Soap Curl Designs (Nov 2019)

The technique for this challenge is not a new one! Soap curls have been around for so long, I have no idea who to give credit for this design element. I found the best information from a blog post by Cathy Winsby of Soap Making Essentials. Cathy has some great design ideas as well as recipe tips that were very useful! Here is the soap I made for the regular category, using a cheese planer and a soap planer to create the soap curls:

This is the soap I made for the advanced category, just using a soap planer to create the soap curls:

Take a look at the video tutorial, then check out the tips and tricks, and more resources below!

Part One:

Part Two:

Part Three:

Part Four:

Part Five:

Recipe Formulation for soap curls:

This is the recipe I used for the advanced category that I liked best

40% olive oil
30% coconut oil
25% shea butter
5% castor oil
7% superfat
33% lye concentration
0.5 oz fragrance per pound of oils (optional)
Do NOT add sodium lactate

Be sure to force gel phase. This makes the soap more pliable. I chose to oven process by turning on my oven to the lowest setting (170 degrees F), then putting the soap in, turning the oven OFF, and the oven light ON for about 4 hours. I left the soap in the oven overnight with the light off so it would cool slowly.
You can cut the soap into curls the next day, or wait another day. Adjust the water amount or superfat just a small amount higher if you prefer a tackier soap and want the curls to hold together (i.e. for a paper quilling technique).

Tools:

A soap planer will create very thin soap ribbons
A cheese planer will create thicker soap curls.
A vegetable Y-peeler can also create soap curls (I haven’t tried it though!)
If your soap doesn’t curl on its own, you can curl it around various size objects from a small bamboo skewer, to a pencil or a spoon handle. If my soap hadn’t been as long, it probably would have curled better on its own.