SMF August 2023 Challenge: SHAPES!

[CLMP]

Wow I love the fog soap and the moon light soap very nice @Cindy D. And @Mobjack Bay oh how I love this time of the month it so fun to see everybody's soaps.

 

[KiwiMoose]

Wow! You lot are amazing! Love all the entries so far. Glad I'm not judging.

 

[Cindy D.]

The hexagon/block shape was juuust too big to fit in one of my log molds; I made it by filling 3 logs half full, cutting each into 1/3 the longest length, then cutting them with the paper outline. The idea was a “3D” cube, but little imperfections break the optical illusion a bit. My biggest challenge was actually getting the parts to stick together; they don’t want to.

My biggest challenge was getting that frog to stay together. I tried agitating a brush on the surface and water, a brush and 80% alcohol (it was a little better) and then finally some really sticky soap dough. It will take forever to completely dry. I had pieces of the wet dough sitting out for 2 days and they were still wet and sticky. I've seen others make a fresh batch of soap and paint it onto pieces to get them to stick together. Others make it look so easy!
Oh and when your pieces are still soft, holes can be filled with scraps of the same color using an artist pallete knife.

Thanks for the info on ultra marine!

@CLMP wow that looks like a real challenge getting all those pieces into your stencils and then into your mold! What an amazing idea, it came out beautiful!!

 

[Tammyfarms]

@CLMP another beautiful soap! I love the design and would have never thought to do a frame like that. So cool!

 

[AliOop]

Such a wonderful natural white! I'd love to see your block shape in a bar of soap too! I've wanted to try ultra marine, but I'm chicken, does it have a sulfur smell?

Ultramarine doesn’t have any smell;

Ultramarine definitely doesn't have any smell in soap, but I've heard that if you use it in bath bombs, you can definitely smell the sulfur!

This is a reminder that the Entry Thread will be closing in about 7 hours. I look forward to hopefully seeing a few more entries since every soap so far just stellar (no pun intended for those of you who submitted astrological shapes, haha)!

 

[user 29214]

I won't be able to post my entry after all, but maybe I will share it here when it is done. I look forward to seeing the entries though.
I had a hard time accepting that the cost of having an over the range microwave installed, plus the cost of getting rid of the broken one, comes to be about the same price of the new microwave. We did get a counterop one meanwhile, I should be able to use it for soap making after.

 

[AliOop]

I'm so sorry to hear that, @glendam. Wishing you the best for getting it all worked out!

 

[CLMP]

@ScentimentallyYours I love your soap it would look awesome in my living room I have a birch tree

themed living room and everything in my living room is in black grey and white. Your soap reminds me of my painting above my couch.

 

[Tammyfarms]

@ScentimentallyYours your birch soap is beautiful. I love that you didn't make all the trees perfectly straight.

 

[dmcgee5034]

Oh the soaps this month are awesome! Such great work by everyone!
@Mobjack Bay - I love that shade of blue in your soap!
@CLMP wowwwww, those stars!
@ScentimentallyYours - we also have a birch tree painting, and DH immediately said your soap looks it. Fantastic!

 

[AliOop]

The Entry Thread is now closed. EDIT: The voting link has been sent via PM to each of you who registered. Even if you didn't submit an entry, you are still eligible to vote.

Check your "conversations" (the envelope icon at the top of the page) to find the message with the voting link.

Good luck, everyone!

 

[Georgeandstella]

This will be like intermission entertainment while waiting for the voting to come in:
—————————————-
I woke up to the voting emails, and realized I missed posting my entry due to distractions-where did August go? Here is my (now non-) entry:

This challenge was inspired by our beach vacation- watching the sailboats on the horizon from the beach, very relaxing.

I collected seawater for the liquid (strained and boiled).

For the sand I included a little bit of sea algae that I collected and dried, along with African black soap shreds and ground oatmeal (see picture).

For the imbed, I handmade the boat and sun using soap dough (love playing with this).

And yes my husband was SO happy to be transporting seaweed and seawater back in our luggage We’ve come to an understanding (tolerance) now.

I’m continuing to work on “the beach scene” soap, I’ve posted other variations in a separate post below.

Sea Algae, African black soap and oatmeal for sand.

Here’s some imbed soap dough boats from another attempt-I decided to make the mast brown on the Challenge soap.

My entry this month was (would have been) a sailboat on the ocean. I’m still working on this theme, (variation between sky and water, size of boat and sun, amount of white for water froth or clouds, color of the boat, etc), so there is a lot to play with. Here are some of my attempts:

 

[AliOop]

@Georgeandstella those are incredible; I'm sorry you missed the deadline!

To loosely quote Robert De Niro (quoting Marlon Brando): you coulda been a contender.

 

[ScentimentallyYours]

Here is my (now non-) entry:
This challenge was inspired by our beach vacation- watching the sailboats on the horizon from the beach, very relaxing.

I cannot believe you didn’t get this entry in! All that beautiful work on an incredible soap and I can’t vote for it. I love your beach series with all of the sail boats and suns. You really nailed the water movement and shoreline texture. Now get to work on next month’s challenge as soon as it is posted and get your entry in at the beginning of the soap posts. Your soap deserves it!

 

[ScentimentallyYours]

This is the first soap that was already planned, was made for the Soap Challenge, but wasn’t entered because I had a soap I was happier with.

