Location Location Location!

This month's challenge is about your individual location in the world.  When I was making soap at Absolute Soap, we were asked by a local magazine, Palm Beach Illustrated, to create a bar of soap that represented Palm Beach, Florida, for their 60th Anniversary glossy magazine edition.  We gave it a lot of thought.  Palm Beach is known for some of the most expensive real estate in the country, Worth Avenue is Palm Beach's version of Hollywood's Rodeo Drive, there were cute narrow side streets with historical and tiny houses and then massive grand mansions with separate entrances for deliveries and separate buildings for the owner's staff to live.  Crazy wealth. We had plenty of ideas to represent wealth, but the idea that kept pulling at me was the beautiful blue-green ocean lining the island along beaches that are mostly untouched and pure.

Our creation for the magazine assignment turned out to be our top selling soap:  Palm Beach Illustrated soap.  Scented with a tropical sweet fruity and floral blend which matched perfectly.  This was our interpretation of Palm Beach's ocean.

 

I added ground oatmeal for my bottom layer (sand), apricot meal pencil line (crushed shells), white chopped soap embed layer (large shells and rocks), blue/green Peacock mica swirly layer (ocean) and topped with a sprinkle of Goldfinger mica (which represents the wealth all around the island).

So the challenge for you is to evaluate your surroundings, whether it's about the traffic or hustle and bustle of your city, or the scenery.  You can be as detail-oriented or as broad stroked as you want about the place you are living in right now.

When you post your pictures on the Facebook page: The Soap Challenge Group, please explain the design and how it fits with your location.  Also include #locationiseverything

The winner and runner up will be announced and posted here on this blog along with their photo, name and business name (if provided in their challenge post).

Thank you for being a part of the Soap Challenge group!  And if you haven't joined the Facebook Group, come and request to join and I will accept your request as soon as I see it!

Challenge due date:  FEBRUARY 7, 2015

I wish you all inspiration and fun on this project.  Dig deep, as I always say....

xoxo  Joanna

UPDATE:

More Than Meets The Eye Soap Challenge Winner

I try never judge my insides with other people's outsides.  Meaning: never compare how you feel on the inside to what others LOOK like they feel on the outside.

A few days ago, a friend of mine from college killed himself.  He just couldn't take the pain anymore. "He was in a black place for a long time... for years", our mutual friend told me.  I can't help but think that Facebook and other social media had something to do with multiplying the inner turmoil when he already suffered from the abyss of depression.  Social media spits out mini mouthfuls of people's lives that they choose to share.  Someone's happy selfie could be the mask behind a deeper, darker truth.

I believe this Soap Challenge came at the right time in more than one way.  The challenge was to create a soap where the outside represents how you believe you're perceived and inside how you actually feel.

I want to thank everyone who posted their photos for participating, but I'd like to remind you that this was a challenge about making your soap to reflect YOU.  Inside.  Outside.  I don't think a few of you understood the challenge.  It's okay, though.  Moving forward --------

More Than Meets The Eye Challenge Winner 

Bethany Petri of Infused

Bethany tells about her soap:  

"I am very quiet in person. Some even see me as cold/dark. But once I get to know you, and you me, and I let those barriers down, there is a world of endless discovery! I also love to reuse and re-purpose. So this soap is a complete re-batch of older batches that I had laying around. Not one new soap was used. And I always wanted to make a planetary soap and finally did!"

AND FOR THE RUNNER UP!

 

Tanya Rasley of Canard Labs

Tanya about her soap:
On the outside: Loud, Colorful, Somewhat Organized, Extraverted
But inside: Beautiful Organized Chaos. A secret introvert (blue) surrounded by creativity (green), with a touch of beauty (white), kindness (pink) and joy (yellow)

 ~~~~~~~~~~~

Thank you for putting your heart into this one.  It was a heartache for me, even though I didn't get to show you my soap.  I left it with family.  I will update.....

Peace.  And until the next time.... be yourself and don't forget to say "I love you"

Today, I dedicate everything to Greg.

All of the challenge entry photos were posted here (with the hashtag #morethanmeetstheeye )