Welcome to the October 2022 SMF Soap Challenge. This month’s challenge is to use an alternating color, faux funnel type pour and a divided mold to create a “laminar flow swirl.” This technique was the “not to comb” option for the October 2018 Soap Challenge Club challenge. One of the winners for that challenge called her winning design “Laminar Flow” because the flow of the soap batter in the mold reminded her of classic laminar flow in a channel or pipe. “Laminar Flow Swirl” nicely describes the pattern, so I opted to use that name for this challenge.
In case you can't quite picture the design, here is the soap Laminar Flow by Savon Chez Helene:
To participate, please read the general and specific rules below.
SMF Challenge General Rules
1. To enter you must have been a SMF member for at least one month and have a minimum of 50 posts at the time the Challenge is posted (sorry but no exceptions on this). Supporting Members can enter immediately, the time and post requirements are removed.
2. The only members eligible to vote are those with their names on the sign-up list - regardless of whether or not you have submitted an entry. The sign-up list will be posted in this thread.
3. This month’s voting will be password locked. Passwords will be sent by private message (via SMF conversations) to registered participants ONLY, so please check your messages when the voting begins.
4. A separate entry thread will be created and this is where you will post photos of your entry soap. Please do not post photos of your entry until the entry thread is opened. Post pictures of your entry soap only in the challenge entry thread.
Non-entry photos are always welcome and may be posted in the general challenge thread. The challenge thread should be used to upload pictures of any of your challenge attempts (other than your entry) where you can ask for advice and discuss the technique with other members, and provide helpful hints you learned along the way.
5. Your soap must be made after the monthly challenge has been announced.
6. In the spirit of advancing our soap making skills, all members who sign-up for a SMF Challenge do so with the expectation that they will make every attempt to make a soap for the challenge. Writing about your experience in the challenge is encouraged. By doing so, each participant has a better knowledge of your process when voting. We do understand that sometimes things come up in our lives and throw our plans out of whack, however signing up with no intent to participate and only to vote is not in the spirit of the challenges and is not allowed.
7. Please add your name to the sign-up list if you wish to participate (you don’t have to enter a soap at the end if you don’t feel happy with what you have made), but please do post your experiences in the main Challenge thread and be prepared to be encouraged to continue trying.
8. Constructive criticism is welcomed, but please keep your comments polite.
* * * *
Competition entries must be uploaded to the separate entry thread before the closing date.
Specific Rules for this Challenge:
1. This month’s challenge is to create a Laminar Flow Swirl design soap using the faux funnel technique, with the batter poured at the end or center of channels created using dividers in a mold.
2. For the faux funnel technique, the individual colors are added directly to the mold, not layered or swirled in a pouring pot. The goal is to keep the individual colors crisp and delineated.
3. Use at least two colors/tints/shades/hues for your soap and one may be uncolored batter.
4. You may use any method to make your soap. The soaps I’ve seen in this design have been cold process (CP) based.
5. The design is usually made in a loaf mold, but you may use any mold you choose.
6. You must have at least three (3) channels in the mold, which means that you will need at least two (2) dividers. You may fill all of the channels from one end of the mold, pour from opposite ends of the molds, pour the soap in the middle of a channel so that it spreads out to the ends of the channel, or use any combination of the above.
7. The soap may be cut on a vertical or horizontal plane, or both. Please tell us how you cut the soap in your entry post.
8. To capture the variation in the design along the length of the molded soap, please include at least three (3) bars in your entry photo.
9. If you would like to add additional photos of the entry soap, a photo or other image of your source(s) of inspiration, a description of the techniques you used make the soap, or any other details about your inspiration or process, please do!
Tips:
The first example of this design that I could find on the internet was posted by Savon & Fantaisies back in September 2012. She even included a schematic for the pour.
YT by Savon Chez Helene - mold is tilted through most of the pour, all batter is poured from one end of mold, soap is cut vertically.
YT by Seifen im Glueck - mold is tilted for the first part of the pour, all batter is poured from one end of mold, soap is cut horizontally and vertically.
YT by SLie - mold is level, batter poured from opposite ends, soap is cut horizontally
Here are two more for color inspiration:
Monochromatic color scheme, from the Aromatica website.
Contrasting colors, by Moia soap on IG:
In case you can't quite picture the design, here is the soap Laminar Flow by Savon Chez Helene:
To participate, please read the general and specific rules below.
SMF Challenge General Rules
1. To enter you must have been a SMF member for at least one month and have a minimum of 50 posts at the time the Challenge is posted (sorry but no exceptions on this). Supporting Members can enter immediately, the time and post requirements are removed.
2. The only members eligible to vote are those with their names on the sign-up list - regardless of whether or not you have submitted an entry. The sign-up list will be posted in this thread.
3. This month’s voting will be password locked. Passwords will be sent by private message (via SMF conversations) to registered participants ONLY, so please check your messages when the voting begins.
4. A separate entry thread will be created and this is where you will post photos of your entry soap. Please do not post photos of your entry until the entry thread is opened. Post pictures of your entry soap only in the challenge entry thread.
