I’m in full ‘Operation Christmas Fairs’ mode and have been for a good few weeks now. All my soapmaking has been restocks, and there is a LOT of time being spent packaging and labelling soap. Consequently there hasn’t been much opportunity for creativity so I’ve playing around with my soap tops and and trying out different styles and techniques. I mostly swirl the soap while it’s still fairly fluid, but I have tried letting the soap thicken up a bit and creating texture that way too.
I’ve tried mica in oil swirls:
Swirling the still very fluid soap with a chopstick/skewer (or similar):
Chopstick swirling at a slightly heavier trace:
A more formal ‘mantra’ style chopstick swirl:
Using a spoon to add texture to the top:
Adding grated soap to create some detail on the top:
A simple ‘splatter’ technique. This one looks really effective on the cut bars:
Here’s one I made a few years back – Chocolate Cake – chocolate chocolate chunk embeds set amid piped ‘cream’ topping:
There seems to be an infinite number of techniques and methods, and I’m looking forward to doing some more experimenting in the quieter post-holiday months ahead.