What happened?? That's s big batch ....
So, it turned out to not be a fail after all! Photo below.
What I planned: a layer colored with turmeric, an AC pencil line, and a layer colored with paprika. I knew I need to get to medium-ish trace, to keep the pencil line intact. I measured out my EOs, orange and rosemary. I reached trace, kept going a bit more, and when I decided it was the right consistency, added my EOs.
Then all of a sudden I decided just one of each color wasn’t enough, so I grabbed two more pour pitchers and added more turmeric and paprika. I stirred my soap batter to incorporate the EOs, and started portioning the batter into my 4 pitchers. I FORGOT citrus oils accelerates trace. So my first “pour” was gloopy. I grabbed a spoon to spread it out. Second “pour” was more of a coaxing out of the pitcher, but it was spreadable. I sprinkled on my AC, and went for my third pitcher. It was solid! I had to scoop it out and smear it around to get it into an even-ish layer. Well this smeared the AC everywhere, so by now I was getting discouraged. I SCRAPED my last pitcher and it was so hard I had to punch it down with my gloves fist! I flattened it best I could, I looked at it, and I sighed. Well that was a waste of good oils and my time! The turmeric mixed with the ac and was just muddy looking. It was uneven. There were globs. One of my sides lost the parchment paper liner, so I was sure I was going to have to scrape this batch out, maybe even chisel it!
I went to put my daughter to bed. As I laid there, I wondered if it could be unmolded already, since it accelerated. I wondered what would become of it. She fell asleep, and I wandered back into the kitchen and unmolded my slab (an hour after pouring).
Ok, I think. It’s holding together, let’s just take a peak. So I cut into it... it’s the perfect texture for my knife to slide through, no sticking, no crumbling. I cut the slab into loaves. I cut the loaves into bars. I. Am. Excited. These are actually looking pretty good!
I managed to get 30 bars out of my “disaster,” and I have learned many lessons from this batch. Photo included below: