I was so honored to be invited to be a speaker at the 19th Annual Alabama Soap Meeting on June 9-10 in Prattville, Alabama. The Alabama Soap & Candle Association (ASCA) asked me to demonstrate a design technique and have a challenge for their members. As members signed up to attend the Meeting, they were given the opportunity to sign up to participate in the challenge, and 18 people decided to take the challenge! I sent them all the video tutorial and written instructions for the Spin Swirl technique on May 1st so they would have a little more than five weeks to prepare their soaps. Bramble Berry provided everything I needed for my demo, so all the large items then became prizes! Grand Prize was the 18-bar slab mold with dividers (plus free registration to next year’s meeting from the ASCA), second place received the KD-7000 scale, and third place was the new Bramble Berry stick blender.

The entries were submitted anonymously so that no one knew who made them except me:

Each person who registered for the meeting (which was around 100 people) was given a ballot to place ONE vote for their favorite entry. The great part about doing a challenge in person is being able to smell the soaps as well as see the designs. Here are the winning soaps:

I also gave honorable mention and a free 3-month registration to the Soap Challenge Club for July, August and September to three other entries for their outstanding spin swirl designs. Congratulations to Jeanette Cotton, Steve Hulsey, and Jen Merk:

One of my favorite parts about doing soap challenges is hearing participants tell me that they did something they hadn’t done before because of the challenge. There are three participants from the Alabama challenge who had first time experiences, including Lenea Martel who makes hot process soaps exclusively. She made her first cold process soap for this challenge:

This is Gloria Orr. She used colors in her soap for the first time!

And this is Angel Dobs. She’s been making soap for over 35 years, and this was the first time she had ever made soap in a slab mold!

Yes, soap challenges are fun! Yes, they might push you out of your comfort zone or help you try something new. And yes, I absolutely love helping soapmakers learn new things and have fun making new techniques! Thank you, ASCA, for giving me the opportunity to teach some new tricks!