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 ToolsThey 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

Name Lisa Cunningham

Location England

Link Instagram

Prize $100 gift certificate

Fade Into Spring

Second Place

Name Julia Vitkovskaya

Location Russia

Link Instagram

Prize $75 gift certificate

Twilight Garden

Third Place

Name Teri Endsley

Location Indiana

Link Instagram

Prize $50 gift certificate

Light Show

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

Name Suzanne Melville

Location Sweden

Link Instagram

Prize $100 gift certificate

Citrus Forest

Second Place

Name Fiona Bougourd

Location Guernsey, Channel Islands

Link none

Prize $75 gift certificate

Oakey Soapy

Third Place

Name Candace Ford

Location Canada

Link Instagram

Prize $50 gift certificate

Chinook Sunset

Recognition Awards – One Pot Wonder

Best Technique

Criteria Thin, feathery lines between colors

Name Robin Grieco

Location Arizona

Link Instagram

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

Name Stephanie Honeycutt

Location Utah

Link Instagram

Prize $100 gift certificate

Sunflower Fields

Second Place

Name Michele Moreno

Location Texas

Link none

Prize $75 gift certificate

Sunkissed Starburst

Third Place

Name Shannen Tu

Location Taiwan

Link YouTube

Prize $50 gift certificate

Wall Pours

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: