Local Yocal Ingredients - Special Soaps Using Special Ingredients

Using local ingredients adds a holistic approach when making handmade soap.  Not only does it feel great to use your own soap in the shower when you're supporting your local businesses or using ingredients from your own garden.  When someone purchases your soap with local ingredients, it adds an element that many who seek the pure, the handmade, love to see special ingredients added to a soap.  Why?  Perhaps it stops a piece of their vacation in time, like if you added sand to your soap and sold it where people typically come to escape the ice storms up north.  Then when they take it back home and use it, it brings them back to the town they loved so much and brings them a sense of relaxation.  I know when I visit an area that is new for me, I love to see local artisan's work, especially when they incorporate their immediate environment's elements.

We had a challenge called LocalYocals and it challenged all the soap makers to incorporate a local ingredients into their soap.  I thought it would keep people thinking about ingredients and how simple one local ingredient could transform a regular soap into a gem.

We had some great entries with unique ingredients!  Here are some to give you an idea of what YOU can do to spark it  up.


Curtis Hayden used multiple ingredients from his area in Charleston, South Carolina:

Basic Beach by Curtis Hayden

"This soap features a cold pressed juice from my local juice shop Huriyali which gets the majority of its produce from local farms. The juice is their "Aloe-Ha" juice consisting of raw unpasteurized coconut water, raw local honey, and much more! I don't see how I could get more local than that! But then I figured out a way to get even more local, I used sand from one of the local beaches I go to all the time on the bottom of the soap!! Scented with 3 different scents and made with a lot of love! The juice shop is actually featuring this soap in their store and the pictures I am featuring of the soap were taken at their store!"

Bhakti Iyata lives in Phoenix, Arizona and used her local ingredients:

Desert Flower Soap by Bhakti Iyata 

"Desert Flower Soap, made with Prickly Pear Cactus Extract (Prickly Pear Products, LLC Mesa, Arizona) and scented with Cactus Flower FO. Hand molded flowering cactus and little hummingbirds on top."

Leanne Timm-Chevallier lives in Southwest France and used THREE local ingredients!

Soap by Leanne Timm-Chevallier

 "Love this challenge ! For the Local Ingredient challenge, I used local organic french green lentils from a farmer down the road here in SW France.... I also used local Duck Fat.  Makes a nice scrubby soap. Colour is Chlorophyll powder."

There were so many good entries......great soaps, but I can only choose a few to feature.  Thank you everyone, for trying out new ingredients!  It always feels like you all take these challenges to heart and that makes me happy.  :D

We will be taking a break from Challenges until well after the holidays, but I'll be back with some beautiful pictures as I spot them.  So keep it real and send me pictures anytime!  Maybe YOU will be featured in my Soap Porn!  Send pics of YOUR soaps to me at joannaschmidt@live.com.  Leave your name, email, where you live and if you'd like to share, ingredients you used.   Have a great Thanksgiving holiday and stay clean!

xox Joanna

Proud Of My Peeps

We are all busy with life.  I know it now more than any other time in my life.  Starting Mad Oils has been the hardest and most challenging life change I've ever made.  Busy, busy, busy.  I work way more than I should, but things need to get done and so hours fly by... and the great thing is: I love my job!  I DO know about time limitations and the fleeting moments in my life that I take to focus inward.  Everyone's life is filled, but you took the time and dug.

The idea for the latest Soap Challenge was memory based and certainly emotional.  It required you to dig deep, remembering experiences from the past and somehow translating your memories into a planned, colorful soap.  This type of challenge begins to extract parts of you that need to be tapped into.  It helps an artist translate a memory or feeling into something tangible; whatever the medium.  This challenge was for creating a "Colorful Memories" soap and the entries were posted on the Soap Challenge Gallery on Facebook.  The challenge was to take a fond memory and translate it into soap, whether literally or in an abstract way.

I'm very proud of you for trying this very difficult task.  I think this may have been the hardest one I've thrown at you, so kudos to you for attempting it!!  I'm also going to guess that you feel a bit proud of yourself as well.  And you should be.

The winner of this #colorfulmemories challenge is:  
Mandy Oian Davis, of Minnesoapah Handcrafted Soap

Well done, Mandy!  Your translation was spot on and I was transformed back to that night with you as you told the story.

Mandy explains her inspiration for this design:

"Every summer weekend of my childhood was spent at my great aunts cabin on a lake. Unless it was pouring rain, this meant bonfires on Friday and Saturday nights. We had two spots, one up by the field to the rear of the cabin, and one down on the lake shore. I remember so many nights of playing under the stars until exhaustion would take over myself and my many cousins and we would gravitate towards the bonfire and the adults. Great Auntie Bev always had a stack of quilts, and she would lay them on the ground, inviting us to crawl in and rest, then tell us stories and sing us songs while we stared at the fire. To this day, I am mesmerized by the dancing flames of a bonfire.

I used chunks of an old soap to make the "logs" and worked to do a hanger swirl only half way down to make the flames jump and dance. It is scented with Witching Hour, the combo of cinnamon, smoke, and the patchouli is so wonderful with the idea of the fire and the handmade quilts that were stored in a cedar chest. Thanks for this challenge, it was fun to come up with the idea and translate it into soap! "

Runner Up

 Curtis Hayden, of Haus of Hayden

Wow, Curtis, you put so much thought into this soap and your description sounds so fun.  What a special time in your life, now in tangible form for you to share, use, look at....  Way to go!

