Holly Swirl - Soap Challenge Club #3 (I think?!)

This was a really fun challenge, I enjoyed this very much; although, I did find I had to pay more attention than usual to make sure I didn’t forget any steps! The Holly swirl is named after the very talented Holly of Missouri River Soaps, she came up with this technique, which is basically a swirl-within-a-swirl. It starts with an in-the-pot swirl, which you then swirl into your soap.

I started out with a black & white version, because I thought it would look nice to have a ribbon of white and black swirl, swirled into black soap. I also took the opportunity to practice piping some flowers:

I really loved the simple black and white theme of this one, here it is out of the mold:

However, when I cut it, you can see that my ribbon of white and black swirl got lost in the soap:

It’s still a really cool swirl and I love it, but it’s not exactly what I was looking for. My soap was at a thinner trace, which is why it ended up more feathery and spreading all throughout the soap. I loved the look, but it just wasn't what I was going for:

I decided to try a 2^nd attempt with 3 colors, here it is in the mold:

I think I'm getting the hang of these flowers now!

 My soap was at thicker trace and held the swirl better this time:

This one looks more like a Holly swirl!

By the way, both of these soaps ended up with large cracks again! I think it might be because I moved them to take a picture, because they didn't appear to be overheated. However, I used the technique I described in this post to smooth the cracks over, and you would never know there had been cracks..especially once I added the glitter. This technique does work really well, but you do have to catch those cracks right away. 

I really enjoyed this technique and would definitely do it again. Thanks again to Amy Warden of Great Cakes Soapworks for hosting these fun challenges and Holly for sharing her technique! 

Thanks for reading and have a great week!