ENTRY THREAD for the January 2024 SMF Challenge – Mini Drop[Mini Drip] Swirl Technique

[Mobjack Bay]

This is the entry thread for the January 2024 SMF Soap Challenge – Mini Drop[Mini Drip] Swirl Technique.

As a reminder, this entry thread is for challenge entries only. Please post any and all comments to the general challenge thread, here.

The first photo in your entry thread post will be used as the entry photo for the voting survey. The entry photo must include at least three bars of soap and show the full face of at least two of your cut bars. Please refer to the competition rules, here, if you have any questions in general about the challenge requirements.

Your entry post may also include additional photos and information about your design, process, fragrance or inspiration. Special note: We love to see your soap photos, but please keep photo dimensions in mind when posting. Photos that appear full screen size on a laptop or desktop screen may exceed the dimensions of an iPad or tablet screen by 2x or more, which makes it harder for some of us to enjoy your entry soap photo the way you intended.

The entry thread will remain open until January 26th at 11:59 PM GMT. Soon thereafter, voting instructions will be sent to eligible registrants only, by private message via SMF conversations. Please check your SMF messages when the voting begins. Voting will remain open until January 29th at 11:59 PM GMT. The winners will be announced by January 31st at 11:59 PM GMT. There is no prize attached to this challenge.

Good luck everyone!

edited: to clarify the number of bars required for the entry.

 

[dmcgee5034]

I’ll kick us off and post my entry….

For my entry, which smells like Orange Sherbet to me, I used BB Energy FO and a bit of Orange 10x EO to be extra sure I had time to work. This is a Goat Milk soap made with my normal soap recipe. The base is 56% of my batter and colored with NS Orange Vibrance. The drops are NS Green Vibrance, NS Yellow Vibrance, BB Pewter Silver, and TD divided equally for the remaining batter.
This is the first time I’ve been really pleased with the drops created in the base of the soap, I’ve tried them several times before with just ok results. I used squirt bottles with bags inside, and attached straws to some and pipettes to others to vary the drop size. Things I’d do differently next time… use some neon in the orange and yellow - the orange was bold on pour and cut, then mellowed; and the yellow is hard to see. For the top part, I’d also insert the bottle tip under the surface of the base soap for my first drops with hopes the top layer would have more rounded drops into the base. This technique was super fun and I’ll for sure use it again.

 

[Tammyfarms]

For this challenge I used Fresh Orange eo blend from eocalc. Colors used were 50% BB yellow lip safe mica, 20% bb sunset orange mica, 20% bb evergreen mica and 10% nurture nocturne mica.

Split batter at emulsion. Used small pipettes on squeeze bottles and did not trim ends. Next time will use bigger pipettes and maybe trim the ends for rain drops. Will definitely trim squeeze bottle ends for drops on top as I feel the drops were too small and the top area lacked definition.

I enjoyed this challenge and will definitely try this technique again using colors that are not as close in tone.

 

[katili]

Here's my entry

The color scheme was inspired by the FO I used in it, Blackberry & Magnolia from Cierra Candles and Soap. I thought of pretty pink and white flowers against a blue sky, then added purple for the blackberries. I used a very slow moving lard based recipe and did a much better job of coming just to a very light trace before adding my FO and splitting the batter.

I left 70% blue and used 10% for each of the three colors used in the drips, and just did regular squeeze bottles for it (which I didn't line and took some soaking to clean lol). I could have gone even thinner with the trace and wish I'd gotten a little more movement but all in all I'm not upset about these results, and the little swirl on the tops makes me happy.

 

[Cindy D.]

This was a fun challenge. My goal was a pale blue gray sky with a rainbow of color drops. I used squirt bottle with pipettes taped on them. The pipettes from Michael's art section, were a little stretchy and I probably could have done without the tape. I did trim down all the points, they weren't all the same size.

