Ugly soap contest!

[Laurabolyard]

Things went from bad to worse when I did my first rebatch with my very overcooked HP!! A VERY ugly confetti, it hurts my eyes to look at it!!

 

[Kittish]

Oh my. Is that both loaves from the first pic? Of course, it may well wind up being pretty good soap after it cures, even if it is ugly. I've done worse, though, I had one rebatch I dubbed 'raw meatballs', and it wound up getting tossed because it was ugly and smelled kind of icky and was falling apart.

 

[Laurabolyard]

I have a few others that look like meatballs!! Just the crumbly loaf to the left got rebatched!! Wow, I did learn a couple of lessons, first being the added color ��

Both of those loaves in the first pic were the same recipe too! The overcooked one was done in the oven for WAY too long, the other in the crock where things happened much too quickly!!

 

[Kittish]

I have a few others that look like meatballs!! Just the crumbly loaf to the left got rebatched!! Wow, I did learn a couple of lessons, first being the added color ��

Yea, I had major problems trying to get color evenly mixed in when I made my meatballs. And I made the mistake of using a RED color. Don't use red in rebatch soaps.

How fine you can grate the soap does seem to effect how ...lumpy the rebatch looks. I've got one I did, grated very very fine and added a LOT of extra water to that actually looks even better than the original soap did.

 

[Laurabolyard]

I was hoping that would be the case here, NOT!! I actually though leaving some lumps would be interesting, since they LOOKED like they had colors, FACEPALM!! It would be almost amusing if it wasn't so painful to look at!

 

[Kittish]

Well, you can always grate it up and try again. Multiple rebatches are a thing that happens sometimes. I forget who it was, but someone here rebatched a soap six or seven times before they were happy how it looked.

You could also use that batch to experiment with the technique of salting out. There's at least one really good thread on here with instructions how to do that.

Edit: Here's one, there may also be others. http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=52103

 

[Laurabolyard]

OH!! I guess. Could just keep using this one for experimenting!! Great! Thanx! It will be fun to track its progress!

 

[SunRiseArts]

Yikes, Maybe you should have add more water? I have had success rebatching using goat or butter milk, and whipping it. Comes out very smooth.

I am very lucky to not get too many ugly ones, but I have this one for you ....

I made beautiful chocolate truffles and put a scent that I knew would turn brown, and they did not in all places. So weird. Next time just in case I will add some brown color.

 

[Laurabolyard]

Lol, Sunrise, I still win!! I actually started with coconut milk, and had all intentions of trying to whip it. I used all the coconut milk and had to start using water. I felt that I had added so much already and was kind of afraid to keep adding more! It was such a wet mess when it came out as it was!! I'm thinking that whipping would definitely have helped, but I decided to see what leaving colored chunks would do, yikes!! The chunks aren't even colored!! Oh, bad color job as well!

I wonder what color mine would end up in a re-rebatch! I certainly wouldn't add more!!

 

[Kittish]

If you rebatched again, without adding any more color, it would be a lighter shade of the teal/green/blue you've already added. Grating your soap as fine as you can will give you a more even color, though you're still going to have bits of uncolored soap because not all of it will melt.

 

[shunt2011]

One of many lessons learned during soap making. I've had a handful over the years that I wanted to face palm myself. I don't have much patience when it comes to rebatching so tried a few times and decided if it could be used I'd just use it if not it was tossed. You'll get it all figured out and be so proud of yourself. There's certainly a learning curve.

 

[earlene]

I think my ugliest soap looked like corned beef hash. The only photo I have of it is this one. It's the bottom part of the soap. After the photo, I cut and kept the top part of the soap, which I like and called Alaska Glacier soap, but the corned beef hash soap got rebatched yet again. Back when I still ate meet, I really loved corned beef hash, but as a soap it's about as ugly as can be. attachment #1

Another ugly soap was my attempt to use Wilton Icing Colorant as a soap colorant. Well that didn't work out so well at all. It looks like poorly mixed mica spots throughout the soap. attachment #2

But the worst was probably the soap I did that ended up with solid rocks of lye pebbles, the result of doing a frozen milk and lye solution and adding it to HP with disparaging temperatures (I think). attachment #3

 

[Misschief]

Rebatching isn't your only option. You could just grate it down and use it in a confetti soap. The top photo is a peppermint soap I made that went ugly.

[/url]005 by Ev Skae, on Flickr[/IMG]

I grated it down and turned it into this:

004 by Ev Skae, on Flickr

 

[dixiedragon]

Nothing beats the Spam soap somebody posted in another ugly soap thread. Earlene's middle pic is edging towards that meaty pink color, but it avoids it by a few shades.

 

[DeeAnna]

I hear of people rebatching 2 and even more times. I don't have the patience nor the interest. I'd rather sell or use the soap as-is and use my time to make new soap instead. I also question whether the repeated heating is a good idea for the soap in the long run.

I've had a batch or two that turned out to not look very nice -- soap gremlins, yanno -- but it was otherwise perfectly fine. I just used the soap as-is. One batch I sold with a full disclosure about its homely appearance and a fair discount on the price. It was snapped up pretty fast. Here's the label for my "Frank Lee Ugly" soap --

 

[amd]

I have a rebatch that looked perfectly like meatloaf. To the point that I did a photo session with it plated with "mashed potato" soap (my HP cylindrical castile soap). I bring that pic out once a year to April Fool my FB business page.

 

[Laurabolyard]

I have a rebatch that looked perfectly like meatloaf. To the point that I did a photo session with it plated with "mashed potato" soap (my HP cylindrical castile soap). I bring that pic out once a year to April Fool my FB business page.

Now THATS funny!!
My husband saw my uglies on the counter (because of the photo shoot) and LOVES them, LMAO!! To each his own I guess! I'm glad he loves it, I'll keep a few bars and use one of the former suggestions for the rest!

Rebatching isn't your only option. You could just grate it down and use it in a confetti soap. r

That was kind of a thought I had while doing this, but I went about it all wrong! I thought that leaving some colored chunks would be kind of cool. It didn't work out that way!!
Could the cut/grated stuff have been used tossed into a CP?

One batch I sold with a full disclosure about its homely appearance and a fair discount on the price. It was snapped up pretty fast. Here's the label for my "Frank Lee Ugly" soap --

I love the premise of that, but I'm wondering what it says about me that I don't find that soap ugly at all!!

my attempt to use Wilton Icing Colorant as a soap colorant. Well that didn't work out so well at all. It looks like poorly mixed mica spots throughout the soap. attachment #2

3

Pic #2, bottom right... if you put a popsicle stick in it, it would look like those strawberry shortcake ice creams!!

 

[toxikon]

I'm going to have a good addition to this thread soon...

 

[Misschief]

That was kind of a thought I had while doing this, but I went about it all wrong! I thought that leaving some colored chunks would be kind of cool. It didn't work out that way!!
Could the cut/grated stuff have been used tossed into a CP?

Absolutely. The cut/grated stuff becomes your confetti. That's what I did with my soap - simply grated down a couple of bars, threw the gratings into about half the CP soap batter, poured it into my mold, then topped it with the plain batter. It worked great! And the resulting bars are even better than the original.

 

[Laurabolyard]

Absolutely. The cut/grated stuff becomes your confetti. That's what I did with my soap - simply grated down a couple of bars, threw the gratings into about half the CP soap batter, poured it into my mold, then topped it with the plain batter. It worked great! And the resulting bars are even better than the original.

I shouldn't have been impatient because I had some pretty shards from other batches, which I just threw in with the rebatch, grrrrrr...