Smooth icing on cakes, how?

Once again, I'm self taught and most of the time have no idea just making it up as I go along. I've seen a few videos where the cake decorator effortlessly smoothed out the fluffiest icing ever and magically the cake has razor sharp sides. I have no idea what magic they are using but my icing is never like this!

My icing tends to be a bit stickier so my attempts at smoothing in the past resulted in lumps and lines. It even clumps up and pulls chunks of icing out the cake when I'm trying to smooth it. It's super annoying especially when the video's look so easy.

I suspect my kitchen is too cold when I'm icing (like really late at night once all the kids are in bed during our winter season which is when all the birthdays are) so the icing is freezing up. Microwaving the icing makes it easier to work with BUT it splits the icing making it look a bit yuck.

My solution for the moment is to boil the kettle and place hot water into a plastic thermoflask which I can place in the microwave if I need to reheat the water.

I then place my large cake smoother into the thermoflask to heat up and dry it off on a towel before smoothing the cake.

For about 10 seconds it's now much easier to smooth the cake.

I think there's still some other trick I don't know so if you have any idea's then please comment or message through your tips!

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