I tried to make my own silicone whipped cream and it did not go well. I should say, it didn’t go the way I wanted it to.

I’ve used deco silicone whip before. And I’ve also used just white silicone. I didn’t have to do anything except put it in a piping bag. For those of you who do this regularly, bless you. I’m always stressed that I’m going to get it in my hair or run out mid-project.

For the sake of cutifying my Switch 2, I wanted to try it on a larger scale. I also wanted to experiment with pigments and see what I could come up with and share.

For some projects, I’ll do a test run. (Definitely with sewing.) With this, I thought it would be a good idea, especially since I had a few new things I wanted to try.

Liquid Pigment

I wanted to color the silicone, specifically black and white. It seemed simple enough, so I started looking into pigments. I’ve used glitter before, but not in a controlled way.

I saw options for liquid pigments and mica powders, so I bought both. Black and white in each. There are a lot of opinions online about which is better, and I wanted to figure it out for myself.

I bailed on the liquid pigments pretty quickly. When I started mixing in the white into clear silicone, it just wasn’t dispersing. I tried two different brands, thinking one would work. Neither did.

I don’t know if it was the silicone or if I just suck at mixing, but it wasn’t happening.

Mica Powder

Mica Powder was the winner for me. I do want to note that I have used clear silicone with colored glitter and the results were also good.

I was very conservative at first, but I ended up needing more than I expected. People say a little goes a long way, which is probably true in some cases, but black and white behave very differently.

Clear and white was hard to see while mixing, and clear with black just looked gray until I added enough to get it where I wanted.

Mixing

This is where I think I failed.

I wasn’t really mixing, I was trying to fold everything in. I wanted to avoid bubbles and not overwork the silicone. Even with the mica powder, the silicone is fussy. If you work it too much, it loses structure. Add in the heat from your hands and it gets worse.

This didn’t happen when I used glitter, which is why I was confused. At one point I started wondering if it was just the specific tube I was using.

Practice Piping

This went… okay.

I kept stopping to let the whip rest so it wouldn’t get too warm, but I also knew I didn’t have unlimited time to work with it. The traditional deco piping didn’t go well because the mixture was too soft.

The other piping tips I tried worked better, but overall it wasn’t consistent enough for what I wanted.

Conclusion

I expected a learning curve, but not to the point where it made me this annoyed.

I’m still moving forward with the project, but I’m pivoting and sourcing deco whip instead. I tend to live in a very medium maintenance way, and if I can remove friction, I will.

I also wanted to share this because it’s easy to think everyone gets it right the first time, especially with aesthetic crafts. That hasn’t been my experience.

I’m not making my own whip. I found some I’m going to use, and next I’ll show how it performs and how I actually pipe with it.