Welcome to the September 2021 SMF Soap Challenge! For this month’s challenge, you will make soap that represents a weather event that has personally impacted you, or you may choose another personally significant life event as your entry inspiration. You may choose your technique and create your soap using any type of mold and any soap making method. Weather events such as Hurricanes, Tropical Storms, Firestorms, Tornadoes, and the like have a significant impact on our lives and often those impacted will feel the need or desire to express that impact in their art. Personal major life events such as marriage, birth, death, graduation, etc. also greatly impact our lives and often lead to artistic commemoration in the form of photography, painting, and even soap. If you do not feel comfortable revisiting a significant weather event that you have experienced, surely there has been a life event that you can draw from to create a soap for this challenge.
Please read the general rules (there have been some changes lately, so really, PLEASE READ THEM) and the challenge specific rules below and let’s have some soapy fun!
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 interrupt our plans, 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.
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Specific Rules for this Challenge:
1, Create soaps including a design element(s) related to a significant weather event you have experienced. As an alternative to a weather event, you may choose a life event such as birth, death, marriage, graduation, etc. as the basis for your design.
2. Use any type of mold, solid soap making method and technique, except that if you choose an individual mold, the design element cannot be solely the shape of the mold, but must include additional design such as swirl(s) and colors.
3. Include at least 1 bar of soap from your batch in your entry photo. You may include multiple bars in your entry photo, but all must be from the same batch.
Here are some examples of Soaps made that were inspired by Major Weather events:
Hurricane Irma in 2017, which altered our travel plans that particular year. Although I did not experience that particular Hurricane first-hand, I have done with others prior to this one, which is one reason we altered our travel plans.
Baby Girl (Hidden Heart) soap that I made for another SMF challenge that was also inspired by the birth of my second great-granddaughter.
I wish I could find a photo of my California WildFire inspired soap that I made while visiting my son a few years ago, perhaps because I don't remember which year that was. There have been so many wildfires in California for the past several years and I have been there for so many of them, that I can't keep track of which ones I made soap during and which ones I did not make an event-inspired soap, so suffice it to say that those soaps exist or existed (they may all be gone by now), but I cannot find the images.
Here is a video of another soaper who also made a soap inspired by Hurricane Irma, just as an example:
If other members have examples of soap they have made or seen posted that were made to commemorate their own life events or weather events, please feel free to share here as examples. A little backstory is always welcome, so please include if you post an example.
Please read the general rules (there have been some changes lately, so really, PLEASE READ THEM) and the challenge specific rules below and let’s have some soapy fun!
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 interrupt our plans, 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.
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- Competition entries must be uploaded to the separate entry thread before the closing date. Please include a little backstory about the event that inspired your entry.
- The entry thread will open on September 24 at 1:00pm GMT (Please follow the challenge specific rules as to what you need to enter).
- After the closing date on September 28 at 1:00pm GMT the winning entry will be chosen using Survey Monkey. Voting will be open from September 28-30 and the winner will be announced on September 31. 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 onto 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, Create soaps including a design element(s) related to a significant weather event you have experienced. As an alternative to a weather event, you may choose a life event such as birth, death, marriage, graduation, etc. as the basis for your design.
2. Use any type of mold, solid soap making method and technique, except that if you choose an individual mold, the design element cannot be solely the shape of the mold, but must include additional design such as swirl(s) and colors.
3. Include at least 1 bar of soap from your batch in your entry photo. You may include multiple bars in your entry photo, but all must be from the same batch.
Here are some examples of Soaps made that were inspired by Major Weather events:
Hurricane Irma in 2017, which altered our travel plans that particular year. Although I did not experience that particular Hurricane first-hand, I have done with others prior to this one, which is one reason we altered our travel plans.
Baby Girl (Hidden Heart) soap that I made for another SMF challenge that was also inspired by the birth of my second great-granddaughter.
I wish I could find a photo of my California WildFire inspired soap that I made while visiting my son a few years ago, perhaps because I don't remember which year that was. There have been so many wildfires in California for the past several years and I have been there for so many of them, that I can't keep track of which ones I made soap during and which ones I did not make an event-inspired soap, so suffice it to say that those soaps exist or existed (they may all be gone by now), but I cannot find the images.
Here is a video of another soaper who also made a soap inspired by Hurricane Irma, just as an example:
If other members have examples of soap they have made or seen posted that were made to commemorate their own life events or weather events, please feel free to share here as examples. A little backstory is always welcome, so please include if you post an example.
