I Am The (Soap) Re-Animator!

Source

Okay, I'm a little over dramatic, but you should be used to that by now. One of my favorite horror flicks is Re-Animator. It's one of the sickest, grossest movies I've ever seen, and I LOVE IT! The premise of the movie is this med student tries to bring his dead professor back to life, and he does, but not without all hell, literally, breaking loose. I encourage you to check it out if you love blood, guts, gore, and humor. So WTF does this have to do with soap you may ask. Well, very simply, I brought these dead-ass bars back to life by re-batching them. It's the same premise...

Cinnamon Buns after un-molding. Beautiful, aint it?

For the record, I am SO DONE with sodium lactate. I followed the rules to the letter, and my bars turn out so hard that they're brittle and crumbly as evidenced by these sapsuckers! I used about 2 tsp of sodium lactate and added it to my water before I added the lye. I don't know what went wrong, but never fear...

Cut and crumbled...

'Scuse the bad pic

I grated these biyotches up so nicely. It was actually very cathartic. I was tempted to make soap balls with them, but I decided to stick with the original plan. There's not a whole lot more to say, so I'll let the pics speak for themselves. So, while writing this post, I've decided that I'm the Re-Batchinator. It looks more like hot processed soap than re-batched. Either way, it works...

Sliced and revived...I'm thinking of "glazing" them with some white M&P soap.

DISASTER!!!!

I've been reading all these wonderful things about sodium lactate and how it makes for a hard bar of soap, blah, blah. Okay, I'm gonna try me some-o-that! Then I read how adding sodium lactate to hot process soap makes the soap look "smoother" almost as if it were cold processed. SOLD! And here's the result:

Did I use too much sodium lactate? This is a 2 pound batch, and I used about a tablespoon and a half. The soap is all crumbly. If I handle it for more than a minute, it will shatter into pieces, but it smells great! I scented it in Clean Cotton-very fresh, reminiscent of the summers when my grandmother would hang her laundry on the outside clothesline. She still actually does hang her clothes to dry, but she can't hang 'em outside anymore because people will steal her clothes (sad, but true...)

All is not lost because I've made a new batch-same scent but a completely different look. This time I omitted the sodium lactate and I CPOP'ed it. I'll make the reveal early next week once I cut them.

Not Quite How I Envisioned It....

Top

Bottom

I wanted this soap to be a bright, obnoxious shade of pink, but I obviously did not use enough raspberry pop oxide.I scented these flowers in Perfect Peony. I have plenty of that fragrance so I just may try again, but I can't help to be disappointed at the outcome. I think I'll try again and relegate these to the Family Fug...

The Fruits of My Labor...All Shot To Sh....

Happy Labor Day!

Since I had a 3-day weekend away from working for the man, I decided to take the plunge and make my first cold process salt bar. It looked fantastic in the mold (why didn't I take a picture??). It was a lovely shade of pale pink and it smelled divine-very floral and feminine. Then I cut it, and this is what I got:

Chopped and screwed soap! In my research, I read that the soap sets up fast-okay, I get that. What I didn't realize is that I should have sliced the soap immediately after it did set. After about 2.5 hours in the mold, it was rock-hard. As I cut the first slice, it literally crumbled-f#%$%! As I cut the second slice, it crumbled worst than the first-sh#%$! And so on, and so on, and so on....

Thank goodness this was merely a test batch. Lesson learned? Don't make salt bars in loaf molds. I'm sticking with my individual cavity silicone molds thank-you-very-much. One of my FB fans told me I had instant soap samples, and you know what? She's right! I'll be giving these away with every order til they're all gone, and that's about 20 orders' worth! Now back to the salt mines....

You Wanna See A Hot Mess?

Shoshoni commented on my post the other day about a tutorial that I'll be doing soon, and she said that her first attempt at soap making was a hot mess! That made me laugh out loud because "I stumbled on this photograph. It kinda made me laugh. It took me way back. Back down memory lane..." Okay, I couldn't resist for all you Minnie Ripperton fans (myself included). I thought I'd share a pic of my 2nd batch of soap that I made. Whooo! I so wanted this to turn out well. The scent was Cherry Meringue Bites by Day Star Supplies, and it smelled so delicious. Well, you live and learn. I've yet to buy that scent again. I'm still haunted by the memories of this soap. So here it is in all it's glory: Cherry Meringue Frights, I mean Bites!

