What soapy mistake have you made today?

[Wildcraft_Garden]

I got a new scale that I was so excited to use. I made two batches and it went well.

Last night I made a custom batch I had ordered specific supplies in for a customer. The scale was acting really strange, and I was worried something was up. I replaced the batteries, and verified a few weights with my old scale (with a lower max weight, which is why I needed a new one).

Everything seemed to be going well again until I was pouring my batter into the molds. I was short, noticeably short of batter. I knew all the oils were in there but the quantities must have been off.I feared the worse and it's been confirmed this morning. Crumbly, lye heavy soap.

I need to reorder the fragrance now, and see if I can salvage some of the embeds. Boo!

 

[Steve85569]

Second attempt at the January challenge. For some reason the soap gremlins decided to have the heavy lard recipe accelerate. Nice grey swirl though.

It's still soap just not what I had planned. Back to the original thought. Make a black pour for embeds and then make a white batch.

 

[SplendorSoaps]

I have some argan oil that needs to be used soon, so I found this awesome recipe from Kenna at Modern Soapmaking the other day for an argan & avocado facial soap (http://www.modernsoapmaking.com/tutorial-argan-avocado-soap/). The recipe went really well, but I added a few grams too many of sweet basil EO to the mix, and now my soap smells far more earthy than I had anticipated. Good thing it's just for personal use, but I'm wondering how great that scent combo would have smelled if I had just had a lighter hand. That teaches me to add all the EOs to one container instead of weighing them individually!

 

[SuJac]

SuJac

It is so reassuring to find that experienced soap makers have huge fails. I am still a novice soaper and recently tried to make a "manly" soap with my own blend of essential oils. I made a test 1 lb. batch. I did a faux funnel pour using white, green and black. It turned out beautifully; problem was I forgot to add the EO's. So, on to the next batch. I used Tangerine FO as I ran out of Lemon EO, and added Tea Tree, Eucalyptus and Patchouli. Turns out I added way too much of the "herbal" scents. The whole house smelled like a hospital. And there were all these white specks in the soap. They almost look like unsaponfied lye specks. It looks great, just smells awful. So I think I'll put the idea of making my own EO blends on the back shelf and go back to using commercial FO's.

 

[houseofwool]

Making your own EO blends isn't that difficult. I've found it best to make a mock up of the blend by putting the bottle caps together so I can smell the combination. Once I find one I like, I then refine it by dipping a qtip into the EO and putting it into a ziplock. One end of a qtip for each part of the blend. A 1:1 ratio has 2 ends in the baggie. A 3:2 blend has 5, etc. Then I let is sit for a day or 2 to blend. This way I can tweak the blend as needed.

Once I am happy with it, I make a sample batch. I don't want to waste a bunch of ingredients if it doesn't come through the lye the way I anticipate.

It isn't fast, but, I'm rarely completely disappointed either.

 

[cinnamaldehyde]

Dropped a bottle of spearmint EO and it shattered! It must have hit my tile floor at just the right angle. My whole house now smells like chewing gum.

 

[LisaAnne]

I stayed up late into the night playing with the neon mica samples I got free.
Now I remember why they were in the bottom of the drawer. Yikes!

 

[SuJac]

Making your own EO blends isn't that difficult. I've found it best to make a mock up of the blend by putting the bottle caps together so I can smell the combination. Once I find one I like, I then refine it by dipping a qtip into the EO and putting it into a ziplock. One end of a qtip for each part of the blend. A 1:1 ratio has 2 ends in the baggie. A 3:2 blend has 5, etc. Then I let is sit for a day or 2 to blend. This way I can tweak the blend as needed.

Once I am happy with it, I make a sample batch. I don't want to waste a bunch of ingredients if it doesn't come through the lye the way I anticipate.

It isn't fast, but, I'm rarely completely disappointed either.

Thanks for the EO suggestion. I really don't want to give up so I'll try your idea. By the way, I just smelled my "herbal" soaps and they're not bad. I guess with EO's you have to wait a week or so before passing judgement.

 

[Rusti]

I stayed up late into the night playing with the neon mica samples I got free.
Now I remember why they were in the bottom of the drawer. Yikes!

What do you mean 'yikes'? I think those look awesome!

 

[LisaAnne]

Lol, well thank you! My soaping is all over the map. Lots of one of a kinds. I can't help myself

 

[CaraBou]

Dropped a bottle of spearmint EO and it shattered! It must have hit my tile floor at just the right angle. My whole house now smells like chewing gum.

