Wall Pour Winners
January 2025 Soap Challenge
A wall pour is simply pouring fluid soap back and forth along one of the long sides of your loaf mold. There are so many types of designs you can achieve with this technique – and we covered FOUR of them this month! The regular category did a simple striping technique, pouring alternating colors, one at a time. The advanced category could choose between the One Pot Wonder or a wood grain design. The winners category was tasked with creating seamless ombre designs without any visible lines, which proved more difficult than anticipated!
If you’re interested in the specifics of the One Pot Wonder, wood grain, or ombre techniques (key concepts in the Oasis Swirl tutorial), you can find them in our Tutorial Shop. The main key to all of these designs; however, is the ability to control trace. In case you missed it, I added a new tutorial on how to control trace recently if you need assistance with this fundamental skill for cold process soapmaking.
Starting in 2025, the structure of our categories has changed just a little. The regular category is now focused on becoming a better soapmaker. No matter how long you’ve been making soap, if you haven’t qualified for the winners category you can enter this one. The prize for the top 3 voted winners is a choice between one-month registration fee or one tutorial from a past challenge to encourage more learning!
The top 3 voted winners in the advanced and winners categories will receive prizes from our sponsor of the month – this time it’s fan favorite Custom Craft Tools! They are driven by their passion to create high quality, innovative soap making tools. Each item is manufactured in-house, meaning they don’t do business with second-party manufacturers. Every mold or cutter is 100% designed and produced by hand in their workshop in Charleston, South Carolina, with world-wide shipping available! Grand prize winners will receive $100 gift certificates, second place gets $75, and third place gets $50. Woo hoo!!!
Winners Category
Grand Prize
Fade Into Spring
Second Place
Twilight Garden
Recognition Awards
Best Technique
Criteria Seamless ombre without any visible lines
Name Brigid Allen
Location New Zealand
Link Instagram
Fresh
Best Presentation
Criteria Well displayed soap with interesting presentation and excellent photography (focus, lighting, etc)
Name Peech Keller
Location Colorado
Link Instagram
Reflections
Best Use of Color
Criteria Well-mixed, contrasting colors in a beautiful color palette
Name Julie DeNicola
Location Florida
Link Instagram
Mountain Sunrise
Advanced Category
We can only have three voted winners, but I have done recognition awards for each of the techniques – One Pot Wonder and Wood Grain.
Grand Prize
Citrus Forest
Second Place
Name Fiona Bougourd
Location Guernsey, Channel Islands
Link none
Prize $75 gift certificate
Oakey Soapy
Third Place
Chinook Sunset
Recognition Awards – One Pot Wonder
Best Technique
Ethereal Swirls
Best Presentation
Criteria Well displayed soap with interesting presentation and excellent photography (focus, lighting, etc)
Name Christine Young
Location South Carolina
Link Instagram
Be the Rainbow
Best Use of Color
Criteria Well-mixed, contrasting colors in a beautiful color palette
Name Fran McMullen
Location Connecticut
Link Instagram
Earth Meets Sky
Recognition Awards – Wood Grain
Best Technique
Criteria Realistic wood grain pattern
Name Amanda Hamm
Location Virginia
Link none
Frosty Winter Wood
Best Presentation
Criteria Well displayed soap with interesting presentation and excellent photography (focus, lighting, etc)
Name Alice Bui
Location Canada
Link Instagram
Wood You?
Best Use of Color
Criteria Well-mixed, contrasting colors in a beautiful color palette
Name Dana Gabel
Location Montana
Link none
Blue Pine
Regular Category
Grand Prize
Sunflower Fields
Second Place
Name Michele Moreno
Location Texas
Link none
Prize $75 gift certificate
Sunkissed Starburst
Recognition Awards
Best Technique
Criteria Fluid pours with crisp lines, layers flow across
Name Jeanne Decker
Location Michigan
Link none
Pink Grapefruit
Best Presentation
Criteria Well displayed soap with interesting presentation and excellent photography (focus, lighting, etc)
Name Raquel B
Location Texas
Link blog
Texas Sunset
Best Use of Color
Criteria Well-mixed, contrasting colors in a beautiful color palette
Name Jen Smock
Location Missouri
Link Instagram
In a World Full of Solids, Be a Stripe
Great job to all our winners, as well as everyone else who participated in the challenge this month! If you would like to see the rest of the entries, check out these links.
We’re moving on to the February challenge on Monday! Hope you’ll join us as guest teacher and sponsor Amy Bautista of Elysian Acres Soap teaches us how to use impression mats to elevate our soap designs! Registration fee for February only is $16.95, or you can save 10% by signing up for February through April for just $45.75.
Check out the Upcoming Challenges page for more details and sign up to be notified as soon as registration opens! Here’s one of the three soaps Amy will be demonstrating in the video tutorial: