SMF October 2021 challenge - Entry thread (butterfly hanger swirl)

[Primrose]

This is the entry thread for the October 2021 SMF Challenge - butterfly hanger swirl.

Include a photo of at least 2 bars of soap from your batch, arranged in a mirror image to display the butterfly. You may include multiple bars in your entry photo, but all must be from the same batch. Please post the photo you wish to be used in the voting survey as your FIRST photo. If you would care to share anything about your design, process, colors, fragrance or inspiration, please do.

Please remember to include with your entry a picture of the pattern you used for your hanger swirl.

This entry thread is for entry photos only. Please post any comments on the general challenge thread.

After the closing date on October 28 at 11:59pm GMT the winning entry will be chosen using Survey Monkey.

Voting will be open from October 28-30 and the winner will be announced on October 31.

Good luck and I can't wait to see your kaleidoscopes!

 

[Peachy Clean Soap]

Hello let me explain my color & FO/ EO that went into soap. Colors used: neon green & blue, peacock, nocturnal & graphite, rose gold, td for base & td for top piping. Fragrance Used. caramel tobacco, woodgrain musk @cmzaha suggested in a post she loved these scents so i had to try them & agree they smell fantastic behaved we'll. thank you . patchouli, sandalwood. The butterfly swirl was created by using a plastic coat hanger, & my colors were poured in straight lines & the white I'd pour on opposite side intermittently. I was very careful not to pour colors or swirl into the base.
I want to Thank @Primrose for hosting our Butterfly Swirl Hanger Challenge' great job well done. ❤. This has been a trying challenge for me, much setbacks before I was able to try the swirl then breakthrough Yay .

 

[Cat&Oak]

For this challenge I used Nurture Soap Crisp Juniper for the fragrance. Colors are all Nurture, Orange Vibrance, Savage Garden, Winter White Mica and Sirens Song. Colors were poured on one side from varying heights.
The pattern I used was Holly's from Kapia Mera. I used a bent coated coat hanger to swirl.

 

[melonpan]

For the challenge I was inspired by moths (rather than butterflies) and especially this moth called Rosy maple moth or Dryocampa rubicunda which has gorgeous colours. I find it sweet, which is a feeling I personally don't usually associate with insects lol.

A few pics of the Rosy maple moth under the spoiler cut, in case you are curious:

Spoiler: Lepidopterophobic beware

I wanted a swirl resembling that first picture under the cut, so looking at the shapes for the body, wings, head and antennae I came up with this swirl pattern:

So here's the picture of the cut.
This is my usual recipe scented with an EOCalc blend of Orange, Tea Tree and Lavender.
I poured the colours alternating my three colours then the base, and again three colours then the base and so on, then used a coated hanger to do the swirl. At the end some more base and colours batter just for the top.

The colours inadvertently went in a different direction than my inspiration pic (note to self about blending existing colours), so it no longer resembles the inspiration moth, it's its paler cousin

 

[violets2217]

This was a pretty fun one! I got to use my hanger tool and lots of pretty colors and another try at soap frosting. I wanted a bright and cheery soap for Christmas and had a theme is mind but not a design yet. And honestly this was perfect! I tried to stick with a pretty simple swirl design so I didn’t have to think too much! So just back & forth straight swirls in decreasing/increasing widths.
So two birds, one stone:

Sugar Plum Fairy


Not sure why but my frosting ashed a bit but I’m not too disappointed! All Nurture Soap Micas and fragrance.
Thanks @Primrose for my Christmas soap inspiration!

 

[linne1gi]

This was my 2nd try, but all I could manage since I spent so much of the month away from home. It was pretty fun though. My soap is scented with Christmas Wreath by Nurture Soap which was very well behaved.

 

[ResolvableOwl]

Upside Down (The Emergency Moth)

The most attractive butterfly has hidden, upside down, at the end of the loaf – in what I would nearly have discarded as trimmings! I decided to submit this one, since my original design idea hasn't come out quite as convincing as I had aimed for. (ETA: more on this in the conversation thread.) “Thick trace”, they've said!

My rather minimalist swirling path (roughly to scale):


Colours: base is 75% mustard oil + 4% red palm, opacified with zinc oxide. Browns are English red & caput mortuum (two iron oxides), and Cyprian brunt umber. Greens are regular & hydrated chromium oxide (though it's not obvious from the submission photo why I have included them).

Expect that I'll give this exact design another try!

 

[dibbles]

I think I need to explain my attempt at a drawing of what I planned/think I did/tried to do. I inserted my hanger off center and swirled six (maybe 5) times getting progressively deeper each time, then moved the hanger sideways a couple of times as I brought it up and out of the mold.

This is scented with Cranberry FO (WSP), with a bit of Black Raspberry Vanilla (NS) added as I was a bit short on the Cranberry. My colors were My Red Obsession and Winter White from Nurture, King Tut from Mad Micas, and Apple Moss Green from Bramble Berry.

Thank you Primrose for hosting this challenge. The Butterfly Swirl was the 'it' thing when I was first starting to make soap and it has, for the most part, eluded me. It was nice to try it again!

 

[The_Emerald_Chicken]

After much agonization about which butterfly to choose, here's my entry. This batch is fragranced with Bali Breeze FO from Bramble Berry and is colored with Sunset Orange, Yellow, and Mermaid Blue micas, in addition to activated charcoal (all from BB).

