I measured my lye and I paused to see where I was at and the scale stopped at 6.66oz...I shook my head and just knew the day wasn't going to go well. I then went to melt my oils and I tripped the breaker so no microwave, and worse yet....no coffee maker! So things are now on hold until The Hubs gets home from work, luckily his days start at dawn so he would be home soon. When he got home we decided to go out to lunch...a good mental regroup. When we got home I started right in with our sweet pea and rhubarb soap....
I tried something new...don't ask...it was soooo not working so I just tried to salvage a swirl in each section because I had already inserted the dividers. grrrrr
Up next was bay rum....just what I needed, a no color no frill soap. This fragrance oil will seize on me so I add the fragrance oil after I bring it to a light trace, and this one went nice and smooth.
Last for today is the one I was most looking forward to...there is always one in the bunch I am more excited about than the others. This is an unscented soap with pumpkin puree. I added pumpkin puree to my cooled oils at the ratio of one oz per pound of oils...and this batch has 24oz of oils so I added 1.5oz of pumpkin, and subtracted that amount of water when I mixed my lye earlier.
This puppy was one slow tracer. I didn't want a ton of air bubbles with so much stick blending so I kept alternating with hand stirring. Finally poured this wonderful natural smelling soap into the mold and I thought I would try one of those fabulous textured tops I see soapers do. You can see how far I got. I had the kitchen all cleaned up and my batter was still too soft and by this point I was too tired to continue to wait, so I called it good and put it to bed.
Side note of my added frustration...while I was soaping The Hubs went out to weed eat the jungle the rain has caused. He told me something has dug a hole under the fence (most likely the coyote stalking lil pup)...I open the blind to look...and we discover our bedroom window is shattered, a rock from the weed eater must have kicked up...I just knew this day wasn't going to be good...but in the end I soaped safely and its just a window...it could be worse.
(update: the next day Baby Girls boyfriend found his back window cracked from the weed eater as well....oopsie! Expensive day for The Hubs)
So how did our soaps come out?
The sweet pea & rhubarb (above) and the Bay Rum (below) came out nicely.
And what about the punkin soap?...I love it!! Now...as much as I love it, I don't think I will gel it when I make it again. I had some extra batter left over that I poured into another mold that I left uncovered on the counter and as you can see in the picture below, the color is a nice rich yellow, which I think I prefer better. What do you think?
1 comment:
They all turned out beautifully! I think you really triumphed over all the little glitches you were thrown your way! I usually try to keep my soaps from gelling too, but I do like the way the gelling made your pumpkin soap a deeper color in this case. Pumpkin soap is one of my all-time faves! :)
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