Entry Thread for SMF April 2023 Challenge - Faux Funnel Technique Designs

[dibbles]

This is the entry thread for the April 2023 SMF Challenge – Faux Funnel Technique Designs. Please remember, this entry thread is for challenge photos only, and comments should be posted to the general challenge thread, here.

You are welcome to post more than one photo, but the photo for the voting survey should be at the top of your entry post, followed by a photo of the soap in the mold after pouring and before swirling for the final design. If you did not swirl your soap, you do not have to show the soap in the mold after pouring.

Your entry may also include additional information about your design, process, fragrance or inspiration.

The entry thread will remain open until April 25th at 11:59 pm GMT. After the entry thread closes, the winning entry will be chosen using Survey Monkey. A message with the voting survey link and password will be sent to those who signed up for the challenge. Voting will remain open until April 29th at 11:59 pm GMT and the winners will be announced on April 30, 2023. There is no prize attached to this challenge.

As a reminder, all times listed are GMT and it is the responsibility of each participant will need to look up the correct time for the location where they live. Here is a link to one mechanism for determining the correct time in your time zone versus GMT: GMT to CST Converter - Savvy Time

Good luck everyone - I'm looking forward to seeing what you have made!

 

[The_Phoenix]

This was a fun design to play with. I’ve done the faux funnel using a very large slab mold with squeeze bottles before. For this challenge, I wanted to add one more design element. I made the “faux funnel” soap using these large PVC pipes. Then sat on the other element. Ultimately, I decided on a kiss pour. I unmolded the soap columns and positioned them in the smaller of my slab molds; made the soap batter; separated into black, white, and gold; poured into two funnel pitchers, using a one pot wonder technique-ish; and did a kiss pour over the two columns so that the batter ran down the sides of the soap columns.

Used NG’s Green Tea fragrance oil. It’s a simple, clean, and fresh fragrance oil that never gives me any issues.

 

[Mobjack Bay]

I had just enough time and master-batched oils to make this neon soap for this month’s challenge. The recipe is palm based and moved fast, even with one of my trusty FOs. The pours required a lot of flattening and most of my rings are not round, but I think it all works out fine for this design.



Here’s the soap in the mold. It may look like I poured some of the batter down the walls, but I didn’t. The purple ended up on the side walls while I was trying to get it to flatten down in the mold.

I couldn’t get all of the batter into the mold, so I also made some fun cat soaps.


edited to change the order of the photos, per the rules

 

[McKherring Farm]

Here is my entry for this challenge using Yellow, Racing Stripe Orange, Mermaid Blue, and Apple Moss Green micas. When I made this soap I didn't have a slab mold and used the widest loaf mold I had. I now have a slab mold but turns out, the learning curve is steeper than I anticipated (for me anyway). The soap is a goat milk soap with avocado, coconut, castor, and olive oils.
I thought I would pour just one set of concentric rings, but the batter didn't fill the mold like I thought it would so I made multiple sets of circles and then did a little swirl with one of them.
Hopefully, the stamps won't disqualify the entry. I really thought I would have one from the slab mold to enter and decided to play with my new stamps when I got them. If they do, I understand.

 

[dmcgee5034]

Hi everyone! Here is my entry for the Faux Funnel Pour challenge. I’ve never done this technique before so I was super happy to try and learn something new. It’s a GMS, as usual for me.

The colors: 5 - 2 blue, 2 purple and white
Blue pours: BB Caribbean Blue with smidge of MM Blue Shocker; same with ~25% TD; TD
Purple pours: BB Queens Purple with smidge of MM Grape Ape; same with ~25% TD; TD

The layers: I lost count…. blue base, purple base, blue hue, purple hue, white, repeat

The mold: plain ol’ loaf mold

The equipment: 5 basic pour pitchers

The scent: BB Love Letter - first time using this FO, it’s nice and behaved well, I didn’t have to worry til near the end.

The vibe: (in my best Austin Powers voice) Groovy Baby, yeah! (groovy music plays)

The assessment: I can’t wait do do this process again! Super cool! Thanks for an awesome challenge, @dibbles

Entry photo:

After the pour:


After splitting the loaf, because I totally freaked out at how fun it looked:

 

[VikingChick]

For my entry, I wanted to try something kind of different. I thought that a bar with half concentric circles and half horizontal stripes would be kind of cool, so I set off to make a striped embed. Well, that didn’t work so great because my pink batter accelerated due to the extra SB I had to do to get the pink oxide incorporated. And the rest of the soap was really slow-moving and liquidy. I was afraid to wait for the liquidy soap to set up a little because I thought the pink batter would be solid by then! To quote Roy Kent, “Oy!” I ended up swirling that part. I didn’t take a picture pre-swirl since it wasn’t part of the design challenge, but if I get a DQ for it, I’ll understand.