Grapefruit Lily Soap: Which Version Do You Prefer?

Before I go into the tale of my soapmaking disaster, I'd like to officially welcome all of my new followers. Thank you and welcome to the madness! You'll never know what to expect on any given day. This blog has been so cathartic for me.....okay, now I'm rambling, see what I mean?

Getting back to the soap: I bought this fragrance Grapefruit Lily on a whim from Brambleberry about a year ago, not knowing if I'd love it or hate it. I'm not a floral gal at all. I like earthy, fruity, or foody scents. Anyway, I was still very new to making cold processed soap, and this was probably my third or fourth batch, but only my second successful one. I did no research on color or anything. I had some pink Peacock Dye and said to myself, okay, grapefruit is pink, so I'll go with pink. I attempted to do a swirl which looked great on the top, but I didn't hold my pour high enough, so it didn't go all the way to the bottom. When I cut the soap, only the bottom of it was swirled. It's quite hilarious now that I've gotten better and more confident in my soapmaking, but a year ago, I thought this was the best looking soap on the planet!



I actually have a few small wedges of this batch left. I absolutely love this scent! It's so fresh and not overly-floral. It's definitely more flowery than grapefruit-y, but it's the perfect balance. So how could I possible improve on perfection? Remember those oxides I told you about a few posts ago? I decided to try them, and I actually had a plan, but of course I screwed it all up! When I think of lily, two things come to mind: my grandmother, Lily, and Calla Lily. I think those are the most beautiful flowers ever, but I didn't want another pink and "white" soap. I googled "lily" and found this beautiful tiger lily. BINGO! Not only was a beautiful shade of orange, but it would be the perfect excuse if my colorant speckled. I'd pass it off as Grapefruit Tiger Lily Soap. I can barely contain myself as I write this because I goofed this soap up so badly...

First of all, I stirred too long, so my trace was a lot thicker than I wanted it to be before I separated the batch in two. I chose a brick red oxide and a pink oxide-I love pink, and I love pink grapefruit. When I reached the desired trace, I separated the batch so that I color one half reddish-orange, and the other half pink. Being the overzealous person that I am, I colored half of my batch and proceeded to stir it in, when "#(#*(*&!%" I FORGOT TO ADD THE MICA!!! I knew I was doomed because my soap was already at a decent trace, and I knew once I added that mica I would have to zap it some more with my stick blender, but I did it anyway. I was determined to have two-toned soap! All it took was about 3 zaps, and half of my soap batch was as thick as cake frosting. I glopped it in my mold and spread it evenly as if I were frosting a cake because that's basically what it was at this point. I colored the other half of the soap which was still pretty liquid and very pourable. I never scent my accent color. When I poured it over the soap "frosting", it was disastrous. I made the further mistake of trying to swirl it. What I should have done was left it as it by having the red/orange soap sit on top of the pink soap to give it a layered look. Well, here's the finished result:



In my defense, it looks a lot better in person than it does in these pics. I also used a straight cutter (why?) to detail my swirl-challenged skills. You know what though? I kinda like it. It smells really good. The grapefruit is really strong, but I expect it to mellow out once it's fully cured. I also have to say that I'm really liking these oxides and ultramarines. They didn't really speckle, and had I done the right thing, the colors would have been a lot prettier. The first batch was made with palm, coconut, olive, and castor oils. The new batch was made with olive, rice bran, sweet almond, and coconut oils, and shea, mango, and cocoa butters. These are the most ingredients I've ever used in a soap. I can't wait to try this one. I'll keep you posted!

