to find some good bars in

Does this ring a bell with anyone else, or are the physics in my house just broken?

Yes that exactly happened to me - I created (tried to create) white stripes between each color and found it worked best when I poured the color after white to pour just slightly past (to the right of) the white pour - but it would just follow the white trail anyway. Didn’t have the leapfrogging phenomenon. This was hard!

 

[ResolvableOwl]

I wonder if something with the principle of these bottles would work for soap batter too:

You can squeeze the bottle and liquid is siphoned from the bottom tank into the top tank. Once you tilt the bottle, nothing can flow any more from the bottom tank, and you have a defined quantity of liquid to do whatever soapmakers do with colourful liquids.

 

[earlene]

I wonder if something with the principle of these bottles would work for soap batter too:
View attachment 56516
You can squeeze the bottle and liquid is siphoned from the bottom tank into the top tank. Once you tilt the bottle, nothing can flow any more from the bottom tank, and you have a defined quantity of liquid to do whatever soapmakers do with colourful liquids.

I once bought a bottle of mouthwash that worked that way. I HATED it (the dispensing method, not the mouthwash) and vowed never to buy anything that comes in a bottle like that again.

 

[AliOop]

I made an attempt at the swirl today - my first soap since March 17! It would have turned out well except that one of the three colors thickened up too much before I even started pouring. I finally wised up about half-way through and started alternating with just the two colors that were still fluid enough. We shall see if I get one or two bars with a real lollipop swirl out of that section of the pour. No matter how it looks, my husband will be happy because he likes my high-lard round soaps, and we are almost out.

The remaining batter went into a circling Taiwan swirl; I'd intentionally made extra batter and had the mold all prepped for that. I really love the inexpensive divider mold that @Mobjack Bay convinced me to buy - it has become an unexpected favorite and so fun to use!

 

[KimW]

I made an attempt at the swirl today - my first soap since March 17! It would have turned out well except that one of the three colors thickened up too much before I even started pouring. I finally wised up about half-way through and started alternating with just the two colors that were still fluid enough. We shall see if I get one or two bars with a real lollipop swirl out of that section of the pour. No matter how it looks, my husband will be happy because he likes my high-lard round soaps, and we are almost out.

The remaining batter went into a circling Taiwan swirl; I'd intentionally made extra batter and had the mold all prepped for that. I really love the inexpensive divider mold that @Mobjack Bay convinced me to buy - it has become an unexpected favorite and so fun to use!

What is this magical mold, please? Might it work for even me?!!
P.S. If you've sent me a link to it before, I apologize!

 

[AliOop]

Here is the one she recommended and that I purchased. It is sturdy, doesn't bow (so far) and works so much better than my homemade, tape-wrapped, cardboard dividers. You know me, I'm cheap and I like making do with stuff around my house. But this little mold was so worth it!

 

[KimW]

Here is the one she recommended and that I purchased. It is sturdy, doesn't bow (so far) and works so much better than my homemade, tape-wrapped, cardboard dividers. You know me, I'm cheap and I like making do with stuff around my house. But this little mold was so worth it!

Thank you! I remember this being mentioned during the circling taiwan swirl challenge.

 

[ResolvableOwl]

I didn't want to flood the entry thread with extra verbosity, so I'll share a bit of background to my design here.

I kept my word! The single one (pre-announced) exception that I bought after the initial challenge was the rice vinegar, because, what sushi has no rice vinegar? Otherwise, I finally used up cupuaçu butter, infused olive oil, and ran dangerously low on HO sunflower oil, distilled water, and NaOH.

