Saponification Sunday: Fugly Soap

Fugly…as in Freakin’ Ugly , soap is on the menu today. And there is no good excuse. No tornadoes this week to distract me. No lack of basic soaping skills (that could be debated), more so just rushing through the process again.

This soap which is fondly called Billy Bob soap is a favorite of one of my customers. Made with 4-5 colors that are to be gently spooned into the mold after scenting the soap with a great combo of Essential Oils, it is a good soap inside and out. Most of the time.

This time however…well, the inside is still good.

The outside failed me or more accurately; I failed it. I did not wait until the lye water was cool which then caused the soap to get thicker too fast. This meant that instead of gently spooning the five different colors into the mold, I ended up THROWING the soap spoonful by spoonful into the mold.

And due the concrete like consistency, I had to slam the mold hard on the counter to get the soap to settle well. The thick soap combined with the hard slams left a few air bubbles in the finished product. Not to mention the evolution of some gentle waves into some big ugly globs.

But the good news was this. The EO’s I used, a combination of lavender, lemongrass, pink grape fruit,and  amyris left the fugly soap with the same wonderful scent my Billy Bob soap always ends up with.

You would think after over three years of making soap on a weekly if not more often, basis, I would learn that rushing never results in a well crafted product.

You would think.