Non-entry photos are always welcome and may be posted in the general challenge thread. The challenge thread should be used to upload pictures of any of your challenge attempts (other than your entry) where you can ask for advice and discuss the technique with other members, and provide helpful hints you learned along the way.
5. Your soap must be made after the monthly challenge has been announced.
6. In the spirit of advancing our soap making skills, all members who sign-up for a SMF Challenge do so with the expectation that they will make every attempt to make a soap for the challenge. Writing about your experience in the challenge is encouraged. By doing so, each participant has a better knowledge of your process when voting. We do understand that sometimes things come up in our lives and throw our plans out of whack, however signing up with no intent to participate and only to vote is not in the spirit of the challenges and is not allowed.
7. Please add your name to the sign-up list if you wish to participate (you don’t have to enter a soap at the end if you don’t feel happy with what you have made), but please do post your experiences in the main Challenge thread and be prepared to be encouraged to continue trying.
8. Constructive criticism is welcomed, but please keep your comments polite.
* * * *
Competition entries must be uploaded to the separate entry thread before the closing date.
- Note: all times listed are Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) and it is your responsibility to convert times to your own time zone.
- The entry thread will open on October 22 by 11:59 GMT (Please follow the challenge specific rules as to what you need to enter).
- After the closing date on October 27 at 11:59 GMT the winning entry will be chosen by a voting survey. Voting will be open until October 29 at 11:59 GMT and the winner will be announced on October 30. There is no prize attached to this challenge.
- If you fail to make the challenge deadline, you are still welcome to upload pictures of your soap to the general challenge thread, but your entry will not be eligible for voting. We always love to see anything you have created.
- Even though there is no prize, this is still a competition. If your entry is deemed not to fulfill the general rules or the rules specific to the challenge in any way, then you will be given the opportunity to amend your entry. If this is not possible, your entry will not be included in the voting.
- All the challenge mods reserve the right to have the final say on whether a soap is eligible for voting.
Specific Rules for this Challenge:
1. This month’s challenge is to create a Laminar Flow Swirl design soap using the faux funnel technique, with the batter poured at the end or center of channels created using dividers in a mold.
2. For the faux funnel technique, the individual colors are added directly to the mold, not layered or swirled in a pouring pot. The goal is to keep the individual colors crisp and delineated.
3. Use at least two colors/tints/shades/hues for your soap and one may be uncolored batter.
4. You may use any method to make your soap. The soaps I’ve seen in this design have been cold process (CP) based.
5. The design is usually made in a loaf mold, but you may use any mold you choose.
6. You must have at least three (3) channels in the mold, which means that you will need at least two (2) dividers. You may fill all of the channels from one end of the mold, pour from opposite ends of the molds, pour the soap in the middle of a channel so that it spreads out to the ends of the channel, or use any combination of the above.
7. The soap may be cut on a vertical or horizontal plane, or both. Please tell us how you cut the soap in your entry post.
8. To capture the variation in the design along the length of the molded soap, please include at least three (3) bars in your entry photo.
9. If you would like to add additional photos of the entry soap, a photo or other image of your source(s) of inspiration, a description of the techniques you used make the soap, or any other details about your inspiration or process, please do!
Tips:
- Choose a slow moving recipe and know your fragrance or essential oil. You will need time to color portions of batter and then pour alternating colors into the individual channels of the divided mold. You want the batter to remain fluid, but not so thin that the colors become muddied when poured. This is probably the most challenging part of this technique.
- If you haven’t used dividers in a mold before, check out the tips that were shared for the February 2021 SMF Challenge. You can make single-use dividers out of cardboard or more durable versions using acrylic.
- This design is a way to show off your favorite color palette - from monochromatic to wildly contrasting color schemes – they all seem to work.
- If you want to end up with a lot of thin layers in your soap, pour smaller portions of each color with more repeats and then cut the soap on the horizontal plane, or pour from one end into an angled mold and then cut vertically, from top to bottom of the loaf.
- To minimize distortion of the parallel lines that mark the boundaries between the lanes, do not add additional batter after you remove the dividers.
The first example of this design that I could find on the internet was posted by Savon & Fantaisies back in September 2012. She even included a schematic for the pour.
YT by Savon Chez Helene - mold is tilted through most of the pour, all batter is poured from one end of mold, soap is cut vertically.
YT by Seifen im Glueck - mold is tilted for the first part of the pour, all batter is poured from one end of mold, soap is cut horizontally and vertically.
YT by SLie - mold is level, batter poured from opposite ends, soap is cut horizontally
Here are two more for color inspiration:
Monochromatic color scheme, from the Aromatica website.
Contrasting colors, by Moia soap on IG:
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It does stick and smell amazing. Karma was my "signature scent" for about 15 years, and my stepdaughter fell in love with it and so did her husband. She's finishing up her PhD dissertation so I thought a batch of Karma soap would be a nice congratulations gift. Years ago BB made what they called a dupe using all essential oils, and it was the nastiest thing I've ever smelled. So I was delighted to find Nurture's dupe, which is good, but does not stick. I have used FB's Karma in CP soap, and it was as you said. But I must've done something similar to an ITP swirl because I didn't remember it accelerating.
