May ‘25 - Ink Blots

Simple Ghost Swirl - freshly cut, seeing what it looks like.

Ghost Swirl - Regular Entry

This technique is definitely a beautiful technique and one with which you learn a lot about soapmaking. However, it requires you to be more experienced so you can know what to expect unless you are ready to fail some batches.

My first try, I did a simple soap batch, then decided to just add more water to half the batter after splitting it in equal parts. I had put the extra water in one of the plastic pitchers and none in the other. Then I started mixing and the most unexpected thing happened. I thought maybe I switched my pitchers, but then I learned something really great. The pitcher that had extra water actually accelerated the trace! So I thought maybe I would test my theory and add extra water to the pitcher with no water added and see what the effect would be. Alas, adding the water to the batter actually accelerated the trace, why? Well, adding water made the temperature of the soap rise as the water reacts with the lye, which made the trace become thicker faster.

As a result of this, when I premix my lye solution (50/50), I later add water to it when I want to warm it up when I’m making soap.

Second Try.

Having made this first experiment, I moved on to my real design, with more careful planning. This time, I wanted to do random swirls and mixed the soap separately with 2 different lye concentrations from the start, meaning, I didn’t add extra water to one after splitting a batch.

I poured on the short edge of the loaf mold alternating batches and then swirled with a chopstick for a random pattern and cut it horizontally. I love the random patterns and subtle shades.

My only gripe about this technique is the potential fading of the pattern which is so pretty.

Ink Blots - what do you see?