The Jury Is Still Out

I forgot to mention that I finally got the lye! I was so excited that I could barely contain myself. So of course, I had to make soap, but I aint happy ya'll! This was supposed to be my comeback soap, LOL, but it tanked. It's scented in Black Currant & Nectarine. It smells heavenly, but it reminds me of a block of solid, creamy peanut butter. I'm really pissed because I used the crappy soap colorants that I bought from that supplier I swore I'd never use again. My intent was to swirl this soap orange and dark magenta, but this batch refused to accept the colors. I'm going to let it cure and see what happens. The one saving grace with this soap is the cool peaks on the top of it-pure luck-my soap had started to set as soon as I added the FO. I'm gonna stick with this one. Maybe I'll add a new category called Ucking Fugly. This would be Ucking Fugly II!





update: I haven't even posted this and the soap is growing on me!

I'm So Disappointed....

Don't you hate it when you order something in what you think is enough time, but it doesn't arrive when you need or want it to? Well, that happened to me, and I'm a little disappointed for more reasons than one. I was approached by a very popular soap blog to do a tutorial for one of my creations, and I was so gung-ho and ready because I knew in the time that my "assignment" was due, I'd have all of the materials for my project. Lesson to you and to me: DON'T ASSUME ANYTHING! I'm too verklempt to continue...I'll talk to ya'll later.

Strawberry Don't Like Me!

But I love you, strawberry. You're my favorite fruit, okay, you come a close second to cherries, but why won't you behave in my soap???? This is my second attempt at making a strawberry-themed soap, and there's nothing wrong with it technically. It just reminds me of a loaf of bologna. It smells pretty good too. I should have used my trusty crinkle cutter!

What's in this bologna? Let's see: A little pig's ear, foot, and rump. Oops, that's real bologna. I made this batch with olive oil, palm oil, and coconut oil-the three basic soap oils. I had every intention of using my beloved log mold, but I must not have screwed a peg in tightly enough, because no sooner than I poured it, the damn thing started leaking all my "batter" out. FORTUNATELY, I had this oval loaf mold lined for another job. I was able to save 95% of it. That should have been my clue, but I am an optimist. I have a feeling that I'm going to end up using my crinkler to slice the smooth edges off. I just don't like the way this soap looks. Stay tuned for my next masterpiece.....

WTF????

I try to keep my posts as "family friendly" as possible, but some crazy shyte happened to this soap, and I need some answers. I used what I thought was a really basic recipe-pomace olive oil, fractionated coconut oil, and Castor oil. It's a very small batch-only 32 oz total. When I added my lye solutions to the water, it almost immediately traced. I whizzed for about 30 seconds and my soap was the consistency of cake batter. It was really thick! Then it had these little white particles all throughout (lye, perhaps?) I proceeded anyway, and added about 2 oz of Pear Glace FO that I bought from Wholesale Supplies Plus. After I added the FO, the "batter" was basically set. I had to literally scrape it out of my bowl into my mold.

When I un-molded it today, it was rock-hard. When I cut the first slice, it literally crumbled as you can see in this pic. Can anyone tell me where did I go wrong, and is this soap salvageable?

SoapQuick-Day 3

Dearest Bubbleheads and Flamers,

My prediction came true-I totally ruined this batch for a number of reasons: I rushed the process because I was so eager to post to the blog. Soap making is a science. Why do I keep forgetting that? So what really went wrong? One, I don't think I measured my oils and lye properly. I've never worked with a pre-made batch of oils before, and I didn't take the time to do my calculations. Secondly, I didn't gauge my temperatures correctly. I think my oils were too warm for my lye solution, and I also think I used too much fragrance oil, and I didn't stir in my dye long enough (look at the color patches on top.) Lastly, I've got to stop using plastic to line my mold. My soap keeps seeping through the plastic and the plastic gets stuck in the "cracks." Friends, I'm not discouraged. I'm encouraged. Now that I've assessed all that went wrong, I'm going to try it again, but this time, I'm going to do it right. Here's a few pics of the soap from hell. Oh, but I have a consolation prize. Look at these cute chocolate drizzle bars I made. I'm going to be selling them on the Soap Seduction starting tomorrow. Be sure to pick up a bar or two-smells just like you're favorite candies.




BAD SOAP

GOOD SOAP