The next day I put my embeds into a slab mold and proceeded to the faux funnel pour part. I used squeeze bottles and my batter was so thin and liquidy (again) that I had trouble controlling them.

(At this point one would think, why didn’t I learn my lesson from the previous day and let my batter thicken up a little before pouring/squeezing? Well, I don’t have an answer for that. LOL A bit of learning did happen though, in that I was at least smart enough this time to make sure my pink oxide was really well-incorporated into the dispersion oil before mixing it into my batter. So at least all four colors were consistent in their consistency this time. )

Anyway, when all was said and done I couldn’t decide whether I liked them better with or without the embed. I decided to include them both so y’all can decide for yourself!

I do really like the colors, though. Ultramarine Pink Oxide, Queen’s Purple mica, and Blue Slushy mica, all from BB, and Titanium Dioxide. Fragrance is BRV from Nurture.

 

[The_Emerald_Chicken]

My intention for this batch was a yellow background with small pink grapefruits to compliment my fragrance oil (Pink Grapefruit from BB). My first pink pour was too big, my idea wasn't well-planned, and my colors were too saturated, so I ended up with showy red zinnias instead. I used squirt bottles to pour the circles; the plastic bag trick made clean-up pretty easy. This picture looks a little more neon than the soap looks in real life. I gelled the batch in the oven and ended up with soda ash and uneven texture. Planing the top really transformed the bars.

Here's the batch before swirling. (I fit a purple mold liner into one side of my slab mold so I didn't have to make quite as much soap.)

 

[Terri E]

This is my entry for the April challenge. It is inspired by the beautiful fabrics of India. I love to sew and am always enamored by the fabrics that are made in India. They are colorful with intricate designs and make gorgeous quilts!
I sectioned off my mold to help contain the design better and hand stirred my soap so I would have plenty of time with this one.
The fragrance I chose was Citrus Sparkle from Nature’s Garden. The micas I used were Lettuce Green/Olive Martini, Dragonfly blue and Dark Navy Blue from Mad Micas and Nurture Soap.
It was fun to do and I will definitely do this one again!

This is the the pour

Below is the mold I used

This picture is after I finished swirling, ready for the oven!

 

[Ephemerella]

omg, you all are SO amazing! I'm just dazzled by all these entries.... and also feeling like the undergrad that accidentally wandered into the PhD dinner party, woefully underdressed and quickly realizing they don't belong in the room


So here is my sad sad tale, and even sadder entry, warts and all:

I started out optimistic even though I didn't have a plan. I knew I wanted a green blue white theme, and I had the perfect FO picked out and it was due to arrive any day. I figured I'd wing it and see what happens. What could go wrong? Mwah ha ha.

First, I wanted to use my slab mold, which I never, ever use. I wanted a big ol' brick with depth so I could experiment with cutting. The mold holds more OZ than the batch size I usually make.... but I was feeling lazy and didn't want to do the math required to up my normal batch to fit.

So then I remembered that I had an old bag of BB pre-mixed oils, and it was the perfect fit for the mold. It was also over a year old, and it was time for it to go, so this was the perfect excuse. Then... I remembered I hated the resulting bars from that mix. In fact, the only person who liked it was Mr. E. But, I knew Mr. E would hate the FO I picked out. What on earth was I going to do with 5lbs of soap neither of us can stand? So, in a stroke of inspiration, I remembered I had an FO that I dislike, but Mr. E loves it because it smells just like Irish Spring. Brilliance, I thought, I'll give the old oils and the FO I hate the heave-ho and provide Mr. E with his very own cache of soap he actually will like. Two birds, pure genius.

Well, combine old oils that you haven't used in a while, and you forget how they behave + a mold and batch size you never ever use + a FO you've never used before + no plan.... and.... well.