This is Sunny Duck soap. It was inspired by friends in Maryland, who have a bathroom dedicated to their rubber ducky collection. There must be more than 100 rubber ducks in their bathroom, not counting the other rubber duck decorative decor. Our friends are also excellent gourmet cooks.

Oils for embeds and Sunny Duck soap:
33% High Oleic Sunflower oil
30% Duck fat
20% Coconut oil
12% GW 415 Soy wax
5% Castor oil

I was going to use a water themed fragrance, but one of the jars of duck fat had a little bit of a ducky odor and I was afraid that if it didn’t dissipate during the soap making process that the two aromas would not blend well. Then I thought of our friends’s cooking skills and decided that orange would be perfect. I had a new Lebermuth fragrance called Fresh Orange that is supposed to stick longer than other citrus fragrances and decided it was the right scent to use for the soap: Duck à la Orange.

The big surprise was that the orange mica did not produce cumulus clouds as planned. It turns out that Nurture’s Atomic Orange has oxides in it. I couldn’t figure out what happened since the results were so different from what was poured, and then I read the thread on glycerin rivers. Instead of getting cumulus clouds in the sky section, the dioxides in the mica created glycerin rivers and gave me cirrus clouds. Just another one of those happy accidents I guess.

 

[Ford]

Every entry is a winner. Had lots of fun. Again! And learned a lot too. All techniques. I've not used before. Thanks again.

Ps. Voting would have been even harder. With the non-entries. That were not posted. Sail on, Quack, quack.

 

[CLMP]

My entry this month was (would have been) a sailboat on the ocean. I’m still working on this theme, (variation between sky and water, size of boat and sun, amount of white for water froth or clouds, color of the boat, etc), so there is a lot to play with. Here are some of my attempts:

View attachment 74304

Ah that's to bad we didn't get to vote for you I think your soap would've been a winner well it still is a winner in my books nice work. @Georgeandstella

This is the first soap that was already planned, was made for the Soap Challenge, but wasn’t entered because I had a soap I was happier with.
View attachment 74309
This is Sunny Duck soap. It was inspired by friends in Maryland, who have a bathroom dedicated to their rubber ducky collection. There must be more than 100 rubber ducks in their bathroom, not counting the other rubber duck decorative decor. Our friends are also excellent gourmet cooks.

Oils for embeds and Sunny Duck soap:
33% High Oleic Sunflower oil
30% Duck fat
20% Coconut oil
12% GW 415 Soy wax
5% Castor oil

I was going to use a water themed fragrance, but one of the jars of duck fat had a little bit of a ducky odor and I was afraid that if it didn’t dissipate during the soap making process that the two aromas would not blend well. Then I thought of our friends’s cooking skills and decided that orange would be perfect. I had a new Lebermuth fragrance called Fresh Orange that is supposed to stick longer than other citrus fragrances and decided it was the right scent to use for the soap: Duck à la Orange.

The big surprise was that the orange mica did not produce cumulus clouds as planned. It turns out that Nurture’s Atomic Orange has oxides in it. I couldn’t figure out what happened since the results were so different from what was poured, and then I read the thread on glycerin rivers. Instead of getting cumulus clouds in the sky section, the dioxides in the mica created glycerin rivers and gave me cirrus clouds. Just another one of those happy accidents I guess.

@ScentimentallyYours I love your ducky soap too! I like the way you swirled the sky and water. Very nice!

 

[Cindy D.]

@ScentimentallyYours, wow those birches, what beautiful colors!

@Georgeandstella, surely you would have won with that beautiful soap!
I hope next time you put a reminder in your phone, computer or something So you don't miss the deadline ever again!

 

[Tammyfarms]

This is the first soap that was already planned, was made for the Soap Challenge, but wasn’t entered because I had a soap I was happier with.
View attachment 74309
This is Sunny Duck soap. It was inspired by friends in Maryland, who have a bathroom dedicated to their rubber ducky collection. There must be more than 100 rubber ducks in their bathroom, not counting the other rubber duck decorative decor. Our friends are also excellent gourmet cooks.

Oils for embeds and Sunny Duck soap:
33% High Oleic Sunflower oil
30% Duck fat
20% Coconut oil
12% GW 415 Soy wax
5% Castor oil

I was going to use a water themed fragrance, but one of the jars of duck fat had a little bit of a ducky odor and I was afraid that if it didn’t dissipate during the soap making process that the two aromas would not blend well. Then I thought of our friends’s cooking skills and decided that orange would be perfect. I had a new Lebermuth fragrance called Fresh Orange that is supposed to stick longer than other citrus fragrances and decided it was the right scent to use for the soap: Duck à la Orange.

The big surprise was that the orange mica did not produce cumulus clouds as planned. It turns out that Nurture’s Atomic Orange has oxides in it. I couldn’t figure out what happened since the results were so different from what was poured, and then I read the thread on glycerin rivers. Instead of getting cumulus clouds in the sky section, the dioxides in the mica created glycerin rivers and gave me cirrus clouds. Just another one of those happy accidents I guess.

I was wondering how you got the swirls in the sky. So cool!

 

[AliOop]

All votes are in, so we will announce the winners early. And they are.... (drumroll please):

EDIT EDIT EDIT!! Sorry for the mixup but here is the corrected winner's list:

Tied for First place @Cindy D. and @CLMP
Second place @ScentimentallyYours
Third place @Ford

Congratulations to the winners, and well done to all of you! This was an exceptionally close one, obviously because all of the entries were amazing. Thanks for making this such an interesting and fun challenge whether watching, hosting, or participating!