Like some of y'all I was stylin' from head to toe in my homemade Hazmat suit the first time I ever made soap, too. It was a huge production- I mixed my lye out in the backyard with hubby, son and mother-in-law (who came over to watch) standing at a safe distance with camera in hand. When I poured the lye solution into my oils I had butterflies in my stomach and felt like someone must feel parachuting out of a plane for the first time or something. 
My biggest soaping failures were with my first and second soaps (glad I got the two biggest soaping disasters one could have out of the way right up front. Whew!). For my first soap I followed a recipe online, which ended up lye heavy (this was before I found SoapCalc). Had to toss it. My second batch was not lye heavy, but I made a stupid, silly weighing mistake when I confused the weight of one oil for another. Anyway, in the end, after I had figured out where I had gone wrong, I found that I was actually in posession of a soap that contained 25% canola which had a 23% superfat. :shock: I know, I know- one of the worst combinations one can have in a soap! It was a three pound batch and I had to throw it all away a couple of months down the road when it came down with the dreaded DOS.
Another batch I had to toss was the infamous kitchen scrubby soap I made about a year ago or so with kiwi seeds. Can you say 'OUCH?'! :shock: It was an absolutely beautiful soap colored to a beautiful shade of pastel yellow with a beautiful lemon geranium scent, but in the end it was nothing but a cruel beauty. Using it was like washing with nails or thumbtacks or something. Washing should not have to be that painful! Nobody wanted to use that soap, and I didn't feel right sending it to Clean The World, so I tossed it.
Another lesson I learned from was the first ever time I masterbatched my lye a couple of years ago. I learned the hard way that it's not good to store lye solution in a PETE #1 container. After about a week or so the plastic started to break down and a small hole appeared near the bottom of the container allowing the solution to slowly leak out. Thankfully, I noticed it before it became anything major. I now store it in HDPE.
IrishLass
My biggest soaping failures were with my first and second soaps (glad I got the two biggest soaping disasters one could have out of the way right up front. Whew!). For my first soap I followed a recipe online, which ended up lye heavy (this was before I found SoapCalc). Had to toss it. My second batch was not lye heavy, but I made a stupid, silly weighing mistake when I confused the weight of one oil for another. Anyway, in the end, after I had figured out where I had gone wrong, I found that I was actually in posession of a soap that contained 25% canola which had a 23% superfat. :shock: I know, I know- one of the worst combinations one can have in a soap! It was a three pound batch and I had to throw it all away a couple of months down the road when it came down with the dreaded DOS.
Another batch I had to toss was the infamous kitchen scrubby soap I made about a year ago or so with kiwi seeds. Can you say 'OUCH?'! :shock: It was an absolutely beautiful soap colored to a beautiful shade of pastel yellow with a beautiful lemon geranium scent, but in the end it was nothing but a cruel beauty. Using it was like washing with nails or thumbtacks or something. Washing should not have to be that painful! Nobody wanted to use that soap, and I didn't feel right sending it to Clean The World, so I tossed it.
Another lesson I learned from was the first ever time I masterbatched my lye a couple of years ago. I learned the hard way that it's not good to store lye solution in a PETE #1 container. After about a week or so the plastic started to break down and a small hole appeared near the bottom of the container allowing the solution to slowly leak out. Thankfully, I noticed it before it became anything major. I now store it in HDPE.
IrishLass
