queennikki
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Those all look so fantastic, they are so beautiful. Nicely done
My latest "Ione swirl" attempt
- Thread starter IrishLass
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Sonya-m
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So, so pretty!!!
BTW, if you talk to your dry cleaners owner and give them a couple of bars of your soap I'll bet they'd be happy to check with their hanger supplier (if they don't already know) to find out if the hangers are 100% stainless steel.
They have to maintain records of their supplies and suppliers and it's usually pretty easy to find out what something in Stock is made of.
The ones I would find suspect would be the ones bought at a second hand store.
When I get home tonight I will try to remember to check the new package of metal hangers I bought and post where I purchased the 100% stainless steel ones.
ETA: I thought I got them at Walmart, but now I am not sure I even bought them. The stainless steel hangers. I know I found them at a larger store, but it may have been Target or one of those larger stores like that. I don't even remember which state I was in. I can't find them now.
They have to maintain records of their supplies and suppliers and it's usually pretty easy to find out what something in Stock is made of.
The ones I would find suspect would be the ones bought at a second hand store.
When I get home tonight I will try to remember to check the new package of metal hangers I bought and post where I purchased the 100% stainless steel ones.
ETA: I thought I got them at Walmart, but now I am not sure I even bought them. The stainless steel hangers. I know I found them at a larger store, but it may have been Target or one of those larger stores like that. I don't even remember which state I was in. I can't find them now.
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BubbleBath
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The soap is lovely; very gorgeous swirls!
chela1261
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Your soap is stunning and I love watching Ione's videos
debra062013
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The soaps are beautiful and shiny how did you get them so shiny?
Thanks
Thanks
Thank you!
I used my 50% olive oil recipe, which always seems to lend a nice satiny sheen to my bars. For my soaps that come out more on the matte side, I can shine them up with a spritz of alcohol- I just lightly mist the bars and let them air dry. IrishLass
TBandCW
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Your picture with the flowers is so nice! Really sets off the soap.
debra062013
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Thanks I will try the alcohol
Thank you!
IrishLass
Youtube has a bunch of really stupid videos of this reaction that qualify for the "Darwin awards." Here's one that's more sensible but still an eye-opener --
[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnPrtYUKke8"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnPrtYUKke8[/ame]
[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnPrtYUKke8"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnPrtYUKke8[/ame]
Scary stuff for sure.
I have been practicing this swirl of late -- done about 3 batches so far. I wanted to share a pic of my last 2 batches and explain what I think went well with my technique and what didn't. Maybe this will help other Ione Swirl beginners. And if anyone has any suggestions to help me improve, I'm all ears!
I'm using this swirl for a soap recipe that features the sweetgrass I grow, so my swirl is a riff on grass green. I make a tincture (tea) of the grass in distilled water and use that tea as a portion of the water to make my soap. The rest of the water in the recipe comes from a 50% lye solution. To get white, I have to separate out a portion of the soap batter before I add the sweetgrass tea. That complicates matters a bit, but I managed to get it done okay for these two batches.
When I compared bars from my very first Ione swirl (not shown) with IL's lovely soap, I realized two things -- contrast and subtlety are both important. In her soap, IL used pale pink, darker pink, deep blue, lavender, white, on a background of pale greeny-blue. (At least that's what the colors look like on my monitor.)
Contrast -- The dark blue and bright white add depth and sparkle.
Subtlety -- The soft interplay of the pale pink, darker pink, and lavender gives the illusion of shadows and movement.
So I rethought my color choices and did two more batches Monday night, one right after the other. I wasn't sure I could manage more than three accent colors at at time, so my color palette is more limited than IL's. That makes my swirl less delicate and subtle than hers. I wish it was more subtle, but I'll have to work on that.
Bars from the first batch are on the left hand side. I poured about half of the main batter into the mold, lines of dark green accent next, followed by lines of blue and lines of white. Repeat. I learned during the pour that I'd mixed the blue portion too much -- that portion of batter thickened up a lot, so the blue stayed in larger blobs and didn't flow well and become as lacy as I would have liked.
Bars from the second batch are on the right hand side. This swirl went better -- much more movement and lacy-ness. I realized my error of over-mixing the blue for the first batch, so I used a lighter hand with my stick blender and my batter stayed nicely pourable. I repeated the basic method I used for the first batch, except I sandwiched the white between the green and blue. Sandwiching the white looks much better to my eye -- the "pop" of the white separates the two darker colors and gives the pattern a more delicate feel that I don't think the first batch has.
