Snake Skin Swirl

I've been seeing a ton of really awesome soaps around the Internet using the 'Peacock Swirl' technique. I'm a newbie to swirling (and let's be honest, soap making in general!) but I thought I would try it. Usually you see four or more colors used but I decided to start small with just two. I mean, if it doesn't look amazing it doesn't really matter since I just give the soaps away or use them myself. Just in case it was mega ugly I added tussah silk, kaolin clay and some aloe juice to make it at least feel nice!

I used a very small mold since this was an experiment. It's actually a bamboo organizer I bought from The Container Store for $5.99. It holds about 30 ounces of soap. But to do this technique you need a slab mold AND what I have been referring to as a 'soap comb'. I decided to whip one up on the cheap. 

I went to the hardware store and bought a small bag of wood scraps for $10 and a long skinny wooden dowel for a couple bucks. I didn't have a saw and since I am in an apartment without a work shop I had to improvise. I bought a $3.74 replacement saw blade to just use by hand. I don't think this would work with anything but very skinny pieces of wood.

I'm bad at taking pictures during soaping since I get wrapped up in making sure things are coming together at the right times and concentrating on getting the design knocked out before the soap gets too thick. I've had a couple experiences with random trace accelerations (fragrance probably) so I erred on the side of caution with this design and poured at quite a thin trace. Because of this the design colors made it almost all the way through the soap in some places and the top is plagued by tiny bubbles. Haven't seen that one before... But aside from that, I think it turned out great! The two colors, neon yellow and black sort of combined in places to look more interesting than I thought two colors would look. I don't think these colors would have mixed if I poured at a thicker trace.

A little blah looking in color, but crazy in pattern! Luckily the yellow brightened up by the next day.

I'm pretty inconsistent when it comes to steady movements in soap design. Such as the S curve you comb through the soap on the second pass. (Little twitchy with excitement? Nervousness?) so my pattern came out looking more like snake skin than a peacock tail. Black touches yellow, you're a dead fellow.