When dividing the batter, the base layer was 50%of the batter, but I didn't end up using as much of the colors for drops. In the end the base color is probably closer to 2/3rd of the soap and the drops 1/3rd. The batter for drops was divided into 6 equal amounts.
All colors are from Nurturesoap, the light blue color is 1t. sky blue with 3/4 Tablespoon dispersed TD in 777g batter. The drops are fantasia purple mica, neon blue pigment, lime appeal mica, yellow vibrance mica, atomic orange mica and firecracker red mica. Snowflake sparkle mica is sprayed on top. When looking at the thin pieces from the ends, I discovered the light goes through the drop colors but not the base which is probably because of the TD. Sorry about the blurry picture, it was neat impossible to hold the soap and the phone and tap it.
I banged the mold to get out air bubbles which I probably shouldn't have done. There was one pass with a squirt bottle that I put air in the batter.
Thanks for the fun challenge!

 

[Relle]

My imagined soap design - I was standing under a tree canopy and a sheet of water collapsed and the drops fell through the leaves.
Tools - pipettes, 4 bottles, cups.
Colours- (cool)- base- pale green, drops- mid green, mid blue, purple, liquid colours, highlight - white (td),
Scent - The amazing Lychee/Black Tea.
Gelled - No.
Quantities - I don't weigh separate colours, just wing it.
Washing up - Lots of containers with this .
Positive Outcome - Scraps left in the bottle for soap dough
Would I do it again - yes, with less colours .

 

[CLMP]

Hi everyone I know we already have a couple orange soaps entered already but I ordered and planned out my soap a couple weeks ago in case I was feeling better to make it because I have been ill but luckily I'm feeling a little better. So the F/O I used was Palo Santos and the EO I used was Orange Sweet 5 Fold I split them 50/50 from Suds n' scents The colors I chose were Magic Orange Mica for the base and Gold Pearl Mica for one squeeze bottle and half Coffee Mica and half Blushed Bronze Mica for the other squeeze bottle. The first 3 colors are from Suds n' Scents and the last color is from Candora Soap. I made a little more than 1/3 of my soap batch for the squeeze bottles I used. I think I should of made a little more for my squeeze bottles though and the Gold Pearl Mica was to close in color to the Magic Orange Mica to stand out the Orange was a lot darker in its package when I picked it. Unfortunately my rain drops didn't turn out that good and I'm guessing that's because my base color was getting a little thicker then my squeeze bottles. I don't have time to try it again so this entry will have to do but I had lots of fun making this batch for my son's and the smell is amazing the Palo Santos and Orange together makes the nicest men's smell I've tried so far in fact it could probably pass for a unisex smell because the Orange sweetens up the scent nicely and I had lots of time to play with my soap. So here it is!

 

[McKherring Farm]

Whew! I do believe the biggest challenge for me this round was trying to actually post pictures! Thank you to the tips shared. Anyway...here is my entry.

The base is Aqua Pearly mica with Snowflake Sparkling mica mixed in to lighten it up. The drips were created with the squeeze bottle and pipette method. I had much more success getting the correct depth and squeeze pressure this time around after my first attempt sent raindrops to the bottom of the soap! The drips are Merlot Sparkling mica, Caribbean Blue mica, Sparkling Snowflake mica, and a little bit of uncolored batter. The bars are scented with Bergamot and Lime essential oils. I was shooting for twinkling lights hanging over the green of new Spring growth. A heater repairman passed through my kitchen as they were airing out on the counter and commented that they look like birthday cake. So, twinkling birthday cake, I suppose.

 

[Vicki C]

Hi all! I’m so glad I actually got my challenge soap done this month. (Made it yesterday - it is still quite soft!) What a fun, cool technique, I had never tried it before. Thank you @Mobjack Bay for all your instructions and careful observations, they were very helpful. And thanks to all those who posted your experience along the way.
I made another attempt earlier, I’ll post it in the general thread. It was a disaster.
This soap was made in a makeshift Goodwill tall and skinny mold. It’s scented with WSP’s ”Eucalyptus and Rain.” By some miracle I achieved Goldilocks batter that behaved perfectly - stayed nice and fluid. I like the colors although I can see that it is discoloring slightly along the bottom, this fragrance has a tiny bit of vanillin, I think that’s why.

