Do I need a thicker...hanger? For my swirls?

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Confused_Penguin

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The bent a hanger in order to do my swirls in my 4 pound mold. It's pretty thin and I think it's okay but my swirls never stray too far from the color so I don't get the wispy swirls I see everyone else get with their soap.

For the pink soap I made for Valentines Day, I added the colors in layers, then hanger swirled it trying to do a butterfly swirl (but I failed I know I'm sorry haha).

For my Dulce De Leche soap, I poured the brown base color first, then from up high, poured in some white colored soap, and then tried to swirl it. It didn't come out as wispy as I'd hope (it looks more like a feather than anything else).

I was wondering if it's my hanger that's the problem? It is a very thin hanger in my point of view, but I'm afraid to use the plastic ones as it might cause a reaction or something with the lye. Is my hanger the problem or is it the thickness of my batch?

Sorry if this is a silly question, I was just hoping for more of a swirl and I was surprised to find what it looked like after I cut it.

Please help and thank you.

AphroditeSoap.jpg


DulceDeLecheSoap.jpg
 
I think they look great!! I have seen folks use gear ties on YouTube for hanger swirls. They are like a metal hanger that is covered in foam. You can find them at Lowes and that orange place.
 
Thicker hanger as well. I opened up the wire hanger and strung a drinking straw onto it. ANother option would be to get a dowel of the diameter you want, cut it to size and then loop very sturdy but still bendable steel wire around each end, creating a handle of wire in between. If you wash it right away after using, you don't have to worry about the soap batter on the metal too much. I would try that first but if you still aren't getting much soap to move, then your soap may need to be thinner, like heavy cream or soft pudding.

Your soap is very pretty!
 
I think your soap looks lovely!

As for me, I use a regular, thin, triangular, wire hanger without any thickeners placed on it such as straws, etc.., and without any re-shaping done to it, and I get lovely wispy swirls.

I used to thicken my wire hangers with straws and re-shape them from a triangular shape to a shape that looks like a squared off letter 'U' , but I found that leaving them in their normal triangular shape adds a bit more swirling power to the hanger, i.e., instead of just the one straight wire on the bottom doing the swirling, the two upper diagonal wires get to participate in some of the swirling action too.

This was done with just a regular, thin, wire hanger in its original triangular shape and without any thickening reinforcements added such as straws, etc..:

IMG_0008OldCameraResizedBlackberrySage640.JPG



IrishLass :)
 
Thank you for those who replied!

I think I'm going to try your method Obsidian! Very resourceful and I would have never thought about it in a million years. Thanks again!

And IrishLass, that is so beautiful! I will try experimenting with the width of my hangers because I know right now I cannot achieve what you have done. I'm not sure if I'm swirling too fast that it doesn't drag or if my batch is too thick or thin. But your soaps are gorgeous thank you for sharing :)
 
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