What a pain to clean up, huh! Last week I dropped a tub with a bunch of FOs in it and three of them broke. Luckily the lid stayed on the tub, and most of the other FOs were protected in ziplock bags. But it was still a nauseating hassle to clean up. I had to replace all of the ziplocks, and I handwashed the tub like three times. Then, like an idiot, I put it through a cycle of the dishwasher along with a bunch of dirty dishes. They all came out smelling like perfume! I don't even know for sure which bottles broke; the labels washed out and the blend was indistinguishable. But in addition to losing precious fragrances, talk about a headache - literally and figuratively!

 

[houseofwool]

Thanks for the EO suggestion. I really don't want to give up so I'll try your idea. By the way, I just smelled my "herbal" soaps and they're not bad. I guess with EO's you have to wait a week or so before passing judgement.

I made a new blend last week and while I loved to sample blend, I wanted to gag when I cut it. I figured that it was because of the goat milk I use in every batch. And sure enough, it has settled down and resembles the blend I made. I think the cedar wood didn't come through as strongly as I would have liked.

 

[Sonya-m]

Fab!! Just tried to record the Feb challenge tutorial. First all of my colours morphed - think it was the FO as I've used the colours before. Then when I went to review the video it had only recorded the first 2 minutes!!

 

[MySoapyHeart]

I stayed up late into the night playing with the neon mica samples I got free.
Now I remember why they were in the bottom of the drawer. Yikes!

Nothing `yikes` about this, love (!!) the colors!

 

[nsmar4211]

Made a batch of Cucumber Melon..... left out the FO ....realized it AFTER I got everything in the mold. It was HP and still molten so I managed to salvage 95% of the batch (but no pretty molds, just bars)...sheesh.....

 

[snappyllama]

Made a batch of Cucumber Melon..... left out the FO ....realized it AFTER I got everything in the mold. It was HP and still molten so I managed to salvage 95% of the batch (but no pretty molds, just bars)...sheesh.....

Isn't that the worst? I learned to keep my FO and any post cook SF container inside of my mold. It's saved my booty on a few occasions.

There's something about the end of HP cook that makes me absent minded...

 

[lionprincess00]

Fab!! Just tried to record the Feb challenge tutorial. First all of my colours morphed - think it was the FO as I've used the colours before. Then when I went to review the video it had only recorded the first 2 minutes!!

Oh my gosh NO! I completely empathize with you...so sorry! I'd have pulled my hair out!

Love everyone keeping this going. Don't like why youve had to post and what happened, I'm just glad I'm not alone. Loss of fo and eo would really irk me as well.

 

[galaxyMLP]

Oh dear Sonya, I'm sorry to hear that! It must be very frustrating!

So that negative SF batch with excess water?? Should've listened to that Castile thread and not CPOPed. The soap was oozing for 24 hours and completely soft. Had to dump it into the crock pot and add extra oils to neutralize the extra lye. Bye bye pretty swirls! I also lost my SB to this batch and a cookie sheet that my silicone molds were on. Pffft. Just goes to show how you can *think* you know what will happen, but you don't...

It was a mess to clean up and my poor BF was over my house this weekend. I had to tell him to get out of the kitchen and not touch anything. On the plus side, my oven is clean.

Oh, and carabou, I know how you feel. I was pulling out a stinky/old ladyish FO as one of the "this is going to go away" ones and I had to have one last sniff (just to be sure I REALLY didn't like it). As I was pulling the cap off, it spilled all over my carpet and my brand new jeans. My room smelled like old lady for a whole week straight. I don't think I slept in there the first night after... I get little whiffs of it every now and again. I think it's been 6 months.

 

[paillo]

Not exactly a 'mistake' but the palm oil bag-in-a-pail has finally pushed me over the edge. Procrastinated a full week filling up oil buckets because I just couldn't deal with the mess from the 5-gal bucket (suppliers other than SC have no-mess buckets which I will order in future). Protected around the bucket with newspaper, stripped down to short sleeves and shorts (mind you it's cold here today), removed all the bracelets and rings, had a glass of wine for fortitude and scooped out a couple gallon-buckets' worth. Never again.

After these four batches are done I have some nice tallow and lard in easy-to-use baggies, going to order palm from another supplier, and never look back

 

[Sonya-m]

Argh!! Attempt #2 of the SMF Feb challenge resulted in soap on a stick - into the slow cooker it went! Keeping everything crossed for attempt #3! If this fails you can all just do what you like!!