Edited to add a photo that meets the entry requirements. (Oops!)

 

[ScentimentallyYours]

This challenge was a real nailbiter for
me. The batter was barely at emulsion stage, very liquid! (Think V-8 juice viscosity.) I expected the oils to separate. Even after everything was poured, the batter was so liquid that it sloshed out of the mold when I moved it to the oven to CPOP it. I went to bed and said a prayer to the gods of saponification. In the morning I was quite surprised to find out the loaf had solidified. Even more surprising, when I cut the loaf lye water did not leak out, so apparently the batter was stable when I worked with it. Whew! The mini drop swirl challenge taught me how to work with the emulsion stage for the first time, which will help me with other designs in the future.

The fragrance is Black Raspberry Vanilla from Be Scented. The three colors of mica to echo a berry vibe are from Nurture Soap: Wisteria Purple, Queen for a Day, and Lollipop. I used my Shea butter, vegan friendly, palm-free recipe. This recipe produces pristine white soap without using titanium dioxide or other colorants that can speed up trace.

Again, my best take away from this was learning to work with the batter at a very early stage of emulsion. The extra thin batter produced more ash on the top surface and, in some spots, on the side of the loaf. In the future I’ll try to get the emulsion a bit closer to thin trace and see if it takes care of the ash problem.

Thank you for the work you put in on this challenge and guidance you shared @Mobjack Bay. I attempted to use this technique several years ago, only to have a massive fail with soap seizing in the squeeze bottles. I would never have tried a mini drop swirl again if it weren’t for this challenge!

 

[VikingChick]

This was my first attempt - I seemed to get worse as I went along! LOL The base is NS Herbalicous, which discolors to this pretty dark purple. It didn’t discolor evenly though. A lesson for next time!

Thanks for posting this challenge, @Mobjack Bay - despite my frustration in this technique, I did enjoy it and may even attempt it again in the future.

 

[MichaelP]

Wow! Great job everyone! I'm super impressed by what I'm seeing! I made 4 different batches trying to get something worthy, but I think I will likely need to do another 4 more batches before I actually develop the technique to a level that is satisfactory. This has been a fun challenge for me and I learned a lot in the process. I was hoping my 4th batch would be better than the 3rd, but I was disappointed (I learned a few things along the way!). Thus, here is a pic of my 3rd batch soap. I did a 50% base color and 4 colors for the drips and used NG's Cracklin Birch FO for the scent.

Great Fun and looking forward to the next monthly challenge! Happy soaping everyone!

 

[Mobjack Bay]

The entry thread is now closed. What a fabulous group of soaps you’ve made! Well done everyone

 

[janesathome]

Such beautiful soaps! Such talent! I’m sorry I didn’t get a soap made for the challenge - have spent the last 8 days away touching base with our collective elderly parents and we are not back home yet. Sooo, another month of “best laid plans”.

 

[Mobjack Bay]

Congratulations to this month's winners!
1. ScentimentallyYours
2. Cindy D.
3. MichaelP

With additional kudos to those of you who tried this technique for the first time and to everyone for well-executed, interesting, colorful and inspirational soaps.

 

[VikingChick]

Well done, everyone!

 

[katili]

Congrats!! Everybody's soap was amazing, and I had so much fun participating

 

[MichaelP]

I loved everyone's soaps! This was truly a challenge (at least for me anyway!!), no joke!!! Congrats and Kudos to everyone who gave this a go!!

 

[AliOop]

Congrats to the winners! I so wanted to participate in this challenge, but had no time to make a single soap all month long. And now I'm thankful because those were some amazing entries, y'all.

 

[Iveta Pelá]

Beautiful work everyone... Such beautiful soaps. I was pleased to see the beauty. Congratulations.