This shows the pattern I was aiming for, but I'm not sure exactly how many loops I ended up making in the end. The left edge of the diagram is a little messy; after making the loops, I came up, then down, and then up again to make the body of the butterfly.

Here are my other (non-entry) butterfly possibilities from the batch.

Thanks @Primrose for hosting a fun and creative challenge!

 

[Catscankim]

I went up and down on the inside to create antennae if its not apparent by my lovely drawing. Hope nobody judges me by my artwork lol. I signed up to make soap, not draw lol.

 

[linne1gi]

This is the entry thread for the October 2021 SMF Challenge - butterfly hanger swirl.

Include a photo of at least 2 bars of soap from your batch, arranged in a mirror image to display the butterfly. You may include multiple bars in your entry photo, but all must be from the same batch. Please post the photo you wish to be used in the voting survey as your FIRST photo. If you would care to share anything about your design, process, colors, fragrance or inspiration, please do.

Please remember to include with your entry a picture of the pattern you used for your hanger swirl.

This entry thread is for entry photos only. Please post any comments on the general challenge thread.

After the closing date on October 28 at 11:59pm GMT the winning entry will be chosen using Survey Monkey.

Voting will be open from October 28-30 and the winner will be announced on October 31.

Good luck and I can't wait to see your kaleidoscopes!

Could I change out my butterfly photo? Apparently I don’t know what a butterfly looks like.

 

[Peachy Clean Soap]

Could I change out my butterfly photo? Apparently I don’t know what a butterfly looks like.
[/QUOT

 

[linne1gi]

Could I change out my butterfly photo? Apparently I don’t know what a butterfly looks like.

I’m not trying another soap, just changing the picture, because I see (from looking at the other butterfly photos) that I didn’t snap the picture correctly.

 

[The_Phoenix]

Butterflies. They take up so little space on this planet. And they exist like ghosts, silent and just seem to float with their seeming weightlessness. Many species migrate thousands of miles. The Painted Lady travels 9,000 miles, from Africa to the Arctic Circle. More fascinating is that this journey is undertaken by consecutive generations of butterflies. Consider the solidarity needed to accomplish such a feat.

My idea with this design was to use the empty space of the blue skies to reflect the relative smallness of the butterfly. Instead of using a drop swirl, I used a divider and poured in layers of the complimentary colors. Then I removed the divider and swirled using the diagram below.

 

[linne1gi]

I’m not trying another soap, just changing the picture, because I see (from looking at the other butterfly photos) that I didn’t snap the picture correctly.

Here’s the picture which is probably the correct way.

 

[SideDoorSoaps]

I usually don’t attempt soap challenges more than a couple times because I’m so behind on other things but this one I realllllly wanted to get! I LOVE butterflies!! I have several tattoos and decor of butterflies that I knew I was going to have to have soap in it. I don’t think I’ve ever purposely attempted this. My colors are pretty muted with purple Brazilian clay, rose pink clay, white kaolin clay and some ultramarine violet but I wanted soft, pretty butterflies.


I got some really interesting swirls in my batch of soap from the end cuts being the most different because I can see where I did not pour colors evenly and also the hanger double swirled in the middle because it was a short piece I broke to fit inside my mold better.

 

[Orebma]

After much agonization about which butterfly to choose, here's my entry. This batch is fragranced with Bali Breeze FO from Bramble Berry and is colored with Sunset Orange, Yellow, and Mermaid Blue micas, in addition to activated charcoal (all from BB).
View attachment 62017
This shows the pattern I was aiming for, but I'm not sure exactly how many loops I ended up making in the end. The left edge of the diagram is a little messy; after making the loops, I came up, then down, and then up again to make the body of the butterfly.
View attachment 62020
Here are my other (non-entry) butterfly possibilities from the batch.
View attachment 62021
Thanks @Primrose for hosting a fun and creative challenge!

So freaking beautiful!!!

 

[Primrose]

So freaking beautiful!!!

@Orebma Please remember

This entry thread is for entry photos only. Please post any comments on the general challenge thread.

 

[earlene]

Thank you for this challenge, Primrose. I've been wanting to learn to do this technique. I did only 4 attempts, but made progress in each attempt. I do want to practice it more and get a perfect butterfly, but I am pretty happy with how my attempt #3 turned out. The Monarch Butterfly has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember, so that's the one I chose for 3 of my attempts. Batch number #3 came the closest to the majesty of the Monarch as well as the coloring.

Here is my entry for the Butterfly Swirl soap.

Here is the drawing I used as my guide:

And here is a photograph I took of a Monarch in 2013 at Leu Gardens in Orlando:

And here is what they look like in Santa Cruz, California where I spent many years of my life (a shot at Monarch Trail at Natural Bridges):

photo by Nata Rosovskaya - Link to site: https://tinyurl.com/sry3c64

 

[SoapDaddy70]

Here is my entry. I got some pretty trippy results and really like how it came out. Some of these other entries are spectacular and I could see myself trying this again. My picture of the drawing is probably not exactly what I did because to be honest I really don’t remember what I actually did with the hanger tool. This attempt was so much better than my first try. First picture is the entry pic, second pic is another couple of bars from this batch and thumbnail is the drawing pic.