• Free of palm, oink, moo, baa, chemically modified oils, colourants and fragrances (except for the inherent colour/scent of functional ingredients).
• The core (salmon) is CP lollipop swirl, red colour with 15%ppo paprika kernel oil. Half of the amount would have been enough! But it was my first soap with it, as well as coconut milk and diatomaceous earth as a mild exfoliant (pure coincidence if it contributed to opacity/whiteness too). My initial plan was to combine green (vegetable) as a third colour into it (yerba mate extract), but as reported, the colour riced (no pun intended), so I kneaded it into soap dough and stuffed it besides the swirl bar.
• Of course, we need some rice for the mantle, enter triple rice (well in my case, double rice) HP soap with said rice vinegar added to the lye. Grated up and pressed onto the nori like you would make edible sushi, it was still a bit too compliant to offer good mechanical support during cutting.
• A propos nori, wrapped around is a sheet of soap dough made with a spirulina-infused olive oil I had lurking around for half a year. Perfect dirty olive-black colour, and authentic seaweed smell!

Batch sizes were 100 g oils for the core, 200 g for the rice (still a lot of the gratings left for future projects), and 100 g fir green soap dough (even more left).

Cutting up didn't fully go according to plan. As said, the rice bed was still quite soft, I originally wanted to cut the sausage into 7 slices, but I dared to cut barely 5 times. The core is pieced together from three film container pours (see photo), and of course I wanted to cut through the lollipop parts, not the glue in between (that was kneaded together from all the scaps, and the fourth, very unsightly pour).

ETA: A few words to the decoration: The “wasabi” chocolate is not chocolate, but CP soap coloured with the same yerba mate extract as I planned to use for the swirl. Back then, two weeks ago, it moved so slowly that I ruined it at unmoulding, made soap dough from it, and pressed it into my tiny chocolate bar moulds. The tea isn't really camellia tea, but something no less decadent. And what do you mean by “your vinegar bottle doesn't have a dispenser cap”?

Anyway, a fun challenge, but I'm largely through with that kind of vanity soaping for a while now . See you again in a few weeks when it's time to watch the rice shreds fall apart at the sink .

 

[Tara_H]

Not background on my entry here, but background on the entry-that-nearly was...

Inspired by the outcome of the pour that did end up being my entry, I wanted to explore the potential of the spiral further. Despite the name 'lollipop swirl', the traditional soaps are somewhat lacking in a lollipop quality to my mind, so I set out to recreate this:

My first plan was to do a full-size pour, trim the edges down, and add a matching soap dough rim. The pour seemed to be going pretty well:

And I got a good set of matching soap dough from the excess.

Unfortunately, it turned out that the white was ever so slightly thinner than the rest of the colours, so it ended up getting pushed to the centre and the bottom:

At this point, and with plenty of time left, I figured I could do better...

I decided to skip the edge trimming, and just pour the centre in the cut-off bottle mould, then insert into the larger one. However I kept struggling with getting the right result. Yesterday's attempt I had very high hopes for; I had proper records of the previous colours used, and the soap dough was good to go. I made a very colourful mess with the pour, but it looked ok:

Cut out the dough strips and bent them over a spoon handle to get the curve:

Painfully assembled the fiddly mess, filled in the gaps with a fresh batch of white, and CPOP'ed it to within an inch of my life.

Unfortunately, none of the resulting bars were quite it:

I'd love to have another go, but it's almost Monday evening and really... I don't need any more brightly coloured lollipop soaps, the house is full of them! It also smells like a sweet shop, since I scented them appropriately with green apple, raspberry and passion fruit!

 

[The_Phoenix]

Not background on my entry here, but background on the entry-that-nearly was...

Inspired by the outcome of the pour that did end up being my entry, I wanted to explore the potential of the spiral further. Despite the name 'lollipop swirl', the traditional soaps are somewhat lacking in a lollipop quality to my mind, so I set out to recreate this:
View attachment 56541

My first plan was to do a full-size pour, trim the edges down, and add a matching soap dough rim. The pour seemed to be going pretty well:
View attachment 56542
And I got a good set of matching soap dough from the excess.