So here's getting started, I had some squeezy bottles on standby but wanted to try freehanding pouring the pattern first:

It went ok until the batter started thickening FAST, and I had to keep mixing mixing and pounding pounding, and I also did a tilty tilty maneuver which I hoped would come out neat looking since everything was failing so quickly:

Followed by the inevitable soap pudding plop:

And then at the very end I realized I forgot my super fancy mica drizzle I wanted to put in between layers, so I unceremoniously dumped it on top for a little Jackson Pollock effect:

8 hours later I was able to cut, and THAT was a diaster let me tell you, I absolutely could not figure out how to reveal its best side... So these are the best of the lot, and my official entry (I can't believe the stupid steric spots, I guess that's from old oil):

The colors are indigo, pewter (the drizzle I missed) and apple moss from BB, and the bright blue I think came as a free sample from Nuture. The FO is Green Irish from Natures Oil (its not bad, its just not my thing), and the mix is BB's Lots o Lather.

I WAS going to console myself by whipping up another batch using the dandy new FO originally intended for this project, but I was out for the day when the shipment arrived and our resident bruin Benny decided my FO smelled too delicious to pass up. At least he has good taste:

I came home to this:

And had to do this:

At least I great excuse to drink the last of the whisky before decanting my FO Cheers Benny!

 

[Cindy D.]

For this challenge I thought it would be fun to do a rainbow. These are my second and third tries, it took seven bottles and I only had five condiment bottles the first two times. All colors are from Nurture Soaps red/pink is Queen of Hearts mica, Orange Vibrance mica, Yellow Vibrance mica, Green is Enchantment mica, Blue Vibrance mica, Klein Blue mica, Purple Vibrance and the background is Sky Blue mica. My soaping oils have a slight yellow tint to them so the blues aren't as blue as they could be with clearer oils. I lined all my bottles with packing pillows, then left the unused soap in the sealed bag to use as soap dough later. The flowers are the second batch, which had drips of blue from the little bottle. I added white and was going to make clouds, but the blue messed it up, so I added some green and made leaves.
The rainbow on the top soap is from the third try.

Below is the soaps alone...well plus a couple pieces of pet fur.

The photo above is from the second try and the one below is from the third. This was fun and I would have liked to try some more things, but the lye is almost gone.

 

[CLMP]

Hi everybody I've only tried tiger swirling so far and I found this challenge a little difficult for a beginner only because I wasn't sure how thin or thick my batter should be when I start and I might of started out a little thin because I wasn't sure how long I would have but my swirling recipe turned out wonderful it lasted way longer then an hour I had all the time in the world so it seemed lol. So I'm happy about that. So ok because I'm so new to swirling I have only found 4 fragrances that work really well for me so I chose the one I have lots of which is black cherry and I thought the FO would go good with my color scheme. Then for my colors I chose Pretty in Pink mica
Brown oxide pigment
Black charcoal
Cream color extra virgin olive oil in my recipe at a rate of 45% mixed with TD always gets me a cream color by doing that. I also used a new Slab Mold my father made for me 9in×9in I love it and of course I used squeeze bottles to make my design. I had lots of fun doing this. I just wish I wasn't so sick I could of practiced a little more and enjoyed it a bit more more that's OK I still enjoyed it. Here it is! I hope everybody likes it!

 

[dibbles]

The entry thread is closed and a message with the voting link and password has been sent to everyone who signed up. Let me know if I missed you.

Good luck to everyone!

 

[Ephemerella]

My votes are in like flynn, good luck everyone!

 

[dibbles]

As a reminder, please post comments to the main challenge thread here. Only having entries posted in this thread makes it easier for us when putting the voting survey together, and lessens the chance that we miss something. Thank you!

 

[dibbles]

I have a busy day tomorrow, so I'm posting the results tonight. Congratulations to

first place - The_Emerald_Chicken
second place - Cindy D.
third place - Terri E

Thank you to everyone for participating this month, there is something to love about all of the soaps. On to May!

 

[Feelin' Soapy]

So many terrific entries this month! Congrats to the official winners, and I think they're all winners!

 

[Catscankim]

congrats everybody!!

 

[Mobjack Bay]

Congratulations @The_Emerald_Chicken @Cindy D. and @Terri E and to all who entered a faux funnel soap this month.

 

[Ephemerella]

Congratulations!!! Awesome soaps and such a fun time!

 

[The_Phoenix]

Cingrats @The_Emerald_Chicken @Cindy D. and @Terri E ! Beautiful creations!