ENTRY THREAD Feb 2025 SMF Challenge: Scrub-a-dub-dub!

[AliOop]

The Entry thread for the Feburary 2025 SMF Soap Challenge is now open!

As a reminder, this Entry Thread is for challenge entries only. All comments or non-entry photos should be posted in the General Challenge Thread.

The first photo in your entry thread post will be used as the entry photo for voting. The photo must include at least two bars from the same batch, and a list of all exfoliants used. Additional photos and explanation of your process are not required by are quite welcome. Please refer to the competition rules in the General Challenge Thread if you have any questions about the challenge requirements. All entries are subject to these deadlines:

* This Entry Thread will close on February 23, 2025 at 11:59 PM GMT.
* Voting information will be sent via SMF Conversations (messages) to all eligible participants shortly thereafter.
* The voting survey will remain open until February 26, 2025 at 11:59 PM GMT, or until all votes are in, whichever is sooner.
* The winner will be announced by February 28, 2025 by 11:59 PM GMT.

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Note: all times listed above are Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). It is your responsibility to convert times to your own time zone. You can use World Time Buddy or a similar converter to assist you with that.

 

[ackosel]

My entry is an orange/coffee scrubby soap. The whole batch is scented with an essential oil slurry with sweet orange, cedarwood and litsea cubeba. Exfoliants are:

2 tsp. PPO of coffee grounds in the top half.
2 tsp. PPO of coarsely ground orange peels in the bottom half.

The bottom is paprika-infused olive oil for the orange color, 100% goat milk for the liquid. I was so excited that I didn't overmix the batter, but I poured the orange at a little too thin a trace. The orange peels didn't stay suspended as well as I would have liked.

The top is milk-in-oil method. About half the liquid is goat milk mixed into the oils. I whizzed dry, unused coffee grounds in the blender and added them to distilled water to make up the other half of my liquid. Then I added the lye and let the heat brew the coffee. Once again, I was able to control trace and keep it thin enough to separate small cups of cocoa powder and activated charcoal accent colors for a secret feather swirl attempt in the coffee portion. I started pouring at too thin a trace again, but was interrupted by a small emergency. By the time I came back, the soap had come to a perfect consistency for pouring the rest of the design. I made one down/over/up pass with a hanger and topped the loaf with scrapings from the colored portions for a chopstick-swirl topping.

 

[Vicki C]

Hi folks! I figured you’re all missing me posting more stone soap (ha ha, no, I’m sure you’re sick of it, too bad, I’ll never stop ) so I made a scrubby soap with coffee grounds and two coffee fragrances, which smell amazing. I didn’t add any color other than TD because I wanted it to look like creamy coffee and I knew the fragrances would darken things up. There are also some brown and white soap shreds in there to give it a mottled look.
Super fun challenge @AliOop! Thanks for hosting ️

 

[2lilboots]

I used my lard based soap recipe with goats milk. NG Hot Pink Lime fo. I used mad micas orange, blue, and green. I put 1.375 oz powdered orange peel in the orange colored portion. 1.375 oz powdered pumice in the blue, and 1.375 oz powdered walnut shells in the green. Did alternate pours and swirled with my small silicone whisk.

 

[akseattle]

My entry is made with my usual recipe I've been working with of lard, tallow, coconut oil, shea butter, castor oil and instead of 22% olive oil, I used 17% sunflower oil and only 5% olive oil (to get a whiter soap). I increased the coconut oil from 20% to 21% to make it a tiny bit more cleansing. My exfoliant was sand that I brought home from Celestun, Yucatan, Mexico last January 2024.

I this for my older son who has been buying a soap from LUSH that has Brazilian sand and fragranced with litsea cubeba. That LUSH Sandstone Soap is the first picture. So, I was going for a dupe.

My first attempt was on February 8. I used only 2 teaspoons of sand in 600 grams of batter ( I was afraid to make it too exfoliating...). My son came home for a visit and I said, what do you think? His comment was looks good, smells great, but where's the sand?

So, my second try on February 15 has 3 oz of sand for the same 600 grams of batter. The first try was yellow, grey and white (uncolored) with Lemon Slices FO by Rustic Ecsentuals. I wanted a color different than grey to be able to distinguish. My son asked for red, so this is yellow, red (red rose mica that is more of a raspberry color), and white (uncolored.) He preferred a Lemon Verbena FO by Rustic Ecsentuals so I used that instead.

I used only 1/4 teaspoon of Lemon Yellow mica for 300 grams of batter in my Feb 8 attempt. However, in this batch, with the sand, it was pretty beige, so I added another 1/2 teaspoon of Lemon Yellow mica. I used only 1/8 teaspoon of the Red Rose mica to 150 grams of batter and decided the color was fine even though not exactly red. Even though there is 150 grams of uncolored batter, I kind of got lost. The parts that look light are probably low on sand.

So, my entry is the yellow, red and white soap on the right.

I still don't see the sand, and I haven't tried the soap, so I'm not sure how exfoliating it is or is not. But, since I'd been meaning to make this soap for the last year, I was glad this challenge came up and and got me off my rear end. The lemon verbena smells really good! This was my first time using both the Lemon Slices FO and the Lemon Verbena FO.

I made only two attempts with sand, one batch with poppy seeds, and one that was supposed to be loofah but I forgot the loofah!!! My poppy seed soap should be reasonably exfoliating and more successful than my sand soap. But, since I've made soap with poppy seeds on multiple occasions in the past, I've entered the soap that was actually my challenge. On another note, I got lots of practice with a hanger swirl this month !