After cutting both batches, I realize that the accent colors in the bottom layer of batter had dropped too deep, leaving the middle of the bar bare of swirly goodness. Next time, I want to pour more carefully -- perhaps pour onto my spatula so the batter doesn't drop as much?
I'm using this swirl for a soap recipe that features the sweetgrass I grow, so my swirl is a riff on grass green. I make a tincture (tea) of the grass in distilled water and use that tea as a portion of the water to make my soap. The rest of the water in the recipe comes from a 50% lye solution. To get white, I have to separate out a portion of the soap batter before I add the sweetgrass tea. That complicates matters a bit, but I managed to get it done okay for these two batches.
When I compared bars from my very first Ione swirl (not shown) with IL's lovely soap, I realized two things -- contrast and subtlety are both important. In her soap, IL used pale pink, darker pink, deep blue, lavender, white, on a background of pale greeny-blue. (At least that's what the colors look like on my monitor.)
Contrast -- The dark blue and bright white add depth and sparkle.
Subtlety -- The soft interplay of the pale pink, darker pink, and lavender gives the illusion of shadows and movement.
So I rethought my color choices and did two more batches Monday night, one right after the other. I wasn't sure I could manage more than three accent colors at at time, so my color palette is more limited than IL's. That makes my swirl less delicate and subtle than hers. I wish it was more subtle, but I'll have to work on that.
Bars from the first batch are on the left hand side. I poured about half of the main batter into the mold, lines of dark green accent next, followed by lines of blue and lines of white. Repeat. I learned during the pour that I'd mixed the blue portion too much -- that portion of batter thickened up a lot, so the blue stayed in larger blobs and didn't flow well and become as lacy as I would have liked.
Bars from the second batch are on the right hand side. This swirl went better -- much more movement and lacy-ness. I realized my error of over-mixing the blue for the first batch, so I used a lighter hand with my stick blender and my batter stayed nicely pourable. I repeated the basic method I used for the first batch, except I sandwiched the white between the green and blue. Sandwiching the white looks much better to my eye -- the "pop" of the white separates the two darker colors and gives the pattern a more delicate feel that I don't think the first batch has.
After cutting both batches, I realize that the accent colors in the bottom layer of batter had dropped too deep, leaving the middle of the bar bare of swirly goodness. Next time, I want to pour more carefully -- perhaps pour onto my spatula so the batter doesn't drop as much?
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Have you seen the ones people post with soda being added to milk? It's to show how bad for you soda really is.:crazy:
I love this video!! I've seen it several times. It's actually my favorite video of why lye and aluminum should never meet. I guess I should correct my statement to read I've never witnessed a "live" reaction of aluminum and lye. And I guess that's really a good thing based on the Coke can test! BTW: I still haven't gotten around to testing the hangers. So much to do, so little time to do it.
DeeAnna- your soaps came out very lovely! Thank you so much for sharing your pics and for explaining in detail how each batch was executed. Each new Ione swirl I see or attempt to do is an education for me in how I can improve on my next one in terms of color contrasts & pouring order (I've had my share of blobby ones, too). You are a soaper/Ione-swirler after my own heart.
IrishLass
Thank you so much for sharing your pics and for explaining in detail how each batch was executed. Each new Ione swirl I see or attempt to do is an education for me in how I can improve on my next one in terms of color contrasts & pouring order (I've had my share of blobby ones, too). You are a soaper/Ione-swirler after my own heart. IrishLass
DeeAnna, your swirls are getting better and better. Those soaps are drop dead gorgeous! I love the colours and how delicate the swirls are. The white does look much better sandwiched between the 2 darker colours which has given me food for thought. I can definetely feel more soap coming on. Now I just need a little time to make it!
JuneP
Well-Known Member
Irish Lass, can you share what colorant you used as the base pale green in your gorgeous soap. It's really lovely!
Certainly! It was actually a combination of powdered colorants that I mixed together until I was satisfied:
Ultramarine Blue
Chromium Green Hydroxide
Ultramarine Green
Pearlizer
TD
If you are interested, I handily wrote down how much of each colorant I used for my amount of base batter (which happened to be 4 cups of batter for this batch).
