# textures & colors



## Failte Gate Farm (Sep 20, 2011)

Vicki showed me how to use a fork to put some serpentine patterns in the top of my soap and I loved the texture it gave me. (but as I learned yesterday, don't do this when it's already pudding!) Do you guys leave all your soap flat at the top or do you put some kind of design? 

I haven't gotten brave enough to put colors or swirls in my soap yet, so I'm only getting the color the fragrance oil puts in it. After I quit experimenting with fragrance oils and settle on several, I'll start to play with color. What is the most "idiot-proof" method for color when using the wal-mart recipe. (I'm not ready to move away from that yet. It's easy and consistent.)

:lol


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## MF-Alpines (Mar 29, 2010)

The walmart recipe is a great recipe! 1/2 of my soaps are made with a tweaked WM recipe.

Just make some and play with it! I don't use colorants like micas or pigments or the liquid colors. If you didn't want to purchase anything yet, you could use paprika or tomato paste for orange. Or turmeric for yellow. Once you've reached a light trace, split the batch and add color to one of them. Maybe 1 tsp paprika/lb or 1 tblsp paste. I forget as I don't use those often. You can start with those and if you wanted more intense color, add more (that's why you add at light trace - you'd still have time to get more in). Then either pour one into the mold then the other, then use a spoon to "twirl" it around, or you could do an "in the pot" swirl. Take 1/2 your batch (colored) and pour it into the other 1/2. You want to pour it in fairly high so that it mixes to the bottom. As your pouring, swirl it around the bucket. Once you pour into the molds, it will swirl. This only works for me with contrasting colors.

Good luck and have fun!


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## LynninTX (Oct 25, 2007)

My soaps with *texture* are the ones that ahem... move a bit faster than I do. LOL They end of looking nice though!

I love color however and have been accused of picking scents based on what color I can make them... 

This season though I am going gold mica happy... I have 3 soaps now with a dusting of gold mica & glimmer beige mica on top...


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## hsmomof4 (Oct 31, 2008)

If you join The Dish forum, they have tutorials on some of the swirling. There are also youtube videos, if you look, for all sorts of neat techniques.


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## LynninTX (Oct 25, 2007)

;-) Us poor folks on dial up have to fly by the seat of our pants... LOL


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

I love clays and mica, they turn out the same each and every time I use them. I always swirl a second batch of soap during soap class, instead of trying to color the whole bar, why not just try swirling, do you remember that at all? Remember my white 2 cup measuring cup (OLD OLD tupperware) and find something that has that beak to pour from. Put a heaping tablespoon of clay or a teaspoon of mica into the bottom of the measuring cup, then when you are nearly at trace pour about 1 cup and a half of raw soap into the cup, take your stick blender and blend it. Now finish getting your main soap to trace and pour it. Now in snake patterns through the soap, S's, remember pouring high makes the swirl material go to the bottom and swirling low makes it stay at the top, evenly pour the soap up and down your molds.

I then wait until the soap doesn't move when I lightly hit the side of the molds, when it doesn't jiggle, I run a chop stick through it in circular patterns on each half of the soap going in opposite directions. This not only swirls the color through the bars, but gives you a pretty iceing effect on the top of the bar. Figure 8's work also.


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## Trysta (Apr 5, 2011)

Oh yuck!!! Why did you have to post that? Now I have to go and try that, too! :lol


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## LynninTX (Oct 25, 2007)

pretty Vicki

Or... how I swirl...

I pull out about the same amount of raw soap & color... get to a good trace on my pot

then plop plop in about 4 places in my pot of uncolored soap... the colored.... then pour. I love the swirl it gives... it worked better *for me* than swirling into/onto the molds... *for me*.


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## MF-Alpines (Mar 29, 2010)

LynninTX said:


> pretty Vicki
> 
> Or... how I swirl...
> 
> ...


Yes, Lynn, that's how I do it to - you are a better verbalizer than I am. My swirls look just like yours. Very pretty.


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## Dorit (Apr 20, 2011)

There is a great youtube where someone filled 16 cups with different colors and poured them one at a time, in layers, inside the mold. She poured snake patterns only. When done she did not swirl. When cut it was amazing, like a birds eye view of a 64-count crayola box. (do they still make those?) How did she do that? I am still struggling with recognizing trace, I either pour too soon or too late, can't imagine how she can keep the soap from setting up.


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## hsmomof4 (Oct 31, 2008)

Well, part of it is the recipe. Some just move faster than others.


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