Cold Process Soap making #3 - Soap Swirling Made Easy

Name: Cold Process Soap making #3 - Soap Swirling Made Easy
Rating: 4.8 (256 reviews)

How to make soap using swirling techniques to create dramatic and stunning looking soaps - tips and tricks for success

Last updated 10/2025

English

What you'll learn

Easily create soaps with stunning swirl effects
Discover the factors that affect trace, cause your soap to accelerate and can prevent you from creating successful swirls
Tailor your recipes to give you more time to produce the swirled effects that you want.
How to bring out your colours in your soaps to create dramatic effects.
How to make your soap look professional by preventing soda ash

15 sections • 34 lectures • 2h 27m total length

Introduction2:39
How To Improve Your Course Experience5:36
Enable subtitles and transcripts to follow along and review the course material at your own pace. Navigate resources, Q&A, and curriculum, track progress, and obtain your certificate on Udemy.

Introduction to Successful Swirling0:28
Learn tips, tricks, and the correct recipe and method to master swirl techniques in cold process soap making, with emphasis on preparation and timing for successful swirls.
How To Ensure Successful Swirling2:28
Tips and tricks to create swirls in your soap successfully
Swirling success
Trace3:33
Trace depends on water content, temperature, and ingredients; avoid water discounting until experienced. Fragrance oils and spices speed trace, so whisk in additives and monitor oil balance to prevent trace.
Understanding Trace
Design slow moving recipe for swirling

Making Drop Swirl Batter and Adding Colours7:02
Learn how to create a drop swirl by pouring colored soap from height into a loaf mold, mixing oxides and micas with fragrance and sodium lactate in the lye water.
Pouring Drop Swirl4:59
Choose slow moving oils like coconut, canola, and olive to create a swirl, pour base color and height-pour each color in squiggles to bottom, drizzle and set through gel phase.
Cutting Drop Swirl0:57
Make a Drop Swirl Soap and post photo

Making In The Pot Heart Swirl Soaps7:34
Valentine's heart soaps use a pink and purple in-the-pot swirl in molds. Mix lye water to a thin trace with a stick blender; add English Rose fragrance and sodium lactate.
Turning Out In The Pot Heart Swirl Soaps1:50
Turn out heart soaps only after they’re really firm (three to four days) to avoid thumb prints, then compare glitter placement and color effects, especially loaf molds for top glitter.
Making Candy Cane Soap, Adding Colours and Fragrance and Pouring Into the Mold8:31
Craft candy cane soap using in-the-pot swirl by blending lye water with oils, coloring with red, green and titanium white, and scenting with peppermint and spearmint; pour into the mold.
Turning Out and Cutting Candy Cane Soap3:57
Make a soap using an in the pot swirl and post a photo

Making Cool as Ice Soap Batter and Adding Colours5:42
Master cold process soap swirling by pouring lye water and using stick blender to reach trace, add peppermint and spearmint, and color with mint green mica, titanium dioxide, and red.
Pouring Cool as Ice Soap Into The Mold6:29
Pour layers of colored soap into the mold from a height to create a striped swirl, then swirl the top for pattern and cover to trap heat for gel phase.
Cutting Cool as Ice Tiger Swirl Soap4:11

Making Peacock Swirl Soap7:07
Learn to create a peacock swirl in a slab mold using pour-and-swirling with color bottles and a freezer-paper tray. Spritz with rubbing alcohol to prevent soda ash and set pattern.
Cutting Peacock Swirl Soap3:20
master the peacock swirl by cutting the soap lengthways into eight inch lengths, then into two inch bars with a ruler, ensuring clean cuts for bright, vibrant rainbow patterns.

Basic knowledge of Cold Process Soap making, including working with different recipes and using colours. This course does not teach how to make soap, and does not cover any safety requirements.
You need to be able to calculate simple percentages
An understanding of the different stages of trace and how to prevent acceleration is required.
Prior use of colours and fragrances, and the ability to design your own recipes is essential.

This course will teach you how to use the Cold Process method to make stunning soaps using intermediate colour techniques.

You will discover the secrets to creating successful swirling techniques in your soap

You will learn how to control trace and prevent your soap from accelerating and ruining your swirls

You will learn how to really make your colours stand out in your soaps.

You will find out how to make your soap look more professional by preventing the formation of soda ash

You will learn how to do the following swirling techniques:

Drop Swirl
In the Pot Swirl in individual and loaf molds
Taiwan Swirl
Tiger Swirl
Funnel Swirl
Column Swirl
Peacock Swirl using traditional method and using a quick method with a swirling tool

You will get downloadable plans to my own personal swirling tools, so that you can do swirl designs quickly and effortlessly.

The soap maker who wants to easily create stunning swirling designs while avoiding common pitfalls.
The soap maker who has basic Cold Process soap making experience and would like to learn how to take their skills to the next level
The soap maker who has tried unsuccessfully to create swirls, and wants to master these skills