Saturday, November 15, 2014

Soap Challenge Club - Combing Techniques


Soap Challenge Combing technique - Sandalwood CP soap

I was really excited to participate in this month's soap challenge, because combing techniques produce such beautiful swirls. Besides, I love to learn new techniques, and I had so much fun with this one!  I made my soap comb with cardboard and bamboo skewers. I prepared 6 different colors of mica plus some titanium dioxide.

 


In marbling, this is called a Nonpareil pattern (nonpareil means “without equal” or unique in French). To make it, you have to take your comb and draw it gently through the soap batter from left to right.

This is a Chevron pattern, made by bisecting the lines exactly in the reverse direction:
 

Finally, I took my wide-spaced comb to make a wavy pattern:


 
Here is the resulting look of my soap while it's still in the mold:
Soap Challenge Combing technique - soap in mold
 
This soap is scented with Brambleberry’s Sensuous Sandalwood - a very nice, sexy, woodsy smell. I love it!

Soap Challenge Combing technique - sandalwood

Soap Challenge Combing technique - cut bars
 
I’m really pleased with how the soap turned out, and believe the earthy colours match the scent perfectly. Thank you Amy for the challenge, I want to play with this technique more!
 




10 comments:

  1. Your swirls are so wispy and beautiful!! I'm curious how you laid the soap down in the mold before you swirled it, because it doesn't look like straight lines - the pattern is even more intriguing this way!

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    1. Thank you very much Amy! You’re right, I poured the colors in no particular pattern. A few days before making the Sensuous Sandalwood soap, I made another batch where I played with different ways of pouring the colored batter. I took some pictures, so tonight or tomorrow I will create another blog post about it.

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  2. Your color choices are beautiful. Truly lovely!

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  3. Such a delicately beautiful swirl. I love it!

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  4. Jelena, once again you have created a masterpiece!

    Before doing any combing and swirling, can you tell me how you poured the various colors?

    Thanks!

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    1. Thank you Mark! I poured the colors randomly. Check my next post, the way I poured this soap is the same as in the 1st mold (on the left).

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