 Curtis says this about his soap creation:

"This soap had A LOT of thought put into it so forgive me for going into such depth. One of the BEST times of my life and the BEST memories came from my trip to Europe! I was able to explore so many different countries and do so much that I never thought I would be able to do! This soap represents my trip as a whole! The title is "The Edge of Germany" which is a reference to "The Edge of Glory" which was my song that played everywhere throughout Europe. I fell in LOVE with Germany which is why there is the German flag in the middle and also as a Mica top came from! The colors as a whole represent me having pride in the fact that I am German but also the fact that I went to gay pride in Germany!! Individually these colors also stand for things as well! The Red=London telephone booths/buses. Blue=Jumping into the Bay of Monaco. Green=The apartment we stayed in London had NEON green balconies. Yellow=The Eiffel tower lighting up at night. Purple=Regular trips to parliament and such (the chairs were purple). Pink=Going to the Nicki Minaj concert in Berlin. Orange= Sunsets in Switzerland. Also since I was going for a German themed soap of course it had to be beer based and have German Chamomile essential oil!! And the center smells like Spiced Ale while all the colors are super citrusy and uplifting because every time I think back on all the fun I had it makes me super happy! And I wanted all the colors to intertwine because in my mind the entire trips memories flowed one into another. I hope you enjoy my entry and thank you for taking the time to read all my crazy inspiration that went into this!!"

I enjoyed every single photo entry along with the amazing stories of your memories.  I feel blessed that you have decided to share with me and that you involve yourself with these challenges.  I want to thank ALL of you for participating and being a part of this piece of history.  Our history.

I hope you do this for you and not just for "the challenge".  These challenges are meant to open up your artistic passages so you can breathe again and see things you stopped seeing or never saw before.

I raise my coffee cup to all of you and, MAN (!!),  I am a proud challenge-giver-blogger-woman-soaper this month....

Mwuah!

Love, Joanna

xxoo

Location Is Everything - A Soap Challenge About Your Locale

You people never cease to amaze me with the beauty you create.  Some of the entries were downright amazing but I can only name one winner and one runner up.  Over the years, I have found more joy than you know, seeing your soap creations and what you take from the soap or photo challenges I have offered you.  It brings me such happiness when you stop for a few moments in the madness of your lives and really think of the challenge.  I know down deep, you know you can take on each challenge, because you will try new things and learn new things (scary things) through self discovery, whether or not your final piece comes out the way you want it or not.  Many of my major flops were my biggest learning experiences, which is unfortunate sometimes, but true nonetheless.

Many of you just lurk, but one day, perhaps you will share with us.  If you do play along but don't post your pictures, then I can only hope that this blog has inspired a piece of you to think outside the box and expand your artistic expression.

This challenge was to evaluate your physical surroundings, whether it was your street, neighborhood, city, rural landscape, anything and recreate it in a design through soap and explain it.

Mad Oils has sponsored this challenge.  Mad Oils is giving a $50 surprise gift set to the winner and a $25 surprise gift set to the runner up.  FUN!!

This is the hardest challenge I've had to choose a winner.  There are so many really thoughtful, planned out, gorgeous soaps that you all made.  There wasn't one bad one!  I am so proud of every one of you who tried this challenge.  I feel like you really did DIG DEEP.

UGH...This is seriously hard.

The Winner for this challenge is Kimberly MC with her NYC skyline at night!

"This is my first time doing a challenge and I'm happy it's this one. I grew up in New York City. Once in a while, if you're lucky and on the right side of the East River, you'll catch a beautiful cloudy, red sunset that reflects into the water. Those are the days that you find yourself seeing more than dirt stained concrete and man made towers. You realize that even in the concrete jungle, nature somehow finds a way to share her beauty. Scented with leather and colored with activated charcoal and blends of micas, this soap is my way of saying I Love New York."  - Kimberly

Kimberly:  As you know, I am also a NY girl, and this "scene" you created I've seen a million times.  It's very well executed, the colors are perfect and it is structured without being too unnatural and flows without being messy.  Great job.


The Runner Up for this challenge is Cin Dee Rella with her piece of South Dakota!

"GRASSLANDS OF SOUTH DAKOTA U.S.A. My entry is based on my overall description of S.D. I was born and raised in a big city in CT. so when my husband proposed moving to Lemmon S.D. I looked at the map and gasped they won't even have chocolate up there , I can't live like that. We moved, and I fell in love with the emptiness. At first nothing from my previous life was as scary as being out in the middle of NOWHERE with nothing, no house, tree, bird, dog, NOTHING for a 100 mile radius.  GRASSLAND dominates the state hence my entry which nearly ended up in the trash as my batch was too brittle to play with. It is colored with spinach powder & parsley, the dirt portion is coffee grounds."   - Cin Dee Rela

Cin Dee Rela:  This was a very unique interpretation of your locale.  Kudos to you for thinking outside of the box on this one.  It is not only very good, but a rare piece that shall remain on this blog for years to come.  :)



Kimberly will receive a $50 surprise gift and Cin Dee Rella will receive a $25 surprise gift from Mad Oils.  Please send me an email jo(at)madoils(dot)com to give me all of your information so we can send it your way!

Thank you to everyone who worked so hard for this challenge and every challenge we have done together.  I am proud of you! 

Here are a few other entries that didn't make the top two, but made it hard for me...

Carla Hughes of Smyrna Beach, FL

Curtis Hayden of Charleston, SC

Gorill Olsen who dreams of coming to the USA one day

Carma La of Minnesota

If you haven't been chosen, keep your chin up.  Don't let this get you down.  One of these challenges will be the one where you will shine.  Lots of love xoxo Joanna

Until the next Challenge!  If you have not joined our challenge gallery group on facebook and would like to, please join us:  SOAP CHALLENGE GALLERY


Love, JO

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 )