I need to mention first that the measuring device that I use with powdered colorants is one of those smidge/dash/pinch measuring spoons that some grocery stores sell. For what it's worth, mine looks just like this one: http://store.cookbookpeople.com/smi...tm_source=bc&gclid=COTYr53qhNACFQSUfgod5aYOHw:
-UM Blue- 1 smidge, slightly packed/pressed and leveled off
-Chromium Green- 1 smidge, slightly packed/pressed and leveled off
-UM Green- 1/2 smidge, loose (just lightly/scantily filled half of the smidge spoon)
-Pearlizer- 1 dash, loose (lightly scooped and leveled off, i.e., no packing/pressing)
-TD- 2 dashes, loose (lightly scooped and leveled off, i.e., no packing/pressing)
IrishLass
Thanks for the compliments and encouragement, IL and Rowan. I'm having fun with this!
Sometimes I look at the amazingly beautiful swirls other people do, and I wish I knew the train of thinking that went into producing that lovely result. Watching a video and seeing cut pictures isn't quite enough. So I figure if I can critique my own soap and start a discussion about what worked and what didn't, I'll benefit and I hope others will too.
For example, the order of pouring the colors was an eye-opener. My thinking at first is it shouldn't make a big difference -- after all, they're all poured one right after the other on top of each other, right? So shouldn't they mix and swirl together nicely? Well, obviously not -- looks like that "common sense" idea of mine wasn't very sensible!
I'm not a trained artist and I struggle with color theory. Add to that the challenge of creating a hidden but hopefully beautiful decorative pattern in rather unpredictable soap batter ... it can get frustratingly complicated real fast for me and I'm sure for many others. But I keep coming back to it, because it's intriguing and thankfully I can see I'm improving with practice and critique. Newbie helped me a lot a few months back when talking about movement and balance in a swirled pattern and what makes a good pattern vs a blah one.
Sometimes I look at the amazingly beautiful swirls other people do, and I wish I knew the train of thinking that went into producing that lovely result. Watching a video and seeing cut pictures isn't quite enough. So I figure if I can critique my own soap and start a discussion about what worked and what didn't, I'll benefit and I hope others will too.
For example, the order of pouring the colors was an eye-opener. My thinking at first is it shouldn't make a big difference -- after all, they're all poured one right after the other on top of each other, right? So shouldn't they mix and swirl together nicely? Well, obviously not -- looks like that "common sense" idea of mine wasn't very sensible!
I'm not a trained artist and I struggle with color theory. Add to that the challenge of creating a hidden but hopefully beautiful decorative pattern in rather unpredictable soap batter ... it can get frustratingly complicated real fast for me and I'm sure for many others. But I keep coming back to it, because it's intriguing and thankfully I can see I'm improving with practice and critique. Newbie helped me a lot a few months back when talking about movement and balance in a swirled pattern and what makes a good pattern vs a blah one.
JuneP
Well-Known Member
Thanks so much. I do have some of those tiny spoons so I should be able to get the color or at least a pretty close to it. It such a gorgeous, pale, blue green and woul be so lovely for spring. I need to play with hanger swirls some more. You did a splendid job with yours.
I laughed when I read your challenge with the hanger bending. One of my hangers is made from an older, thicker, wire hanger I found in my closet and it was quite a struggle getting that thing bent and cut!
I laughed when I read your challenge with the hanger bending. One of my hangers is made from an older, thicker, wire hanger I found in my closet and it was quite a struggle getting that thing bent and cut!
Certainly! It was actually a combination of powdered colorants that I mixed together until I was satisfied:
Ultramarine Blue
Chromium Green Hydroxide
Ultramarine Green
Pearlizer
TD
If you are interested, I handily wrote down how much of each colorant I used for my amount of base batter (which happened to be 4 cups of batter for this batch).
I need to mention first that the measuring device that I use with powdered colorants is one of those smidge/dash/pinch measuring spoons that some grocery stores sell. For what it's worth, mine looks just like this one: http://store.cookbookpeople.com/smi...tm_source=bc&gclid=COTYr53qhNACFQSUfgod5aYOHw:
-UM Blue- 1 smidge, slightly packed/pressed and leveled off
-Chromium Green- 1 smidge, slightly packed/pressed and leveled off
-UM Green- 1/2 smidge, loose (just lightly/scantily filled half of the smidge spoon)
-Pearlizer- 1 dash, loose (lightly scooped and leveled off, i.e., no packing/pressing)
-TD- 2 dashes, loose (lightly scooped and leveled off, i.e., no packing/pressing)
IrishLass
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