Unfortunately, it turned out that the white was ever so slightly thinner than the rest of the colours, so it ended up getting pushed to the centre and the bottom:
View attachment 56545 View attachment 56546

At this point, and with plenty of time left, I figured I could do better...

I decided to skip the edge trimming, and just pour the centre in the cut-off bottle mould, then insert into the larger one. However I kept struggling with getting the right result. Yesterday's attempt I had very high hopes for; I had proper records of the previous colours used, and the soap dough was good to go. I made a very colourful mess with the pour, but it looked ok:
View attachment 56548

Cut out the dough strips and bent them over a spoon handle to get the curve:
View attachment 56550

Painfully assembled the fiddly mess, filled in the gaps with a fresh batch of white, and CPOP'ed it to within an inch of my life.
View attachment 56551 View attachment 56552 View attachment 56553

Unfortunately, none of the resulting bars were quite it:
View attachment 56554

I'd love to have another go, but it's almost Monday evening and really... I don't need any more brightly coloured lollipop soaps, the house is full of them! It also smells like a sweet shop, since I scented them appropriately with green apple, raspberry and passion fruit!

Your efforts are admirable...and really lovely! While it doesn't reflect the exact challenge design, be proud of what you created here. You went above and beyond. I think they're lovely. And I believe it's these accidents that make for a more artistically appealing end result.

 

[The_Phoenix]

I didn't want to flood the entry thread with extra verbosity, so I'll share a bit of background to my design here.

View attachment 56540

I kept my word! The single one (pre-announced) exception that I bought after the initial challenge was the rice vinegar, because, what sushi has no rice vinegar? Otherwise, I finally used up cupuaçu butter, infused olive oil, and ran dangerously low on HO sunflower oil, distilled water, and NaOH.

• Free of palm, oink, moo, baa, chemically modified oils, colourants and fragrances (except for the inherent colour/scent of functional ingredients).
• The core (salmon) is CP lollipop swirl, red colour with 15%ppo paprika kernel oil. Half of the amount would have been enough! But it was my first soap with it, as well as coconut milk and diatomaceous earth as a mild exfoliant (pure coincidence if it contributed to opacity/whiteness too). My initial plan was to combine green (vegetable) as a third colour into it (yerba mate extract), but as reported, the colour riced (no pun intended), so I kneaded it into soap dough and stuffed it besides the swirl bar.
• Of course, we need some rice for the mantle, enter triple rice (well in my case, double rice) HP soap with said rice vinegar added to the lye. Grated up and pressed onto the nori like you would make edible sushi, it was still a bit too compliant to offer good mechanical support during cutting.
• A propos nori, wrapped around is a sheet of soap dough made with a spirulina-infused olive oil I had lurking around for half a year. Perfect dirty olive-black colour, and authentic seaweed smell!

Batch sizes were 100 g oils for the core, 200 g for the rice (still a lot of the gratings left for future projects), and 100 g fir green soap dough (even more left).

Cutting up didn't fully go according to plan. As said, the rice bed was still quite soft, I originally wanted to cut the sausage into 7 slices, but I dared to cut barely 5 times. The core is pieced together from three film container pours (see photo), and of course I wanted to cut through the lollipop parts, not the glue in between (that was kneaded together from all the scaps, and the fourth, very unsightly pour).

ETA: A few words to the decoration: The “wasabi” chocolate is not chocolate, but CP soap coloured with the same yerba mate extract as I planned to use for the swirl. Back then, two weeks ago, it moved so slowly that I ruined it at unmoulding, made soap dough from it, and pressed it into my tiny chocolate bar moulds. The tea isn't really camellia tea, but something no less decadent. And what do you mean by “your vinegar bottle doesn't have a dispenser cap”?

Anyway, a fun challenge, but I'm largely through with that kind of vanity soaping for a while now . See you again in a few weeks when it's time to watch the rice shreds fall apart at the sink .

I'm...stunned by your creation. Imaginative, technical...

I may need to borrow this design.