Mantra Swirl (Well Kind of)

Back in October, I got the book Soap Crafting by Anne-Marie Faiola, otherwise known as The Soap Queen. The book is wonderful. It's worth buying for the beautiful pictures alone! The book's instructions are simple and well-written and very accesible for a beginner like me. I decided to try several projects from the book to get my feet wet in playing with colors. One of the soaps that I tried was the mantra swirl.

The recipe was a mix of palm, coconut, rice bran, olive, and canola oils, with palm kernal flakes and shea butter. As it has cured it has gotten super hard and shiny, which I love. I have not tried it yet, so I'm excited to see how it lathers. I decided to gel this soap. I love the texture of gelled soap, but I prefer the colors of ungelled. I am torn!

The soap is scented with Rise and Shine fragrance oil from Brambleberry. It is citrus with a hint of apple, grapefruit, and peach. I loved that it was fruity, but not too sweet. The fragrance, however, seems to have faded a bit as it has cured. Maybe I will add a bit more next time I use it.

The top of the soap with the white on it looks a little funky. My batter thickened pretty quickly and by the time I squirted it kind of just sat on the top. I also notice now that my titanium dioxide was not mixed in well enough. I think next time I will probably divide my mold into three so that the design goes all the way through the bars. It drives me crazy that I have some bars with the white and some without. And I almost like the ones without better becaues of the problems I had with it. As you can see, I need to work on my soap cutting skills! I can't get even sized bars to save my life. Maybe someday I will be able to get a fancy wire cutter :).